2021: A Bricked Cube's Odyssey

Since about last week when the weather was getting especially cold, my car's been struggling a little. You'd practically floor it and it would hobble forward a bit, just a smidge above idling.

Seemed simple enough a solution: let it warm up a little. After all, a few minutes or miles would go by and everything would be good. Yes, warming a car for 20-30 minutes is a bit excessive (and the more I look into it, unnecessary), but an unprecedented cold snap sounds like the right kind of desperate time for a desperate measure. 

A few days ago, my car kicked back a trouble code, one I'd seen before. It's for the transmission. Last time it kicked on, all I had to do was change my transmission fluid and the light went off. That was a few months ago, nowhere near the 30,000 miles when you're supposed to change it out anyway. The trouble code in question (P0744) mentioned the torque converter, a rather fascinating fluid coupling seems to either be a reasonably priced part or so inordinately expensive it literally costs more than the car did when it was new.

Fast forward to this morning when the problem seemed to take on a new form (or possibly revealed its true form), despite letting the car warm up, acceleration was simply non-existent. I could maybe get a quick burst before momentum ran out. It was odd because if I put the car in neutral and then pushed the pedal, there was obvious revving. However, after letting it sit for a few more minutes, even the revs stopped. The engine is clearly on and going, but it's as if the gas pedal has completely disconnected from the rest of the car. So, a possible transmission problem (which may or may not be weather-affected) has now expanded to anything and everything from a bad fuel pump to a bum throttle sensor to a gunky fuel filter to injection issues. 

It's sitting in front of my neighbor's house because that's as close to the driveway as I could get it (it's not in their way or anything, so no problem, though I'll be keeping them appraised of the situation) before the pedal stopped responding altogether. As we approach midday, I could well give it a try and see about getting it back into the driveway, which could be easy enough as I could go in reverse the entire way, and that gear's been surprisingly reliable throughout this whole affair. 

The shop I took it to a few weeks ago to fix a rattle in the exhaust is not open on weekends. My roommate's brother may come by to take a look, but I'm likely going to have to try and work out some other way to get to work for at least the next few days. I have a fair number of days off to use up, but that's not the whole problem. I hate taking time off work because the longer someone spends not working, the more time a company has to work out ways to do without them. However unfounded this fear may be (as I've been told by some of my superiors), I can't help it. I also hate taking time off work because I genuinely enjoy my job. I've been at it for over 10 years. Before that, I was pretty damn miserable, and what most certainly didn't help that misery was a previous car's fuel pump giving out while on my way back from out of town one weekend. This was a bad set of circumstances that set up many, many chains of dominoes, and my car suddenly dying out of the blue, steering and all, was the push. At the risk of sounding like a first world problem, this little incident from at least 12-13 years ago practically ruined my life. While I didn't miss that much work, the debt I accrued from simply trying to get back to where I was before the mechanical breakdown drove me to debt consolidation, which is no fun for anybody. 

Car troubles are also no fun for anybody, even the mechanics who literally profit from them. They not only have to deal with the car but with the driver too, and that can go either way. Sometimes I'll see the same handful of cars outside of shops each time I pass by for months on end and wonder how many of those are there because of some heated exchange ending with something along the lines of, "It's your problem now." The same goes for when I see an abandoned vehicle along the highway, like some kind of people-watching by proxy, if that makes sense. You can't help but wonder what went through someone's mind on that fateful day, if they were just having the worst day ever and this was one more damn thing or if this was the upset to an otherwise totally tolerable time. 

You Can't Go Home Row Again

If you've been following my written exploits and conquests for any length of time that approaches or even precedes the 2008 mark, you're aware I have an obsession with keyboards. It's not so much one of fascination so much as utter frustration and an insatiable urge to overcome various obstacles such as availability. I once described in great detail the process of using the virtual keyboard of a Playstation Portable (PSP), which is probably best described as a cross of T9 Predictive Text and the original arcade version of Missile Command that used a bowling ball instead of a cue ball to move its cursor. I also expressed an early love of Twitter, which is still my absolute favorite social media platform, warts and all. I love its immediacy and conciseness (for better or for worse), and I especially loved the fact that this whole operation existed before smartphones took off, and what few "smart" devices existed had itty-bitty physical keyboards that even hardcore console gamers found exhausting.

Sony Mylo (short for My Life Online) 2006-2010

I have to explain another strand of the slightly sinister origins of this obsession. When I was a kid, I marveled at watching people type, and all without looking at the keys. It was like a superpower to me. How could people possibly remember all those buttons? By the time I took a proper typing class in middle school, I ended up taking to it pretty quickly. I wasn't especially fast (that came later) 
Glossing over a few key details of what came next (because I'm very ashamed of this display of my more spiteful and condescending side), now that I was more adept at mastering the home row and even special keys of the typical typing interface, I became exceedingly frustrated when I'd watch people struggle to put together simple sentences. I even once had a job in a computer lab while at college, and nearly stormed out on my first day as I watched in agony as our department head (who insisted on being an IT expert) entered some of my personal information by HUNTING AND PECKING... SLOWLY... AND STILL NEEDING TO HIT BACKSPACE MORE THAN ANY OTHER KEY! GAH! 

via GIPHY

I said nothing since part of me thought it was some sort of empathy test, given this particular computer lab was reserved for disabled students who often have mobile or cognitive differences. Regardless and for lack of a better term, something in me broke. The Moonwatcher in my mind got sick of huddling in the dark wondering where the sun went at night and decided to take a tapir's thigh bone to the situation. I resolved to find the smallest, most uncooperative keyboard I could find, and find out how fast I could type on it, so nobody else would have any excuse. 

