Welcome everyone to the 238th edition of the Weekly Head Voices, this one covering the week from Monday, January 31 to Sunday, February 6, 2022.
I would like to get you started with some flowers, after which there is a possibly boring bit about improving my keyboard, followed by a final bit with a quote which I think is a bit more than just a two-bit quote.
Figure 1: Photo taken by GOU #1 at Vergelegen Wine Estate during a solidly Thing-level (see WHV #237) Sunday lunch with my inner inner circle.
Womier K87 keyboard: Customization unlocked!
You might remember from WHV #235 that I was quite happy with my new Varmilo VA87m mechanical keyboard and that I was also quite surprised to learn that I might prefer linear switches over tactile, thanks to the super smooth Cherry MX Speed Silver switches.
Furthermore, its stabilisers were exceptionally smooth, and quiet. It taught me that one did not have to live with rattly stabilisers.
As is often the case with new knowledge, this made me re-evaluate my relationship with my other keyboard, the Womier K87 (aka “RGB-with-unicorns”), which was introduced here in WHV #204.
You see, that board came with both tactile switches (Gateron browns), and with rattly stabilisers.
… and so it came to pass that I ordered 90 Cherry MX Red switches from Ctrl.Shift.Esc, as well as a super cheap (R109 when I ordered, it seems the price has just doubled!) 100g tube of SPANJAARD silicone paste.
The red switches are quintessentially linear. They have a more conventional actuation distance of 2mm versus the perhaps too-quick-for-me 1.2mm of the speed silvers.
Plus, they were in stock.
I selected the SPANJAARD silicone paste as a cheap local alternative after reading more than I ever wanted to know about lubricants and greases for respectively the switches themselves and the stabilisers.
(I’m just kidding, this is exactly the sort of thing I love knowing everything about.)
On the evening of Monday, January 31, our dinner table looked like this:
Figure 2: Brown switches out, reds are in. I kept those three browns top right for comparison. The white cap puller was much faster for me than the wire one above the keycaps.
Shortly after that, I was typing on the “new” board, entirely unconvinced that the switch (haha) had been worthwhile.
As I’m typing this, it’s a more than a week later, and I am now entirely convinced.
Based on how they feel, and an improvement of my typing speed and accuracy on these switches relative to brown, I am hereby joining team linear!
With regard to the rattly stabs: On February 2 I removed the spacebar, backspace and return keys, disassembled the stabilisers, and coated the wire ends in as much silicone paste as I could. Although not quite at Varmilo levels, the three respective stabilisers have improved massively, and have convincingly crossed my satisfaction threshold.
Live deep and suck out all the marrow of life
I used to encourage friend PK, and probably others (and probably most often just myself), but he usually just got it, with the following: “Please remember to squeeze out every last drop from that experience”.
There was a distinctly visual, almost palpable, element to this wish.
You have to imagine somehow grabbing the moment in question, and then wringing it out like a wet towel to extract every last iota of juicy experience.
As I’m desperately scrambling here for the right words to describe precisely the intention, you can image how happy I was to run into the following quote by Henry David Thoreau just the other day:
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms… – Henry David Thoreau (ref)
(I just spent some time on Thoreau’s wikipedia page. It turns out it was not just this quote, he was an impressive human.)
Folks, remember to squeeze out every last drop from your experience!