Amusingfacts.com + The QWERTY Question

   Amusingfacts.com
      < http://www.amusingfacts.com/ >

   This site lists amusing facts, broken down into many categories.

   Some examples:
   * A person uses approximately fifty-seven sheets of toilet paper each day.
   * Natural gas does not have any odor. In order to detect a gas leak, some gas
     companies add a chemical that smells similar like rotten eggs.
   * Swiss engineer George de Mestral, who got the idea after noticing burrs were
     sticking to his pants after his regular walks through the woods, invented
     Velcro.
   * During the 1600's, boys and girls in England wore dresses until they were
     about seven years old.
   * In the 1977 movie "Star Wars," actress Jodie Foster was George Lucas' second
     choice to play the part of Princess Leia.
   * A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for approximately sixty-nine
     years.
   * The first known American novelist to hand in a manuscript that was typed was
     Mark Twain.

   This last fact reminds me of an interesting story that I first read when I was
   a little tacker:
     The QWERTY layout on computer keyboards, inherited from typewriters, was
     originally designed to slow down typists and thus prevent typewriter keys
     from jamming.

   According to "The QWERTY Connection" (http://home.earthlink.net/~dcrehr/) this may
   not be entirely true ...
   * "Myths about QWERTY"
     < http://home.earthlink.net/~dcrehr/myths.html >
   * "Why QWERTY was Invented"
     < http://home.earthlink.net/~dcrehr/whyqwert.html >
   The site argues that the layout does prevent jamming, thereby actually allowing
   the typist to type faster.

   Sounds like a bit of spin-doctoring to me.

   The Straight Dope maintains the view that the layout was devised to make things
   easy for the typewriter, not the typist:
   * "Was the QWERTY keyboard purposely designed to slow typists?"
     < http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_248.html >

   If you want to read more about this burning issue, check out the following links:
   * The QWERTY Question
     < http://www.joetsang.net/qwerty/qwerty.html >
   * "Understanding the Economics of QWERTY: the Necessity of History"
     < http://www.stanford.edu/group/mmdd/SiliconValley/David/QWERTY.html >