Author: andrewc

So, you make security cameras. You make automatic license plate readers aka “ALPR”. You then share this data with law enforcement.

Have you considered not being the absolute cheapest when making your products? Putting aside the moral, ethical, legal, security concerns, political landmines, systemic racism, misleading investors, the military industrial complex….

Why is it so cheap? You seriously couldn’t afford a embedded Linux guy? Spend a day writing up a Yocto file instead of stripping down a phone and shoving it in a plastic case? Are you seriously telling me that the lenses are so shitty that they need to zoom and pan in order to get a good shot of a license plate? Stop skimping on the image sensors.

You couldn’t afford a ladder, so you just stuck them to a pole in the ground at eye level? I know that “Eye in the sky” wasn’t a requirement, but eye level??? Is this pole is plastic? Black plastic…. in the sun. The rest of this city is painted in whites and greens not just for aesthetic purposes. Even the Cybertrucks get painted white. I know that you need to be “matte black” and “very gun” and “big lens” in order to sell when you are this cheap… it stands out because it looks ugly. It is going to melt in about half a year because you sacrificed functionality in order to pander to a blow-hard tacti-cool aesthetic, while doing it the cheapest way possible, by not paying engineers and going for “good enough, close enough”, and schmoozing on a golf course to get sales.

Unicorns don’t exist in the real world.

I’ve been trying to get better at typing, since I’m on a computer largely for the majority of my time now. I’ve spent a lot of time with QWERTY but I wanted to have a more comfortable experience, especially since I never really learned to touch type properly. My hybrid WASD + hunt and peck mode of typing now translated into immediate wrist pain.

I actually have a presentation on RSI and Carpal Tunnel that I made in elementary after I played too many video games, so this is not new. I managed to get away from typing for a while, but the world is becoming increasingly digital, save various control schemes (dials and buttons).

Colemak-DH is one of the “popular” alternative layouts given it’s similarity to QWERTY and relative ease of learning compared to something like Hands-Down-Promethium – which requires a custom split keyboard and thumb cluster. The shortcuts are in the same places, the keyboard only has minor changes to spread the load out from having everything on the left hand.

I took the better part of a month learning how to touch type, and switched from QWERTY more or less immediately. This wasn’t a fun process. It took a gargantuan effort to find keys and type out a single paragraph. I left the first week with a headache.

The following months were better, having moved from 10 words a minute all the way to 30 – still not the best, although writing was becoming less of a pain along the way. I could do most of my tasks without issue at this point, although I was still getting used to having both hands on the keyboard at the same time now – it felt a bit cramped.

I then switched to a split-keyboard design, moving the shift key onto a thumb cluster, as well as integrating layers into my typing. This was another significant hurdle, though I will say not needing to only use my thumb for space is significant – but having to move my thumb under my palm to hit a key is significantly more painful than not having a key available at all.

I redesigned the keyboard to shift the inner thumb cluster further outwards – and ended up spending another month learning CAD to fix some of the issues with the initial design. I now have space, shift, backspace/delete on the thumb clusters – which means I can do all of my basic typing without needing to reach over to hit a key.

I reached a steady 55 WPM on both layouts – slower than my prior max speed. That said, lack of layers means that I was already trying to type symbols at an astonishing 15 wpm when programming on ANSI QWERTY – compared to 30 wpm on matrix Colemak-DH with layers.

I strongly recommend that anyone with an inclination to use a keyboard all day to learn touch typing – and if at all possible, think about if you want to switch layouts. Gallium/Colemak-DH are some of the best contenders right now for ease of use/learning. The switch won’t make you faster, but it will make you be able to type for longer, more comfortably. You should avoid it if you are comfortable at your current pace and working conditions – but if you ever have wrist pain, there are options.

(Stenography is better for raw speed and comfort – but learning that is an entire profession that takes years, not two months of casual interest.)

No one. Why don’t we ask what company will be the next Costco – is “just” making money too boring for institutional investors?

I’ve made my thoughts on the boom and bust cycles well known I think. I’m getting some of the CompTI certifications to pass the time while everyone spends their time thinking someone else’s thoughts. The keyboard prototypes are done and I am now moving onto custom controller modules for manufacturing.

I used to dream about this industry.