411: Bad At Being Good At Computers

Bad At Being Good At Computers

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[00:00:03] Welcome and Introductions

[00:00:03] Brett: Hey, it’s Overtired. You’re here. It’s like two weeks in a row for us. That’s, that’s a, that’s a record as of recently. I’m Brett Terpstra. I’m here with Christina Warren and Jeff Severins Gunsel. Welcome to the show, guys.

[00:00:19] Jeff: Thank you! It’s really great to be here. Thank you for having me.

[00:00:22] Brett: Yeah, yeah, welcome. Welcome.

[00:00:25] Merchandise Announcement

[00:00:25] Brett: Um, so right off the bat, I want to mention because I’ve forgotten for the last two episodes that we now have merch. And Uh, it’s sel it’s sold through Sellfy and the easiest way to get there is to go to bit. ly slash ot merch. Um, that’s a special short URL I made just for you.

[00:00:50] Brett: Uh, there will be a link in the show notes. Uh, you can get a A Get Some Sleep Jeff tote, you can get an overtired pillow, [00:01:00] you can buy all the t shirts, there’s a, there’s a university, an overtired university logo, um, it, it, take a look, it’s fun, it’s fun stuff, you can get any of the designs, which there are only a few right now, and I made them, uh, Kind of all on one day.

[00:01:17] Brett: Uh, so I need to, I need to revisit, come up with some better designs, but like the straight up logo,

[00:01:24] Jeff: It’s fun.

[00:01:25] Brett: um, all of the, all of the, uh, weird, weird patterns I’ve made, you can get them on t shirts. Um, Baseball shirts, hoodies, tank tops, pillows, coffee mugs, uh, tote bags.

[00:01:41] Jeff: There’s a thong, but the print is so small that you can’t quite read it, but

[00:01:45] Brett: There’s a thong. I didn’t even realize there was a thong. I, I should probably remove that because none of our designs would fit on a thong.

[00:01:52] Jeff: yeah, no, I thought the font was way

[00:01:54] Brett: Also, I wouldn’t want to see that.

[00:01:56] Christina: Yeah, I wouldn’t either, although

[00:01:58] Jeff: would not get some [00:02:00] sleep.

[00:02:00] Christina: so no, somebody did want to send me, I don’t remember what this was now, because it was gross. It was creepy. Somebody sent me something that was printed on a thong from one of these sites for, for some random thing. And so I, I received it in the mail and I was like, This is underwear I’m never gonna wear.

[00:02:14] Christina: I, I, I know, like, I, I, I know the intention behind this or whatever it was. It was that you thought this was funny and you thought that, like, I’d be the type of person who would, like, not be offended by it. And I wasn’t offended by it, to be clear, but I was still, like, I’m still not putting this on my body.

[00:02:29] Christina: I’m still not putting this, you know, up my ass. Like, this is not happening.

[00:02:33] Brett: How many times have I said

[00:02:35] Jeff: Yeah,

[00:02:36] Christina: I mean, I was gonna

[00:02:37] Jeff: how I judge all objects.

[00:02:39] Christina: Right.

[00:02:39] Brett: I put this up my

[00:02:40] Jeff: put that up my ass.

[00:02:43] Christina: This episode is sponsored today. Bye.

[00:02:45] Brett: the Tesla truck. I would not put that up my ass.

[00:02:48] Jeff: We both went for Tesla right away. How did we get so

[00:02:50] Christina: That’s so funny. That’s hysterical.

[00:02:54] Brett: Um.

[00:02:55] Mental Health Corner

[00:02:55] Brett: Yeah, so, uh, quick, uh, mental health check [00:03:00] in, um, I guess I always kick it off these days. Um, mine’s pretty short, I, I miss Manic Episodes, I have been stable for, Jesus, like a year now, and And I kind of missed the rush of like creativity and productivity I get with a manic episode. But that being said, I’ve created some stuff in the last year that is pretty, um, creative.

