Nels Lindahl — Functional Journal

A weblog created by Dr. Nels Lindahl featuring writings and thoughts…

Tag: keyboard

  • Application notifications abound

    My ecosystem of applications where I’m a daily active user is and has been dropping. I’m generally exhausted by and tired of the endless string of notifications that don’t really notify me about anything substantial. I still remember a time before the advent of smartphones. For the most part, I remember having a flip phone that did not do very much beyond being able to make calls and receive text messages. Nobody really sent pictures with those phones. The resolution of the cameras was terrible. At that time, the phone companies still charged you by the text message or limited people to a small monthly allotment. Things were very different from today.

    I’m really considering returning to just not carrying a smartphone around. Much like sending an email and getting an asynchronous response I could just let me smartphone always go to voicemail for the most part. Most phone calls are not really all that urgent anyway. These are the thoughts on my mind at the moment. I’ll probably be nostalgic for the grand experience of going to the mall at some point today. That is how things are shaping up. Right now, I have some music streaming on Pandora and I’m writing in the Microsoft Word desktop application. I did end up spending a few minutes fixing some of the navigation formatting at the start of that adventure, but now things are pretty much setup to be able to write on a daily basis out of this document. Working out of Microsoft Word has not been a smooth transition it is nowhere near as good or useful as Google Docs. The design aesthetic and the usability are very different. It is very much like Microsoft Word is exactly the way I left it year ago and it has not improved very much over the years.

    Right now, I should be deeply focused on bringing the most important concepts to the forefront of my thoughts as I begin the day. Instead of working toward some type of meaningful writing I’m stuck on the medium where the writing is going to occur. Most of my writing is still occurring at my main computer in my office. I’m using this Corsair K65 RGB mini wired keyboard. It’s 60% the size of a normal keyboard and does not have the number pad or arrows. Strangely enough I have been really happy with it after getting a Kensington wrist rest to support a slightly more comfortable typing experience. The mechanical keyboard works really well for typing at speed in my office while concentrating on the process of starting the day. To that end, the keyboard has been wonderful and while I have used a natural ergonomic split keyboard for years this one has worked out well enough.

  • This particular Monday

    It took about 30 minutes for me to really wake up today. This particular Monday is off to a somewhat delayed start. My writing efforts yesterday were solid enough and progress was made, but none of that progress was on the weblog front. On the brighter side of things I started to really consider some different research interests. Sometimes I will entirely form up a presentation deck or idea and then build it in PowerPoint or write it up in a word processing document after the fact. Building things mentally before trying to work them out in between a presentation construct, the keyboard, and my thoughts can involve more layers than are necessary during the creative part of the question. Generally the more thought that goes into what is going to be produced the better the quality the final product will be at the end of process. Other times I’m just ready to make it happen from the point of sitting down in front of the keyboard.

    This week should be an interesting test on the writing front. Tonight is the national championship game between the Kansas Jayhawks and the North Carolina Tar Heels. Pretty much all writing will stop for the game and it should be entertaining. I vividly remember the 2008 game and how wild it was to watch that one. That seems like it happened so long ago, but some of those things we pick up in memory are just more vivid than others. While the outcome of that game should not really impact my writing productivity level for the entire week it probably will have an impact. It is natural for emotion to drive or curtail the writing process. Being really productive is such a mercurial thing that it could go either way really. We will see what happens at the end of the day. 

    I’m going to need to stay about three issues of “The Lindahl Letter” ahead of publication based on my commitments this summer. That should not really be a problem based on where I am at currently. Some essays are going to require a little bit more investment than others based on how deeply the research needs to go on them from start to finish.

  • A weekly posting frequency

    Right now I’m typing with my new keyboard from @Corsair. This mechanical keyboard seems to be working well enough. It is the Corsair K65 RGB MINI 60% smaller mechanical gaming keyboard with CHERRY MX SPEED keys. This is my first mini keyboard. It took me a few minutes to get used to the smaller form factor. I probably should have opted for the silent version, but the mechanical key travel sounds are somewhat endearing. I’m not sure how long that nostalgia for the clickity clack will last, but at the moment it is fine. During this blog post I’m trying out cutting and pasting the content from Google Docs into WordPress with images embedded directly into the weblog interface.

    Picture of my Corsair K65 RGB mini keyboard

    The copy and paste of the first section of this post worked out well enough. I might even go ahead and post this content out on the weblog today. Earlier this year the entire content library for my main weblog was taken offline. While that was not an easy measure to take. It was probably the right thing to do at the time. My efforts are going to be focused on writing weekly content for delivery instead of a series of daily missives. My new posting frequency is going to be weekly and I’m just going to write and work out of one document during the week and publish the finished product at the end of the week. This type of posting will be in addition to the content being generated for Substack. That platform is going to host the Lindahl Letter and distribute my weekly newsletter.