Keebin' with Kristina Hack Chat

• Hack Chat Transcript, Page 2

  09/27/2023 at 21:37 • 0 comments

  deʃhipu  3:39 PM it would also rexognize your pcbs and project debugging information on them

  deʃhipu  3:40 PM recognize*

  Thomas Shaddack  3:40 PM Yup. Though for that, higher-resolution augmented reality glasses would be better.

  Thomas Shaddack  3:40 PM Circuitboards have lousy and uneven albedo.

  deʃhipu  3:40 PM http://worrydream.com/#!/SeeingSpaces

  Thomas Shaddack  3:43 PM Yup. With a projector, every surface can be an user interface. With a camera-OpenCV-projector, it can even be interactive/adaptive. I thought more about using the keys as a projection surface for adaptive macro keyboards. Or for changing the projected image based on what application is active, for the keyboard shortcuts. A variant on an OLED display in each key.

  Thomas Shaddack  3:43 PM Projected keyboards lack the haptic feedback I consider crucial. (Touchscreens for now as well.)

  kristina panos  3:44 PM Have you seen this? https://hackaday.io/project/192937-a-tile-based-macropad

  deʃhipu  3:44 PM I'm very skeptical about any kind of visual innovations for keyboards, because you are not supposed to be looking at it

  kristina panos  3:44 PM That's a good piont

  kristina panos  3:44 PM point

  kelvinA  3:44 PM +1

  kristina panos  3:45 PM ^ changing the tile changes the macro

  Thomas Shaddack  3:46 PM You aren't supposed to look at it when you already memorized it all. Nobody remembers ALL the shortcuts/macros/whatever.

  Thomas Shaddack  3:46 PM Re macropads, something I wrote for using the USB numpads as control pendants for printers/CNC.

  Thomas Shaddack  3:47 PM https://www.improwis.com/projects/sw_kbdassist/

  kristina panos  3:48 PM @Thomas Shaddack Cool!

  Thomas Shaddack  3:49 PM Tile vs macro... thought. Those cheapo resistive touchscreen panels. Draw the user interface on paper. Put the panel over it. Write a definition table of the coordinates of the "buttons".

  deʃhipu  3:49 PM @Thomas Shaddack [citation needed]

  Thomas Shaddack  3:49 PM If we don't want to bother much with code and can take the cost overhead, python on pi zero in usb gadget mode as HID emulation will do.

  deʃhipu  3:49 PM I'm pretty sure I remember all the keycodes my keyboard can send

  Thomas Shaddack  3:50 PM I don't.

  deʃhipu  3:50 PM must be hard to use the computer that way

  Thomas Shaddack  3:50 PM I remember the ones I use often.

  deʃhipu  3:50 PM having to look up things constantly

  Thomas Shaddack  3:51 PM That's the cache memory. What's not in the brain/cache has to be looked up in slower storage.

  deʃhipu  3:51 PM it helps for me that I arranged everything according to a pattern, so I don't have to learn every key separately, there is a logic to where everything is

  kristina panos  3:51 PM Does anyone have an as-yet-unobtained holy grail keyboard?

  foamyguy  3:52 PM Touch panel overlayed on top of a static image on paper is a neat idea Thomas

  deʃhipu  3:52 PM I'm happy with mine, been using it for over a year now

  kelvinA  3:52 PM @kristina panos *cries in project delays*

  Thomas Shaddack  3:52 PM Holy grail... Would an unholy abomination work too?

  kristina panos  3:53 PM @kelvinA You'll get there!

  kristina panos  3:53 PM @Thomas Shaddack oh you bet

  deʃhipu  3:53 PM you get an unholy abomination for free added to pretty much any computer you buy these days

  Thomas Shaddack  3:53 PM That's worse. That's membrane.

  kristina panos  3:54 PM And when it breaks, get one for $3 at Microcenter.

  kristina panos  3:54 PM *another

  deʃhipu  3:54 PM but where do you get new hands when those break?

