NEWS - Performance Printing

OPINIONConnected to your communityEDITORIALWe all have wonThe city recently wrapped up another successfulTamarack Ottawa Race Weekend,an event that attracts more than 40,000participants, not to mention the hordes ofonlookers who filled the streets of downtown on May24 and 25.The statistics alone are staggering.Ottawa Race Weekend is the biggest multi-distancerace event in Canada and is one of only twoInternational Association of Athletics Federationssanctioned events in the country.Over the course of a weekend, approximately$28.7 million is pumped into the Ottawa-Gatineaueconomy -- not exactly chump change. Hotels bookaround 9,000 homes in the capital region.Race organizers are responsible for collecting427,000 discarded drinking cups and handing outroughly 25,000 sponges to sweaty participants.It takes a volunteer work force of 2,000 people tohelp organize and run the races, including those whodistribute water, run the information booth, and provideemergency services. Doctors, nurses, paramedicsand other medical professionals volunteer theirtime, bringing enough equipment to set up a smallhospital to service the event.When you think about it, over the course of theweekend Ottawa absorbs the population of severalsmall cities -- and those people require additional cityservices, such as police, fire services and doctors.Ottawa Race Weekend is a hallmark event that all thecitizens can take pride in, a series of races with internationalrepute, drawing some of the best athletesacross the world.How fitting that the event was kicked off with amarathon torch relay run from the village of Marathonin West Carleton to city hall - a 42-kilometretrek that matches the length of a marathon run.The torch run was suggested by Greece’s ambassadorto Canada, and the mayor of Marathon, Greece,travelled to Ottawa with two ceremonial torchesfor the relay run, giving the race weekend a littleinternational polish. We can also take pride in thetremendous volunteer effort generated by the event.Every year, runners participating in race weekendhave raised more than $1 million, money thatsupports 25 charities affiliated with Ottawa RaceWeekend. Ottawa Race Weekend celebrates what isbest in our city and its citizens. Pheidippides, a Greeksoldier who inspired the concept of a marathon afterhe ran 40 kilometres in 490 BC to report the victoryof Athens over Persia before falling over dead, said itbest: “We have won.”COLUMNExperts all thumbs when it comes to the keyboardSomeone is always trying to invent abetter mousetrap, they used to say.They don’t say it so much any more,now that I think of it. This could meanthat the better mousetrap has already beeninvented, although I doubt it, to judge by themice.The better mousetrap, if it is to be inventedin this day and age, will probably involvelasers and the use of social media, becauseevery new invention does. Perhaps a mousecould be lured to his doom by invitations onMouseBook, there to be confronted by a laserlaunched by a drone triggered by someone’scellphone.Something you probably hadn’t thoughtabout: the invitation on MouseBook would besent by someone typing on his or her thumbs.Which brings us, not very neatly, to today’stopic. Every few years someone tries toreinvent the typewriter keyboard, which iswhat computer keyboards still have. The timehas come again. This time it’s researchers at auniversity in Scotland who say, according tonews article, that the traditional keyboard hasa “suboptimal text entry interface.”This is mad scientist-speak for “you can’ttype very well on it.” Except, of course, thatyou can. Millions, maybe billions, of peopleCHARLESGORDONFunny Townover the years have used the traditional keyboardand found it quite optimal enough, oncethey figured it out.They way they figured it out was bypracticing it, after learning which fingers goon which keys. There were typing classes inschool. The keyboard we all use is known asthe QWERTY system, after the arrangementof the top six letter keys for the left hand.QWERTY developed after it was discoveredthat the seemingly logical system of placingthe keys in alphabetical order did not workwell. If people typed too quickly the keysjammed up. Placing the most-used lettersapart worked better.For years, mad scientists have been tryingto improve on it, arguing, not without logic,that QWERTY is inefficient. But, of course,QWERTY is more efficient than other systemsbecause people have learned how to use it.Watch a fast QWERTY typist work and try toimagine anything going faster.Some systems are inefficient but impossibleto replace. How inefficient is, say, theFrench language, with all those genders? Howinefficient is the English language, with allof those words that sound the same and arespelled differently? And how likely are we, theEnglish- and French-speakers, to sacrifice ourlanguages to efficiency?Mad scientists who study baseball say thatthe way baseball players throw in an overhandmotion is unnatural. The natural way is tothrow a kind of combination of underhandand sidearm. You can see how much effectthis has had on baseball players. Sometimeswe do things just because that’s the way wedo things. And it works for us. As it turnsout, this latest attempt to eradicate QWERTYcoincides roughly with the 20th anniversaryof text messaging. The latest knock againstQWERTY is that it doesn’t work well forpeople who type with their thumbs. The latestsolution is to put the vowels on one side of thekeyboard and the consonants on the other.Now, since there are 21 consonants andonly five vowels, that would make it necessaryto change some consonants into vowels forbalance’s sake. In effect, the inventors of thenew system, called KALQ, have done that,moving some consonants over to where thevowels are (and leaving the Y with the consonants,for some reason). The over-all effect,seen in views of the new keyboard, seems justas random as QWERTY but we are assured itis more efficient.The philosophical question so far remainsunasked: Is it in the best interests of humanityto make it easier for people to type with theirthumbs? Next thing you know, everyone willbe throwing sidearm.Editorial PolicyThe Kanata Kourier-Standard welcomes letters to theeditor. Senders must include their full name, completeaddress and a contact phone number. Addressesand phone numbers will not be published. We reservethe right to edit letters for space and content, bothin print and online at www.yourottawaregion.com.To submit a letter to the editor, please email totheresa.fritz@metroland.com, fax to 613-224-2265or mail to the Kanata Kourier-Standard, 80 ColonnadeRd. N., Unit 4, Ottawa, ON, K2E 7L2.Kanata Kourier-Standard T: 613-224-3330F: 613-224-2265 Mike Mount Member of: Ontario Community Newspapers Association, Canadian Community, Newspapers Association, Ontario Press Council, Association of Free Community Papers8 Kanata Kourier-Standard EMC - Thursday, May 30, 2013Published weekly by:DISTRIBUTION INQUIRIES ADMINISTRATION: ADVERTISING SALES: DISPLAY ADVERTISING: CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING SALES: EDITORIAL: NEWS EDITOR: REPORTER/PHOTOGRAPHER:Jessica Cunha POLITICAL REPORTER: THE DEADLINE FOR DISPLAYADVERTISING IS MONDAY 5PM Read us online atwww.EMConline.cawww.yourottawaregion.com