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Thursday August 13, 2009
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 As a southpaw myself, the arrival of Left-Handers Day on August 13 every year is a cause for celebration. At least in the tiny office where I spend my days. Here, however, I am free from the tyranny of right-handed designers (and nightmarish, righty-designed college desks).
Take Google, for example. I love my Google Android phone (the MyTouch 3G) but it has one fatal flaw: in landscape mode, the display refuses to flip. I'm stuck navigating with my inferior right hand. (Curse you, right hand, and your inferior dexterity!) Do no evil, eh, Google? Lies!
Apple, however, is a bastion of creativity and intelligence, long the domain of the 8 to 10 percent of us blessed with a dominant left hand. Unsurprisingly, my wife's iPod nano easily flips back and forth, depending on the orientation, and allows me to click through with impunity. This, clearly, is why Apple controls the market for MP3 players.
I have a love/hate relationship with mice manufacturers. Logitech, bless their little Swiss hearts, offers a dedicated left-handed mouse.
Unfortunately, brainwashed as I am by the right-handed oligarchs that
control our society (why are there no conspiracy Web pages about this?
It's a conspiracy!), said mouse does not occupy the hallowed space on
my desk that it should. Instead, I own a neutral, ambidextrous Logitech
mouse. But I console myself that to enter data, I left-click!
This
brings me to the hero of Left-Handers Day: Christopher Latham Sholes,
the inventor of the modern typewriter and QWERTY keyboard layout, which
favors the left hand. Thousands of words
can be typed with the left hand alone, far more than the right hand.
Clearly, Sholes was a man of genius. I'm sure his inclusion of the
"ENTER' key on the right hand was merely an oversight, or a concession
to the right-handers evaluating his design.
But there's one very serious omission to the lists of left handers on the Internet: techies. Who among us is a lefty? I suggest we begin a list on this left-handed notebook.
More random lefty thoughts: copyright. 'Nuff said. Article One of the Bill of Lefts: free pie for all. Who's with me?
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August 13, 2009 3:48 PM
Yeah, lefties rule!
August 13, 2009 3:52 PM
where's ned flanders when you need him?
August 13, 2009 4:44 PM
WARNING! No Comic Sans Zone.
The use of Comic Sans is prohibited in this area.
By order of: EVERY DESIGNER WHO EVER LIVED.
...font fail...
August 13, 2009 11:01 PM
Let's hear it for left-handers! :D
Des Moines: Comic Sans is a typeface, not a font. (I'm just rattling your cage, I hate it with the fury of a thousand suns too...)