Keyboard Layouts

We don't need to rehash the history of qwerty, nor reveal that it isn't designed to slow down typists (for the millionth time).

What is interesting though is that (some) keyboards are so easily reprogrammed now, why wouldn't we all just have our own personal layouts? (Obvious reasons considered later.)

Switching to a staggered column (rather than staggered row) layout is taking some time to get used to, and being on a split keyboard is also quite new. I really do get that slight changes (maybe just for me), take some getting used to. But even give that I'm a complete convert to heavily revised keyboard functionality. Which I say as someone who could easily switch their layout at the literal press of a button - this keyboard has both dvorak and colemak layouts on layers).

I have shift keys on F and J (hold down to shift, tap to get the letter), another shift on one of my space bars (i have two), an escape key under my thumb (which is also right control), and a couple more magic keys. I like some, some are taking getting used to.

I get 40% keyboards now, and how people get used to them (no, this isn't a 40% it's an ergodox). I could imagine moving to a small keyboard at some point (I have a 30% kit due any day, but I mostly want to use that to practice soldering).

The thing I get is adding extra functionality. One one layer of my keyboard I have some often used shell commands (i.e. - two key presses gives me '| grep -i ' which I end up typing more than you would imagine). The shift keys thing, is actually nice and useful, i have a key on my 'normal' layer that is a copy, and one that is paste (and on another layer one key does copy, alt/tab, paste - which again I do moe often than you'd imagine). Once I'm fully comfortable with keyboard, then I think I'll likely add many layers.

I suspect it's quite normal, but within a week of getting the ergodox I had gone through 22 significant layout changes. My layout is fairly stable now, but I suspect within a week I'll have decided to do some more clean up (I'm not entirely happy with my backspace and enter situation, and I rarely use ; but often use : - so why do I even have a key that's usual output is : rather than : ?).

So why wouldn't we all have personalised keyboard layouts? Obviously on your own keyboard it's fine, you could just take that with you and use it, but logging in to a hotdesk machine with a standard keyboard is fairly normal, and you wouldn't want that normal keyboard to be mine... Some of this could be covered by having a new standard of keyboards sending basic codes and all operating systems translating those based on user profile (people on windows often have auto hotkey macros which I assume are a version of this), but even that, which I suspect is unlikely to ever happen no matter whether it's even a good idea, wouldn't cover when you are at someones desk, and need to use their keyboard for something (working together on a document, for example).

I this where really an issue it would actually not be a hard one to solve, I suspect. Have your keyboard profile on your phone and tap it to a keyboard to switch profile (hmm, nothing nefarious could happen with that...) But really It's not a problem, and it's not a problem because most people just are never interested enough to actually want to reprogram their keyboard. No matter whether I think it's something I would not want to do without in future, it's a terribly niche requirement, which I think is as pity, but I'll not lose sleep over it. 

Flask, AJAX, Refreshing Pages and Templates

I have a simple flask script running to show me info from sonos, let me pause, play, next, previous, vol+, vol-, which shows the playlist, but it would be nice if it updated on a new song playing.

ASETNIOP

A key per finger.

QMK could presumably handle the chording aspect, but i like the idea of autocomplete too.

I have a VM to set up and look at how aspects of that work.

3d Printed Keyboard Cases

How well do they hold up? I've seen dactyl cases (or at least pictures of them), and they don't always appear... fantastic.

Diamonds

Steve Mould has a fascinating video on coal.

This led to wonder about diamonds, and whether they were also all formed at roughly the same time.

It turns out that no, or at least not in the same fashion - as they are formed in the mantle, possibly so.

But that video is fascinating - definitely worth a watch.

And now for something slightly different

I, like I think most people, get distracted easily.

So i decided to create a tangents list, of things to come back to. This is now that.

Self and Personal Identity (with reference to Sci-Fi)

I've just read John Locke's 'Essay Concerning Human Understanding' regarding Self and Personal Identity.

This post may contain spoilers for Altered Carbon (the Richard Morgan book), and it's sequels, and in fact his other work too.

This is probably evident to everyone who has read Altered Carbon, but still, I didn't really think about it before. Altered Carbon itself seems to be an exploration of the notion of self, Takeshi Kovacs (the protagonist of the books), changes different physical bodies at different points, and yet we consider him at all times to be the same man. Which is pretty much what John Locke meant by a man wearing different clothes is still the same man, no matter if he sleeps and is unconscious between changes of clothes. Here we have Takeshi potentially spending time between being conscious in different bodies, and yet when he is 'awake' he is a continuation of the previous Takeshi.

There are of course many variations to this, and they can be interesting thought experiments. If there are two Takeshi's, branched at a known point and occupying the same temporal frame of reference (ooh, cool undergrad phrasing there...), then they start as the same person, and Richard Morgan has basically the same character slowly diverging. The two Takeshi's accept that after a short period one must cease to be. Thus we have to consider if this is murder, or suicide maybe? Also - one set of memories, one Takeshi potential, is lost, but Takeshi, lets call him Takeshi Prime continues to exist. If secondary Takeshi only existed for a short time then experience is lost, but does it matter? Not a great deal, possibly, although we could easily argue that it doesn't matter which Takeshi died, or if both did, a person died. Hmm.

And then there is an exploration of what this means to justice. Again touched on by John Locke. Locke implies that if 'man' is separate from 'person', then just as it is possible for one person to transfer to another body, and be the same person, so different 'personal identities' could inhabit one body. If the consciousness that inhabits Takeshi's body does something, does that mean Takeshi is responsible for it? This is played out in a couple of different ways. A third party having a score to settle with the previous owner of the body Takeshi is in, and their wish to settle that with 'Takeshi'.

Further, John Locke wonders whether acts done whilst sleepwalking can be held against the person who is not conscious of them? Locke argues that we have to hold the awake person responsible as we are unable to determine if the sleepwalker was really aware. Richard Morgan asks us to consider if a person could rewind and wipe a section of experience and decisions, restore themselves to an earlier state, then can we hold that person to justice for the actions that took place in the wiped section of experience? Can the restored person in any way be said to be guilty of the crimes another version of that person carried out?

This theme of restoring a previous version is investigated further. If a person is defined by their experiences and decisions, and can be transferred between physical bodies, then what if a previous version, lacking certain critical experiences, were restored? Unlike the two Takeshi's before - are an early Takeshi and a more... mature Takeshi the same person? Could it be that two different instances of the same person, one lacking some later experiences, would be in direct conflict, would in fact hate each other. This goes both ways - would an early me hate the person I have become? Would I now, if I met an early me, hate what I was?

Obviously we also get to explore notions of person outside of body, or placed in a body that has physiology that affects decisions and performance. Both as attempts to induce weakness and strength - does strength of personal identity override physiology? How do the two interact, and affect each other?

Other fun things we get to ponder, if a personal identity is restored in a damaged state, can the resulting person be said to be a continuation of the previous person? Should we pay that new person the respect and/or hatred that is due the previous person? Also - if there is something killing people but saving their personalities, is that murder? Does our view of the morality of the event change from murder to storage?

Another approach to this is seen in Richard Morgan's Black Man - here we have personality driven by genes. In this case the question is whether the person is a slave to his genetic makeup. If we say a dog acts as a dog, because 'it' is in a dogs body, then is a man with a certain genetic predisposition really responsible for all his actions? Interestingly this book was named Thirteen in the US.

References
John Locke at Wikipedia
An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1 by John Locke at Project Gutenberg. (It is CHAPTER XXVII. OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY. which I just finished reading.)