  Thomas Shaddack  3:54 PM Or use the one you got for free from a friend because the keys polished off the lettering, or the cable chewed.

  kristina panos  3:55 PM Really shouldn't chew on cables

  Thomas Shaddack  3:55 PM Tell it to cats. Or in a specific case a pet rabbit.

  kristina panos  3:55 PM Rabbits might listen better than cats, I'm not sure.

  deʃhipu  3:55 PM increasing the voltage helps in teaching them...

  deʃhipu  3:56 PM I had a guinea pig that liked cables, but once it tried a 220V one, and never chewed a single cable ever since

  deʃhipu  3:57 PM (it survived)

  Thomas Shaddack  3:57 PM "I found that ugly short circuit. Also, I found your hamster."

  kelvinA  3:57 PM !

  deʃhipu  3:57 PM but it jumped like 20cm into the air

  kristina panos  3:57 PM lol, aww

  foamyguy  3:57 PM Maybe this is how pikachu came to be

  Thomas Shaddack  3:57 PM Now that's a form of aversion therapy!

  deʃhipu  3:58 PM yeah, I feel like keyboards with built-in shocking device could have a lot of innovative uses in the modern age

  deʃhipu  3:58 PM especially on the Internet

  kristina panos  3:58 PM I got you https://hackaday.com/2021/01/28/this-negative-reinforcement-keyboard-may-shock-you/

  Thomas Shaddack  3:59 PM Interesting paradigm change. The shocking stuff is usually on the screen.

  deʃhipu  3:59 PM why limit yourself

  deʃhipu  3:59 PM speaking of which, does anybody use pedals?

  kristina panos  4:00 PM I stopped, mostly because I was using one for Shift and it's just weird to go to a coffee shop with a Kinesis *and* a foot pedal.

  kelvinA  4:00 PM I've seen videos of them being mapped to keyboard shortcuts, but I haven't used one.

  Thomas Shaddack  4:01 PM Thought. Integrate the foot pedal into an insole.

  kristina panos  4:01 PM Also it was too loud for even that environment

  deʃhipu  4:01 PM that's loud

  Dan Maloney  4:01 PM @Thomas Shaddack -- Just don't go into a casino with that

  foamyguy  4:02 PM I have a re-occuring sort of "day dream" idea that I've thought about a few times of integrating various buttons into shoes and using them to remotely trigger things for magic tricks.

  deʃhipu  4:02 PM typing socks?

  kristina panos  4:02 PM @Thomas Shaddack I wonder if you could use like velostat and put it in the heel. just bounce your heel

  Thomas Shaddack  4:02 PM Array of thin-film resistive pressure sensors. (Or just one.) Bluetooth. Possibly some vibromotors for feedback. Shoes are underestimated enclosures for electronics.

  kristina panos  4:02 PM @foamyguy I feel like toe shoes that are a little too big for you would work for that

  deʃhipu  4:02 PM you could also make the socks from a bulletproof material, for c++ programming

  Thomas Shaddack  4:03 PM Or do away with the whole mechanical interfacing and use EMG.

  Thomas Shaddack  4:03 PM ...and impregnate the socks in DDT powder, to deal with bugs before they set in?

  Dan Maloney  4:03 PM That was my thought -- what's next after keyboards? Or are we always going to apply fingers to keys?

  Thomas Shaddack  4:04 PM We now way too often apply keys to fondleslabs. (Sorry, touchscreens, I dislike you.)

  deʃhipu  4:04 PM I feel like a physical keyboard and a text terminal will always be there for the real hackers

  kelvinA  4:04 PM Well hopefully my future is applying fingers to motorised faders and not keys (or whatever gets me over 300wpm)

  deʃhipu  4:04 PM (tm)

  deʃhipu  4:05 PM @kelvinA have you tried steno?

  Thomas Shaddack  4:05 PM for touchscreens I use messagease keyboard.

  Thomas Shaddack  4:05 PM https://www.exideas.com/ME/index.php

  Thomas Shaddack  4:05 PM Some learning curve but so very worth it.

  kelvinA  4:05 PM No. I've done the research into Steno and Charachorder and the learning time diminishes the ROI.

  deʃhipu  4:06 PM also, why do you use 300wpm, are you doing live captioning?

  kelvinA  4:06 PM I'm about to try Taipo because the creator could do the monkeytype ASCII mode at 50wpm.

  deʃhipu  4:06 PM s/use/need

  deʃhipu  4:07 PM I noticed that both for programming and for writing articles, the bottleneck is not my typing speed but my thinking speed

