I wonder how that course is like...



  • I was looking through the course directory for next year and found this interesting lecture:


    http://tuwis.tuwien.ac.at/lecture/105112/2008S


    For those who don't speak German: "BITTE KORRIGIEREN" == "PLEASE CORRECT (THIS)".



  • Nice, a course called "asdf"! That's funny!

    .... unless "asdf" is actually a word in German. Then it's not so funny :)
     



  • @rbowes said:

    .... unless "asdf" is actually a word in German. Then it's not so funny :)
     

    No, "asdf" means the same thing in German as in English - in both languages, it is a way to test four consecutive keys of your keyboard.



  • P.S.: It means "qsdf" in dutch



  • @GuntherVB said:

    P.S.: It means "qsdf" in dutch

    Well, no,  there's a slight change in inflection that makes the dutch version "qoddysf"



  • Why are the letters swapped round on regional keyboards?

    Like the German "QWERTZ" keyboards for example. They're not making room for special keys, they've just swapped "Y" and "Z" over.They make room for the umlaut key elsewhere.



  • In the German language are very few words with the letter "Y", so it does not deserve a good location on your keyboard...

     I can live with german end english ones... But the "azerty" ones from Belgium REALLY drive me nutz... To type a number, you need to use shift+Number, since they have so many "odd" letters there (I dont know how those are called... )

     



  • I think it's fixed now, because I can't see the original WTF.

    Although I must say I am a bit worried about this guy's business card, when carrying a title like this: Univ.Ass. Mag.rer.nat. Dipl.-Ing. Dr.techn.

    Anybody got a clue what he is doing? University Assistant Magna Revverer National Diplomated Ingenieur Doctor Technician?? How long has he been in school ffs....



  • @rdrunner said:

    In the German language are very few words with the letter "Y", so it does not deserve a good location on your keyboard...

     I can live with german end english ones... But the "azerty" ones from Belgium REALLY drive me nutz... To type a number, you need to use shift+Number, since they have so many "odd" letters there (I dont know how those are called... )

     

    Ironically the original keyboard design wasn't intended to make typing as efficient but rather as inefficient as possible.
    The layout was developed in the good ol' days of mechanical typewriters. If you typed too fast on those things, the levers that connected to the types would jam. So they needed a way to slow down the typing.
    The solution: place letters that appear together in many words as far away from each other as possible. During the time the typist had to look for the letter/move his fingers, the levers could reset.
    Later then, when computer keyboards were built, the layout was just taken over. It didn't make much sense but I guess too many people had already gotten used to the old layout and the "that's how we always did it" attitude did the rest...



  • @rdrunner said:

    In the German language are very few words with the letter "Y", so it does not deserve a good location on your keyboard...

     I can live with german end english ones... But the "azerty" ones from Belgium REALLY drive me nutz... To type a number, you need to use shift+Number, since they have so many "odd" letters there (I dont know how those are called... )

     

     

    That's funny because am belgian. Am used to type number with shift hold down. It's not like if i typed number more often than uppercase letters, so it makes no difference to me. Concerning the "odd" letters, let's say that, for us, the german Eszett is a strange letter :D

    And we have unfortunately quite a good amount of characters more than english alphabet has. Example words:

    Où, hôpital, maïs, çà, prêtre, père, félure,


    When i use an english QWERTY keyboard, am getting crazy of those numbers not requiring shift, i always, as reflex, press shift at same time :D

     

    Now, i don't think any historical keyboard is very handy at all, they are all derived from the typewriting machines, that were designed with physical mecanism issues in mind, something does not exist on computers.

    If you want name of letters:

    ù <- "u accent grave"
    è <- "e accent grave"
    ê <- "e accent circonflexe"
    é <- "e accent aigu"
    ç <- "c cédille"
    ï <- no idea what's the french name of that letter :D
     



  • @tchize said:

    And we have unfortunately quite a good amount of characters more than english alphabet has. Example words:

    Où, hôpital, maïs, çà, prêtre, père, félure,

    This reminds me a lot of learning French. At least half the words there (likely more) are also found in French. Crazy!

     



  • @PSWorx said:

    @rdrunner said:

    In the German language are very few words with the letter "Y", so it does not deserve a good location on your keyboard...

     I can live with german end english ones... But the "azerty" ones from Belgium REALLY drive me nutz... To type a number, you need to use shift+Number, since they have so many "odd" letters there (I dont know how those are called... )

     

    Ironically the original keyboard design wasn't intended to make typing as efficient but rather as inefficient as possible.
    The layout was developed in the good ol' days of mechanical typewriters. If you typed too fast on those things, the levers that connected to the types would jam. So they needed a way to slow down the typing.
    The solution: place letters that appear together in many words as far away from each other as possible. During the time the typist had to look for the letter/move his fingers, the levers could reset.
    Later then, when computer keyboards were built, the layout was just taken over. It didn't make much sense but I guess too many people had already gotten used to the old layout and the "that's how we always did it" attitude did the rest...

