All this bullshit about phones with folding screens nowadays when what I really want is a phone with a folding mechanical 104-key :P

Early-model Cylon.

It can’t be, I haven’t paid for WinRar yet.

I moved one old laptop to Linux over about a year ago, and committed to an effort to actually make it do the things I wanted to do, like play games, and run Windows-only tools or find viable replacements. To say it went well is an understatement. Within a few months I had switched every computer I owned, and I’m never looking back again.

Granted, I was already quite familiar with Linux on the server side. This was not my first attempt to use Linux on the desktop, either. But it was my last, because I’m never going back to Windows ever again now.

It’s so much like watching that Silicon Valley show, but a lot less funny.

Lenovo Thinkpads are the only reliable choice pretty much and even then it’s a bit of a crapshoot whether they include them or not. HP Elitebooks used to have them too but it seems like they also stopped in 2021. Apple’s never had them as far as I know. There’s a few other one-off small-run options here and there too but they’re few and far between.

I realize I’m in a very significant minority, but personally, having access to the mouse pointer for short jogs here and clicks there without my hands leaving the keyboard home row is a gamechanger and a non-negotiable feature to me. I’d never claim it’s a great way to move the mouse, but it has extremely high utility due to its convenient positioning, it’s always available even in tight quarters, and anytime space permits it pairs well with a secondary, traditional mouse for movements that are more numerous or complex or need more precision, it works very well with a text-heavy workflow.

It’s a mouse for people who would rather minimize their mouse usage, and I guess that’s me, or at least that’s the workflow I’ve gravitated to all my life. It’s not an ideology thing, it’s simply the fact that it’s deep muscle memory now, and whenever I try to use any computer without one I struggle so much, and I’ve actively tried more than once to wean myself off it, I can’t, it becomes a constant irritation that any other mouse feels so disconnected from my typing.

Touchpads are just insanely frustrating to use, I have no idea how some people tolerate using them daily unless it’s all they’ve ever known, and touchscreens are even worse in some ways since your fingers block the screen exactly where you’re trying to press, not to mention getting fingerprint smudges all over it even with the best techno-magic coatings. I loathe them both.

No clit-mouse, no deal.

(There are dozens of us. Dozens!)