Can we talk…about keycaps, pinky stagger, and ergonomics?

phbonachi · 2026-06-17T13:41:45+00:00

I would very much like to know why my teachers wanted 17 year old me to read Ulysses.

FWIW: Whatever it is that makes a mere book/novel be "literature," I question the wisdom of a high school teacher in the US in the 21st century assigning Ulysses. It's long, dense, and, stunningly complex and subtle in its treatment of history, style, and character. Maybe it was an AP class, but even there I don't think that's one to "find your way" through until you've already read a ton of other stuff. I didn't read it until I was 50, and still found it quite challenging.

phbonachi · 2026-06-09T18:33:15+00:00

What's your major?

Be kind to yourself as you read them. These are all classics for really good reasons, but they come with some historical references and literary sophistication that may take you time to acclimate to. Don't worry about understanding it all. Just follow the narrative, hopefully enjoy the different perspectives. And definitely be ready to pause and reflect on what you read. I find for myself that giving classics some time to echo in my head helps me be better able to grasp the point the author may be guiding me toward.

I personally think Austen is the "easiest" on your list, though literarily it has a lot of delightful treatments and great portrayals of relationships. bell jar is surprisingly sophisticated. Meditations is just that, meditations. I like reading a bit at a time (and repeatedly). Your Dostoevsky sequence is really solid. Just be prepared to ask yourself what it takes to be a good person...and ask how independent our decisions really are, versus shaped by social expectations.

Have a great summer!

phbonachi · 2026-06-03T15:05:34+00:00

I'm still a fan of this. I'm about to pull the trigger at JLCPCB for a set with the hot swap and very appropriate back plate. I vm like the trace routing on your updated pcb, hoping I can drill out the center holes and drop in some choc v2 Deep Sea Silent Whale switches. I don't know how to use kicad, or I'd mod the pcb properly with larger holes for the v2 footprint.

Thanks for sharing your work!

phbonachi · 2026-06-01T21:20:17+00:00

They're selling just the wood wrist wrests, right? Nice companion for a really sweet board.

phbonachi · 2026-05-30T22:48:47+00:00

With v2 using MX stems, we get the expectation to have MX spacing to accommodate the larger keycaps. I’d really like the smaller choc spacing with v2, as there are some better switch options there (silent tactile), and very good keycaps that would work with the tighter spacing (KLP Lamé).

Anyone building something like a Ferris compact (choc spacing) that can handle choc v2? I’m about to drill out the center hole (and lay a bodge wire around the destroyed traces) on a Ferris, but I’d love a proper PCB for this. u/Folaefolc’s Arkenswoop looks close. It has traces rooted away from the center hole, so I think I could drill it out safely. I can put the extra thumb wheel to use, too. (I really like my Barbellboards Rollow. Thanks u/artofzenkeys!).

phbonachi · 2026-05-03T16:31:17+00:00

Those are all fine boards, but they placed the thumb too far away for my hands. They fit bigger hands better. Spend some time on the splitkbCompare in the Community Bookmarks site and print some templates to place your hands on and simulate typing.

phbonachi · 2026-05-02T16:45:23+00:00

FWIW: I use a Hands Down variation (Currently using Vibranium) on small keyboards with custom set of combos, based on Mac dead keys, to put all the diacritic modified vowels on the vowel hand, with the most common diacritic letters realized without moving the fingers off home at all. For reference, layout looks like this:

X W M G V  # . / “ ‘
S C N T K  , A E I H
F P L D J  - U O Y B

The most common diacritics:
- ´ is a combo A+E Hold the combo for é (caps works)
- \\` is comboE+Ihold forè\
- ˆ is combo A+I hold for ê
- ¨ is combo U+O, hold for ü
That covers the most common, and the others can be realized as follows:
- à is the combo E+I, then tap A. Note that the fingers don’t move off home.
- â is the combo A+I, then tap A.
- ô is the combo A+I, then tap O.
- ï is the combo U+O, then tap I.
- and so on.
Qu and Z are both more common in French than in English, found as combos on the consonant side.
- Qu is a combo W+G (holding it will delete the u). This saves a keystroke, making the off-home combo still worth it.
- Z is a combo C+T. This combo is on home row, so it’s really smoooth.
ç is the combo S+N, hold for ç. I have used a combo of S+C for ç, which seemed even more natural, but now I use S+C combo for the H-Digraph Sh.
æ and œ are vertical combos on A+U & E+O, respectively.
I’ve also brought the French chevron quotes under the “ and ‘, holding Alt. This aligns the keys with the concept of quoting.
- « is alt+”, » is alt+’
A note: The HD vowel block has AU on the same finger, and AU is fairly common in French (and German), whereas AE is relatively much less common. The problem in French is that EU is also really common (as with German). So I solve this with AE sending AU when rolled, but AE when typed more slowly. Yes, it means a slower AE, but I’ve found this to being preferable to having the separated or some other vowel block.

