The comments on yesterday's post (the post below this) are particularly excellent—all of them, not just the few I featured. Just a tip that you might want to block out a little time to go through some of them. And gracias to those who chimed in.
Wednesday's "Open Mike" posts got almost as much traffic as the #1 post of the past five or six weeks, which was the political post on the day after the election. (Best joke I've heard on that score: Great Britain has dropped the "Great" in its name and will henceforth be known simply as "Britain," and The United States has dropped the "United" and from now on will be known as "The States of America." Thanks to the reader who passed that along.) I always get complaints when I go off topic, but those posts pull in readers.
I've bought a mechanical keyboard because of an odd problem: my new monitor has an extending stand, so I raise it up higher (a big relief)...but now it's farther away from the keyboard, and I never realized that the monitor was helping to illuminate the keyboard at night. Since I'm a hunt-and-peck typist and basically terminally clumsy (seriously, I test with unusually low manual dexterity) I sometimes need to see certain keys. I bought a Deck 87-key Francium Pro because it has lighted keys. It's got nice build quality and great action. It uses Cherry MX Brown switches, my favorite Cherrys. I might add O-rings to it. But like most keyboards it seems too small—about 3/4 size compared to what I would like. I guess I have big hands. Were keyboards standardized to fit women's hands, back in the Mad Men days when women were only allowed to be secretaries, teachers, or nurses, and men weren't taught to type? An oddity is that the letters on the keys don't light up completely—in the dark, the E looks just like the F, for example, because the lowest arm* doesn't get much light. Oh well, I guess I know where the E key is. Deck is headquartered in Racine, Wisconsin, near where I used to live.
By the way this is my new favorite thing. Or one of the many similar ones on offer from many sources. Makes the biggest difference I've experienced in years. From now on it's SSDs in the computer and conventional hard drives for external storage and backup for me.
Looks like we are not going to have our Beautiful Bokeh print sale in time for delivery by Christmas. The choices have been made but the photographer is a printing perfectionist and has been working for days to get the prints just right. Better to do it right than fast, right? I think I'll plan it for the first five days in January. TOP is never right up to the moment with anything else (reviews, news, commentary, obituaries), so that fits okay. Both pictures were made with the Sony A7rII mirrorless camera and hard-to-find old lenses beloved of bokeh connoisseurs. Ravishingly gorgeous. Oddly, I think these work both at a superficial level (decor) and at the geeky photo-dawg level and at the subtle and profound art-lover level. Those of you who are fans of color photography are going to love these.
Next up right now—book reviews! By Geoff. (Yay.) I hope to have them up by 5:00 or 6:00. Please check back in a couple of hours.
Mike
(Clip art image by Cliparts.co)
P.S. The reason I wrote "LOOK AT THIS!" down below the small print is that in the last three days, five people have emailed me to ask where the tip jar page or the affiliate links page are.
*That's the technical calligraphic/typographic term for a horizontal stroke that is attached at one end and free on the other.
Original contents copyright 2016 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
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"Both prints were made with..." A camera? A little more editing needed?
Posted by: Michael Kellough | Friday, 09 December 2016 at 10:27 AM
The greatness of Britain only refers to its size compared with the other Britain/Bretagne/Brittany.
Posted by: Richard Parkin | Friday, 09 December 2016 at 10:33 AM
Re: lighting your keyboard.
I picked up a few small LED tap lights that I stuck to the bottom of the computer monitor and which now light up my keyboard at night so I can see to type. Works like a charm, for about $3.99.
Posted by: cfw | Friday, 09 December 2016 at 11:22 AM
I know it's a joke, but I'll point out that Great Britain is not the name of a country; it is a geographical name not a political one. It is the name of an island--the one that contains England, Scotland, and Wales. The island is called Great Britain because it is the largest of the British Isles.
The country is called the United Kingdom. That is short for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Named because it unites the regions of the largest island of the British Isles with the northern region of the second largest island of the British Isles.
Perhaps the Joke should have both countries dropping the "United" from their names, but that wouldn't be as funny.
Posted by: Scott | Friday, 09 December 2016 at 11:28 AM
Dear Mike,
Though the joke may be amusing to some,the use of 'Great Britain' is used to denote the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland', where the 'Great' portion refers to the geographical landmass and nothing else.
