Retraining my Hands

I'm lucky that I don't suffer carpal tunnel repetitive injuries. I've always been someone who is what I like to call "actively cautious." If there is something reasonable I can do, or an innovation I can take advantage of to prevent an "unhappened" misfortune, I'm in. 

No surprise that fitting in with the phrase that "necessity is the mother of invention" the best inventions come from those who are materially impacted. Human history is a non-stop success story of using tools to overcome our limitations and avoid pitfalls. (I've got more I want to say about this in the future.)

Yep, I feel into the custom keyboard world. But I don't like doing things in halves, no pun intended, so I went straight for a split, ortholinear keyboard that I had to assemble myself. Sent to be by Germ from gHeavyIndustries -- a great human being.

I did have an Ergoplex for about a week, a prebuilt board, but if I was going to relearn some aspects of my typing, that wasn't enough. Besides, those of you who know me know that I'll take modified and self-built vs bought nine times out of ten.

This was my first time soldering SMDs ... I made good use out of my magnifying lense, and really enjoyed learning a new skill.

If you're worried about ever working next to me in an office, worry not. I don't enjoy loud keyboards. The blue switches you see here are silent and are about 15gms of pressure - which is about half to a quarter of the force needed for a regular key.

Part of the reason for this is with only 35 keys, we start to infringe into the space of stenography and use "chords" to perform certain functions. The lighter pressure makes it less fatiguing to type or code. Yes, the other part of this is you can completely customize what each key does. Want shortcuts for Vi or your favorite IDE? Go for it.

You get the full flexibility to customize absolutely every piece - even the cables. Mixing and matching from the hundreds of available options and vendors I never imagined existed was fun.

So do my wrists hurt? No. My brain does a little, however, because you'll notice that there are no indicators on they keys! I remember asking on Reddit one day, "So, you use stickers, or....?" The answers were "memorization". I did eventually get back up to my original typing speed, and while I am often on a laptop with traditional keyboard these days, I really can say I prefer the ortho split.

It's perfect for parking your coffee.