Levels of Detail

People seem to either love or hate the latest season of Lost. I fall into the group of people who like it so far, but I know many (including Qian) who are really irritated by it.

I can’t help but feel that whether you like or dislike the show at this point starts to say something about your personality.

I like shows that are complex, that have non-obvious storylines with multiple interwoven plots. I like shows where it’s obvious that the producers have paid a lot of attention to the little details, where stories are consistent, and where stories aren’t just laid out in a cliche’ed arrangement.

The number one complaint I hear from those who dislike the show is that each new episode doesn’t answer any questions but only asks new ones. What’s wrong with that? In a complex world, there are plenty more questions to ask than there are answers. If the show had an episode that just came out and explained everything, then there would be no show left, and at this point in the story, would make the show disappointingly shallow.

I still have faith that the writers are going somewhere interesting. Sure, it’s a little frustrating that there are so many open questions, but at the same time, I relish the idea that there are many more layers of complexity behind what has been presented thus far. Every episode that further deepens the mystery of the plot line only gives me more hope for a fantastically complex explanation behind it all. It may be that in the end that we are all really disappointed as the show tries to explain itself in some lame way, but I surely can’t make that judgement until things are over.

It seems like a lot of people speculate that the writers are just making this stuff up as they go. Just like any lie that’s told in the spur of the moment, incosistencies are sure to develop quickly when a continuous story line is written on-the-fly. I can’t recall any part of the show that has still been inconsistent, so that only makes me think that at least a large portion of it is written according to a grand storyline that was pre-determined.

Anyways, back to the original point. Whether you like or dislike the current state of the show says something about what you expect from a TV show (or maybe your attention span/patience?), and how much you trust the writers. Lost is certainly very unique among TV shows (at least out of the ones that I know) in that there are so many open questions and unresolved plot lines even into the third season. Maybe three seasons is too much, and the producers are taking a huge risk by potentially alienating a large part of their viewership who are either frustrated or too impatient to see how it all comes together, but I’m still up for the journey, as long as the destination is worthwhile.

*Model*: F8E208-BLK
*Switch Type*: Rubber membrane dome
*Cost*: $25 from newegg.com
*Connector Type*: PS/2

I found out about this keyboard through my friend Phil at work. He seems to be fairly picky about keyboards like I am, so I took his recommendation seriously. I’d been using a Powerbook for the last year, so I didn’t really get a chance to try out many PS/2 keyboards, but now that I’ve built a PC again, this was the first one on my list.

h3. Layout

The keyboard has a mostly standard layout, but with a few notable exceptions. It is one of the few cheap ergonomic split keyboards with an actualy split spacebar, so you can input a space with either thumb independently. The Return key is the larger L-shape, which moves the backslash key to the right of the right shift (The position of the backslash key is very odd indeed, but it actually hasn’t bothered me that much. The only time you use it is when you’re manually typing paths in Windows). In the upper right, there are three power state buttons, one for Sleep, Wakeup, and Power (since it’s a PS/2 keyboard, you need BIOS support to make the Power/Wakeup buttons work, I think). Also, unlike Microsoft natural keyboards, the 6 key is on the right of the split. Layout officionados will tell you that this is the correct position.

Backslash is under the enter key.

Also, another minor deviation from the standard layout is that the left set of modifier keys (control/windows/alt) is slightly indented from the left edge — maybe a half key’s worth. This makes the relative position of the modifier keys and the other standard letter keys a little different from a standard non-split keyboard. I was using my Keytronic keyboard before I received this, and soon after I switched, I found myself hitting Alt+F when I was trying to hit Alt+D, because the relative position of the Alt and D/F keys had changed. I quickly got used to this though.

Left modifier keys are slightly indented.

Power state manipulation keys in the upper right.

The ‘6′ key is on the right of the split.

h3. Other Features

As far as split keyboards go, this one has a fairly standard ergonomic design. It’s not the lightest of keyboards, and it doesn’t have fold out legs on the back. There’s a slight raise in the middle of the keyboard, but it’s not quite as prominent as the MS Natural 4000.

Key rollover is implemented by the standard phantom key lockout mechanism. I haven’t found any ghost keys yet, but the standards w+q+a test shows that in some combinations of 3 or more keys, only the first two pressed will register.

h3. Key Feel

Since I had experimented with Phil’s keyboard prior to purchasing this keyboard, I knew what it was going to feel like. It has a pleasantly light feel, with good feedback. I’d say I actually prefer it to the Keytronic, because this keyboard has uniform key resistance so it doesn’t confuse my hands. The keys aren’t the quietest — there’s a noticeable clack when the key rebounds, but I’m no picky about the sound as long as it feels good.

Unlike Belkin’s USB version, all the keys feel the same, and I don’t have any problems with certain keys being harder to press than others. It’s quite amazing to me that a company would sell two keyboards under the same “Ergoboard” brand name, with such different characteristics. It seems like it would be fairly confusing to customers. But like most companies, I’m sure Belking just re-brands an OEM model, so these things are somewhat unavoidable.

h3. Overall Conclusion

I like this keyboard a lot. I’ve regained a very fast typing speed after typing on it for just one day. The feel is easily as good as the Keytronic, and the split design is at least as good as the MS Natural Elite which I was using for a while. It’s already become my keyboard of choice for home use, and probably soon for work use as well. The only real drawback is that it’s PS/2 only (and it comes with a PS/2 -> AT adapter!), so Mac user’s are out of luck unless they find a PS/2 to USB adapter.. and finding one that works can be difficult (I couldn’t find one). I also wish it had a negative tilt option, but most keyboards don’t, so I can’t really fault this one.

At $25 bucks it’s a total steal. Unless you absolutely want mechanical switches or fancier rollover support, it’s hard to justify paying more for a general use keyboard. It’s a great alternative for those people who don’t like MS Naturals for whatever reason.

So one of my very few customizations to this Wordpress template affects the heading of the “Keyboard Review” list that you see on the right. If you actually click on one of those links, you’ll get shown the review for the keyboard, but you’ll also notice that the heading becomes “More Keyboard Reviews”.

This isn’t exactly rocket science. The code that does this is:

post; ?>

Although in_category is meant to be used while in The Loop, I cheat by setting the $post variable because that’s what in_category checks against. This is all fine and dandy, and this trick is actually documented on the Wordpress site.

However, after the heading, I have two lists of posts: one for the keyboard reviews, and another for my “review collections.” I had trouble for a long time, because for some reason, if I changed the order of these two listsings (i.e. put the review collections listing first), then my little trick above would stop working.

I finally figured out the source of the problem after a bit. The standard way to generate lists such as these is by doing something like:

$posts = get_posts('some condition');
foreach ($posts as $post):
  ?> ...