Just to help our Colonial Cousins and those whose knowledge of geography may make them unfamiliar with the term.(BIG Smiley!)
Regards,
David
Posted by: David Millington | Friday, 09 December 2016 at 01:04 PM
In tune with dropping "United" from USA, maybe we should change it to the "Great States of America". After all, isn't that what Mr. Trump is supposed to accomplish?
Posted by: Rick Wilcox | Friday, 09 December 2016 at 03:45 PM
WHAT Beautiful Bokah print sale? (I've had company and been away from my computer for several days -- was there a print sale?)
Posted by: Bill Mitchell | Friday, 09 December 2016 at 04:01 PM
Agree on your new favorite thing. Last spring for about $260 I added a 1 TB SSD (from Crucial
http://www.crucial.com/ProductDisplay?urlRequestType=Base&catalogId=10151&categoryId=&productId=1283501&urlLangId=-1&langId=-1&top_category=&parent_category_rn=&storeId=10151)
to my 13" 2012 MacBook Pro, adding to my already fully upgraded RAM (also from from Crucial). It gave new life, new speed and a lot more photo editing capacity to an aging laptop. I see now that a 2 TB SSD is available for $500.
Posted by: D.C. Wells | Friday, 09 December 2016 at 04:22 PM
Thank you, gamers, for helping keep quality mechanical keyboards on the market. And for more kinds of ergonomic mouses (mice?).
I may have asked this before, Mike, but is it possible to provide a smile.amazon link as well as the regular amazon link on your "buy through TOP page"?
Posted by: robert e | Friday, 09 December 2016 at 04:53 PM
Mike asked, "Were keyboards standardized to fit women's hands, back in the Mad Men days when women were only allowed to be secretaries, teachers, or nurses, and men weren't taught to type?"
My great uncle, who was born about 130 years ago, was a secretary at Union Carbide because only men were taught to type back in his day. Or so I've been told. Wikipedia doesn't agree.
My great uncle's brother (my grandfather) had a portable typewriter that he took on business trips. By train.
By the way, the women in my family who were not nurses were doctors and engineers -- the stories they told!
Posted by: Speed | Friday, 09 December 2016 at 05:26 PM
...back in the Mad Men days when women were only allowed to be secretaries, teachers, or nurses, and men weren't taught to type?
I graduated from high-school, in the southern part of California, way-back in the late 1950s—many of the male students, at my school took typing class. This is just another example of cultural differences between the eastern and western parts of the USA. I spent some time in the east, courtesy of both the USArmy and Hollywood, and I always felt that I was visiting a foreign country.
Have you heard of#CalExit? http://www.yescalifornia.org They support California seceding from the USA—The Republic of California, what a good idea 8-)
A Pro keyboard, who knew? Is it a Magic Bullet, like a full-frame-pro-body-camera 8-)
Posted by: c.d.embrey | Friday, 09 December 2016 at 06:00 PM
The U.K. will henceforth stand for the untied kingdom.
Posted by: hugh crawford | Friday, 09 December 2016 at 07:27 PM
Amazing! The one thing you should really highlight in each post (the "Look at this!" at the bottom) and you don't have a hand pointing at it... how else are you going to afford your keyboard habit?
[Hey, good idea. I'll try it next week. --Mike]
Posted by: MarkB | Friday, 09 December 2016 at 07:57 PM
You might take a look at keyboards designed for the visually impaired. Our library has a setup for such persons. I like the keyboard because the keys are yellow with black lettering. They are easy to read. I hate black keyboards with white lettering. The white will wear down to a grey, or they get dirty. In low light they are always hard to read. See Here:
https://www.amazon.com/Ezsee-Vision-Keyboard-Yellow-Ergoguys/dp/B003EGY6Y8
Posted by: Mathew Hargreaves | Friday, 09 December 2016 at 08:34 PM
MarkB makes a good point (haha!). People who don't see your likes are possibly reading in RSS and there the simple text links don't stand out so a graphic would be handy ;-)
Posted by: Richard Parkin | Saturday, 10 December 2016 at 05:14 AM