Geek

When it comes to typing, I’m probably one of the fastest typists I know. That sounds kind of prideful, but is it really prideful when you’re speaking the truth? I’ve been typing since 5th grade and when I was playing around with a borrowed typewriter at that age, my mother said, “If you’re going to type, use the right fingers”. She showed me how to type properly, for the most part, and from there my speed just picked up a lot. I aced a keyboarding class my senior year of high school, where I was entered into a statewide typing competition. I came in third. I was struggling with the space bar on my IBM Selectric II that day. Later, when I went to college to become a music teacher, I had a harder time playing piano than I thought I would have. I can plunk out music but I can’t make people weep with beautiful tunes coming from a piano; I figure I used up all my keyboard-related bandwidth on learning how to type.

Because I type for a living I’m very picky about my choice of keyboard. To this day my favorite Mac keyboard was in my 2005 PowerBook with its aluminum keyboard. I loved that keyboard and I had a hard time adjusting to the newer keyboards introduced in later models. I’ve never owned a MacBook Pro with the “butterfly” keys, though my husband’s MBP had that type of keyboard. It’s comfortable to type on but it’s not particularly reliable and I don’t really get a pleasing experience while using it. But it gets the job done, I suppose.

Mechanical keyboards are awesome and lately I’ve been gravitating towards the Cherry Brown switches in the Velocifire keyboards found Amazon. I don’t need a number pad; I find the narrower footprint works better for when I’m using a mouse. I have two of these keyboards; one for work and one I hook up to my iPad Pro when I’m writing long prose (much like I’m doing right now). This particular keyboard is notably affordable on Amazon. Other mechanical keyboards can go for well over $100.00. That’s a lot of keyboard.

One of the things (of many) that drives me crazy about using work’s Windows 10 laptop is there is such a delay between key press and display on the screen. I’ve followed several online guides to remedy this, I’ve swapped out keyboards to see if it was related to the keyboard (it’s not), and I’ve noticed the same issue when using the built-in laptop keyboard on the computer. It’s one of the reasons I tend to use my personal Mac for work, in fact, I use the same exact keyboard on both computers and notice no lag on the Mac. It must be a Windows thing.

Of course, mechanical keyboards can be loud, though the Cherry Brown switches are not nearly as loud as the old IBM Model M keyboards from the 80s that endure to this day. How I’d love to get my hands on one of them again.

Meanwhile, I’m quite content with these Velocifire keyboards.

I love vintage computing. It’s amazing what we could do with computers around the time I was born, over 50 years ago. The computerization of business was in its infancy, and using computers with capabilities similar to today’s microwave oven.

Here’s a video about IBM’s Punched Card systems.

Image from vrfitness.com.

I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m really not a fan of fitness, especially a focused "working out" regimen. I find the practice mind numbing and exceedingly boring. Riding a bicycle, going for a walk, or getting exercise through natural means like hoisting lumber around the family lumber yard or slinging hay bales on an early summer day is fine, but when one is expected to do push ups or stare at four walls while yanking expensive slinkies, that is just not my jam.

My career entails sitting in front of a computer for many hours a day. I walk from time to time and I try to get "standing time" to make my Apple Watch happy. I’ve been doing push ups on a regular basis, and I will continue to do so, but again, mind numbing.

My husband and I bought ourselves an early Christmas present in a pair of Oculus Quest 2 VR headsets. I mentioned his headset on a blog entry a few weeks ago, we bought another headset which arrived this week.

I’ve been playing a lot of Beat Saber and my arms are killing me. My body feels more worked out than it has in the months since my last substantial bike ride. It’s a good burn and I’m enjoying the challenges of Beat Saber.

If you’re not familiar with the game, the player is in a neon 3D VR landscape with blocks and walls and the like flying directly at you in time with a music track. The idea is to hit all the blocks with light saber like devices, which are color-coded to the colors of blocks coming at you. Don’t hit the bombs, and don’t get run over by the walls.

To me it’s like the 21st century of "Super Breakout" on the Atari 2600. "Super Breakout" was one of my favorite games back in the day, followed closely by "Astroblast" and "Centipede".

I’m not a fan of shooter games or aiming guns at people in a VR scenescape, but the cardio workout around Beat Saber is a lot of fun and more importantly, mind engaging instead of mind numbing.

With multiple Oculus Quest 2 units in the household, my husband and I are able to play the game together. If the neighbors are watching across the alley, they see two middle aged guys swinging their arms in synchronized movement.

It’s a great way to get some exercise!

My husband took me out to dinner. We haven’t had a “date night” out since the beginning of the pandemic and with the abnormally beautiful weather in Chicago, it was a gorgeous night to sit at a sidewalk table in front of a restaurant and have a nice dinner together.

