ec changed the topic of #elliottcable to: a 𝕯𝖊𝖓 𝖔𝖋 𝕯𝖊𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖒𝖎𝖓𝖊𝖉 𝕯𝖆𝖒𝖘𝖊𝖑𝖘 slash s͔̞u͕͙p͙͓e̜̺r̼̦i̼̜o̖̬r̙̙ c̝͉ụ̧͘ḷ̡͙ţ͓̀ || #ELLIOTTCABLE is not about ELLIOTTCABLE
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<ELLIOTTCABLE>
typing on it rn and hooooly hell it's a goddamn dream.
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<joepie91>
ELLIOTTCABLE: yeah, I'll ping him eventually, I know the guy well
<joepie91>
like, to the point of "have met IRL" and all
<joepie91>
:P
<jfhbrook>
ELLIOTTCABLE: what the christ with your keyboard lmao
<jfhbrook>
you can actually type on that thing? and you like it??
<ljharb>
yeah that thing looks nightmarish
<jfhbrook>
it looks like a weird alien console in a video game
<jfhbrook>
time to fly the covenant spaceship, cortana!
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
jfhbrook: it’s an experiment
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
and lmfao yep it’s basically a spaceship
<jfhbrook>
gotcha--inconclusive so far?
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
inconclusive for a long time, for sure
<ljharb>
so is "what happens when I drink a bottle of diet coke after eating a tube of mentos", but that doesn't mean it's a good idea :-p
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
like the point is to battle RSI and increase my typing speed
<ljharb>
increased typing speed makes RSI worse tho, i thought
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
gotta stick with it and see if my speed increases, or discomfort increases
<ljharb>
iow battling RSI requires slowing you down
<ljharb>
but i dunno, i'm not a doctor
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
short term tho? holy shit, it’s way better than expected. a lot better.
<ljharb>
what's your normal keyboard?
<ljharb>
i can't handle those ergonomic ones myself
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
ljharb: nah, it’s all about decreasing radial and ulnar deviation, wrist extension, and flexion
<jfhbrook>
my money's on something happy hacker-ish
<jfhbrook>
I have an apple das keyboard at work that I like quite a bit
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
hahaha been deep in the research on this 🤣
<jfhbrook>
but at home it's a cheap logitech guy
<jfhbrook>
indended to be gaming more than typing but it's surprisingly ok considering it's non-mechanical
<ljharb>
i like my normal macbook pro keyboard
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
but anyway: lmfao nope totally unproven. mostly based on an study from Cornell aaaaages ago; but the keyboard they were testing was super terrible (90° vertical; not adjustable to the user; *sitting on the desk* instead of somewhere comfortable; no form of support, so the user couldn’t relax) and the study was underfunded (short, small sample size, no learning time provided to the participants)
<jfhbrook>
oh yeah that's tolerable but my hands are big and forceful
<jfhbrook>
so I like the feedback of the mechanical switches and the room that a full size keyboard offers
<jfhbrook>
that's pretty wild ELLIOTTCABLE
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
i’ll let you try it if you show up at a conference ;)
<jfhbrook>
I use a vertically oriented mouse at work
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
the most utterly obvious downside being *never* being able to type at more than like 20wpm on a normal keyboard ever again -_-
<jfhbrook>
I originally had a gold chrome verticalmouse which is like a $100 mouse but it broke at some point during my office move??
<jfhbrook>
so it's an anker now
<jfhbrook>
can't recommend anker mice they don't track well
<jfhbrook>
had to get a pad
<jfhbrook>
are you using that colemak layout too ELLIOTTCABLE ?
<ljharb>
ELLIOTTCABLE: lol that's why i always learn the default controls on video games, and why my vim is basically stock
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
the layout i’m working on is equally wild — Colemak crossed with Programmer’s Dvorak (unshifted punctuation; shifted, staggered numerals)
<jfhbrook>
lolwat
<ljharb>
getting faster on my personal system isn't worth it if it cripples me everywhere else :-p
<jfhbrook>
you're using a custom layout?
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
developing a custom layout, yep
<jfhbrook>
so back in 2011 I was working for nodejitsu and they didn't buy me a laptop, and I was using this dell mini 9 for development
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
working with some peeps to run a statistical analysis over a database of Vim input, actually
<jfhbrook>
they were paying me like crap and I was aggressively paying down my student loans so I didn't want to buy a new machine
<jfhbrook>
the n key fell off
<jfhbrook>
so I had to edit my keyboard layout to shift n and m one to the right
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
Programmer’s Dvorak is a good idea, but the author analyzed only C/C++/Java sources — not actual input.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
and he didn’t account for rolls, which is a classic layout-design mistake.
<jfhbrook>
what is programmer's dvorak
<jfhbrook>
rolls?