Speaking of supremely insensitive arrogance, here’s a fun fact for you about the late Harlan Ellison. He never wrote on a computer for the entirety of his career. In his later years, he practically hoarded manual typewriters (specifically Olympias), to the point of having a fridge full of ink ribbons. He said he taught himself how to type, and it does show. He hunts and pecks with his two pointers, insisting that putting literal foot-pounds of force behind his keystrokes was what gave his writing its edge. Given his body of work, who am I to call bullshit on his methodology? 

None of this in any way should excuse legitimately bad keyboard designs, and they are out there en masse. If I push a key and nothing happens, that's a bad keyboard design. It's why I've always hated laptop keyboards, often referred to as "chiclets" due to the shape the keys have to be in order to maximize space. You'll certainly find no shortage of blog entries and YouTube videos from computer enthusiasts ranking and ranting about their least favorite keyboards, especially those who were fresh on the scene of the "bedroom coder" era of microcomputers. Here's a few frequent entries:

By Bill Bertram - Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5

By Daniel Ryde, Skövde, CC BY-SA 3.0, 

By Tocchet22, CC BY-SA 4.0

By Evan-Amos - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

You'd think with this back catalog that it wouldn't be anywhere near as easy to find similarly awful keyboards in this day and age, but sadly this is not the case. To be fair, computers like the ZX-Spectrum and Odyssey 2 never intended people to write on their keyboards. Their target demographic was novice programmers, who typically only have to write a few command phrases and maybe a full sentence here or there. Trying to use home row or touch type wasn't simply difficult, but almost counterproductive. That's what frustrates me about laptop keyboards as they are fundamentally meant for portable productivity. 

All this leads me to the last few weeks, during which time I've found myself using one of the most unlikely keyboards I'd ever consider and not only getting used to it, but legitimately questioning my whole approach to typing. 

Tactile feedback? Sounds like violent criticism.

My 10.5-inch iPad Pro isn't exactly the right size for full and proper touch-typing like the 12.9-inch version might allow, but in addition to the light touch technique I'll get into in a moment, there's the Swiftkey method, which a friend of mine likened to dancing (which is still one of the most beautiful descriptions I've heard for something as mundane as typing). 

This isn't available in the default keyboard of an iPad or iPhone, and which Android devices pack it in involves a fair bit of guesswork and even hearsay. Fortunately, Swiftkey is available across all platforms. The gimmick is to run your finger (or a stylus) from key to key, creating a kind of constellation the software decrypts into full words. It's a simple enough idea, and fans of Palm Pilots likely recognized it as the next logical step of graffiti. 

If this is starting to sound like comparing apples to oranges, it may well be. A synergistic mix of not-quite-hunt-and-peck (as you can’t rest your fingers on the keys which are already too close together for that) and finger skating hieroglyphic star charts seems like a convoluted solution to a simple problem, though I’d invite you take a pen and paper, put them next to your keyboard, and count the number of “pieces” in each kit. 
It’s rather like that ageless phenomenon of previous generations resenting the current ones for how much easier daily life can be in certain areas. I’ve never used a fully manual typewriter, only an electric. It would rattle my desk with each keystroke to the point where a full paragraph would send something on my upper shelf tumbling below and startling me. It was a beast, but I loved it. I don’t think I could go back to it anymore (paper is precious), and with a manual I’d probably complain about it hurting my hands and fingers. Even the keyboard on my Apple IIsi offered a serviceable typing experience. Since then, with the exception of the keyboard for the Sega Dreamcast classic Typing of the Dead (doubled my typing speed in 2 weeks), it’s been a succession of awful keyboards. The worst keyboard was the one built into an old HP Chromebook I set up in my kitchen. It already had an external monitor because the screen was horrendous, so plugging in a keyboard was a no-brainer. That’s when I found the Logitech G413 Carbon on sale at Target. 

Although part of Logitech’s G series of gamer-focused peripherals, the Carbon is by far the most understated of the bunch. On the whole, the only thing that gives it away as a keyboard targeted at PC gamers besides the red-and-black color scheme is its price tag, which is notably lower than its mechani-kin but eclipses your average office space offerings. Chances are, unless you’re a gamer or require a particular set of ergonomics or at most are a serious typing enthusiast, I’m going to speculate the most money you’ve ever spent on a computer keyboard was around 20USD. Against that, the Carbon’s 60-80ish appears more than a little exorbitant. Bear in mind that because these use mechanical switches instead of rubbery sheets of bubble wrap and are targeted at gamers, even this entry-level model is built like a tank. It’s an investment that pays for itself faster than you think. 

I tried for one of those USB-Lightning adapters meant for connecting digital cameras or external hard drives, but for the life of me I could not get it to work with the Carbon. I was all set to resign myself to using a different Logitech keyboard, one I’d been using for some years with my Xperia smartphone. It was a laptop-styled keyboard, but it was convenient, especially its case which folded out into a stand for a tablet. So, I stuck with it. It served me well for many years, but time hasn’t been kind to it. It’s actually warped slightly now, so the “n” and the adjacent keys (including the space bar) work intermittently. It doesn’t help the Carbon basically spoiled me and now I need to find a bluetooth mechanical keyboard that is mechanical but isn’t a Kickstarter which isn’t going to be ready right away if at all (backed out of one a few months ago and learned everyone’s still waiting), isn’t stupidly expensive, but... 

Oh, hello.