Multitaskcraptastic
Posted by adam in Interesting, Odd
There are just too many shiny objects out there. Here’s how I ended up looking at some of the strangest C code I’ve ever seen.
- Started on the gslug mailing list, reading about a new keyboard layout. I continue to be drawn in to rumors that the QWERTY layout is a conspiracy to slow down typers, so hearing about a new keyboard layout called Colemak piqued my curiosity.
- Progressed quickly from colemak.com to the Wikipedia entry on Colemak. Cool, Colemak is supposed to be easier to switch to than Dvorak.
- The Colemak entry on Wikipedia mentions digraphs. I’ve heard of digraphs because I use them in Vim, but you can use them in C, too? Strange.
- The digraph entry on Wikipedia also mentions trigraphs. Trigraphs!
Sheesh. Interesting, but talk about distracting. I sure hope it isn’t true that multitasking kills your brain.
“Neuroscience is confirming what we all suspect: Multitasking is dumbing us down and driving us crazy… Even worse, certain studies find that multitasking boosts the level of stress-related hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline and wears down our systems through biochemical friction, prematurely aging us. In the short term, the confusion, fatigue, and chaos merely hamper our ability to focus and analyze, but in the long term, they may cause it to atrophy.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200711/multitasking
The article isn’t that good, except for the second page, IMHO.