  Thomas Shaddack  4:07 PM text terminal, yes. text input, yes. physical keyboard, not necessarily. for now, it is the best choice. but more direct interfacing to muscle signals, motoric nerves, or even the brain itself is where I see the future.

  kelvinA  4:08 PM I write a lot of project logs on hackaday.io for starters and those take hours sometimes. Then I want to quickly create massive to-do lists simply so that my brain doesn't have to dedicate energy to remember what I'm doing next in any project. It's one of those annoying things where, if I don't type it fast enough, I forget and have to spend even longer trying to remember.

  deʃhipu  4:08 PM so the only use case I can think of for 300wpm typing speed is dicatation or retyping of existing printed text

  kelvinA  4:09 PM I feel like it's similar to a tractor. Most people don't have a farm that needs harvesting and so don't need one.

  Thomas Shaddack  4:09 PM Thought. Voice notes. With later speech-to-text.

  Thomas Shaddack  4:10 PM And then there are people who don't need tractors so they think nobody else needs tractors.

  kristina panos  4:10 PM +1 for voice typing. I would not be here today, et cetera.

  Dan Maloney  4:10 PM Can you think at 300 wpm? I doubt I can

  kelvinA  4:10 PM I actually tried Windows 10 speech to text in a log, but unfortunately, after all the edits and adding in symbols, it took about the same time as typing a log normally.

  Thomas Shaddack  4:10 PM Not sustained. Bursts, yes.

  kelvinA  4:11 PM I personally think more in entire sentences

  Dan Maloney  4:11 PM My brain would burst into flames

  kelvinA  4:12 PM Well, think "this is the kind of sentence I want to type"

  deʃhipu  4:12 PM you know this presentation? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWyMA_bT7UI

  deʃhipu  4:12 PM thast's how coding with voice can look like

  deʃhipu  4:12 PM but you do need a good microphone

  deʃhipu  4:13 PM and a quiet environment

  Thomas Shaddack  4:13 PM or a mike array and good enough processing.

  deʃhipu  4:13 PM well, he used existing tools

  deʃhipu  4:13 PM you could probably do much better if you coded everything from scratch for that use case

  deʃhipu  4:14 PM it's still much slower than typing

  Nicolas Tremblay  4:15 PM @Dan Maloney time?

  Thomas Shaddack  4:15 PM Microphone arrays are also already existing tools. Small and big. Clean audio signal is an "interface layer", and it doesn't matter if you get it by processing or by manipulating the environment.

  Dan Maloney  4:15 PM OK, it's well past the top of the hour, so we should let everyone else get back to work. Huge thanks to Kristina for coming along today, and to everyone else for exercising their keyboards with us.

  Thomas Shaddack  4:15 PM Work is a four-letter word.

  Dan Maloney  4:15 PM @Nicolas Tremblay - yup, lost track as usual

  kristina panos  4:16 PM Thanks, Dan! Thanks everybody!

  Nicolas Tremblay  4:16 PM @Dan Maloney Everybody did

  foamyguy  4:16 PM Fun chat. Thanks for hanging out folks

  Nicolas Tremblay  4:16 PM @kristina panos Thank you for the chat

  Dan Maloney  4:16 PM No matter what the topic is, always seems to happen

  Thomas Shaddack  4:17 PM Thanks, was fun!

  fid  4:17 PM This is work, or working. I did get sidetracked during a keyboard search. One of the pictures had a Rubik's cube with Calendar stickers on it.

  Dan Maloney  4:17 PM Make sure you come back next week, too:

  Dan Maloney  4:17 PM https://hackaday.io/event/192817-modeling-space-hack-chat

  fid  4:17 PM TTYL

  Dan Maloney  4:18 PM Transcript coming up -- as soon as Tom gets done with the podcast...

  fid  4:18 PM Thanks for the fun hour+

  Dan Maloney  4:18 PM yw

• Hack Chat Transcript, Page 1

  09/27/2023 at 21:36 • 0 comments

  kristina panos  2:52 PM Ahoy!

  Dan Maloney  2:52 PM Howdy!

  kristina panos  2:53 PM How's everything going in here?