[00:03:32] Brett: And I, I think I write better code when I’m stable and well, it’s weird because when I’m manic, I’ll like find a new design pattern for like, for, for code and I will be like, all right, I’m going to learn this new pattern by writing an entire app using it and, and I’ll just do it and like, I learned stuff really fast that way, but when I’m stable, I work with patterns I know well.

[00:03:59] Brett: [00:04:00] And. And I write solid code that’s easily maintainable and, uh, probably better. I think I mostly miss the general, uh, feeling like I’m always on cocaine. Feeling that I get from a manic episode, but I consider changing my meds to like back to like Focalin, which always triggered manic episodes for me. Um, but I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t know how to explain that to my psychiatrist.

[00:04:32] Brett: I would, I would like to be less stable,

[00:04:34] Christina: Hi, I would like to be high, please. I would like, I would like, I would like to, I would like to trigger manic episode. I don’t think there’s a way you can, you can, like, stay, No, I, I don’t think there’s way you can be honest and say like, what you want there without him, like very understandably being like, absolutely not.

[00:04:51] Christina: Um, yeah,

[00:04:52] Brett: Yeah. I

[00:04:53] Jeff: I mean, you could do the Sunday morning coming down version, where you also get the medications you need to shut it off, which don’t [00:05:00] exist.

[00:05:00] Brett: Um, yeah. So anyway, that’s my mental health check in. Otherwise I’m good.

[00:05:05] Jeff: Nice. Uh, I can go. I don’t, I also have, I’m not, yeah, I’m not even sure what, what. To say, I’ve actually, I’ve just been kind of, things have been moving so fast that I, when I stopped to think about what I’d say, I was like, I don’t even know. I’m doing fine making it, but it’s like a lot happening. So probably I’m lacking a little bit of spaciousness.

[00:05:26] Jeff: Although I have to say, I have to say, I, I have, I have returned to something that I stopped for a long time, which is very short. Naps in the middle of the day. So just before recording, I’ve been working all morning and in meetings and stuff, and it was just like, Oh God. And so I went down with like 20 minutes left before we started recording.

[00:05:45] Jeff: And for 15 minutes, I I’m capable of just like falling almost immediately into a sleep and like just getting the chemicals released and getting calm. And so if I do 15 or 20 minutes and I get up, it is. Such an improvement in my, [00:06:00] um, mental state. And so maybe that’s my check in is I did one of those before coming in here and I think I am a totally different presence because of it.

[00:06:07] Brett: I slept, I slept 20 minutes. I got up five minutes before I logged into Riverside. I do that. I, I, I think I’ve always done that

[00:06:16] Jeff: Yeah. I used to, I did it.

[00:06:17] Brett: when I’m manic and I just can’t sleep.

[00:06:19] Jeff: I it’s only in the last year that I stopped doing it. I’ve done it forever. Um, so it’s just nice to return to that and be like, Oh, I love that. Uh, so yeah, that’s me, I guess.

[00:06:29] Brett: very refreshing. How you doing Christina?

[00:06:34] WWDC Plans and Reflections

[00:06:34] Christina: I’m doing good. Um, I’m gonna be going to ww DC next week. Um, well, okay. I’m not, like, apple did not give me a, a ticket. Um, they, they will not allow me. Um, I’m, yeah. At the spaceship. Um, I, uh, I guess I’m not, um, on their influencer list anymore. Uh, no. I, I, I wouldn’t expect to be. It’s fine. Um, but, um. A lot of other people are going to be in town, and so I’m going to be just uh, staying with them, a friend, [00:07:00] and then just kind of hanging out, um, and seeing people.

[00:07:02] Christina: And so I’m really excited about that, because this is like one of the times of years where we get to see all of our people, whether you’re

[00:07:08] Brett: that’s what we used to do it with 2L. We used to go and we, we didn’t have, we, we couldn’t get in. We, do you remember the keynote before they started way before, like the days of streaming and we would send. A bug, like inside and we would sit outside with a pair of headphones and like, and like live blog the keynote

[00:07:32] Christina: Yep.

[00:07:32] Brett: and it was, and the wifi was shit.

[00:07:35] Brett: So

[00:07:35] Christina: The Wi Fi was

[00:07:36] Brett: dropping out.