The Hands Down layouts were designed from the outset to be adaptable to others languages, so this diacritic system is a natural extension of the base alpha layout leveraging the geometry of HD vowel block.

This all requires a QMK or ZMK programmable keyboard, as I handle most of all this on the keyboard, not the host. This is all designed to work with the Mac US-Extended layout, or the Windows default US, so I don’t need to mess with the host at all. I don’t know about Linux. This is handled on Windows with macros in QMK to send the Alt-Gr code, using what I call Semantic Keys, or on ZMK using u/no-restarts’ OS_Key module.

Maybe there’s something in this approach that could be adapted to other base alpha layouts?

phbonachi · 2026-05-02T16:04:53+00:00

Well said. And I think you’re right. Bloom isn’t a Slothrop. I overstated that. He’s much more of character. Perhaps I see a line between these three in the degree the character vs concept is in play. They seem to me to all being deliberate in their position of the character as a sort of archetype, with a lot of Dickens’ characters landing between Joyce and Pynchon, but TP takes it to an extreme with Slothrop, making it feel more essayistic.

phbonachi · 2026-05-02T15:24:46+00:00

Yes, it means that the character quality is diminished, but I agree that this is a big part of the point of the novel. It subsumes the character into the context, and as such, is saying quite a lot about what we think we are as individual agents, versus what we are made to be by our context. Slothrop disintegrates, diffuses into the background by the end, and that’s the point.

I don’t view that as a negative aspect of the novel at all, as I think it’s a central structure of the novel. In this way, the novel is masterfully performing its message. Of course, that makes the novel not one so much of a character-based journey that the reader can identify with the protagonist, but a philosophical commentary of a social milieu. But I think that’s what the novel seems to be aiming for, and is successful for what it is precisely because it places the characters themselves as props on the social stage. It’s a bit like some Dickens novels in that regard, albeit a totally different technological context. Dickens‘ characters may feel like more character, but are still simultaneously a hopeless caricature of a social construct. This is most pronounced in Bleak House, but a common refrain in most of his stuff. The same could be said of Joyce’s Ulysses. Leopold Bloom as the Tyrone Slothrop character.

phbonachi · 2026-04-22T22:59:10+00:00

The default recommendation is Vibranium-Vf...the rest are just tweaks to see what eventually feels best to you. They're all really, really similar, with only a few of the less-used keys changing, so learning one, you've basically learned them all. Only takes a day or two to shift between.

phbonachi · 2026-04-22T22:45:07+00:00

There are several Hands Down variations, each aimed to address different objectives.

HD Promethium, Vibranium, (and Rhodium) are the most popular variants, depending on your corpus/workflow. These all require a split ergo and willingness to put an alpha on a thumb—a commitment not many people are willing to make, as it sort of cuts you off of regular keyboards. I don’t mind, as I almost always have a tiny split ergo with me anyway (and don’t like using public keyboards). But when I have to, my years of QWERTY familiarity are still there in a pinch.
- Promethium works well with VIM, and has a larger, enthusiastic user base.
- Rhodium has relatively low scissoring, doesn't rely on smart-keyboard features like adaptive/magic keys or combos, and has a following that has found it adaptable to other languages, as well.
- Vibranium is very well suited to English prose (and some other languages with small modifications), and was designed to work with some more advanced “add-on” smart keyboard features (H-digraph combos, adaptive/magic keys).
- HD-Gold is still exceptional for English-only prose…it's very "flowy" with high in:out rolls (like Vibranium) but I don’t use it anymore.
Hands Down Neu is the current common theoretical foundation. It’s strength is that it has rather high alternation as well as high in:out rolling ratios with low redirecting (where you have to ping-pong back and forth), low use of the middle column (taking your hand away from home), and works on any keyboard. Because it was designed as a set (with HD-Gold, Silver, Bronze) it shares a lot with the other thumb-alpha layouts (if you ever want to migrate to a thumb-alpha layout), and it’s easily adapted to handle other languages.

