Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

by Jared Diamond

History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples’ environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves.”

Of the modern world’s 6,000 languages, 1,000 are confined to New Guinea.

Still another factor is compatibility with vested interests. This book, like probably every other typed document you have ever read, was typed with a QWERTY keyboard, named for the left-most six letters in its upper row. Unbelievable as it may now sound, that keyboard layout was designed in 1873 as a feat of anti-engineering. It employs a whole series of perverse tricks designed to force typists to type as slowly as possible, such as scattering the commonest letters over all keyboard rows and concentrating them on the left side (where right-handed people have to use their weaker hand). The reason behind all of those seemingly counterproductive features is that the typewriters of 1873 jammed if adjacent keys were struck in quick succession, so that manufacturers had to slow down typists.

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