     

    Some claim that's an urban legend. http://home.earthlink.net/~dcrehr/whyqwert.html



  • @rdrunner said:

     I can live with german end english ones... But the "azerty" ones from Belgium REALLY drive me nutz... To type a number, you need to use shift+Number, since they have so many "odd" letters there (I dont know how those are called... )

    You are right: as an AZERTY keyboard user i find it very annoying to have to use shift+number. unfortunately, there is no way to change that for only one reason: the accentuated characters ! But... if you look closer at your keyboard, every kind of accent exists separately on different keys to be used as dead characters, like the '^' for exemple, which is used this way regularly when writing in french. so the only reason to have to use shift is meaningless... (also note that the ê character is not on the digit line while we use it more often than, say, & or §



  • @tchize said:


    ï <- no idea what's the french name of that letter :D 

    isn't it "i trema" ?
     



  • @rbowes said:

    @tchize said:

    And we have unfortunately quite a good amount of characters more than english alphabet has. Example words:

    Où, hôpital, maïs, çà, prêtre, père, félure,

    This reminds me a lot of learning French. At least half the words there (likely more) are also found in French. Crazy!

    <sarcasm>well that reminds me a lot of learning (proper) English, at least 99% of the words i see on this forum  (likely more) are also found in American. Really crazy !!</sarcasm>



  • @SurfMan said:

    I think it's fixed now, because I can't see the original WTF.

    Although I must say I am a bit worried about this guy's business card, when carrying a title like this: Univ.Ass. Mag.rer.nat. Dipl.-Ing. Dr.techn.

    Anybody got a clue what he is doing? University Assistant Magna Revverer National Diplomated Ingenieur Doctor Technician?? How long has he been in school ffs....





    It means "Universitätsassistent, Magister rerum naturalium, Diplomingenieur, Doktor der technischen Wissenschaften".



    This means:

    • one field of study was a technical one (Diplomingenieur is equivalent to a MSc in a technical field)
    • the other one was a natural science (Magister rerum naturalium is equivalent to a MSc in a field of natural science)
    • he did a doctoral study in a technical field (Doktor der technischen Wissenschaften is equivalent to a PhD in a technical field)
    • and he works as an university assistant (Universitätsassistent).



      Most assistants have at least three titles and most professors at least four (however, they usually do not write all of them).



      Now that the bachelor-master system has replaced the old system (or will have replaced it by 2008) and some studies were splitted up in similar, but slightly different ones, in a few years people will be running around with degrees like "Univ.Ass. Dipl.-Ing. Dipl.-Ing. Mag.rer.soc.oec. BSc. BSc.". Business card makers will have to produce oversizes.


  • Thanks for explaining



  • @rien said:

    @rbowes said:
    @tchize said:

    And we have unfortunately quite a good amount of characters more than english alphabet has. Example words:

    Où, hôpital, maïs, çà, prêtre, père, félure,

    This reminds me a lot of learning French. At least half the words there (likely more) are also found in French. Crazy!

    <sarcasm>well that reminds me a lot of learning (proper) English, at least 99% of the words i see on this forum  (likely more) are also found in American. Really crazy !!</sarcasm>


    What a coincidence, they're also found in Canadian, eh?



  • @rien said:

    @rdrunner said:

     I can live with german end english ones... But the "azerty" ones from Belgium REALLY drive me nutz... To type a number, you need to use shift+Number, since they have so many "odd" letters there (I dont know how those are called... )

    You are right: as an AZERTY keyboard user i find it very annoying to have to use shift+number. unfortunately, there is no way to change that for only one reason: the accentuated characters ! But... if you look closer at your keyboard, every kind of accent exists separately on different keys to be used as dead characters, like the '^' for exemple, which is used this way regularly when writing in french. so the only reason to have to use shift is meaningless... (also note that the ê character is not on the digit line while we use it more often than, say, & or §

     

    Well, use the best compromise: Swiss French!

    We have both "normal" numbers and easily accessible keys for the accents ;)



  • @rbowes said:

    @rien said:
    @rbowes said:

    This reminds me a lot of learning French. At least half the words there (likely more) are also found in French. Crazy!

    <sarcasm>well that reminds me a lot of learning (proper) English, at least 99% of the words i see on this forum  (likely more) are also found in American. Really crazy !!</sarcasm>


    What a coincidence, they're also found in Canadian, eh?

    worst, words from the 2 languages (french AND english) are found in canadian !



  • @rien said:

    @rbowes said:
    @tchize said:

    And we have unfortunately quite a good amount of characters more than english alphabet has. Example words:

    Où, hôpital, maïs, çà, prêtre, père, félure,

    This reminds me a lot of learning French. At least half the words there (likely more) are also found in French. Crazy!

    <sarcasm>well that reminds me a lot of learning (proper) English, at least 99% of the words i see on this forum  (likely more) are also found in American. Really crazy !!</sarcasm>


    <Toung in Check>
    American isn't really English. It sounds like it, but to many words are spelt different. You can never be to sure about neighbours who forget the u, and can't tell the difference between shrimp and prawns.
    </Toung in Check>


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