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a hastiness that I would be second guessing
Friday, July 14 2017
The other day, my trusty old Logitech YU-Y95 keyboard started doing unpardonable things, such as inserting asterisks after every "b," something I couldn't fix. So I had to abandon it, temporarily replacing it with a stock Dell keyboard of a noticeably inferior quality while I waited for a replacement to arrive. I don't often change my keyboard, but when I do, it represents a big change in my lifestyle. Small differences between a former and a current keyboard add up to a lot of difference in experience when one spends all day interacting with one. What I want from a keyboard it wired operation (I never want to have to replace batteries in a keyboard), illuminated keys (for use in a darkened room), and comfortable, relatively shallow action, preferably of the sort that does not feel like one piece of styrofoam rubbing against another (a common problem with the cheap keyboards that come with Dells or that came with Gateway machines). That Logitech keyboard had been nice and flat, though it was occasionally subject to sticky key disease, and (annoyingly) the rubberized coating on its built-in wrist rest wore away where my wrists tended to rest. Today I took delivery of an Ivation IVCKRGB, a $30 illuminated keyboard. The action is much louder than the Logitech, but I actually rather like the increased sensory feedback. I also love the huge illuminated markings on each key, which makes me happy every time I glance down and see them. I can also change the color of the illumination, though I've mostly been keeping it on white.
[REDACTED]
It had been decided in our IT group that I would be the presenter at today's bi-weekly all-hands meeting. It's awkward interacting with a room full of people via a remote internet connection, especially given all the ways the connection can fail. I had to start off with a "Can everybody hear me?" and take it from there, blind to the reaction. I was reading from a pre-drafted statement, one whose primary goal was to get people to stop bothering us and to instead use the Taskinator task management system. Occasionally I'd hear some laughter from the crowd, but the latency was such that I couldn't really use it to alter my timing. Consequently, I tended to hurry through the spiel, a hastiness that I would be second guessing for the rest of the day.
As the workday wound down, I did some straightening up in the laboratory in anticipation for the party we'd be hosting tomorrow. It might be nice to have some satellite places to hang out, and the laboratory is a fun place when it's tidy. I'd also cleaned up down in the greenhouse upstairs. It never gets too dirty down there, but there's always a few dead flies and tracked-in pine needles to be vacuumed up. I'd also wanted to mow the grass at some point, but conditions were just too rainy (especially when the mower I use must be connected to 120 volt power).
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