Things you should know by now, but only just discovered

This is really just for the nerds, but in vim ^[ == Escape. Which is awesome, since escape is a lot further from the home row now than it was in 1991. (If you're on a Mac, you can map Caps Lock to be an extra CTRL key for even more reduced finger calisthenics.)

Ghostship wrote:

One space after a scentence.

I'll be damned. I KNEW being lazy would pay off someday. I swear I was chastised in college for only using a single space, but have stubbornly persisted in my efficiency-trumps-style habits.

Gaald wrote:

Yeah from what I understand, in a house Black=Hot, White=Neutral, Green=Ground.

Most, if not all homes only have 2 phase power so you can plug in Dryers, and Ovens, and those will usually have a Black/Red=Hot.

When you are fooling around with 3 phase power, Black/Red/Blue=Hot.

All I've learned about electricity I've learned while working in data centers, and we use the same color coding.

KrazyTacoFO wrote:

I just learned this a couple years ago.

This. Just last week, my 3 year old told me I was opening my banana the wrong way. "This is the way monkeys do it, daddy!" And by Gosh, it is easier.

What other fruits have I been abusing my whole life?

Ghostship wrote:

One space after a sentence.

I learned that way back circa 1995, courtesy Robin Williams' The Mac is Not a Typewriter. It's a simply amazing modern typing style guide -- lots to learn from, even despite all of the fancy bells and whistles in the MSWords of today.

Also, the reason nobody here said anything is because most (all?) web browsers will condense multiple sequential spaces down to 1 when the page is rendered, for exactly the reasons listed in RW's book.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
Ghostship wrote:

One space after a scentence. How the hell am I going to break that habit? And how the hell did nobody here ever mention that?

I asked my wife to proof a document. She called me on it. I wouldn't believe her, so I researched it. A habit which is the result of limiting technology. This is particularly galling because of what I do. Architecture schools around here shunned the use of computers for fear of it limiting design. Having learned to use CAD and 3d packages, I've been a proponent of mastering the tool to prevent it from limiting your ability, instead of condemning it for limiting the ability of those who do not master it.

It's also considered an aesthetic error among typesetters.

I have to say, I like the extra space. Change will be hard.

Did I miss any? Had to go back and delete several.

Yeah, a figured this out a few years ago. I still can't break the habit.

Ditto. My typing teacher in junior high still had us learning on electric typewriters and taught us the double-space. Now if I'm doing a published report I typically have to go back and find/replace the double-spaces.

I also found out some info on commas and periods inside of quotes recently. I always learned it the American way, which is keep the periods and commas inside the quote regardless of logic. I guess internationally, logic is used. The reason for it is this:

GrammarTips wrote:

And just why, you may ask, do they belong there? Well, it seems to be the result of historical accident. When type was handset, a period or comma outside of quotation marks at the end of a sentence tended to get knocked out of position, so the printers tucked the little devils inside the quotation marks to keep them safe and out of trouble. But apparently only American printers were more attached to convenience than logic, since British printers continued to risk the misalignment of their periods and commas.

I can't remember if I learned about it on GWJ or not.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

I also found out some info on commas and periods inside of quotes recently. I always learned it the American way, which is keep the periods and commas inside the quote regardless of logic. I guess internationally, logic is used. The reason for it is this:

GrammarTips wrote:

And just why, you may ask, do they belong there? Well, it seems to be the result of historical accident. When type was handset, a period or comma outside of quotation marks at the end of a sentence tended to get knocked out of position, so the printers tucked the little devils inside the quotation marks to keep them safe and out of trouble. But apparently only American printers were more attached to convenience than logic, since British printers continued to risk the misalignment of their periods and commas.

I can't remember if I learned about it on GWJ or not.

That makes me kind of mad. I always thought it was stupid. Now that I know there was a dumb reason for it, I hate it even more.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

This morning, I discovered that the tool to move windows in Microsoft Windows doesn't actually use the mouse, you just activate it and use the arrow keys to move the window. I did this today by accident when trying to move a window for a user that was stuck off screen. No kidding, I've been using Windows almost daily for over 20 years and I only just now realised this is how the window move function works.

This pretty much blew my mind. It's weird stuff like this that shows that maybe Microsoft needs to get some more/better designers working on Windows. How the hell is that intuitive!?

merphle wrote:
Ghostship wrote:

One space after a sentence.

I learned that way back circa 1995, courtesy Robin Williams' The Mac is Not a Typewriter. It's a simply amazing modern typing style guide -- lots to learn from, even despite all of the fancy bells and whistles in the MSWords of today.

Also, the reason nobody here said anything is because most (all?) web browsers will condense multiple sequential spaces down to 1 when the page is rendered, for exactly the reasons listed in RW's book.

My mind is blown.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
Ghostship wrote:

One space after a scentence. How the hell am I going to break that habit? And how the hell did nobody here ever mention that?

I asked my wife to proof a document. She called me on it. I wouldn't believe her, so I researched it. A habit which is the result of limiting technology. This is particularly galling because of what I do. Architecture schools around here shunned the use of computers for fear of it limiting design. Having learned to use CAD and 3d packages, I've been a proponent of mastering the tool to prevent it from limiting your ability, instead of condemning it for limiting the ability of those who do not master it.

It's also considered an aesthetic error among typesetters.

I have to say, I like the extra space. Change will be hard.

Did I miss any? Had to go back and delete several.

Yeah, a figured this out a few years ago. I still can't break the habit.

Dear...God...I have always used 2 and now I feel like a fool. A fool I say!