[00:07:37] Christina: God, I remember, I remember at one event that I was at one year, I think it was the iPhone 4 event. I don’t remember what it was, but I remember Steve Jobs screaming at everyone to turn off their Wi Fi because it was messing up with the demos. And I, I did not turn my Wi Fi

[00:07:52] Jeff: We don’t work for you, motherfucker.

[00:07:54] Christina: no, that’s how I was.

[00:07:55] Christina: I was like, I was like, thank you for inviting me, Apple, and thanks for making this a [00:08:00] thing. I am absolutely not turning my Wi Fi off under no circumstances. I was like, I’m live blogging because that’s the only reason I’m able to be here, is because I think it was at Mashable at the time, but I’ll never forget that I’m like yelling at everybody to like turn their Wi Fi off, and I was like, yeah, I get it.

[00:08:14] Christina: Um, No.

[00:08:16] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:08:17] Brett: Moscone just did not have the capacity for that, for an, for an event of that caliber, uh, with that many nerds, everyone with a laptop. Everyone, you know, trying to like manically blog about what was happening.

[00:08:35] Christina: in fairness to Moscone, I mean, like, literally, Twitter didn’t have the capacity. Like, Twitter used to go down during WWDC things. Like, Twitter would go down, like, reliably. Um, to the point that, like, we would always have, like, a post prepared. And so, uh, it was one of those things where I was just like, I was like, yeah, no, I, I, I understand.

[00:08:55] Christina: This is not going to be a thing that, uh, um, you [00:09:00] Anyway, um, memories. But yeah, so I’ll be at DubDub, which will be really fun. But, um, I won’t be at DubDub, but I’ll, but I’ll, but I’ll be in the area. So that’s, that’s kind of my, my heads up.

[00:09:10] Workshop Preparation Stress

[00:09:10] Christina: Um, I, I, with, I was informed, I will also, this is the only thing that’s a little annoying.

[00:09:15] Christina: So I’ll be in San Jose for like a week and that’ll be great. And then I’ll be back home for like a week and then I have to go back to San Francisco for like a week. Um, because I thought, I thought, I thought that I was going for, well, it’s just. I thought I was going to be going in for like one or two days, um, for, for an event.

[00:09:36] Christina: And then it turned out to be a much bigger thing. Um, the, the, the, the team that asked me, like it, it winds up being a much, much bigger thing than it was. And so I also have to come up with potentially three hours. I’m hoping that it’s only 90 minutes, but it’s potentially three hours of workshop content for something that’ll be happening in two and a half weeks.

[00:09:57] Christina: So wish me luck on that.

[00:09:59] Jeff: [00:10:00] Wow, yeah, good luck.

[00:10:01] Brett: Oracle always asks me if I want to do workshops, but no, I. I have avoided it thus far. I bet you’re better at it than I am.

[00:10:12] Christina: I’m not, I mean, I don’t, I don’t mind doing them. The thing here is I’m like, I don’t know if I have enough content. Like when they first told me, they’re like, Oh, well you can break it to power where you want. And I was like, yeah, I’m going to have to, cause I don’t have a three hour workshop in me. Like I’m not a teacher, you know what I mean?

[00:10:24] Christina: Like, that’s, that’s a lot. And honestly, that’s, that’s a lot even for the audience, right? Like, I don’t know anybody who really wants to be in there for that long. Like. I certainly don’t. So I’m splitting this up with some, uh, with a guy and we have some other content, but no, but this has just been a thing where I’m like, I’m like, how much content do I have?

[00:10:40] Christina: Right. And then you always have to think about like, okay, well how much is this is going to be like set up on the, you know, the getting started aspect and the troubleshooting and the other aspect, you know? So there’s. There’s stuff you have to build into that too. That’s always the hard thing about these events.

[00:10:53] Christina: Like it’s one thing if you can kind of set the expectation that everybody is going to come and they’re going to have like a GitHub account that is not [00:11:00] brand new. When it is, that can cause problems. And then I have to escalate things and I can, but you know, that is an issue. And then, you know, having to get coupons for things to work and then just making sure like, okay, but then how much content do we really have?