  Dan Maloney  2:53 PM Looking good, we'll get started officially in a few

  kristina panos  2:53 PM Okay! I'll be here

  Dan Maloney  2:54 PM And apologies in advance for my typing -- ironically, I'm still having trouble getting used to my not-so-new keyboard

  kristina panos  2:55 PM Oh dear. Remind me what you ended up getting?

  Nicolas Tremblay  2:56 PM Good, Kiristina is here, won't be like last week

  kristina panos  2:56 PM D:

  Dan Maloney  2:57 PM I was afraid you'd ask -- flips keyboard over -- Logitech K845CH. Off the shelf, boring, but at least it has really Cherry switches

  kristina panos  2:58 PM That looks like it clacks nicely

  Nicolas Tremblay  2:58 PM Better than the Dell I'm using

  kristina panos  2:58 PM What flavor of Cherry?

  kristina panos  2:58 PM @Nicolas Tremblay I used a Dell QuietKey many years ago that was non-terrible

  kristina panos  2:59 PM I might think it more terrible now, though

  Dan Maloney  2:59 PM I had one of the super cheap ones that was so light I chased it around my desk from just using it. This one at least has some heft to it -- aluminum chassis

  kristina panos  2:59 PM @Dan Maloney that is the worst, and my biggest fear with a true split keyboard -- that they would be all over the place

  Dan Maloney  3:00 PM Cherry MX Red

  kristina panos  3:01 PM Not my taste, but the people who like them love them, it seems

  Dan Maloney  3:01 PM Whoop -- here we go. Welcome aboard everyone, I'm Dan and I'll be modding today along with Dusan as we welcome our own Kristina Panos to the chat!

  kristina panos  3:01 PM Howdy, everyone!

  Dan Maloney  3:01 PM Hello Kristina, thanks for agreeing to come out and play with us! What are you typing on today?

  Dusan Petrovic  3:02 PM Hello and welcome everyone!

  kristina panos  3:02 PM You're quite welcome. And ha! My trusty Kinesis Advantage.

  foamyguy  3:04 PM +1 in the Kinesis Krew. I was converted by our host.

  kristina panos  3:04 PM I truly would not be here today without it (or something like it).

  kristina panos  3:04 PM I bring up my surgery pretty often, and that's because RSIs are no joke. I know this now.

  Dan Maloney  3:05 PM As a non-touch typist, is there any point in a split keyboard like that?

  kristina panos  3:05 PM For those that don't know, I had cubital tunnel surgery in 2017. That's basically carpal tunnel in the elbow.

  kristina panos  3:05 PM @Dan I say everyone can benefit from a split keyboard

  kristina panos  3:06 PM Woops, I atted the wrong Dan.

  kristina panos  3:06 PM Sorry, other Dan!

  Dan Maloney  3:06 PM He won't mind...

  kristina panos  3:06 PM Splits are great because they separate everything into a more natural position.

  Nicolas Tremblay  3:07 PM Staggered or ortho?

  kristina panos  3:08 PM I love ortho now, though I do switch back and forth a lot because I use typewriters frequently

  kristina panos  3:08 PM And that's a little weird. Mostly I just end up typing 'c' with my index finger on the ortho, and of course it comes out 'v'.

  Dan Maloney  3:09 PM I just don't know if I can train my brain to keep the two hands on their own side of the keyboard. I tend to cross over -- in fact, I just typed "V" and "F" with my right, and used both right and left to type successive "T"s

  kristina panos  3:09 PM Depending on the keyboard, it can be *really* hard to type 'c' with your middle finger, which you have to do on an ortho.

  kristina panos  3:09 PM Yeah, it definitely helps to be a home row typist going in, that is for sure.

  foamyguy  3:09 PM I wonder if there are laptops with ortho keys. I find it harder each time I go back to staggered and usually it's because of being on the laptop.

  kristina panos  3:10 PM I would definitely use one

  deʃhipu  3:10 PM there is mnt pocket

  foamyguy  3:11 PM interesting, I hadn't seen that before. Thank you!

  kristina panos  3:11 PM I thought that sounded a bit familiar -- https://hackaday.com/2023/04/11/a-miniature-mnt-for-every-pocket/

  deʃhipu  3:11 PM it also has a trackball, for extra relief to your hands

  kelvinA  3:12 PM I sometimes wonder why staggered keyboards never became hexagonal-grid like as they became implemented in technology.

