Bradley M. KühnJan 16

Along with getting a NovaCustom laptop (discussed elsewhere) — in part b/c I didn't like the keyboard — I switched to traveling w/ an external keyboard. I chose the #HappyHacking Studio model which has a “pointer stick” (similar to a #TrackPoint). I like it enough I've replaced my very old #HHKB (3 models since discontinued) w/ Studio on the desk.

I do find my finger occasionally hits the stick when typing words w/ those nearby letters. I'm not sure how big the problem is, so I #AskFedi …(1/2)

Show threadBradley M. KühnJan 16
(2/2) …I wanna know how often “pointer stick” (similar to #TrackPoint) is hit on my #HHKB Studio by accident while typing quickly. Catching my error rate will be hard across applications, but perhaps I could measure how often the stick moves pointer a tiny bit after a flurry of typing, which would of course be followed by a tiny but measurable stop in typing (& often backspace presses). I'm familiar w/ `xev` on #Xorg as a method to collect the data, but how hard would it be to analyze?
#AskFedi
Show threadBradley M. Kühn
(1/3) Thanks @jannem & @paulv for replying 2 months ago re: my problem of trying to figure out “how bad is my #HHKB Trackpoint messing with my ability to type ‘g’s & ‘b’s (QWERTY)”. I didn't have time to pursue any of my “data gathering” ideas, & I hadn't been noticing the problem again until this week — when I have not been getting much sleep (just like back in January 🤔). Apparently, the precision of my typing goes down *juuust* enough when I am sleep-deprived that this becomes a problem.
Mar 3 at 5:05pmWeb
Show threadBradley M. KühnMar 3

(2/3) On days I've had enough sleep, I've noticed that simply moving the keyboard angle slightly tends to let me type for hours without the “bump” with the trackpoint occurring.

Meanwhile, to @jannem's point re: replacing the nub: again the #HHKB folks come through! they clearly designed the specs so that standard #Thinkpad nubs fit it, & having used exclusively Thinkpads from 2001–2025, I have enough different nubs of different shapes & sizes all over my house to last a lifetime!

Cc:@paulv

Show threadBradley M. KühnMar 3

(3/3) Finally,on days like today when I'm so sleepy that my fingers are sloppily flying around the keyboard: if I'm working at my desk I can *just take the nub off and use an external pointing device*.

That doesn't slow me down much at all since I do so little on with the pointing device anyway as my window manager, shell, & Emacs are completely keyboard driven & that's ≈80% of my usage. (I need to get one of those keyboard-driven browsers going — then it'd be ≈96%!)

Cc: @jannem @paulv

#HHKB