[00:11:12] Christina: And, and are the demos all going to work? And I don’t know, I’m stressing out about that a little bit, to be honest. So my mental health corner. I’m excited about, uh, seeing people next week and hanging out. And I’m also a little bit stressed about the thing that I have coming up on the 25th because, um, you know, it’s just, again, stuff that was sort of dropped in my, my lap and I’m like, I’m going to be able to be good and it’s going to be good and I’m happy to do it.

[00:11:37] Christina: Um, it’s just, uh, it’s just more than, um, I was expecting and, and frankly, what I was like initially told, and that’s not my team’s fault at all. Like they’re amazing. This kind of caught everybody off guard. Um, but those are the things that happen sometimes and these are the only areas just to, I guess, take it back to Mental Health Corner for a little bit and kind of our show, like I, I think a lot about the fact that. [00:12:00] Okay, how do I frame this? I, I think I oftentimes think about my ADHD and my depression and like my other, you know, like, uh, uh, neurodivergent, uh, features. And, and I think about like the negative impact that it has had on my life. Uh, and, and there are definitely, Many, many negative aspects and I, and I wouldn’t, um, ever say like, Oh, it’s my secret weapon or this or that.

[00:12:25] Christina: Cause like, fuck you. If I had the ability to just be completely normal, like have my brain work as it’s supposed to, I would take that in a second. Right. Maybe I wouldn’t be as creative. Maybe I would lose some other je stuff. Who’s to say, but I would absolutely prefer to not be ADHD.

[00:12:40] ADHD and Deadline Management

[00:12:40] Christina: Having said that, the only way that I think that I can cope with things like finding out that something that you thought was going to be a 15 minute talk and maybe some booth duties turning into something that might be three hours long about, you know, uh, topics that you have, how well versed I am in them, I’ll, I’ll be ready in, in two [00:13:00] weeks, but like, we’re not there yet is I think like, Being ADHD.

[00:13:04] Christina: Like, I, I think that is definitely a, an area where I can 100 percent say that if I was somebody who did not have my brain, I’d be way more stressed about this. But this is kind of, if anything, like the time when like, to your point about manic episodes brought, like, I certainly, I’ve never had a manic episode and I don’t know what that would be like, but there is like a certain high that I can get when like, okay, it’s crunch time.

[00:13:24] Christina: Like, I have like deadline, you know, high, you know what I mean? When you’re like, okay, we have to make this work. It’s everybody, everything’s coming together really hot and we got to

[00:13:32] Brett: ADHD time to shine.

[00:13:35] Christina: Totally, totally. And it is. And so that’s, that’s kind of a, it’s a good reminder in some cases. We’re like, yeah, this is a debilitating thing and it’s not great.

[00:13:44] Christina: A lot of the times, um, Um, and we make it work and we have to make things work around ourselves and find ways to do things, but there are times, like you said, like the ADHD time to shine and, you know, deadlines were like that, you know, journalism in general was like that, but also things like finding out, [00:14:00] okay, you know, Can you just pull a three hour workshop out of your ass? Yes. Yes, I can. You know?

[00:14:08] Brett: My, uh, my performance review is next week. And when I was going through the like goal system where you have to like input your goals and everything, um, I realized that all of my accomplishments for the last quarter were assignments that were given to me with like a two hour, They’re like, Hey, we need you to fix this.

[00:14:31] Brett: Hey, here’s, uh, here’s 10 minutes of shitty video. Can you turn this into a polished two minute, uh, presentation, like with exciting video and, and that, yeah, that’s my time to shine. I’ve got two hours and I’ve got a bunch of just crap to work with and I have to make it. I had to make it pretty and make it fun and make it exciting.

[00:14:53] Brett: And yeah, um, you give me a, I had to write a four part [00:15:00] series on the command line interface for OCI. And I worked on it for like two months because there was no deadline. They’re just like, we think this would be a cool article. And I just kept like, kind of plugging away at it. But if someone had been like, we need this tomorrow, shit, I’d have been done.

