Mullvad is a great VPN though, if Mozilla branding gets more people to use it instead of any of the scummy ones that are everywhere these days, it’s a good thing for privacy, the open web, etc. - the causes Mozilla is supposed to represent. It’s way better aligned with their goals than a lot of the other non-browser stuff they’ve been doing. I’d rather see them profit from that than from nonsense like ‘sponsored stories’ on the homepage.

Drop shipping is a great analogy though - branding and marketing is the only thing Mozilla is bringing to the table as far as I’m aware.

My first VPS was for a Minecraft server so I named it cobblestone. I’ve kept using Minecraft related names for all my machines since then, and I try to pick ones that are at least vaguely related to the function or appearance of the machine. For example my cluster has brute for the master and piglin01-piglin04 for the workers, but those are the only ones I’ve numbered.

The exception is my two Klipper RPi’s, one is octopi since that’s what it originally ran, and the other is named after the model of the printer. For some reason I never named my printers.

I probably wouldn’t use a naming scheme like this for production servers though - I’d either go with functional hostnames or something like the periodic table which you can pick from arbitrarily. My home servers and clients aren’t cattle though, so I like having a little personality to the names there.

SponsorBlock is essential now. I switched from iPad to an Android tablet largely so I could use YouTube ReVanced. And on Android TV there’s SmartTube Next.

I get that creators gotta eat, but I pay for YouTube Premium already. If they would stop accepting sponsorships from scam companies I might even stop blocking those.

No, I just printed the case files from the GitHub repo.

Not sure about swipe typing specifically, but there’s been some pretty interesting and weird attempts to invent better touchscreen input methods since at least the Palm Pilot era, probably on the Newton too even before that. There’s also some crazy stuff from the world of wearable computing that’s even more niche.

There are some similar boards with 3x6 layouts - ffkb and vulpes majora, both by fingerpunch, support 3x6 with a center trackball. I do miss the extra keys a bit with 3x5 layouts - when I eventually design my own board I think I’m going to do a 40 key layout.

There’s less finger movement needed (for any alternative layout) compared to QWERTY so in theory it could be faster. In reality it seems to not make that much difference - typing speed records are still mostly set with QWERTY, and personally I think I’m about the same speed as I was with QWERTY, or a bit slower.

It’s noticeably more comfortable though. I’m not sure there’s any actual ergonomic benefit, but it just feels really nice to type on. I don’t regret learning it but I don’t exactly recommend it either - it was a lot of effort for a small benefit.

If you’re deep enough into the ergo keyboard hobby that learning an alternate layout sounds fun to you though, then I say go for it, it’s an interesting challenge.

I’ve only been using it for a day so I’m still figuring that out. Something about it feels a bit ‘off’ compared to my Elecom Deft Pro but I’m not sure if that’s a hardware or software issue - could just be a smaller ball is harder to get the same accuracy, could be the cheap BTUs I’m using. I’ll probably try printing a different trackball holder that uses static bearings to see if I prefer that.

Colemak-DH? I switched using the Tarmak series of layouts, which change a few keys at a time from QWERTY until you eventually get to Colemak(-DH). Took about 5 weeks to do the gradual switch, then a couple months before I got speed back up to around where I was with QWERTY. But with that method I stayed at a good enough WPM the whole time to not lose any productivity at work.

Backups. Cloud services like Backblaze B2 are so cheap for the durability they offer, it just doesn’t make sense for me to roll my own offsite solution with a Raspberry Pi at my parents’ house or something. Restic encrypts everything before it leaves my machine.

Password manager- it’s too important and it’s the thing that has to work for me to recover when I break something else. I’m happy to support Bitwarden with a few bucks a year.

Email- again, it’s mission critical and I have a habit of tinkering with things and breaking them. And it’s just no fun. The less I need to think about email, the happier I am.

I could have stopped with a Microsoft Natural keyboard and been fine pain-wise, but I had already started down the mechanical rabbit hole and missed the feeling of mechanical switches. The basic ideas of split, tenting, and reverse tilt helped a ton, but I could have been fine without column stagger or a reduced layout.

I now use a 40-key low profile column staggered split with Colemak-DH and it’s a joy to type on. Learning Colemak-DH was probably the lowest benefit to effort of all the changes I’ve made, so I don’t exactly recommend it. Now that I’ve already spent the time to learn it, though, it’s definitely comfy to type on. If you want a mobile setup though, I think a split board like a Corne, Sweep, or Totem, or one of the many derivatives would be a great upgrade for your tablet setup. There are a few solutions for tenting but you may find you don’t need it - while it was essential for me at first I’m now fine using a split board flat on the desk.

I also found a vertical mouse made a big difference- I used the $15 one from Anker for a few years. Trackballs can be good too. I also noticed holding my phone put my wrist at an awkward angle, so I got a pop socket and that was helpful too.

Sovol SV06 or SV06+ would be my pick. For just a bit more than an ender 3 you get a better motion system, quieter stepper drivers, PEI bed, bed level sensor, all metal hotend, direct drive, and dual z axis. Basically everything I’ve upgraded on my ender 3 in the years I’ve had it, the SV06 has out of the box.