Why Would I Write

  • Beard Diary #01

    Didn’t really know what to write about today so I thought I’d just put some sort of update about my adventure in beard growing. On the 3rd of April, I received my shipment of Minoxidil. I’ve been applying it daily for about 2 weeks now and I’m not sure if it’s working yet. I’m definitely feeling its effects – dry skin (I actually get dandruff when I scratch my beard haha) and my face bloated up a bit initially. After a few days, I decided that I’d cut down my intake from 2ml/day to 1ml/day for my body to get acclimatized to it. Next week I’ll probably go back to 2ml/day again.

    As for the hair on my face, there’s nothing significant but I’m definitely seeing the growth of some new hairs on spots where there wasn’t any hair previously. Literally less than 20 new hairs, so it’s going to take a lot more time to grow. Hopefully I have hairs waiting to come out in the spots that matter.

    Due to the nature of the chemical, it is important to make sure your hands are clean after you’re done applying it on your face. I guess it’s so that you don’t accidentally apply it on other parts of your body or on other people if you touch them. Imagine giving some girl you dislike a beard (haha).

    I guess this is a pretty pointless update, but I thought it would be nice for me to have some dates down and a reference point that I can look back on in the future. It’s still too early to tell if it’s going to work or not, but I’m hopeful. In other news, I think I’m going to grow out my hair again. There are no rules on how I need to look like for my job, yay for flexibility.

  • The Perfect Crime

    “Two years and not a word. I wondered if they even realized it was gone. Was my fake that good? I went into my garage, unlocked the trap door to my basement and descended the steps into it. I switched on the lights. There, in the middle of the room, was the prized Mona Lisa, resting on an easel for no one but my own eyes to see. I had pulled off the perfect crime, but there was nobody I could tell about it, or I would have been caught and sent to jail.”

    “Alright, show and tell is over. It’s time for your meds,” said Francis off to the side of the podium. I stepped away from the lectern, normally reserved for bingo nights, and felt two steady arms guide me back to my seat. Though my eyesight was failing, I could see the same (old) faces, smiling at me, breaking the silence with frail clapping.

    “Oceans Ninety Nine! Tell us another story!” I heard from the back of the room.
    “This is only the hundredth time I’ve heard it!”

    “Bah! These patronizing kids,” I thought to myself as I sipped the water through a straw placed in front of me. “They’ll never know the truth if it hit them in the face!”

    Writing Prompt from Reddit: You have been striving for years to commit the elusive “Perfect Crime” for the fame of it. You steal the Mona Lisa and replace it with a fake. You leave a taunting note and wait for the panic when it is discovered. But, 2 years later, no one has noticed.

  • Pertinent Layers

    Pertinent Layers

    After using my 40% keyboard for two-and-a-half months, I’ve managed to map out a layer that works for me. While most of you are probably wondering, why did I bother with such a small keyboard in the first place? I already have a standard sized keyboard on my laptop.

    Well, when you’re spending so much time in front of the computer, wouldn’t you want to type on something that feels good? I know I do. The laptop keyboards if definitely sufficient, but it’s not great. Lack of travel, feedback and programmability. And of course, most importantly, a e s t h e t i c s.

    The 40% board is great for traveling – I can’t leave my keyboard at work, so having something light and portable is important for me. It may not seem that much smaller than a 60% keyboard but when you have a tiny backpack like me, every cubic centimeter saved is important (gotta pack more bags of drugs in there).

    For non-mechanical keyboard enthusiasts out there, you’re probably wondering how on earth someone could possibly use such a tiny input device. Well, after experimenting with many different layouts on the Vortex Core, I’ve come up with something that works for me and the work I do. It’s nothing fancy, but with it I can easily type characters like ‘ and / which weren’t mapped to the non-function layer by default. I’ve also mapped control, alt and windows to the HHKB layout (I’ve gotten so used to it) and moved escape to a function layer so tab is next to Q. I’d love to do a lot more, but I’m limited by the current functionality of the board.

    I still miss the number row when entering passwords, but I’m dealing with it. I even put the number row key caps on my keyboard to help me out in that department. Eventually I will have them all memorized. After using this layout for a while, I’ve come to realize that I could even do away with 3 of the keys on the keyboard, which would make something like the Pearl usable for me (damn, those sexy blockers) – something I would have never dreamed of before using a 40% keyboard.

    Anyway, here is a diagram of the layout that I currently use. Feel free to use it or offer any suggestions if you think that you can make it better! I didn’t put down the Shift + Fn1 layers since those can’t be changed (they symbols are mapped from !@#$%^&*() on Ctrl to L respectively).

    I can’t wait for Vortex to make the Core completely customizable, I already have plans for how I want to tweak this board even more in the future.