[00:15:18] Brett: Yeah.

[00:15:18] Christina: Well, no, it’s funny. I have to tell people that all the time. And like, and in terms of like, how to work with me. And in some cases I feel bad because You know, um, I, I can’t be more responsible and adult and, and have better time management and whatnot. But I, I am always pretty strict with people.

[00:15:35] Christina: I’m like, no, you need to give me a hard deadline. Like we need to, or we need to schedule time to do stuff. And it can’t be soft because if it’s soft, I will push. I know I can, and I will. I will never have anything done two weeks in advance ever. That’s just not, um, how, uh, my, my brain works, at least not, not at this stage of my life.

[00:15:51] Christina: Before, like before I became ADHD, and I’ve talked about this before, I really do feel like there was like a. Genuine, something happened where my brain [00:16:00] swaps. I was actually usually fairly proactive, but even then I wasn’t one of those things where I was like done way in advance. But now like I’ve gotten pretty good to the point where it’s like, no, it’s going to be right up to the deadline.

[00:16:11] Christina: So if you give me any opportunity to push, like if you make it open ended, it’s not going to get done is actually the real thing that’s going to happen. It’s not going to get done. So I have to be pretty direct with people for my own expectations and for theirs to be like, okay, even if we need to move it.

[00:16:27] Christina: Pass this, like you have to give me an actual deadline, um, and it has to be like consequences. It can’t be one of those things like, oh, it’d be great if I had it on Thursday. Okay, well, then that could be Friday, right? Like that’s how I read that, right? When I say it would be really great if I could have this Thursday, I’m going, cool, so I can get this to you on Friday and it won’t be a problem.

[00:16:45] Christina: But if you’re like, no, I need to have this Tuesday or else, okay, you’re, you’re going to get it probably a minute before the due date, but like, that’s when you’ll get it.

[00:16:53] Brett: Yeah, I have always, I pre, up until this year, I have always said arbitrary deadlines. Like if [00:17:00] someone gives me a hard deadline and I know it’s bullshit,

[00:17:02] Christina: Mm hmm,

[00:17:03] Brett: I know that they’re like in the, like the whole startup mentality is all about, like, we need this in two weeks, but there’s no, there’s no damage to the company.

[00:17:13] Brett: There’s no. They just made up a deadline to apply pressure and my brain rebels against that. But in the last year, I’ve gotten better about setting my own deadlines and adding a sense of urgency to it. And I usually set my personal deadline two days before whatever deadline I’m given. Um, and, and that never used to work for me.

[00:17:38] Brett: That never used to work. I

[00:17:40] Christina: was going to say, did you do anything different to change that? Cause I do struggle with that. Like I can set my own deadline too, but, but it’s much, it’s usually much more realistic. Like it’s, it’s almost never early.

[00:17:50] Brett: I gamified it to some extent, like if I get this done two days early, I get to do X, you know, for the next two days. [00:18:00] Um, because, and I won’t turn the project in until it’s actually due. Um, and I’ll take that time to fuck off and do whatever I want. Um, so there’s kind of a reward, I gamify it, but other than that, no, I just suddenly

[00:18:14] Christina: You

[00:18:14] Brett: Was able to like, was able to like, accept my own arbitrary deadlines.

[00:18:20] Christina: No, that’s good. Yeah. I, I usually, I wish I could, I wish I could set my own arbitrary deadlines like earlier than they need to be. Cause in what really happens is that like, although you know what I have, I think I’ve gotten better with that. Um, in terms of waking up for certain things, like I’ve gotten much better at least on, um, timelines.

[00:18:36] Christina: Like I’m. I’m never, I’m rarely early. Um, and, and if I am early is usually, um, uh, because of, of luck. But I, I have gotten better about becoming more on time, at least for some things. And again, it’s one of those things, if I know I can be late to something, I will be. But if you tell me, and this is why I always tell people, I’m like, no, if you have a hard deadline on something, like you need to let me know, because if I’m just open to be like, Oh, we have this hour [00:19:00] long window, But I’m thinking like, it’s, you know, we can go 15 minutes afterwards if that’s, you know, what happens, then like, I’m going to come in kind of my normal time.

