Checking in on the Dvorak front

My apologies for the long blog silence. It was in large part due to a major meltdown on the polyphasic sleep front in the fall (more on that later, in a separate post, when I don't have papers due). The Dvorak experiment, being in many ways smaller and easier to manage, was also less exciting, and therefore provided less blog fodder. (As I'd mentioned before, I don't want to turn into one of those people who blogs for the sake of blogging; I'd prefer to post only when I have something meaningful to say.)

It has been more than a year since I switched from QWERTY to Dvorak, and it was a great decision in most respects. The one real fear I had -- that I would somehow "unadapt from QWERTY", and thus never be able to use most anyone else's keyboards -- was not as big of a problem as it initially appeared. I'm on a laptop, so the situation usually doesn't arise in the first place, and when it does, my years of QWERTY usage, much like bicycling or swimming proficiency, tide me over quite adequately. That small inconvenience is worth the typing speed I've gained (most applicable in note-taking during lectures, and in my own writing).

Anyhow, in the way of routine checking in: 54 wpm, with 4 mistakes. By way of comparison, the last such test, taken almost eight months ago, yielded 42 wpm, with 2 mistakes.

The sample text, interestingly enough, was excerpted from Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man. I'm a fan of Paine (and I say that almost in the way one might say "I'm a fan of Tolkien" -- almost). I'm also taking a class on the French Revolution, and another on the history of (European) law, so I might just have a head filled with revolutionary sentiment and human rights this quarter.

In a similar vein, one of my typos turned "troubling" into "troubnits", which sounds like a particularly obstinate case of head lice.

I need a new experiment.

Everyman, Days 8-9

Day 8 was another 4.5+2 day. Nothing terribly interesting about that, except that I'm trying to figure out if core sleep should count towards the day before it or after it. I'm now more inclined to think that the naps determine the core sleep, rather than the other way around.

Today was 3+3, and so far, I've been much less tired than I'd expected. It's a lot easier the second time around. 4.5+2 had been treating me well; as work is rapidly picking up, I'm going to go with mostly 3+3 now, except when I really have to miss a nap.

Everyman, Day 7

Went to bed at 4:00, woke up at 10:00. I'd skipped a nap yesterday (an impromptu music-making session with friends that was not to be missed, and lasted five hours or so -- my (singing) voice is gone today). I know, I know, bad idea -- paid for it with an extra cycle of core sleep.

Everyman, Day 6

Fell asleep around 3:30 am, woke up around 8:00. I've been averaging about 4.5 hours core this week. I'll try to get it down to a consistent three hour core by next week. Homework and activities will start picking up then, so I'll want more free time.

I've discovered that I'm usually running <50% for the first hour or so after core sleep. I figure it's part of adaptation; that's when I'm in most danger of falling back asleep. I need to physically get out of bed when the alarm goes off (no checking my e-mail in bed like I did this summer!). Huzzah for willpower -- let's see how well it holds up in a week.

Everyman, Day 5

Went to bed between 6:30 and 7:00 am (was talking with a friend into the wee hours of the morning) and woke up shortly before ten. Meant to take nap around noon, but it turned into 1.5 hours of core. Everything else was quite normal. I'm not nearly as tired as I'd have expected to be at this point; I think I won't even hit the low point until sometime after this weekend.

Everyman, Day 4

I've learned my lesson: never take naps after my roommate goes to bed, which is about 11:00 pm. (The reason this roommate relationship works is the curtain dividing the room. More about that later.) There is an extremely high probability that the nap will turn into core sleep. I woke up at 9:00 this morning thinking "why the devil is there that much sunlight coming through the window?" I'd tried to take a nap around 3:00. Not good.

Instead, I will now do it like this: a nap in the afternoon (between classes), a nap in the evening (around dinnertime), and a nap right before my roommate goes to bed. I shall be needing my bike back for the first nap; I don't much feel like sleeping like a bum in the quad (though I've done it before). Campus is big.

About the bike: I'm currently being shuffled between a few levels of bureaucracy. No definitive answer yet. They seem to like calling me during my classes, from a private (hidden) number, and leaving supremely uninformative voicemails without a number I can call.

Everyman, Day 3

My core sleep accidentally ran to 4.5 hours this time. I'd meant to take a nap at 12:15 am, but ended up sleeping until 3:05 or so. Waking up, I thought, why don't I count this as core sleep to salvage the situation? I need ten more minutes. (Yes, I know it doesn't quite work like that.) So I went back to sleep, and woke up at 4:45. Hence 4.5 hours. At least it seems that I now naturally wake up after a REM cycle or two, +/- ten minutes (it usually doesn't happen until further along in the adaptation process, I think). It should be quite handy if it keeps up.