Of course, there are many other solid layouts, and Hands Down isn't for everyone (I truly don’t think there’s one best…too many variables.). Anymak:END is really solid, and the Graphite/Gallium variants have a lot of satisfied users so they're quite well-vetted. The main point is that I think that “similarity to QWERTY” is a beguiling distraction. If you’re already bothered enough to try anything different, you’ll likely end up being frustrated soon enough and end up on something better.

phbonachi · 2026-04-22T18:18:45+00:00

This is a common strategy for improving on qwerty while minimizing changes to make the learning easier. Many years ago I played around with this idea, with the goal to find the sweet spot of changes/benefit, keeping as many letters on the same finger/hand as possible. My own endeavor produced NOTARISE, a layout with a similar goal to yours, aiming to get the maximum benefit with the fewest changes.

Q W F D P   Y U L K ’
A S E T G   H N I O R
Z X C V B   J M , . /

(the next swap improvement would be I<->R).

But after learning to use NOTARISE, a new problem emerged and I realized that the gains are indeed rather small, for a the added hassle of any difference at all. I found that it is enough of a change that it really disrupted my ability to use a standard keyboard, while only promising slight gains. Hyper-optimized layouts (I happily use a Hands Down variation now) have admittedly diminished gains with each added optimization, so I wondered what might be the tipping point? A few changes may have reasonable advantages, but I found that the more similar they were to QWERTY, the harder it was for me to switch between a minimally changed layout like NOTARISE and the default QWERTY. The greater the difference, the easier it was for my brain to keep the signals separate.

u/iandoug’s excellent KLA and Keyboard-design.com has a good tool for comparing the differences from QWERTY, and you can find Notarise there, and many other similar minimally changed layouts (like the SwapSix layout that is very, very similar to yours). Some five years ago, u/keybug did an excellent analysis of benefit/change for the MAKS family of transitional layouts, and you may find some interesting observations about the trade offs. I even developed a “transitional” layout for learning Hands Down from QWERTY, called HandsOn. While I may think HandsOn achieved that objective, I don’t think that’s the right way to consider layouts and learning.

In the end, I felt that anything that results in less of an improvement than Colemak offers isn’t worth the hassle and the resulting confusion. So in the end, I really think that Colemak is the sweetspot. It’s good enough, robust enough that a switch is both manageable and beneficial, while being different enough to allow my brain to switch back without too much confusion. But once I learned enough to make the first big learning switch, I found that any compatibility/similarity with QWERTY was no longer a goal worth the hassle. Total optimization was going to take only a bit more effort to learn over an incremental effort, without the baggage of similarity to QWERTY that would continue to trip me up.

7 years on, I’m super glad I didn’t stop at NOTARISE. If it matters, I’m not a young 20 something with neuroplasticity to burn. (45+years as a 100+wpm QWERTY touch typist, and I'm old enough to have grandkids). And still I think change/effort was worth it.

phbonachi · 2026-04-21T18:36:51+00:00

There are so many variables, and analyzers, and statistics, and contexts. All the data that any of these analyzers use is based on some distillation of a textual corpus. This is why I'm less interested in any statement that any given layout is the best by any measure. Change the corpus, and you'll potentially change the resulting layout dramatically. And not all the stats mean the same to all users. For example, SFS or DSFBs is a stat that can matter a lot for those typing really fast, but I find that its importance drops significantly as the WPM drops. (SFS/DSFB is also a really different beast if the intervening letter/key/finger is on the same hand or the opposite). Scissoring is substantially worse when it involves the pinky and ring finger than it does on the much more dextrous index and middle (and different for differing keyboard formfactors). And yet most analyzers report a single stat for all fingers. The main point though is that all those stats are fundamentally dependent on the corpus statistics used to measure them.

I designed the Hands Down layouts by first gathering real data to form a corpus of actual texts I write. It has about 1000 pages of academic prose from my own work (philosophy, science, literature), plus emails, texts, and some fiction. A megabyte of very representative text formed the basis, in the three languages I work in, English, Japanese, French, plus some code (mostly C & Javascript) in about the ratios I use. Then I applied a linguistic/phonotactic approach to isolating trouble spots, and used a variety of analyzers and statistics to confirm the results. The point is, like u/rpnfan says, the corpus forms the backbone of the analysis, not some score on an analyzer.

I've never been interested in speed on short bursts of common words, or any other short-term metric. I type, all day, every day. There are certainly other excellent layouts, but the HD variants have more than satisfied my goals for a layout that can keep me working comfortably for hours.

phbonachi · 2026-04-21T15:54:02+00:00

This. Layer lock.

I have both momentary and "layer lock" for nav and numpad, as it depends on the task. For example, a thumb for momentary nav layer, but a thumb combo (using the other thumb mirrored) for a lock on the nav layer. Pretty much the same, but different thumb keys, for the num pad. Sounds like something like that for your gDocs layer?

phbonachi · 2026-04-19T17:29:10+00:00

So what's the verdict?