[00:19:08] Christina: But if you’ve got other things going on, I know I should respect your time more, but I don’t, I wish that I did, but I don’t. So like, I need to like be told, but if I know like, okay. But I’ve gotten better, like uh, Microsoft Build stuff was actually a good experience because I was on, other than the first day for rehearsals where I was five or six minutes late and that was not even my fault, like all the other days I was there, if not exactly on time, like five minutes early and I was like, shit, like you actually left your house exactly when you needed to leave your house, uh, which almost never happens.

[00:19:39] Christina: So I don’t know.

[00:19:40] Brett: I am, I am like, it’s super important to me to be on time for things to the extent that for like the hour before I have to leave, all I think about is I have to leave by this time if I want to get there five minutes early and I am, I am crazy punctual for an [00:20:00] ADHD person. Um, like it’s just. I don’t know why it’s so important to me, but a chiropractor appointment, uh, uh, uh, coffee with a friend, like whatever it is, like I’m always five minutes early.

[00:20:16] Brett: I get the table, you know, I check in, whatever. And I’m, I’m just my whole life. I’ve been bizarrely punctual.

[00:20:24] Christina: That’s, that’s great. I, I’ve always been like, now my sister, we call it Kelly time and we know that she runs at a completely different time zone and like, and hers is probably a little bit ADHD, but mostly it’s narcissism. And, um, and so we, we know that like her thing is just like you, she will tell you a certain time and you need to expect about an hour and a half to two hours beyond that.

[00:20:45] Christina: So you even have to give her a different time. Um, because she will, And, and I don’t know if she does the thing where, like, I don’t know if she, like, cogently knows, like, what the actual time is, and then gives herself that buffer, like, I don’t know if she, she reverse engineers it, or not. I, I [00:21:00] tend to think not, but like, we, we have learned, like, Especially if, like, if we’re meeting someplace at a restaurant, she’s usually okay, although not always.

[00:21:09] Christina: Um, but, like, if she’s coming over to my parents house or something, like, we know we have to give, like, a different expectation of, of when timing is. Um, with me, I’m never that late because it, it will be, like, an hour and a half or two hours. Like, it’s, it’s not a, you know, five or, or a 15 minute thing, but I’m usually habitually about five minutes late, um, to things, you know?

[00:21:28] Brett: Um, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.

[00:21:31] PSA and Upcoming Events

[00:21:31] Brett: So, um, I would like to make a PSA. Before we move on, um,

[00:21:37] Jeff: Okay.

[00:21:38] Brett: of the show, Aaron Dawson has, has a band called Genital Shame and,

[00:21:45] Christina: great name.

[00:21:46] Brett: and they will be playing at, um, it’s called A Queer Ritual, Palmers Pride Party 2024. It is Saturday, June 29th in Minneapolis. I don’t know if there are other [00:22:00] shows related to this, but in Minneapolis on June 29th at 4 p.

[00:22:04] Brett: m. at Palmers. Bar patio if you’re in the area. Um, I will be at that show. Jeff might even be at that show. Um, and if not Jeff, then some metalhead friend I can find. This will be all experimental metal and industrial and they’re like eight bands on the ticket, um, including one called. Abscheid, that is a sub genre less metal ensemble that creates sounds to connect your head to your gut, which out of all of these descriptions is one of my favorites.

[00:22:43] Brett: Genital Shame is also good. But, um, there’s one that’s a five piece extreme metal band. And I don’t, I assume that’s two guitars and a separate vocalist, but I have no idea what all the, what the five pieces are. That’s a [00:23:00] lot. That’s a lot of pieces for a metal band.

[00:23:03] Christina: is, but I love this. And also like General Shame is such a great name. I wish that if I wasn’t in genuinely, I mean, that’s like, if I, if I’d known, like, if I wasn’t going to be like, uh, in San Francisco, literally right then, um, I, I would have loved to have like, come to Minneapolis for, for, and seen this, that would have been cool.

