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Looking For Quacks In The Pavement

  • Heavy But Quiet – The Chilkey ND104

    Last month I watched a YouTube video discussing various nifty, fancy keyboards. One was the ND104 from Chilkey, the main selling points for which are that it’s solidly constructed and has the option for whisper-quiet key switches. Given that my appreciation for good old-fashioned “clacky-clack” mechanical keyboards has waned in recent years, I perked up at this. I’m not wild about announcing my keyboard activity to the whole house, and even less so about announcing it when it’s game time, chatting or streaming especially.

    So I pulled the trigger on purchasing what is, essentially, a birthday present to myself. Mind you… I did this just before Lunar New Year, ordering a Chinese piece of hardware. D’oh. Cue a two-week wait for the shipping stuff to actually happen…

    At any rate, the aluminum brick with keycaps stuck on it has arrived.

    If the left side of that box looks weird, it’s because of the partial slip-cover that I shifted a bit out of alignment when setting up for this picture.

    Seriously. For the size of the box, I just wasn’t expecting the sheer heft. That’s the sign of quality construction, right? Right.

    And it looks so crisp and pristine in its plastic wrapping! Too bad this spiffy new device is going onto my perpetually-dusty desk…

    Technically I probably could have used the same cable as was already in place for the Kensington (USB-A at one end, USB-C at the other) but it felt wiser to just use the equipment it came with.

    So… after all that, how is it?

    Mechanically it’s superb. I love typing on it, the keys are as quiet as I hoped for and it doesn’t feel “mushy” or like I’m not getting enough feedback. The RGB-ness is subdued; this isn’t a “gaming keyboard” per se. I haven’t figured out what I’m going to program the “summon Calculator app” button for, yet, but in the meantime having a “summon Calculator app” button isn’t the worst idea. (I play Satisfactory. Go on, ask me how often I do math-y things. And yes, there’s an in-game calculator function but it shares UI space with the entire rest of the in-game codex, so that’s not always practical.) The volume knob works as intended, each “tick” moving the main computer volume option up/down two integer values, which suits me fine.

    What, right out of the gate, am I less wild about? Uh, for starters… I had to swap two keycaps almost immediately. Look closely at the above image and see if you can spot them. Quality Control, folks! Also, in order to do actual customization you must load a particular web URL into a Chrome-based browser… Firefox’s engine will not do. And even then, apparently there’s a known bit of finicky behavior when it comes to customizing the images you can choose to display on that little LCD screen next to the volume knob. (I tried two different images, meeting the required specifications, and… nothing. Zilch. No love.)

    So… literally three hours in and I already have some minor frustrations. But they are indeed minor. I don’t care if the screen ends up staying on “clock” mode or “weather” mode all of the time, really. The keycaps are easy to pull and swap, no big deal there. The device does what I paid for, superbly. At the end of the day, that’s all I really wanted. Everything else is irrelevant.

    Would I recommend this keyboard? Yes… but keep in mind that it’s not cheap. I blew my “playing around” budget for a couple of months on this, and that’s without accounting for the surprise import duty cost that nobody bothered to mention up-front. I sure hope this thing lasts for a decade or so, because… oof.

    In the meantime, though: It’s a joy to use. I’m glad it’s here.

    Now I just need to find something to cover it at night to keep at least some of the dust out. (The Kensington came with a dust cover, and no, it doesn’t fit the Chilkey properly at all. Alas.) I know we’ve got some tea towels stashed various places around the house…

  • Satisfactory: Putting Lipstick On A Brick

    Post tagged:

    I took the week off from actual game progress, but not from the game entirely. Just, mostly.

    Here’s a view of the (nearly) finished building from the back.

    As previously stated, I intend to fully enclose as many completed factory buildings as I can stand to before I feel an overwhelming compulsion to do Literally Anything Else. This morning, as part of this project, I took on beautifying the Aluminum Works.

    (more…)

  • Satisfactory: Highly Decorated Efforts

    Post tagged:

    A bit of a slow week, but also the culmination of effort began several months ago.

    And yes, I blueprinted pedestals for the statuary.

    It’s a good opportunity to take it easy for a little while.

    Early in the week I spun up the last of the “Tier 8 Products” machinery and completed all three remaining milestones at my current progress level. After weeks and weeks of being, if not hyperfocused exactly, at least fully engaged with this massive chain of projects (to the exclusion of nearly all other leisure activities) it’s nice to be done with it.

    They’re all DONE… until I send up the next Phase shipment via Space Elevator.

    At least until it’s time to start on whatever I’m doing next. But I think that’s going to keep for a bit. I need to loop back around to Goal 1 for this save: “Build complete, walkable, cleanly structured facilities.” And that means (in part) going around and putting walls and roofs and whatnot on all my functional-but-unfinished factories. I’m tired of letting the partly-complete eyesores add up in my game map.

    Mind you, I was (as previously noted) extremely dialed-in on making certain production goals, and that took a while. But that’s done. I’m in no hurry to start the next really big thing. (Probably another power plant, just a question of “Rocket Fuel Plan A” or “Nuclear Power.” A question I won’t even answer right now. I won’t even ponder it.)

    This morning I decided to begin my beautification efforts at home, so to speak: The Hub site’s recycling complex needed walling in and roofing placed.

    I’m happier with how this turned out than I thought I’d be. Huh.

    It’s worth noting that I still… strongly dislike the default wall design. It’s too busy and looks weird, especially when you start adding in triangular filler pieces to deal with angled roofing. But at least it takes paint coloring, which the concrete and steel walls don’t. And there are no other options. Sigh.

    (A possible solution is simply to use the 1-meter wall pieces. And yes, that does look better… but I don’t want to place four times the objects for only a modest improvement to the aesthetics.)

    Anyway: One building down, several more to go. When I feel like it. When not puttering around in the other games I’ve been ignoring all year so far…

  • Satisfactory: Supercomputers (And Friends)

    Post tagged:

    I’ve been at this for months. I needed Rubber and Plastic. I needed Motors. I needed Heat Sinks and Aluminum Casings. I needed Silica. I needed Nitrogen Gas. I needed Quickwire and Copper Sheets. I needed Crystal Oscillators. And even though I made most of those things already, I needed enough production capacity that I could dedicate sufficient per-minute output to the task of making Radio Control Units, High-Speed Connectors, and Supercomputers plus Cooling Systems and Turbo Motors.

    Satisfactory video game screenshot: Part of the interface display showing progress toward current milestone, in this case indicating that the 2nd and 3rd items are fully accounted for but none of the 1st item are there yet.

    Turns out that lining up all your supplies properly before constructing the final production line is a very good idea. Who knew?

    (more…)

  • Satisfactory: The February Of Progress

    Post tagged:

    See, that’s because it’s not March yet.

    The design work can wait until I’ve unlocked an actual Milestone for the first time this year. Ahem.

    On the upside, I’m basically at the point of starting the Supercomputers (And Friends) factory build. I even know where I’m building it… as of, like, a couple of days ago. So it’s time for the weekly progress report!

    (more…)

  • Satisfactory: Motoring Along

    Post tagged:

    There’s a lot going on in my current save but no single thing notable enough to pull out for in-depth analysis so this will just be a general state-of-the-game catch-up post.

    Satisfactory video game screenshot: The Pioneer stands between two conveyor belt lifts in a partly-constructed factory. One lift is full of steel pipes, the other contains spools of copper wire.

    Day by day, project site by project site, I get closer to the Supercomputers (And Friends) factory goal. Let’s break down the week’s progress:

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