well.

Ii’ll take -40 (0r worse) over just-at-freezing and rainy. that shit seeps, and nothing wholesome ever seeps. when it’s brutally cold out, you can just pack more on. (or stay inside.)

The meme, though, is a joke about the otherside of the spectrum. (“It’s a dry heat.”)

“I am not that short! I.am.not!”

I’d suggest that paul is in fact a bit of a goofball.

So being cute is not “all”. He’s multidimensional!

Well… membrane kbs suck. Once you’re into mechanical, yeah it’s a question of preference and familiarity.

Finding what works for you is part of the fun, though.

This is why experienced vets invented “interns”

So, I’m going to preface this with noting that familiarity is the single largest factor for typing speed- at least when it comes to key board types. And a lot of it could also be a matter of confidence, as well.

In any case, the prevailing understanding is that mechanical keys are faster than membrane keys because of how they work. membrane keyboards are basically what you have on your microwave- a circuit board or some substrate with part of a curcuit, and a polymer membrane that has the other side of that circuit. You complete the circuit by squashing down on a blister in that membrane, and it registers a key press. Chiclet keys on most laptops are the exact same, except for the key pad you see riding on top of the blister.

Mechanical keyboards, on the other hand, are spring loaded, and the key press is registered somewhere between the top and bottom of the key’s motion. exactly where depends on the switch, mind. The OG mechanical keyboards from way back in the day, were all clicky- the point of the click mechanism is that it would tell you when the key press was registered. You could hear and feel it as you pressed down and you could let without fully pressing the key down.

This greatly reduced the fatigue a typist would feel, letting them type more. it also improved typing speed. (this was, in point of fact compared to typewriters, at the time. but it’s still true compared to chiclet keyboards.)

fast forward to the modern era with gaming keyboards going back to highly customizable switches. Linear switches (like Cherry MX Reds, have a progressive resistance to the key press. The further you push it down… the stronger the spring pushes back. There’s no tactile mechanism- clicky-clacky or just ‘tactile’ clicky without the klacky.

while people can feel the point where the press is registered, that is not me, so I wind up bottoming out each key stroke- which again slows me down and causes more fatigue to build up.

As a side note, this is also good for gaming because in some games, you can ride the key on either side of the point it registers and squeak out a lot of rapid presses, which is harder to do with a click spring up in there.

Things like the cherry MX browns, that are tactile without being super loud about it, are better, but I still type faster on the full clicky-keys. (kahlil whites, IIRC.)

Part of me wonders about hall effect keyboards, but I can’t be bothered to spend that much money just yet.

The tactile feedback of the clickly-clacky keys lets me type faster. on the other end of the spectrum, the tactile feed back is lower, but they’re less annoying.

the beauty is you can find whatever works best for you.

It’s also a security feature, that lets me know when I need to break someone’s fingers for daring to use my keyboard. (In my defense, the last time that was really an issue, the asshole wasn’t supposed to be in my office, and he was eating wings at the time.)

Clicks keys are supposed to be noisy.

Speaking for all middle managers… NOOoo… just give us cat photos.

I could be wrong… I’m not a doctor…

But if your heart is making that kind of sound, you might want to see a doctor.

If I were your boss,

Id say, “this is fair. Just get your stuff done as soon as you can, and in the meantime… I’m gonna need a kitty live stream.”

be sure to give Bitty a boop for me! (and the scritches she loves.)

Somebody get that bird a baggie!

So, I’m going to preface this with a quick reminder that once deployed, a folding knife is going to cause the same kind of wounds as a fixed bladed of similar size and shape. and example for this is the Benchmade Adamas family. They have a folding knife, an auto-opening folding knife and a paracord wrapped skeleton-grip (with paracord,) fixed bladed knife.

Once deployed, the knives are all going to do about the same in a fight. And the two folding knives- the auto, and the manual knife- are going to function basically identically. In Minnesota, the only one of these that’s illegal to carry is the auto. The only reason that’s illegal to carry is because of perception. (the same perception as switchblades.) There’s no practical reason that auto-opening knives are any more likely to be used in some kind of crime than manual-opening folders.

Back in the early fifties, switchblades were frequently used by youth gangs (west side story, for example,) or rough-and-tumble types (especially in cowboy or war movies,) as a sort of visual code to indicate they were of rather dubious character. eventually that became associated with black guys being villains, because hollywood never met a trope it didn’t like. even when the villain was white, or whatever, that was broadly overlooked by popular culture.

It was outlawed in '58 largely because people perceived it at the weapon of choice by black men. it had nothing to do at all with knives themselves being particularly dangerous. or even all that common, really.

the same is true of asian martial arts movies and balisongs. (which is ridiculous. the only thing a bali should be used for is as a slightly more exciting fidgit spinner. Sorry.)

Or brass knuckles (relating to the italian mafia and irish mob. hollywood gave those to the enforcers.)

This isn’t to say that maybe knives and brass knuckles and things shouldn’t be regulated. But outside of “Knives larger than x length”, and the occasional feature like double edges or spear points (Which are bad for general use, and usually purely for a weapon, not a tool); there’s always some other reason for it being outlawed… and generally that reason is that “the wrong people” are using them.

and many jurisdictions have laws written by people who don’t have a frooking clue and are simply reacting to a knife being associated with whatever out-group happens to exist at the time.

maybe instead go to the wikipedia page for ‘Gravity Knife’

or just read my comment more fully. Gravity knives don’t have switches. or buttons. If you’re considering the hinge mechanism that allows a gravity knife to operate, then practically any folder is a “switch blade” and that’s just not true.

from the wiki I linked:

A gravity knife is a knife with a blade contained in its handle, which opens its blade through the force of gravity. This mechanism of opening is fundamentally different from the switchblade…

Even in gravity knives that appear to be opened by a switch or buttons… all that button is doing is unlocking the blade to allow it to be deployed or retracted. If simply having a button or switch or something is all it takes to be a switchblade, then this classic gem would also be a switchblade.

Just to be pedantic, gravity knives aren’t switchblades.

They have a blade that slides freely (and under the force of gravity.) the grip is basically a hinged nutcracker that, when closed, traps the sliding blade either deployed or retracted.

In any case, they’re no more dangerous than your standard folding knives of the same general proportions.

The illegality of certain knives (switch blades, gravity knives, balisongs, etc) are largely not based on the danger or actual use of those knives as weapons.

In the US it’s usually reactionary and racism.

Ammonite? aka 2023 KQ14?

Pluto is crying into it’s pillow case right now. (If Pluto isn’t a planet, then it’s dubious that Ammonite is- for the same reasons.)

it would be hilarious is someone made the clock run five minutes late.