[00:23:21] Brett: We would have welcomed you to Minneapolis some other time then.

[00:23:24] Christina: Some other time.

[00:23:27] Brett: And it will be an outdoor show for the most part, a little bit indoors, but yeah, I’m excited to go. I’m going to spend the night in Minneapolis, see how many people I can see in a 24 hour period.

[00:23:41] Christina: I love it. I love it.

[00:23:42] Keyboard Talk

[00:23:42] Christina: Um, when you said you were going to do a PSA, I thought that you were going to talk to, uh, give us a PSA about like why, um, you shouldn’t buy 58 key keyboards. Um, Uh, which,

[00:23:53] Brett: That could be our, that can be our next topic.

[00:23:55] Christina: I was gonna say, maybe it should be, cause, cause, uh, cause we were talking a little bit about some of your, your, um, your [00:24:00] keyboard, um, uh, entrees, uh, last episode.

[00:24:05] Brett: so I finished putting together a lily58 keyboard and as I put it together I realized things like the single quote and double quote key don’t fit on the main layout and so you have to create a layer with, you know, like a key to trigger the layer and then uh, You have to have a, you have to have shift assigned on that layer so you can get both single quote and double quote out of it, unless you want to assign those to separate keys, but then you have to learn the, you have to like learn the muscle memory for the separate keys.

[00:24:42] Brett: And it is, I, the, the keyboard I’m using, the controllers I have use a variant of like QMK, uh, key, key mapping. And, uh, it’s, yeah, it’s through, uh, I’m using an app called [00:25:00] Vial, V I A L,

[00:25:02] Christina: Yeah. So, so, so, uh, I know the girl who makes Via, which is what Vial is based on.

[00:25:06] Brett: Yeah, that’s cool. It is very, it’s very complex compared to like the Ultimate Hacking Keyboard Agent which is much easier to configure and now has, you know, eight layers just like this does. We’re gonna see, I’m gonna see what I can do. They make, they make, um, Uh, what do you call it? Um, shit. They make keys, key switches and keycaps that give you a curve upwards.

[00:25:42] Brett: on the keyboard and there’s a word for this and I can’t remember but I’m considering because right now I just have a flat ortholinear layout and it would be cool if it was a little bit more ergonomic for my fingers. Um, I don’t know if [00:26:00] this is going to become my new keyboard. Using it makes me Always wish I was using my ultimate hacking keyboard, uh, which now is almost complete with cool key caps, but, um, yeah.

[00:26:14] Brett: So anyway, key mapping a 58 key keyboard is, is weird.

[00:26:21] Jeff: How many keys are on a normal keyboard if you have a number pad?

[00:26:26] Brett: A hundred and four,

[00:26:29] Jeff: Jesus Christ.

[00:26:30] Christina: Yeah. And then I usually use like a 75 key, uh, layout. Um, or a 65. And so the 75 key is, is like what the, the standard would be like on your, um, MacBook keyboard, or if you got like a, um, apple, um, normal, uh, wireless keyboard. It doesn’t have the NU Pad or the um. Uh, like the, um, Home and PageUp and PageDown keys.

[00:26:53] Christina: Um, so like that’s, that’s a, that’s a pretty common layout. Uh, 58, and 60 is, is, and 65 [00:27:00] percent are, are common too. Those usually lack, lack the function row. Um, and you can, like, remap those. But 58, I’m looking at what this literally 58 is now. That’s a weird one, yeah. Cause even so, If you had 60, like you can do more there, although like 65 would be better, but like that’s just that those seven key differences, that is interesting how you then have to go into like a different layer philosophy and figure out like, okay, how’s my muscle memory going to work and how I

[00:27:26] Brett: Yeah. Right.

[00:27:27] Christina: like that, that, that

[00:27:28] Brett: then you can have layers trigger other layers with key combinations. And it’s cool because you can make, like, you can build a hyper key.

[00:27:38] Christina: Yes.

