Yup. I joked that we’re still on Constitutional Republic version 2.27, and not only is the next point release long overdue, but we should really have upgraded to version 3 or 4 by now.

I think a huge part of the problem is that it’s run on Gentlemen’s agreements but we pretend it’s not. The UK’s “Constitution” is a hodgepodge of laws and court cases and things that probably closer to treaties than anything else. It’s a mess, but they know it’s a mess so there’s a very real sense that the gentlemen’s agreements are important and as real as anything else.

In America, we worship our Constitution like a holy text, but so many of our institutional controls depend on Judicial Review (which is not technically mentioned in the constitution), on following along with the presumed intent, and on fudging around the edges when it’s obvious the machinery of the state would grind to a halt if we had to amend it every time a novel situation arose. Yet, nevertheless, we have an entire school of thought built around the idea of shallow surface readings. The “originalists,” not to put too fine a point on it, are fucking idiots.

If you get the idea that the only important thing is the blackletter text agreed to by a gaggle of 18th century provincials, many of whom were intelligent and well-intentioned, but all of whom were elites and either slave-owners or okay with hanging out with slave owners, then you have a recipe for considering stupid shit like presidential immunity or having a speaker of the house who’s not a Congressperson and who can become president despite already serving two full terms, because it doesn’t explicitly say you can’t. It’s childish and dangerous, and their ascendancy in the judicial branch is a travesty.

The biggest issue is that the sockets were never really designed to be for enthusiasts changing switches all the time. They were designed for the factories to have multiple versions to sell with minimal retooling. If you are extremely diligent with removing the solder from the legs of the switches and keeping them straight, then yes, there’s nothing to prevent this from working. However, a little blob here and there will make it much more likely that you tear a pad when inserting the switch into the GMMK, and also more likely that the socket will be slightly deformed and never work quite right with any other switch.

WASD is dead. ZSA and Nuphy seem to be fine.

I do unironically believe the Mercator projection has influenced how much he talks about Greenland.

Yeah, I guess just assuming ill intent and fascism makes it a simpler discussion that’s still perfectly reasonable.

This one has Box Navy switches.

I said improving, not reducing! 🤣

#WhenTaken #423 (25.04.2025)

I scored 700/1000🎗️

1️⃣📍264 km - 🗓️2 yrs - 🥇189/200
2️⃣📍3.9K km - 🗓️4 yrs - 🥈127/200
3️⃣📍3.1K km - 🗓️45 yrs - 🥉39/200
4️⃣📍1.0K km - 🗓️12 yrs - 🥈149/200
5️⃣📍7.1 km - 🗓️4 yrs - 🥇196/200

https://whentaken.com/

I assume certain short-term things will get better with anyone less crazy than Trump, but I agree the US is no longer reliable for anything long-term, and no other country should deal with us on the assumption that we’ll give up certain short-term advantages for a long term stability within our sphere of influence. It’s not even that the US was “good” (though I imagine the next hegemonic power could easily be worse), but across administrations, the US was generally intelligent about how to leverage its influence but retain enough goodwill to continue to do so indefinitely.

I like to idly game this out because it truly reflects how narcissistic and uninformed he is. So, he’s talking about admitting Canada as a single state. Lets assume somehow that happens, even though the Canadians themselves would undoubtedly push for as many states as possible if joining the US were the only option.

You’ve now got a new largest state by both population and area, and one that has ridiculous reserves of resources and a coast-to-coast infrastructure. It instantly becomes the most important state. It’s also full of millions of people who didn’t want to be Americans and who’ve had a hundred years of more progressive governance than the US. Congratulations, Republicans, you’ve just skewed the Senate and completely fucked yourself in the House for a generation or more. You’ve also got 8 or 9 million Francophones who weren’t even entirely sure they wanted to be CANADIANS, much less Americans, to say nothing of being Americans in a MAGA world. This is how real troubles begin.

So, in return for dubious “improvements” to the trade deficit, and certain (what?) administrative conveniences (I guess) for a military that already had basically all the access anyone would ever need, as well as a giant buffer territory you’re not politically committed to defending with the same gusto you would your own soil, you completely upset the balance of power in Congress to your own party’s detriment and add a huge population that hates their situation. Brilliant.

Although, I guess if you’re just done with free and fair elections then a lot of these concerns evaporate…

LOL, it works for me, but undoubtedly part of it that I’m not a proper touch typist at all.

A major design element here is that no key is more than 1.75 “units”, meaning nothing needs stabilizer hardware. It’s a cheat to improving sound and definitely one for easing construction on my very cheap laser cutter (really more of an engraver, but it can get through some things). The open spaces are also meant to evoke the “HHKB” and its retro inspirations like the original Macintosh keyboard, and honestly it hasn’t been a problem. I have four “spacebars” of 1.25 u each, but two of them do something else when held down (Fn for one, Alt for the other).

The 3D-printed case could stand a little refinement, and if it ever actually cracks I’ll replace it, but so far it’s hanging in there, and I really like the typing feel.

Apart from the board itself, how do you like the G20 caps? I have a hard time imagining how laptop-flat with full travel would feel.

There’s always the Boston…

So, just in the past year or two they’ve finally released switches from new molds (“MX2A”) that are quite well regarded, but not special enough to make up for what must be very high operating costs. Unlike GMK, they squandered an early lead in the enthusiast space and never got it back. They just took much, much too long to relaize that the viable markets for mech boards are gamers and people with varying degrees of enthusiasm for the hardware itself, not just an aging cohort of office workers who refuse to put up with membranes.

QK100 if you can figure out how to get one without getting Trumped in the ass by tariffs.

The number is not precise, but yeah kinda. Usually they’re missing about 4-6 keys, and you’ll also hear “96%” thrown around. There’s a subset of them called the “1800” style after a board from the late 80s that pioneered the idea.

What they all share is retaining the numpad and almost all the other keys, but resizing and shuffling them around a bit so they fit in a narrower width, originally a drawer in a server rack.

Earlier in the week, news broke that Hegseth had personally created a Signal group chat including his wife, brother and about a dozen other people who he then texted highly sensitive information on active strikes in Yemen… One person said Russian and Chinese spies were no doubt directly targeting susceptible people in Hegseth’s inner circle.

Even if, as I am sure he very wrongly does, Hegseth believes himself morally beyond reproach and too smart to be tricked, does he honestly think every single person in his circle and in their circles is as well? JFC.

What an unusually sized set of rodents.

Tightrope, a daily trivia game | Britannica

Apr. 21, 2025 

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My Score: 2360

If you raise the tariffs to a billion percent then the US will get a billion dollars revenue for every $100 TV that comes from China! There will be so many millions of billions!!! Why wasn’t anyone smart enough to do this before???