On day 3 of my Lily58 adventure i managed to surpass 30 wpm . . .
Hopefully the rest of the bits i need to finish the keyboard will arrive tomorrow. I had to return one part from Amazon because it arrived in a used and broken state and the replacement is due to arrive tomorrow as well. Fingers crossed the remaining stuff will all arrive good and dandy.
Bye for now!!!
So yesterday i finished building a Lily58 keyboard from a kit that i bought from Mechboards (more on that in another post as i haven’t totally finished it yet), and on my first few goes on Monkeytype i managed a whopping 24.78 wpm . . .
So, considering that it’s quite a drastic change of keyboard style, i’m more than happy only losing 6.6 wpm. I’m thinking there’s a lot of potential for the future in this keyboard.
I shall write a whole post about my build experience as soon as i’ve finalised the build: i’m currently waiting on a few bits to finish it to my liking.
Bye for now!!!
On day thirteen of my Colemak DH journey i managed to break through the 30 wpm barrier all the way up to 31.35 wpm . . .
I’d like to say ‘Next update at 40 wpm’, but i’m hopefully changing keyboard again in the next couple of days to a Lily58, which, i think, is going to put me right back to the beginning again. Ho hum, i’m sure it’ll all be worth it in the end.
Bye for now!!!
On day three of my Colemak DH journey i managed to break through the 20 wpm barrier and hit the dizzying speed of 21.11 wpm . . .
I’m feeling quite pleased with myself. Next stop 30 wpm.
Goodnight!!!
So, after over 30 years of touch typing on qwerty i decided it was time to try something different, and after much thinking and a fair bit of research, i changed my nice new keyboard over to Colemak-DH . . .
Admittedly, it’s quite a challenge learning a whole new keyboard layout, but i’m really enjoying it so far. Although my Monkeytype score has plummeted from 72 wpm down to 14 wpm . . .
Ho hum!
I’m now left wondering how long it’s going to take to get back to 70 wpm. We shall see.
Having fun with #mechanicalkeyboards.
My current best score on my new keyboard at Monkeytype.
I got the keyboard about a week ago and was hitting in the 50’s with it. A few days ago i replaced the stock switches it came with with Akko Crystal Silver switches and that upped my speed into the 60’s. Then, today, i replaced the cherry profile keycaps it came with with XDA profile keycaps and that’s upped it into the 70’s.
Now i just need to spend some time getting used to this set up. I’ve never had a keyboard that’s this fast before, it’s rather strange when your fingers can’t keep up with the keyboard. It feels like my fingers are tripping over themselves trying to keep up — i’ve never experienced that with a keyboard before.
Having fun with #mechanicalkeyboards.
This is my lovely Akko 3068B Plus keyboard. I’ve changed the stock switches to Akko Crystal Silver switches, because they activate faster and bottom out earlier, and i really didn’t like the cherry profile (or whatever that uneven profile is) of the original keycaps, so i bought these rather pretty looking XDA pudding keycaps from Ali Express at a surprisingly good price. I love the way the pudding keycaps really make the RGB bling to the max as they have translucent sides and legends.
The faster switches and the flat profile of the XDA keycaps make this keyboard a very nice keyboard to type on. I touch type (that’s like with all my fingers and everything, while not looking at the keyboard ever) with the keyboard sitting just about my knees and this feels just about prefect to me, your mileage may vary depending on how you type.
You can keep a check on my typing speed at this post, which i will keep updated with my progress as i get more used to this keyboard set up.
How to make the perfect mixed beans in a Ninja Foodi
There is no need to pre-soak the beans or change the water. The slow cooker takes care of the soaking bit and this is all the water the beans need, they’ll absorb it all. When you’ve finished cooking these you will notice that the adzuki beans will have turned to mush and absorbed all the leftover, nutritious, bean cooking water, this is supposed to happen, it’s nice like that – mixed beans in pure bean sauce.
The following recipe is for a 7.5 lt Foodi. If you’re using a 6 lt Foodi use 200 g of each bean and reduce the water to 2 lt)
This will make about 3500 g of cooked beans so you’ll need some containers to freeze a whole bunch down. I freeze them in 450 g batches and add them to everything i eat — super duper banging healthy.
250 g Chick Peas
2.4 lt Boiling Water
Start “Slow Cook” 4:00 on Hi
When countdown gets to 3:30 add:
250 g Soy Beans
250 g Black(Turtle) Beans
250 g Pinto Beans
When countdown gets to 2:55 give the beans a stir.
