Kohar!ca

Right; so I have to do some revisions on my thesis, but I really have been avoiding it. It's a lot of anxiety to start fixing it up again -- I have looked at it for so long that I really just want a break from it. However, if I want to graduate, I have to keep working through it and get it finished.

I also have to prepare a presentation that I'll be giving on Saturday. So much work to do. So little time.

As for the learning the new keyboard layout, I have gotten to the point where I don't have to look at the keyboard anymore. I can actually touch type which is awesome. It's frustrating to keep looking down at the keyboard and be able to type only a couple of words per minute. My highest typing score has been 65 words per minute. That's not too bad for a learning in a month and a half. I should be up to 80 words per minute in no time.

Besides trying to get this master's thesis of mine completed, I'll be presenting at two conferences in May and June. It should prove to be good experience talking about my ideas to an audience. Moreover, it will be good practice for my thesis defence. There has been no date set yet, but I will update you when I know. I have had the idea of trying to record the presentation…maybe record it with a camcorder and intersplice with my slides. Again, that will be TBA.

I remember about ten years ago using Dragon Naturally Speaking, and all I can remember from that time was how it didn't work, was frustrating, and ultimately ended up being shoved into a desk drawer, never to see the light of day again.

The iPhone has Siri. It has been good as well. But I had turned it off in fear of using up to much mobile bandwidth.

Dragon has released an app for the iPhone that allows you to do dictation and have it transcribed for you.

It has the same problem as Siri. Dragon requests an internet connection to use the app. My educated guess is that it has to relay the voice recording back to the Dragon servers, interpret, and then send back the text. I'm not sure of how much bandwidth is used up, but I would suspect it is in the order of a small audio file being transferred.

The accuracy was quite impressive. Until you start to talk about proper names etc.

Here is an example:

The history of mathematics is a very interesting one. We begin with the great magician, got freaked like ants, and Sir Isaac in.

Can you guess which "magician" got freaked like ants?

Even when I was a young boy, I spent much of my time at a computer. Not doing anything directly useful, but playing games of course! There wasn't any fancy 3-D graphics or visualizations of today, but nothing can compare to the wonder I felt while experiencing these new and exciting virtual worlds.

Before I get into the actual games, I'll give a little background of the days of the early 90's gaming industry. Unlike today where you usually need to buy a game to have access to play any of it, in the early 90's many developers and publishers released shareware. Since I would be wasting my time to describe the idea myself, I will do what any reputable author would do. That of course is to reference the wiki page!

Shareware Games:

"In the early 1990s, shareware distribution was a popular method of publishing games for smaller developers, including then-fledgling companies such as Apogee Software (now 3D Realms), Epic Megagames (now Epic Games), Ambrosia Software and id Software. It gave consumers the chance to play the game before investing money in it, and gave them exposure that some products would be unable to get in the retail space. Continue reading →

   (require 'color-theme)
    (color-theme-initialize)
    (color-theme-comidia)

(fset `yes-or-no-p `y-or-n-p)

;; Set Linum-Mode on
(global-linum-mode t)

;; Linum-Mode and add space after the number
(setq linum-format "%d ");; Set Linum-Mode on
(global-linum-mode t)

;; Linum-Mode and add space after the number
(setq linum-format "%d ")

(load "auctex.el" nil t t)
(load "preview-latex.el" nil t t)

I am going to make a solid attempt to switch to the Dvorak keyboard. I have already re-arranged the keys manually on my keyboard.

I've been writing a lot of stuff in LaTeX lately for research and for my thesis. I've decided that remapping the keyboard will be the best in my ultimate quest for laziness and nerdiness. It's also another reason why a keyboard really shouldn't have labels. So you can keep changing it. I've remapped the "4" key to an alt key that's right beside the spacebar. Of course you know in LaTeX we always using the dollar sign for mathematical formula. So why not have it within comfortable reach?

I've also been using Emacs, and so I've remapped the Ctrl and Meta (or Alt) key in a more convenient location. I've put the left Ctrl key where the left Shift key is and the Meta (or Alt) key is now in the caps lock location.

Another common keyboard shortcut that I use a lot is the Ctrl+F4 to close windows. Now I've remapped the F4 key to the left Ctrl.

I used KeyTweek to achieve this remapping.

This is my keytweek file here.