From: J.W. Harris (index@cox.net)
Date: Wed May 15 2002 - 11:35:23 MDT
The Extropians mailing list is fascinating, but I can't read fast enough.
I only read about twice average speed. I've checked out a few library
books about speed reading, but they concentrate on handling of paper
books, not e-text on a monitor (ie, skim with your finger or use a
ruler to force your eyes to see a line at a time, etc.) and so are
nearly useless for my purposes.
I'm not willing to print out the various mailing lists I'm subscribed
to try dead tree speed reading techniques. Besides the expense of
paper and ink, it's difficult to follow a link or Google an unfamiliar
term when you're reading paper.
I've seen an article that estimated people read 33% on screen than on
paper. I believe it. One reason I've developed a distaste for GUI is
I've found I can read plain console mode white-on-black 80x25 faster.
100x37 for less than an hour at a time.
What techniques do other people use to speed-read e-text? How do
people handle the volume on this mailing list alone? I'm ashamed to
say I plonk several of the more prolific posters just so I can keep up
-- even though I know they occasionally have something new and
interesting to say. But it's the only way I can keep up. At least
one of the people who are filtered into my 'extropians-not-important'
folder versus 'extropians' often has interesting things to say (at
least they did before I started filtering them), but I can't afford
the time to decipher their imperfect English -- even though I
certainly don't read/write THEIR language.
META : list volume, email text formatting, peeves
Maybe this is a good place to bring up a pet peeve. People, PLEASE
follow standard Internet practices when quoting other people. PLEASE
attribute other people -- I don't want to waste five seconds checking
previous emails because someone quote someone else on the list with:
> On Tue, 45 Foo 2002, you wrote:
'you'? THAT is a broken MUA. Worse is the mail that quotes people
with no attribution, or wrong attribution.
On Mon, 13 May 2002, Butnaru Bogdan wrote:
> PPS: Sorry for the delayed post. I didn't read my mail for a week
> and it got clogged with almost 500 mails. It got me almost another
> week to read through it, including spending more than eight hours
> today. Maybe some of you older and more experienced list users could
> give me some pointers on how you manage to select what you
> read/delete of the mails. It seems to be a problem to many new users
> (I think I saw a post on that today). It is very hard to select what
> I really whant to read, especially since we tend to digress quite a
> lot. I also strongly suggest changing the subject line whenever a
> topic shifts (like I did above). Maybe start a thread on that also.
You are not alone.
(OT: I just found out that vim automagically handles '>' quoting when
redoing text width! (Butnaru originally had that block at about 74
characters wide.) Keen!)
If anyone objects to me re-blocking their text at 70 columns wide when
I quote them, please let me know.
Ah! Another peeve. Several posters seem to use a text-width of about
100 characters. I'm sure they are actually using GUI MUAs with
variable-width fonts. I used to make the same mistake before I
noticed how much difference it makes in readability on a 80x25 screen.
<rant mostly GUI vs. CLI>
Why do I insist on using a 80x25 screen? It's inconvenient to
switch my text console to 100x37, I don't want to get in the habit of
optimizing for 100x37 because many people don't know how to switch out
of 80x25, GUI tools are SLOWER than CLI tools. (1/20 second is not
really much different than 1/100 second delay, but it makes a huge
difference in frustration. GUI: one can learn to use one pretty well
in a single day, and then never get much faster, mostly because of the
constant interruptions of keyboard usage to use the mouse. (Yes I
know about keyboard menu shortcuts. They are neither consistent nor
universal.) With a CLI, the more one learns about the tools one is
using, the faster one can get. I still amaze people who have been
using MS Windows for years with how fast I can do things on Linux, and
what sorts of things I can do. The speed is not mostly because Linux
is better than MS Windows (in a few ways it's not), but because I'm
using a CLI I have years of experience with, while they're using a GUI
they have years of experience with. And it doesn't take years to make
a difference -- took me about two weeks back in high school.
I'd use a text-width of about 50 instead of 70 if I wasn't worried
about seeming too strange to people -- reading is faster when one
merely scan one's eyes down, instead of having to flick
left-right-left-right-left-right. IOW, when the entire text column
fits within the field of sharp vision. This is why newspapers and
magazines break text into multiple columns. (If I find a browser that
handles CSS columns properly, I might have to go back to GUI -- I
haven't checked in over a year.)
Would it help (other than to label me as anal retentive) to find more problems with mis-formatted or mis-quoted email?
I'd polish this posting more, but I have a dental Very Soon Now.
Thank you for your time and attention,
J.W. Harris
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:14:06 MST