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
basically the naive way to calculate “work” when optimizing keyboard layout is a direct count of movement distance, by finger, between letters:
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
i.e. on your QWERTY, a word with “fr” in it is just as expensive as a word with “fg” or “fc”
<jfhbrook>
oh so you optimize for common letters being on home row I suppose
<jfhbrook>
ahh
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
but that doesn’t take into account that some finger motions are *easier* or *harder* than others
<jfhbrook>
yeah I feel like switching between hands, and sides of hands, is better than switching between the wrong adjacent fingers
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
for instance, index-finger extension from “f” up to “r” is extremely easy on the joints, and returning home to “f” is only slightly more difficult …
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
… but a lateral stretch from “f” to “g” is much more painful
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
similarly, when you move from “f” to “r” on your index finger, it’s easy to follow with your middle finger *also* extending to “e” (so “fre” is low total value),
<jfhbrook>
sure
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
but to move your middle finger down to “x” is almost impossible while your index was extended for “r”, even though it’s on a different finger; so an honest accounting would basically have to count “frx” as “frfx” or “frcx”
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
blah blah blah.
<jfhbrook>
wow frx is hard to type
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
you also want to optimize for, variously,
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
oh point of all that was
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
the most common *characters* in a corpus aren’t enough — you want to optimize a combinatoric explosion of *character sequences*.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
yikes.
<jfhbrook>
hah
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
so if “frx” were common in english, you’d want “f”/“x”, and “r” on different hands
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
that’s a “roll” — giving the other hand a job to do, to give the first hand time to make a difficult move, is nearly as good as placing all three in a row or something like that.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
(that’s what Dvorak optimized for, by the way)
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
anyway. but there’s also:
<jfhbrook>
gotcha
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
- brief bouts of one-handed typing (dvorak famously sucks for this, ‘cuz of all the by-design alternation) … though this obv isn’t relevant to my keeb lol,
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
- similarity to QWERTY (again: Dvorak famously sucks; basically nobody except court and competitive typists learn it, it’s horribly difficult to switch to. this is why Colemak exists.)
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
- maintenance of common, muscle-memory shortcuts (quite a few alternative layouts bend over backwards to keep ZXCV in the same places, for users’ copy-paste expectations …)
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
blah blah blah
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
hope you enjoy’d Elliott’s 15 Minute Keyboard Lesson 🤣
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
anyway you originally asked, so here it is: Programmer’s Dvorak
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
basically makes the number-key row waaaay better, but as absurd and foreign as Dvorak itself.
<jfhbrook>
touch-typing the number keys is difficult for me
<jfhbrook>
like I do it
<jfhbrook>
it's fine
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
this helps with that!
<jfhbrook>
but they're some of the more challenging keys for sure
<jfhbrook>
oh so you're doing colemak w/ programmer's dvorak topkeys
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
1/3/5/7 and 2/4/6/8 are on the respective fingers, in increasing order in each case
<jfhbrook>
basically?
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
almost
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
that’s what i’m on Right Now
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
but i also plan to thoroughly rearrange the unshifted symbols
<jfhbrook>
like ; and '?
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
his symbol layout is great for like, C; but I don’t *type as manny symbols into my source-code* as I type into my computer
<jfhbrook>
what's your bread and butter language these days?
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
cf. Vim, mostly, but also Markdown and chorded system shortcuts
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
OCaml and JavaScript still ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
<jfhbrook>
I'm doing python but still a lot of javascript and a dash of scala, so not c but somewhat c-like
<jfhbrook>
oh cool you're still doing ocaml
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
haven’t written a lot of code recently. need a job. 😔
<jfhbrook>
yeah gotcha
<jfhbrook>
my workplace is going through some scary layoffs
<jfhbrook>
and I'm not 100% that I want to be there after they happen
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
O_O
<ljharb>
would being laid off leave you better off than quitting?
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
what workplace again? i vaguely remember you mentioning this
<jfhbrook>
univision
<ljharb>
because if so you could just ask your manager to "lay you off" which would enable them to keep around someone who wants to stay
<jfhbrook>
no my team is getting through unscathed most likely
<joepie91>
I'm currently looking into a new place to rent because I kind of want to move away from here, and it starts becoming financially interesting given the amount of backlogged maintenance this house is racking up... and goddamn the selection of housing on offer is fucking horrible
<jfhbrook>
like we lose the additional head count we wanted but /we/ will be intact
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
joepie91: where do you live slash where are you moving?
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
come 2 Chicago :3
<jfhbrook>
I'm still waiting for work to send me to the onion
<jfhbrook>
don't need to 1:1 with anybody out there tho
<jfhbrook>
also not much of a traveler and I think they know that
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
jfhbrook: classic thumb-cluster: left thumb resting on <Space>, right thumb resting on <Enter> (pinks); with left adjacent purple being <Backspace> and right adjacent purple being <Tab>
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
the onion?
<jfhbrook>
yeah, you don't know the onion? it's satire, like fake news before fake news
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
send you to?
