All Hail The Potato!

I must admit that this was news to me as well, but am extremely excited to let you know that this wonderful year of 2008 has officially been declared Year of Potato by the United Nations.

If you don't believe me, see for yourself: International Year of Potato

And I honestly had no idea about the fascinating history of this rather ordinary food. Apparently, potatoes were first cultivated in South America about 7000 years ago. However the potatoes didn't even make their way to Europe until 1570. Even after that it took another 200 years for the people to actually consider consuming it. Before that potatoes were thought to cause sickness and be only fit for kettle. They were even called "devil's apples"However starvation in the mid 1700's pretty much forced people to realize just how awesome potatoes really are. They are cheap, easy to grow, extremely nutritious, and overall cool. People were fed, happy and started multiplying like crazy. Especially the Irish :) In fact the Irish got a bit too much into potato fueled lifestyle and seriously suffered when the crops failed and 1 million people died due to famine.

With time of course, we figured out how to maintain a healthy balanced diet, and are pretty much "set". As for myself...I know about potatoes. Russians produce the most in the world and eat A LOT of potatoes and drink even more potato water. However Belorussians have us beat- at leas as far as consumption goes.

Anyway, now, the potato is so common, plentiful and pervasive in the Western diet that it is taken for granted though has only been with us for a few hundred years. Alas! human nature, we get used to good things fast!

key matters

I keep feeling like my blog should be about something. A theme.
Most of the good ones seem to be just that. A sort of monologue forum. But I just can’t decide on one theme. Just want to write what I think.

Just so you know, I recently finished my first two web projects:
www.danielheggarty.com
www.tsunamistl.com

I know, they are simple and not that impressive, but they are new, they are hand programmed, and are a start.
It feels really good actually, seeing result of your work , right there…almost instant gratification. And be sure, there are more and better things to come.

What else?

I am going to Belize soon. In a little under a month. Going alone and looking forward to all the adventures.

Also, did you know that the keyboard you are working on now, pretty much sucks, and was pretty much created in 1873 to slow your typing down? And there is a better version of it called Dvorak that allows for better more efficient, easier typing technique? That’s right, the QWERTY (look at your Q and love right) keyboard was designed this way so that while typing on an typewriter you would not go too fast and keys would not stick together. And though the Dvorak was introduced in 1932, people did not switch their habits...who wants to relearn right?

Dvorak is an alternative to Qwerty. It is a keyboard layout designed to minimize movement, and make typing as easy and painless as possible. The idea behind it is to have the most commonly typed keys under the fingers, and make it as easy as possible to type common words and combinations of letters. To give an impressions of just how big a difference this makes, consider that the average Dvorak typist's fingers will travel about one mile in a day of typing. A Qwerty typist's will travel anything from 16 to 20 miles. Try to consider, for a moment, the effect that must have on your fingers.

You can actually chance your PC to Dvorak and can order a Dvorak keyboard layout on your computer, but no one really does it.

Anyway, this was new information to me, so I thought I’d let you know.

Well, anyway, now that you know your keyboard is inefficient, I can go to sleep happy☺