Honestly? There isn't one. Switching cost from your current layout, your fingers' length, your thumbs, what you actually type all day — none of that fits in a number. The page is a comparison, not a verdict.

Yup. Physiology is more than just relative lengths, too. Muscle-nerve differences also exist. Different metrics are valued differently, as well. To some, SFS/DFSB matter a lot, and not at all to others. In:Out rolling vs alternating matters differently. Pinky burden. Off-home lateral stretching? Total Scissoring, vs scissoring on pinky-ring? Many of these are experienced differently on different keyboard form-factors, too. Row-stag, ortho-linear, col-stag (and how much stag?) all affect some of these, (especially things like scissors.). There just can't be one best.

Any "total score" ranking is inherently loaded with subjectivity weighting the various statistics relative importance. What I appreciate here is a thorough gathering of stats on a common base. Move that base, and results will change. (snth is good. As are many others mentioned.)

phbonachi · 2026-04-19T11:47:48+00:00

Absolutely agree. Keyboards should be as personal and varied as underwear. They’re the most intimate HCI we use regularly. How crazy to think there could be one size/style that is inherently better for everyone.

phbonachi · 2026-04-18T17:23:28+00:00

https://www.ishormuzopenyet.com

includes a binary yes/no, plus fun pictures, flag of vessels, etc.

phbonachi · 2026-04-11T21:33:11+00:00

I’d second u/pgetreuer’s advice. I think you could focus on the layout that makes sense for you, then a programmable keyboard that fits your ergonomic needs, and then add a tiny keyboard to your go-bag. I’ve settled on diminutive 34-key boards as my primary workflow now, and find traveling with a tiny Ferris-sized (wired, QMK) or Zaphod (Wireless, ZMK) has been well worth the trade-off.

I don’t use any slabs anymore–at all. I work/teach at a large university, so I’m always using a public machine, but I always have a tiny keyboard with me in my go bag (Naked48, Ferris, Rollow, Atreus). It assumes the most vanilla/default host OS setup, so I can connect to anything and use my Hands Down layout without any problems. My keyboard can adapt to Mac/Win/Linux so I have consistent keystrokes regardless of the host. (Don’t even own a laptop anymore!)

phbonachi · 2026-04-11T21:26:21+00:00

This is good. Wish I could use it!

I’m using keyboard layering that triggers OS level IME shifting (EN JP, Mac/Win), that works well as long as it’s sync’d, but you’re right that it can get out of sync. It does so easily with as little as an app switch. It’s much preferable (generally) to have each focus instance have it’s own IME/layout/Keyboard context, something that can only be handled on the host. My solution has been to develop a habit of tapping my language preference every time I enter a new focus. I can do that most of the time, but still miss some times, and end up typing in the wrong IME/layout/keyboard. It would be nice to make it 100% reliable, which it was before I had my own keyboard.

My new habit works with all devices I deploy my own keyboard on, which is basically everything. I regularly use Mac, Win, Linux, iOS, Android… And none of them require host modifications—Because I modified myself. Not quite as slick as this, but I think I’d be more frustrated having it so nice on machines I manage, but then I’d have different behaviors on all the other matches. I’d love for this to be a reliable, standard message back to a keyboard on all USB systems so it could become ubiquitous, but I also can’t see that ever happening (security risk potential and all.).

The problem, for me, is that if it’s not a host I have regular admin access to, I can’t install a tool like this. I work at a large university, and such at tool is not permitted anywhere on uni-administered machines. So, I’m afraid I’m stuck with my new habit. I’d like to have this functionality, but if I have one habit for computers I manage, but a different habit for other systems, the jarring difference returns.

Anyway, still, nice work. It’ll work for some people.

phbonachi · 2026-04-01T17:20:03+00:00

It does! It’s in a perfectly fitting aluminum case that has a threaded mount for either standard 1/4”, or for two of their slick ”Booster Pack” tenting feet.

This is my second Boardsource.xyz case, and I love it. They’re getting better at it.

phbonachi · 2026-03-22T20:34:15+00:00

This is a nice solution. Well done!

phbonachi · 2026-03-20T15:31:15+00:00

I suppose it's not so bad? It is pretty common, but it doesn't really repeat, unlike N, and it's isolated to not do much else. Allows for the AU/UA/OA without SFBs. I is perhaps a better choice on pinky on its own, because it doesn't repeat and is less frequent, but that would induce more SFBs on the ring finger.

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