The approach to social distancing at restaurants here in Chicago involves quite a bit of technology and a couple of assumptions. Some restaurants are checking temperatures at the door. At the moment, no restaurants are allowed to have indoor dining; only open air dining is allowed as of last weekend. To avoid spreading COVID-19, restaurants have opted to skip hard copy menus and instead have posted QR codes at tables. Patrons scan the QR code with their smartphone and are then presented with the menu. Wait staff are now carrying handheld electronic devices to manage the order tableside. Everyone is wearing a mask. Sanitation is happening everywhere.

The handheld devices I’ve seen are branded “Toast”. An Android device, the mini tablets allows servers to have their own device and not rely on a shared touchscreen at a central station. No paperwork is shared between the servers and the kitchen. We did get a printed receipt, which had another QR code, which we could then use to pay directly on our smartphone.

Our current state of technology has allowed us to manage the pandemic fairly well from an economic point of view. Can you imagine if this pandemic had come along in the late 1990s and we were trying to do this with Windows 98 and dial modems? The country would have come to a grinding halt.

Like the Y2K scare and the advancement of technology at that time, I think one good thing the pandemic has brought has been a shove in a positive direction in regards to technology. The work place will never be the same. School kids will never have a snow day again, they can just switch to remote learning.

And we’ll be able to read our menus right on our smart devices.

From a 1982 commercial for Zayre Department Stores. I never did figure out where to buy a clear bathtub.

Apple officially released their new subscription service today. It’s called Apple One. It’s basically a package deal for their individual services like Apple TV+, Apple Music, Apple News, Apple Arcade, and iCloud. Their new service, Fitness+, will come before the end of the year, and it’s included in their “Premier” level of Apple One.

I subscribed us to Apple One Premier. It will save us a little over $5 a month vs the current subscriptions we have. Plus, we’ll be able to drop a couple of other subscription services, including Dropbox. Since we use Apple products, iCloud works just fine for us.

I’m excited about Fitness+. It’s a fitness program that works in concert with videos on various Apple devices and the fitness capabilities of the Apple Watch. I’m hoping it will inspire me to be a little more fitness minded during the dark, cold months of winter.

One can always hope.

So I’m learning how to play Beat Saber on our new Occulus Quest 2. Truman is apparently confused by this activity.

Like much of the United States, at one time telephone lines went along the railroad tracks that ran through the property of the house I grew up in. There were power lines as well, but they were active and tended by the local power company, Niagara Mohawk. The telephone lines had come down years before the house was built; I was in my early teens when I discovered the old poles lying in the woods adjacent to the tracks.

Many of the fallen poles still had their glass insulators on the crossbeams. Curiously, they were easy to screw off the pole; I collected several and brought them back to the house. When my dad saw them in the garage after one of my scavenger runs, he went out in the woods with me and helped me bring back more. I cleaned them up after school. Some were blue, some were green, some were clear glass.

Now here’s more proof that I was a very odd child, well on my way to my eccentric middle aged persona I carry today. I decided to use those glass insulators to string my own wires through the woods between the house and the railroad tracks. I was always fascinated with electricity, but probably more fascinated with anything that was connected to something else. So I grabbed numerous lengths of baling twine from the family farm across the street and ran baling twine on century old glass insulators installed on trees and my own crossbars made of scrap woods left over from the construction of the house. The baling twine ran for nearly three and a half acres. It would be several years before it would come down; there’s probably still glass insulators spread out in the woods behind the house. It wasn’t like I was building a workable tin can telephone system or stringing lights, I was just putting rope up in the trees. Tarzan would have a field day back there.

Once in a while I wonder if the new owners of the property come across any evidence of my idiosyncrasies. Detailed doorbell wiring instructions written on the floor joists in the basement. Make shift clocks made out of paper plates tacked to a closet wall. Baling twine tied to glass insulators and strung from tree to tree, limb to limb.

Oh well, it’s all part of my storybook.

In 1983 NBC featured a movie of the week called “High School, U.S.A.”. Apparently it was a pilot for a TV series that never came to fruition. The movie featured every “teen star” of the era, with every former “teen star” from the 50s or 60s as a teacher or other adult role. Here’s a cut and paste from IMDB:

I have absolutely no idea why this movie crossed my mind the other day but with the wonders of the Internet, I was able to watch this thing via YouTube. It’s as uneven in the 21st century as I remember it being back when I was a sophomore in high school.

Honestly, one of the things I remember from the movie is one of the high school seniors looked way too old for his role and he shaved with a straight razor. In 1983. That was very cool to me, though I had no idea why at the time. I could barely master my Dad’s Gillette Atra. It would be a couple of decades before I mastered the straight razor.

If you want to watch the full movie on YouTube, the best I can do is a Spanish dub.