Washington 'Post' spring cleaning editorial: 12 things to discard

[J N Winkler]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/opinions/outlook/spring-cleaning/index.html

The 12 things to discard are:  Fine print, virginity, exit polls, tactical nukes, Washington Week, Internet memes, lawns, pundits, high-stakes tests, computer keyboards, carbon offsets, and the Congressional Budget Office.

Personally, I agree with some of them--fine print, virginity, tactical nukes, and Internet memes--while I am neutral on others (lawns, pundits, carbon offsets, and the CBO), and suspect high-stakes tests are as inevitable as death and taxes (but perhaps not in the lower percentiles of academic performance).  But getting rid of computer keyboards?  What a load of rot!  Collapsing-dome keyboards might be on the way out owing to their inferior tactile feel, but not the Model M.

Thoughts?

[agentsteel53]

"virginity" is too specific.  Religious fundamentalism in general has to go.

on the other hand, while I'm not a huge fan of internet memes (most of the time I just find them puzzlingly arbitrary), their existence doesn't actively bother me.  They're really indicative of a bigger problem: humans' obsession with popularity.

to get rid of both of those?  uh, good luck with that, homo sapiens.

(In other news: they're making Model M style keyboards again?  I tend to get mine surplus on eBay, if I need to get any at all.  The Model M will survive a tactical nuke, an attempt on its virginity, and the Congressional Budget Office, but it will not survive a lawn-style watering.)

[J N Winkler]

In other news: they're making Model M style keyboards again?  I tend to get mine surplus on eBay, if I need to get any at all.  The Model M will survive a tactical nuke, an attempt on its virginity, and the Congressional Budget Office, but it will not survive a lawn-style watering.

I think keyboards are still being made to the same general design--I don't think the patent on the buckling-spring key design is still in force anymore.  I haven't attempted disassembly to check, but I think my present wireless keyboard has buckling-spring keys.  (Googling the part number--Logitech Y-RR71--doesn't turn up specs on the keys.)

[Alps]

Religious fundamentalism can stay.  Virginity can stay.  Religious justification of violence is what has to go.  In fact, before all the others.

[J N Winkler]

Religious justification of violence is bad, yes.  I don't suppose I have an objection to virginity per se (not everyone is highly sexed or likes sex), but I do object to the way callowness is marketed as a virtue, not just because of the harmful consequences of widespread sexual naïveté but also because it has never seemed to me to be centered on the idea of having a healthy relationship as opposed to conforming to fashionable ideologies.  The sooner we get rid of the paraphernalia of promise rings, chastity vows, etc. the better.

[Scott5114]

The keyboard won't be going away any time soon. There is, as yet, no better way to enter text. Touchscreens have no tactile response and are prone to misalignment. Stylus gesturing and handwriting recognition are as of now too ambiguous; an AI will have to be developed for them. And what's the incentive? There's not one--the keyboard is a perfectly cromulent too.