Everyman, Day 2

I slept for three hours last night (4:00-7:00 am). I decided to count the time I zonked out in my biology lecture as a nap (put together, it was probably a bit over twenty minutes of sleep); it was a really boring introduction to Mendelian genetics. I think they assume we come into the Biology Core knowing absolutely nothing about biology, because it took nearly a whole period to explain alleles and Punnett squares. It's supposed to get better (I hope!). That was between 11:00 am and 12:00 pm.

I had my second nap just now, waking up at about 8:00 pm. I'll probably take a third nap around midnight. Looking at the intervals, I should have slept before dinner, methinks. I'd wanted to, but I was having problems with the lock on my door, and all the RAs were at dinner, so I couldn't get let in, either. Ah, well.

So far, my function is still pretty good; I'd say I'm running 90% full. It would be better, were it not for the fact that I had no bike today. The storage people lost my bike! They're "working on it", whatever that means, but it doesn't look promising. I'll go bug them again tomorrow; I've been calling them every few hours to see if it's been located.

Polyphasic, Take 2: Day 1

The hiatus has ended! I am back on campus and readapting to Everyman. I'll record the experience here, since this is the first time I'll have gone straight to Everyman (last time, I switched to Everyman having already done Uberman).

I don't yet know what my sleeping schedule will look like, because it depends on my class schedule, which I have not quite finalized. I plan on doing mostly 3+3 (3 hr core + 3 naps), and sticking to a more regular nap schedule this time. I was rather too careless about that last term.

Last night, I slept for 4.5 hours (I'm easing into it), naturally. I was really tired and passed out on top of the covers around 3:30 am, and then woke up naturally at about 8:00. I took a nap around 5:00 pm, and another around 1:30. The intervals are off, but I plan on doing 3+3 tomorrow, so they'll change anyways. So far, I'm not tired at all. Let's see how I feel in a few days...

Whatever happened to QWERTY?

So, after three days in the office (summer internship), where we (naturally) use Windows and QWERTY, I decided to see how quickly I now type on a QWERTY keyboard. Using an office keyboard (a desktop keyboard, which is substantially better, methinks, than that of a laptop), I got 42 wpm, 2 mistakes. That's the same exact time as my most recent Dvorak trial, with fewer mistakes, even.
Incidentally, I find that the keyboard itself makes quite a difference. I should have realized this earlier, but then again, I have not used any keyboard save my own since the beginning of the Dvorak experiment, at least until now. The fact that my laptop keyboard has both layouts printed on its keys (the standard QWERTY with which it came and the Dvorak stickers I made, if you recall) has probably been slowing me down. It definitely doesn't help when I try to type QWERTY; I just took another typing test in QWERTY, on my computer, and got 15 wpm, 2 mistakes! I reckon, not only am I more used to looking at the Dvorak stickers (as opposed to the printed keys), but also, the physical printed letters on the office keyboard's keys and those of my computer are different. Here are some pictures to illustrate the point.



The keys of the Dell keyboard have their letters printed in the upper left corner (where I have the silver Sharpie on the Macbook), whereas those of the Macbook have their letters printed in the center of the key. When typing, the QWERTY layout of the Macbook is therefore completely obscured by the fingertip when a particular key is pressed, whereas the Dell's QWERTY and the Macbook's Dvorak are still visible. Not to mention that having the one in that particular location accustoms me to looking there.
Once my touchtyping in Dvorak improves, I intend to switch my office computer to Dvorak. I would do it now, seeing as I much prefer Dvorak, but I have no desire to pry apart the keyboard, or else make a set of stickers for it.

An aside, because it has become habitual: the first excerpt was taken from A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde, who is really good. I thoroughly enjoyed The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest, and I intend to read this one too, at some point. Unfortunately, it will be later rather than sooner, as I have a very long list of books to read, and this one's closer to the bottom, I'm afraid.
The second passage was from Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Ah, classic scifi. I have read this one more than once (which makes my 15 wpm all the more pathetic). Great book. It also occurs to me: what an unfortunate name! What parents would ever name their son Aldous, when there are better names to be had? It sounds more like an adjective than a name, and reads far too close to "odious" than is healthy in a name.