  foamyguy  3:12 PM I was just admiring the trackball

  deʃhipu  3:12 PM hex kyeboards do exist, there are even keycaps like that

  kjansky1  3:12 PM I knew someone that was a double arm amputee that typed on a wireless keyboard on the floor with his toes.

  deʃhipu  3:12 PM I mean keycaps you can buy separately

  Dan Maloney  3:12 PM I moved to a trackball ages ago because I could feel the strain mounting up in my right hand from mousing. Cured the problem

  kristina panos  3:13 PM I feel like I covered a hex-keycap keyboard once

  kristina panos  3:13 PM @Dan Maloney same, same. Ugh, that feeling.

  deʃhipu  3:13 PM https://fkcaps.com/keycaps/hex

  deʃhipu  3:13 PM 0xc.pad maybe?

  deʃhipu  3:14 PM https://d37dh9tfveh1m1.cloudfront.net/products/0xcpad/003.jpg

  kristina panos  3:14 PM That is lovely! But it doesn't look like I covered it. Boo.

  deʃhipu  3:15 PM there is recently a project for a piano keyboard with those keycaps

  deʃhipu  3:16 PM https://hackaday.com/2019/07/13/isomorphic-keyboards-with-cv-out/

  kelvinA  3:16 PM Not hex keycaps necessarily, but just having the stagger so that each key is offset as to make an equilateral triangle. (For example, the A-Z-S keys on QWERTY are almost there.)

  deʃhipu  3:17 PM personally I would prefer vertical stagger, horizontal stagger is just poor man's angled halves

  Thomas Shaddack  3:17 PM for laptops, you can sit a conventional short keyboard on printed spacers over the laptop's lousy original one. crude hack but works.

  Thomas Shaddack  3:17 PM have to take it off before closing the lid. but if you never close the lid, it is easy for you.

  deʃhipu  3:17 PM there are even special extra-thin keyboards designed to sit on laptops

  kristina panos  3:18 PM https://hackaday.com/2021/05/04/typematrix-ez-reach-2030-is-better-than-your-laptop-keyboard/

  foamyguy  3:18 PM Oh yeah, that thing.

  kristina panos  3:18 PM @deʃhipu vertical stagger is nice

  Thomas Shaddack  3:19 PM Oh! Didn't know it exists. Using ordinary Oryx-class short mechanical gaming keyboard.

  kristina panos  3:19 PM I was just going to ask what everyone is typing on

  kristina panos  3:19 PM If you care to share, that is

  kristina panos  3:20 PM I didn't specify that mine has Cherry Browns, but it does. *steels self against haters* :)

  Dan Maloney  3:21 PM Anyone on a Model 33 teletype wins the internet...

  Thomas Shaddack  3:21 PM I think it is Niceboy K500x. with the function key pads stripped off and not-replaced-with-flatter-ones-yet because they were in the way to see the bottommost line of the screen, where the terminal prompt is.

  deʃhipu  3:22 PM @kristina panos are they as scratchy as they say?

  fid  3:22 PM When I am doing a lot of typing (laptop) my wrists get tired after a while. I break away and do some practice on fiddle to get a difference. I am going to look into a different keyboard.

  deʃhipu  3:23 PM @fid I had that, and I switched to a low-profile keyboard with 1ufh philosophy, and now I never move my wrists when typing, only my fingers

  kristina panos  3:23 PM @deʃhipu I don't find them scratchy, but maybe I am just too accustomed to it if so. But I've never disliked them, so there's that

  kelvinA  3:23 PM @kristina panos My (not-so-temporary) tempory keyboard E-Yooso Z88 (circular key version). I'm in the process of getting Taipo set up on my Let's Split.

  Thomas Shaddack  3:23 PM Temporary solutions usually last for no more than one forever.

  kristina panos  3:24 PM Ha!

  Nicolas Tremblay  3:25 PM 16 year old Dell SK-8135

  kristina panos  3:25 PM @kelvinA Let's Split looks nice and tidy. I personally need more keys than that! Layers are kind of strange to me. I guess I used full-sizers for too long?

  foamyguy  3:26 PM Does anyone know of a board that is wireless (BLE or otherwise) and well suited to being a media controller for a computer that across the room displaying on a TV?