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
to write or
<jfhbrook>
they're based out of chicago, we own them
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
woah what
<jfhbrook>
so they'd send me to the chicago offices
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
I knew neither of those thing
<jfhbrook>
yeah I didn't either haha
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
YESSSS DO THAT
<jfhbrook>
until we got mashed into one big happy family
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
come thru
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
ask to go
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
i’ve got an airbed and plenty of room 🤣
<jfhbrook>
I'm guessing the travel budget is light
<jfhbrook>
though!! I got them to send me to strata ny again
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
glowcoil’s moving here this fal
<jfhbrook>
oh neat
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
wtf
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
is he not in here rn
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
o last thing i didn’t explain
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
directly relevant to “i’m fucked on other keyboards”
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
colemak reasoning: it’s widely supported on operating-systems as a built-in option; so on Windows, Linux, macOS, it’s a quick software toggle to at *least* be able to touch-type the *alphas* …
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
my weird physical keyboard positioning is unavoidable, but at least hand-position is a lot less difficult to briefly relearn than fingering …
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
and as long as I can at least touch-type normal words quickly on any keyboard via a software setting, i don’t much mind having to hunt-n-peck for numbers and symbols. hence completely unconventional numerals bar.
<jfhbrook>
yeah makes sense
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
ljharb: —^
<jfhbrook>
my vimrc is also dirt simple fwiw
<jfhbrook>
though I've considered using like spacemacs in vim mode
<jfhbrook>
I only use like 10% of vim's keys/commands
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
Mine’s viciously complicated; but i also regularly pseudo-practice on plain vim
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
one mistake was switching to EasyMotion
<jfhbrook>
if it works for common stuff and is more intuitive for looking up uncommon stuff, could be the move
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
… but I also heavily use Tridactyl now, so the easymotion approach was kinda inevitable idk
<jfhbrook>
also emacs has the best ide functionality out of things that aren't widely called ides
<jfhbrook>
what do those do
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
google idk
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
hard to explain
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
watch a video
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
hinted jumps? i guess?
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
or install FireFox and Tridactyl 🤣
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
couldn’t be happier, again, it’s a fuckin’ dream
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
modern firefox is freakishly excellent wtf
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
Quantum made it actually better than safari which like. woah.
<joepie91>
ELLIOTTCABLE: live in Dordrecht (Netherlands), wanting to temporarily move basically anywhere (within NL) that isn't Dordrecht and that's within cycling distance of the hackerspace I go to
<jfhbrook>
my killer feat for firefox is tree style tabs
<joepie91>
will eventually move to Iceland but that plan has been deferred
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
there was no bigger Safari evangelist than I, hug daaaaang
<joepie91>
:p
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
YES I LOVE MY TREE TABS
<jfhbrook>
I probably have 100+ tabs
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
currently struggling w/ getting my userChrome.css syncing between machines -_-
<jfhbrook>
oh yeah I haven't set up syncing
<jfhbrook>
I use chrome at work
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
joepie91: I was just in Iceland!
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
you lining up a job there? why deferred?
<jfhbrook>
you want to move to iceland joepie91 ??
<jfhbrook>
why
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
*I* want to move to iceland
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
it’s a lot like home
<joepie91>
jfhbrook: cultural fit reasons
<joepie91>
ELLIOTTCABLE: deferred because of a combination of financial and personal reasons and I kinda want to get out of the place where I currently live
<joepie91>
like, sooner rather than later
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
rel8able
<joepie91>
er, wtf.
<joepie91>
was looking at a brand new apartment
<joepie91>
1250 EUR/mo
<joepie91>
it looked interesting
<joepie91>
so I checked for internet connectivity
<joepie91>
... 7mbps / 768kbps DSL
<joepie91>
WHAT THE FUCK THAT APARTMENT WAS BUILT IN THE LAST 5 YEARS IN THE HAGUE
<joepie91>
I don't even, how
<jfhbrook>
awww yeah smell ya later dial-up!
<joepie91>
seriously, wtf
<jfhbrook>
no cable?
<jfhbrook>
that's very unusual
<joepie91>
even shitty random villages have 20/2mbps
<joepie91>
how the hell do you build something new in the hague and not have at least fast ADSL or even FttH
<jfhbrook>
yeah was gonna say, that was a k
<jfhbrook>
ftth?
<joepie91>
jfhbrook: might be cable, idk, but I don't bother with cable internet
<jfhbrook>
f for fiber?
<joepie91>
fiber to the home
<jfhbrook>
you don't bother with cable?
<joepie91>
which is what I have here now
<joepie91>
cable internet tends to be pretty junk, in no small part due to the single provider that exists for it now
<jfhbrook>
it's way faster tho not fiber fast but like the fiber people are the same people
<joepie91>
not here they aren't :P
<jfhbrook>
hm
<joepie91>
most FttH networks in NL are 'open' networks
<jfhbrook>
yeah american isps are all screwed up
<joepie91>
so there's shared infra with a bunch of ISPs offering services
<joepie91>
which is why I could have 500/500 here for like 70 EUR/mo
<joepie91>
if I wanted to
<joepie91>
jfhbrook: so we have basically various FttH networks depending on geographical location, then one mostly-nationwide copper network, both now operated by the same company; but both are 'open' networks so there's >5 providers offering services over them
<jfhbrook>
yeah, verizon made a deal with nyc that they'd get a monopoly on fiber if they delivered to nty percent of homes by not too long ago
<joepie91>
then there's the cable network which is totally closed with one company (Ziggo) controlling all of it
<jfhbrook>
now they're getting sued but are still the only game in town
<joepie91>
from infra to service
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
dear lord above,
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
please send me ramen with all possible haste