[00:27:39] Brett: no additional software. You can say, if I tap this key, do this. If I hold this key and hit another key, do this. If I tap this key twice, then like permanently switch

[00:27:50] Jeff: Wait, you can do that how? Just with this keyboard and its firmware?

[00:27:53] Brett: Yeah, exactly.

[00:27:56] Christina: Yeah, exactly. Which is really cool. Um, you should check out Viya, um, [00:28:00] uh, which is a web version, uh, that, that might have a better interface for you, Brett. Use Viya. app. Um, uh, we’ll do it that way. I also put the link in the, in the show notes. Um, but like, um, if, if you’re having, if you’re not liking some of the stuff with, with Viya, um, uh, check out Viya.

[00:28:16] Christina: It might be better. Cause it’s all, all of these are just basically different front ends for QMK. Um, but, but, but, but I, I think that, um, um, Viya or Via, um, that, um, my friend, um, Olivia, uh, does

[00:28:30] Brett: Cool. Yeah. I will check that

[00:28:32] Jeff: You should, you know, I bet there’s a way to do this, maybe it would require scripting or more than this allows you to do, but where if you, um, just palm down on the whole right half of the keyboard so that, like, it’s just looking for enough of the keys to be hit That it’s actually a, you know, like a, uh, it performs an action or like, I was gonna say fisting, putting your fist down on it.

[00:28:58] Jeff: That’d be fun. [00:29:00] You should try that.

[00:29:01] Brett: I’m not sure how to, uh, from a technical perspective, I’m not sure how it would

[00:29:05] Jeff: I already have it laid out in my brain, but I just don’t know if the software can catch up with my brain. You said I was bad at computers earlier. I want to revise that. I’m bad at computers for somebody who’s good at computers.

[00:29:19] Brett: I didn’t mean it. I

[00:29:20] Jeff: no, no, but I actually was thinking about that. And I’m like, no, I am like under pressure.

[00:29:25] Jeff: I’m bad at computers where I’m just like, I have to do a thing. And I was like, and just in my own systems, like I have all of these pieces. I’m like good at computers, but I’m bad at being good at computers. That’s how I actually like this. I’m not, this isn’t defensive. I was like, no, you really helped me get somewhere.

[00:29:42] Jeff: Uh, anyway.

[00:29:44] Brett: I’m titling this show, Bad at Being Good at Computers.

[00:29:49] Jeff: I like that. And so one of the reasons I’m always silent in these keyboard conversations is I feel fucking so left out because I can’t fucking type without looking at the keyboard. [00:30:00] And I don’t even, and even when I’m looking, obviously, that means I’m not using all my fingers. And I want that to

[00:30:05] Brett: don’t want my keyboard

[00:30:06] Jeff: I want that to be different. I want to know, I want to know a second language, which I don’t, I know a little bit, I know enough Arabic to not get beat up in a five minute span. Um, and, and I know what

[00:30:17] Christina: That’s way more than me.

[00:30:19] Jeff: Uh, but I am talking about limited and, and I love other languages and then I wish I could type.

[00:30:25] Jeff: And if I could just change anything about myself, those are the

[00:30:27] Brett: What, so there, there are

[00:30:29] Jeff: Little shorter.

[00:30:30] Brett: touch typing tutors. Why, why have

[00:30:33] Jeff: know there are No, we go through this all the time because there’s a fucking million things to do in my life every day. And so I can stop and learn how to type, or I can do one of the million other things

[00:30:44] Christina: Other things that you need to do. What was interesting to me, I, I kind of, so I took like a typing class when I was like in fifth grade or something. Um, and it was dumb. It was, it was a waste of time. Like my mom like paid money for me to go to like some community college thing and like take a typing [00:31:00] class because in her mind, like you still needed to like, that’s how you needed to learn to type.

[00:31:04] Christina: And, and, um, you know, yeah, I learned the homeroom, homeroom and all that stuff, but frankly it was just Mavis Beacon, but with like an instructor, it was stupid. But, but like, How I really learned to touch type, frankly, was just, I don’t even know. Like, I, I think I’m, I’m surprised that you don’t touch type genuinely because of all the, uh, how, um, how well you write and how much you write.<