  Thomas Shaddack  3:27 PM Could something be rigged around a nRF52840, or does it have to be off the shelf?

  deʃhipu  3:27 PM @kristina panos have you seen the Voyager by ZSA?

  deʃhipu  3:28 PM it's the same company that made ergodox and moonlander

  foamyguy  3:28 PM I'm open to either route, off the shelf or DIY or kits or anything inbetween really.

  kristina panos  3:29 PM @deʃhipu nice that they made something for smaller hands!

  Thomas Shaddack  3:29 PM Or get a keyboard you like, and reverse-engineer the switching matrix and wire a controller in. That way you can even reuse something old you used to love.

  kristina panos  3:29 PM I was sad that the ErgoDox was too big for me

  deʃhipu  3:30 PM yeah, what's with all those "ergonomic" keyboards with too many keys

  Thomas Shaddack  3:30 PM There's nothing like too many keys. There is not enough keys and better-but-still-not-enough keys.

  kristina panos  3:31 PM I just felt like my thumbs were too short for the thing

  kristina panos  3:31 PM @Thomas Shaddack lol

  kristina panos  3:32 PM https://hackaday.com/2020/09/19/a-big-computer-needs-a-big-keyboard/

  Dan Maloney  3:32 PM Perfect for those two-hacker sessions

  deʃhipu  3:32 PM one key from home position, that's all

  deʃhipu  3:33 PM anything else is not ergonomic

  Thomas Shaddack  3:33 PM I am tempted to add strips of mouse-class little buttons to the front and over and under the function keys, where there is free space. then because putting in a whole new controller would be too hard, rig up a second keyboard from atmega32u4 and put a usb hub into the original "host" keyboard to run both.

  fid  3:33 PM That's like going from standard calculator to scientific.

  Thomas Shaddack  3:33 PM Too uniform squary keyboard. No haptic finding out what is where.

  kristina panos  3:33 PM @Thomas Shaddack I dig it

  Thomas Shaddack  3:34 PM Trick. Glue haptic strips to the keys. Satin, coarseish sandpaper, things that won't wear easy and provide feel for specific keys.

  kristina panos  3:35 PM Finger treads!

  Thomas Shaddack  3:35 PM ...similar haptic strips work on the backsides of computers to mark which side of a connector is which, for eyes-free plugging.

  deʃhipu  3:35 PM @Thomas Shaddack you type letters by pressing the shape of the letter on the key matrix, in pixels

  kristina panos  3:35 PM Or print textured keycaps

  Thomas Shaddack  3:35 PM Braille keycaps.

  deʃhipu  3:36 PM whatever innovation about keycaps you can think about, it has been done

  Nicolas Tremblay  3:36 PM How about a split desk to go with the keyboard?

  deʃhipu  3:36 PM it's a very active area of experimentation

  Thomas Shaddack  3:36 PM It's not important to be the first. It's important to remix it with what you got into what you need/want.

  kristina panos  3:37 PM @Nicolas Tremblay I think I would lose things in the crevasse. How about mounted to the arms of the chair?

  deʃhipu  3:37 PM @Nicolas Tremblay it's common to have the halves attached to your arm rests

  kristina panos  3:37 PM jinx

  kelvinA  3:37 PM There are even solar cell keycaps?

  deʃhipu  3:38 PM I'm still waiting for a clicky mechanical keyboard but with built-in active noise cancellation

  Thomas Shaddack  3:38 PM Random thought. Raspberry pi with camera. Cheapo projector. Project arbitrary images onto the keys from the ceiling or from the laptop lid top.

  Nicolas Tremblay  3:38 PM @kristina panos OOH! full on battle chair, with overhead displays, strap the box in the back. Who care about "laptops"

  deʃhipu  3:38 PM @Thomas Shaddack exists

  deʃhipu  3:39 PM I think it was even a hackaday.io project

  deʃhipu  3:39 PM wasn't Ted Yapo working on something like that?

  Dan Maloney  3:39 PM https://www.amazon.com/AGS-Wireless-Projection-Bluetooth-Smartphone/dp/B00MR26TUO/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=laser+keyboard&qid=1695843551&sr=8-3

  Thomas Shaddack  3:39 PM Unsurprising. Could also work for training of piano or guitar, just project whatever has to be pressed to the surface.