h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Many of you recognize this situation too well: You sit quietly at your computer minding your own business. But then 2legs opens a new thread - and you spill your buttermilk all over your keyboard ...

What to do? Well, I rushed to disconnect the keyboard from the computer and rinse it (the keyboard, not the computer) using a lot of water.

But then what? Just leave it to dry? Sure. But I decided to use the incident to experiment: I decided to wash a total of three keyboards which had all at some point been drowned in soapy water, rinse them with a lot of clear water and then leave them to dry for two weeks.

It worked! I just tested them.

Most importantly: My computer, myself and everything else has survived.

Next: My newest and most modern keyboard doesn't feel good. Some of the keys don't work. Whether this is due to red wine, coffee, milk or being washed in soapy water I don't know. But I believe the beverages are the main reason. (After all back when it happened I just left this keyboard without rinsing it first and plugged in a spare keyboard. Yes, I know, but in my defense I was in a hurry at the time.)

One of the two older keyboards seems perfect! This is actually the one I use to write this

The other is also fine, except that the §/$ key (to the far left in the second row from above) does not work. Maybe I can make it work again if I peel it off and clean it? We'll see. But not today.

Conclusion: I now have two keyboards that work perfectly and one that works satisfactorily. (I can just type "paragraph" and "dollar" instead of using characters - and how often do I really need it? I'm neither lawyer nor rich )

So now I have saved a bundle instead of having to buy a new keyboard

I should most likely add that you probably should not try this with a laptop or a cordless keyboard

Users of the earliest home computers (I had a TRS-80 CoCo from Radio Shack, but other notable contemporaries were the Commodore 64, and Apple II) were often assured that "nothing you enter into the keyboard will damage the computer... except liquids".

Well, I suppose things have reversed a bit. Liquids don't necessarily damage a computer when entered into the keyboard, but many things you can type on it can not only destroy your computer, but can also destroy your reputation/livelihood/freedom.

My sister spilled coffee on her laptop, and spent four hundred dollars to get it fixed.

Maybe one should not be eating or drinking anything while at the computer .

slate boards and pointy things to scratch them with for writing and semaphore flags how "mankind" has moved on

remove batteries and electricity they'll make a comeback

...I wonder who else thought this was going to be another disgusting 2legs journal?

You always know who to blame

"Maybe one should not be eating or drinking anything while at the computer"

This is of course what we tried to teach our kids, paulh, but since I live alone now I can do as I bl**d* well please. And as it turns out it hardly gives me any problems

Yes, but mostly harmless can morph into harmly mostless.

An old friend told me today how to circumvent the problem with the $/§-key. You can create sort of a virtual keyboard on your desktop and then just click on the key in question with your

It also gives you the possibility of using a number of emojis such as these: 😃👍🏻

Or you could type Alt + the ASCII code number.

$ is 36 and the paragraph sign is 245. Am on my tablet at the moment and have neither a paragraph sign nor an "Alt" key, but I used to use that method a lot for £££ signs on the German keyboard at work.

$ is 36 and the paragraph sign is 245:

This is what I get on my keyboard:

alt+36 = §™
alt+245 = “£∞

Isaac newton can tell you that an apple used to be something that grew on a tree -- until it fell on him. His apple tree is still alive, by the way.

Yeah, mr. Newton not so much

if i did theses the library would go spare they are normally yuck jimcracker

Someone suggested I use keyboards to cook a soup on all the bread crumbs, milk, red wine and what else is down among the keys

According to a story in one of Carl Sagan's books, Comet, the actual "apple" that inspired Newton to not only formulate his formula for gravitation, but also, eventually, the Calculus, was actually Edmund Halley.

According to the tale told by Sagan, Halley was thinking about comets and the shape of their orbits. He "knew" it was an ellipse, but couldn't recall where he'd learned this, so he asked his classmate, Newton. Newton agreed that it was likely an ellipse, but he couldn't recall any source for this information... so he worked it out, thereby formulating his laws of motion and the Calculus so he could work out the maths.

I'm reading "Wise trees." The apple tree that Isaac Newton was inspired by, fell over in a storm in the early 1800s, but rerooted itself in a prone position, and kept on growing. It is reckoned to be the oldest apple tree still in production on the planet.

Don't sit under the apple tree
not even to seek lee
an apple might fall on you
so very heavily

might hit your head with such a force
that suns and stars you'd see
and halley's comet too
is what i'm telling you

Should the apple be as heavy as me
you would be killed my gal
by fruit velocity
so very terminal