Acme-KeyboardMarathon
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BUGS AND LIMITATIONS
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* This module calculates the linear distance traversed by adding vertical
and horizontal motion of the finger. The motion traversed is actually an
arc, and while that calculation would be more accurate, this is an
Acme module, after all. Send me a patch with the right math if you're bored.
* I assume there are no gaps between your keys. This means all those stylish
Mac keyboard folks are actually doing more work than they're credited for.
But I'm ok with that.
* I assume you actually use standard home row position. Just like Mavis Beacon
told you to.
* I assume you return to home row after each stroke and don't take shortcuts to
the next key. Lazy typists!
* I assume that you never make mistakes and never use backspaces while typing.
We're all perfect, yes?
lib/Acme/KeyboardMarathon.pm view on Meta::CPAN
piece of text.
=head1 BUGS AND LIMITATIONS
* This module calculates the linear distance traversed by adding vertical
and horizontal motion of the finger. The motion traversed is actually an
arc, and while that calculation would be more accurate, this is an
Acme module, after all. Send me a patch with the right math if you're bored.
* I assume there are no gaps between your keys. This means all those stylish
Mac keyboard folks are actually doing more work than they're credited for.
But I'm ok with that.
* I assume you actually use standard home row position. Just like Mavis Beacon
told you to.
* I assume you return to home row after each stroke and don't take shortcuts to
the next key. Lazy typists!
* I assume that you never make mistakes and never use backspaces while typing.
We're all perfect, yes?
"You might wrap up the goods before you deliver 'm," the stranger said
gruffly, and Manuel doubled a piece of stout rope around Buck's neck
under the collar.
"Twist it, an' you'll choke 'm plentee," said Manuel, and the stranger
grunted a ready affirmative.
Buck had accepted the rope with quiet dignity. To be sure, it was an
unwonted performance: but he had learned to trust in men he knew, and to
give them credit for a wisdom that outreached his own. But when the ends
of the rope were placed in the stranger's hands, he growled menacingly.
He had merely intimated his displeasure, in his pride believing that to
intimate was to command. But to his surprise the rope tightened around
his neck, shutting off his breath. In quick rage he sprang at the man,
who met him halfway, grappled him close by the throat, and with a deft
twist threw him over on his back. Then the rope tightened mercilessly,
while Buck struggled in a fury, his tongue lolling out of his mouth and
his great chest panting futilely. Never in all his life had he been so
vilely treated, and never in all his life had he been so angry. But his
strength ebbed, his eyes glazed, and he knew nothing when the train was
of men to Buck (of which he was destined to see many more), and while
he developed no affection for them, he none the less grew honestly to
respect them. He speedily learned that Perrault and Francois were fair
men, calm and impartial in administering justice, and too wise in the
way of dogs to be fooled by dogs.
In the 'tween-decks of the Narwhal, Buck and Curly joined two other
dogs. One of them was a big, snow-white fellow from Spitzbergen who had
been brought away by a whaling captain, and who had later accompanied
a Geological Survey into the Barrens. He was friendly, in a treacherous
sort of way, smiling into one's face the while he meditated some
underhand trick, as, for instance, when he stole from Buck's food at the
first meal. As Buck sprang to punish him, the lash of Francois's whip
sang through the air, reaching the culprit first; and nothing remained
to Buck but to recover the bone. That was fair of Francois, he decided,
and the half-breed began his rise in Buck's estimation.
The other dog made no advances, nor received any; also, he did not
attempt to steal from the newcomers. He was a gloomy, morose fellow, and
he showed Curly plainly that all he desired was to be left alone, and
further, that there would be trouble if he were not left alone. "Dave"
nest by tree or bank, the wind that later blew inevitably found him to
leeward, sheltered and snug.
And not only did he learn by experience, but instincts long dead became
alive again. The domesticated generations fell from him. In vague ways
he remembered back to the youth of the breed, to the time the wild dogs
ranged in packs through the primeval forest and killed their meat as
they ran it down. It was no task for him to learn to fight with cut
and slash and the quick wolf snap. In this manner had fought forgotten
ancestors. They quickened the old life within him, and the old tricks
which they had stamped into the heredity of the breed were his tricks.
They came to him without effort or discovery, as though they had been
his always. And when, on the still cold nights, he pointed his nose at a
star and howled long and wolflike, it was his ancestors, dead and dust,
pointing nose at star and howling down through the centuries and through
him. And his cadences were their cadences, the cadences which voiced
their woe and what to them was the meaning of the stiffness, and the
cold, and dark.
Thus, as token of what a puppet thing life is, the ancient song surged
through him and he came into his own again; and he came because men had
behind him was Dave, likewise straining backward, and behind the sled
was Francois, pulling till his tendons cracked.
Again, the rim ice broke away before and behind, and there was no escape
except up the cliff. Perrault scaled it by a miracle, while Francois
prayed for just that miracle; and with every thong and sled lashing and
the last bit of harness rove into a long rope, the dogs were hoisted,
one by one, to the cliff crest. Francois came up last, after the sled
and load. Then came the search for a place to descend, which descent was
ultimately made by the aid of the rope, and night found them back on the
river with a quarter of a mile to the day's credit.
By the time they made the Hootalinqua and good ice, Buck was played out.
The rest of the dogs were in like condition; but Perrault, to make
up lost time, pushed them late and early. The first day they covered
thirty-five miles to the Big Salmon; the next day thirty-five more to
the Little Salmon; the third day forty miles, which brought them well up
toward the Five Fingers.
Buck's feet were not so compact and hard as the feet of the huskies.
His had softened during the many generations since the day his last
Best of all, perhaps, he loved to lie near the fire, hind legs crouched
under him, fore legs stretched out in front, head raised, and eyes
blinking dreamily at the flames. Sometimes he thought of Judge Miller's
big house in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley, and of the cement
swimming-tank, and Ysabel, the Mexican hairless, and Toots, the Japanese
pug; but oftener he remembered the man in the red sweater, the death of
Curly, the great fight with Spitz, and the good things he had eaten or
would like to eat. He was not homesick. The Sunland was very dim and
distant, and such memories had no power over him. Far more potent were
the memories of his heredity that gave things he had never seen before
a seeming familiarity; the instincts (which were but the memories of
his ancestors become habits) which had lapsed in later days, and still
later, in him, quickened and become alive again.
Sometimes as he crouched there, blinking dreamily at the flames, it
seemed that the flames were of another fire, and that as he crouched
by this other fire he saw another and different man from the half-breed
cook before him. This other man was shorter of leg and longer of arm,
with muscles that were stringy and knotty rather than rounded and
swelling. The hair of this man was long and matted, and his head slanted
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