KrazyTacoFO wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:
Ghostship wrote:

One space after a scentence. How the hell am I going to break that habit? And how the hell did nobody here ever mention that?

I asked my wife to proof a document. She called me on it. I wouldn't believe her, so I researched it. A habit which is the result of limiting technology. This is particularly galling because of what I do. Architecture schools around here shunned the use of computers for fear of it limiting design. Having learned to use CAD and 3d packages, I've been a proponent of mastering the tool to prevent it from limiting your ability, instead of condemning it for limiting the ability of those who do not master it.

It's also considered an aesthetic error among typesetters.

I have to say, I like the extra space. Change will be hard.

Did I miss any? Had to go back and delete several.

Yeah, a figured this out a few years ago. I still can't break the habit.

Dear...God...I have always used 2 and now I feel like a fool. A fool I say!

What...the...hell. Ruined! I'm ruined now.

The fact that saying "I feel nauseous" means that you feel like you are causing nausea in others. If you are suffering from nausea, you are nauseated.

This is the kind of thing that I was fine before I knew it, but now that I do, it may cause me to become an insufferable jackass about it.

trichy wrote:

This is the kind of thing that I was fine before I knew it, but now that I do, it may cause me to become an insufferable jackass about it.

Your attitude is making me feel nauseated.

chaosmos wrote:

What other fruits have I been abusing my whole life?

I once saw someone try to eat a pomegranate by cutting it into quarters.

The horror, THE HORROR.

Tamren wrote:
chaosmos wrote:

What other fruits have I been abusing my whole life?

I once saw someone try to eat a pomegranate by cutting it into quarters.

The horror, THE HORROR.

I recently learned there is a really hard seed in the middle of an avocado - after spending 5 minutes trying to muscle through it with a knife.

Nicholaas wrote:

I recently learned there is a really hard seed in the middle of an avocado - after spending 5 minutes trying to muscle through it with a knife.

Yeah, here is a tip do a circular cut around the pit the long way then twist the two halves to separate them. Lastly take your knife and whack the middle of the blade into the pit. It should be lightly lodged into the pit. Now turn the knife handle like the hands on a clock around the pit and the pit will just twist out. Super easy. I learned this while I was living in Costa Rica for a semester except there we did it with a machete...

MonoCheli wrote:

...except there we did it with a machete...

For some reason I now have the urge to end all of my stories with this line.

Kehama wrote:
MonoCheli wrote:

...except there we did it with a machete...

For some reason I now have the urge to end all of my stories with this line.

Sounds good to me! That may also be a good tag when I get there.

MonoCheli
Apple butter and Machetes, Female Doggoes!

krev82 wrote:

You can also do sideways, who exactly is this feature for?

Some programmers like to mount their widescreen monitors in portrait orientation so they can see more lines of code at once. If I did more coding I would do that too on my second monitor.

Kehama wrote:
MonoCheli wrote:

...except there we did it with a machete...

For some reason I now have the urge to end all of my stories with this line.

Yeah, once, in the GWJ Minecraft Multiplayer chat we tried ending everything with ...to death, based on the scripted epitaphs. Except we did it with a Machete.

Did I miss any? Had to go back and delete several.

We can't tell. I double-space after a period, but all current browsers change that to single space on rendering, so it doesn't actually matter. Everything I've ever posted has been with double spaces, including this one. But if you look at this post carefully, you'll see only one space after each period.

If if it ever does matter for a given project, search and replace is so easy that it doesn't seem like a habit worth breaking.

Malor wrote:

But if you look at this post carefully, you'll see only one space after each period.

But if I quote your post, I get double spaces. So you look legit, but we all know better!

As far as people who say they need to go through their text to remove doubles... just do a find/replace on your text where you "find" doubles and "replace" with singles.

Phishposer wrote:
krev82 wrote:

You can also do sideways, who exactly is this feature for?

Some programmers like to mount their widescreen monitors in portrait orientation so they can see more lines of code at once. If I did more coding I would do that too on my second monitor.

I have one of these in fact. Thought I have never used the feature. My monitor is pretty old, its a 20" 1600X1200 4:3 ratio. Its essentially extinct now, no one makes anything but widescreen and I honestly prefer this more. The function is fairly common, and even if your monitor doesn't rotate you can get wall mounts that do and software to support it.

Phishposer wrote:
krev82 wrote:

You can also do sideways, who exactly is this feature for?

Some programmers like to mount their widescreen monitors in portrait orientation so they can see more lines of code at once. If I did more coding I would do that too on my second monitor.

I have also turned mine vertical semi-regularly. I have a desk mount that lest me rotate the screen and it can be nice with some documents/web pages provided the monitor is still wide enough to fit the page when turned.

The order of procession in mathis. I'd never even heard of it until December 2011. I still don't know why it's that way.

The calculator thing doesn't work for me. I create my own shortcut by right clicking any item in the start menu, going to properties, clicking the shortcut key box, and hitting my shortcut key combo. I usually use ctrl+shift+key for it.

chaosmos wrote:
KrazyTacoFO wrote:

I just learned this a couple years ago.

This. Just last week, my 3 year old told me I was opening my banana the wrong way. "This is the way monkeys do it, daddy!" And by Gosh, it is easier.

What other fruits have I been abusing my whole life?

I've been trying this banana thing, and I find that it means I always start with a brown nub of banana that I'm not very interested in eating. Otherwise, it's pretty alright.

One trick I learned recently which I wondered why nobody'd mentioned it before:

If you get the hiccups and mentally count how many seconds go by between them, they'll go away almost immediately.

I tell myself "Okay, this next one will pop up in 20 seconds" and start counting seconds in my head. I've yet to get the next one.