Continue slow cooking on Hi until timer reaches 2:20, turn off the Foodi, the slow cooking is done.
Add:
250 g Adzuki Beans
Stir to mix in with other beans
Turn off slow cooker and start pressure cooker on Lo set for 10 minutes.
When the pressure cooker beeps, do not release pressure. Just leave it until the count up timer reaches 35 minutes and then release any left over pressure.
Stir beans well and place in a sink full of cold water to cool them with a lid on. Continue to replace the cold water as the beans cool and the water warms.
Click on picture for a nice biggy look.
Every once in a while the Lophophora williamsii, that also lives in my house, makes a pretty. Every once in a while being like 4 or 5 years.
Yeah, Bobble (that’s his name) is a bit stingy with his pretties. I grew him from seed and he’s about 20 years old now.
So, not only one of the slowest growing plants ever, but also one of the rarest flowering plants. It’s so rare that i even published this in a full colour photo on this monochrome website, which is also about as rare as Bobble flowering.
Anyway, i just thought i’d share.
Bye for now.
If you’re looking for some nice, really nice, bicycle pedals, then maybe have a look at these ones from Look. They’re really good.
The platform is 100mm wide by 105mm long, which is a really big flat area. I’ve never seen any pedals this big before.
Great for bare foot riding, or riding with nice shoes on that you don’t want the soles to get torn up. Nice and grippy without the spikey bits of normal pedals due to the Vibram rubber grippy surface. You can buy replacement surface pads in lots of different colours if you wear them out.
All round good pedals if you’re wanting something super comfortable the doesn’t destroy your shoes or feet and gives loads of support from the extra large surface area.
Not sponsored or anything like that, i just bought them because i like riding barefoot and i couldn’t be happier. Worth every penny.
Check their website if you want more information.
Whatever you may use tomato ketchup for, stop using the shite you buy in bottles. It’s not healthy or good for you and tastes crap because it’s made with crap.
Try a super delicious, super healthy, tomato ketchup instead . . .
You’ll need a good strong blender, i suggest at least 1500 watts: this is not some watery smoothie, it’s a thick sauce.
Into a 750ml blender cup . . .
400g Tomatoes (for a more tomato-ey taste, swap out some — or all — of this weight with tinned tomatoes)
30g Apple Cider Vinegar
50g Currants
100g Apple (use all the skin of the apple and then make up the rest of the 100g with the flesh)
25g Celery
25g Onion
11g Fresh Ginger
11g Garlic
35g Orange
0.8g Black Peppercorns
0.8g Whole Dried Chilli
2g Coriander Seeds
1g Cumin Seeds
2g Dried Sage or Oregano
0.5g Dried Thyme
1.2g Star Anise
1.2g Fennel Seeds
2.5g Smoked Paprika
2.5g Paprika
10g Whole Flax/Chia Seeds
25g Dried Tamarind
Add some water if you think your blender needs it.
If you do use tinned tomatoes, find ones that are vine ripened and tinned in concentrated tomato juice as they’re much tastier and richer. Like these ones.
For making good home-mixed herb and spice recipes you’ll need something to weigh 0.1g increments.
Wherever possible always use whole spices as they’re living seeds, super healthy and much tastier. The blender will take care of them, if your blender doesn’t deal with the whole spices then buy a better blender.
Give it all a good blendy whizz bang.
Sooooo much nicer tasting and infinitely more healthy than bottled junk-food ketchup.
Keep in the fridge and use quickly, there’s no preservatives and other garbage in this, it will go bad in a few days. If you don’t plan using it all in a couple of days then store some in the freezer for later use.
Production by Esmail Corp and directed by Sam Esmail. Sam is also executive producer of this and Briarpatch. And if you’re still not with it, he’s also the guy who created Mr. Robot. Oh, that Sam Esmail. Yes, that Sam Esmail.
It’s all a bit strange to start: Heidi Bergman, now a waitress, is questioned by Thomas Carrasco, a Department of Defence auditor, as to her role in the Homecoming Transitional Support Center, about which she claims to have no knowledge. We then switch back and forth in timelines with Heidi, years earlier, running Homecoming while in the present claiming to have no knowledge of doing so.
There’s some great acting all round in this, but especially from Shea Whigham who plays Thomas Carrasco, the downtrodden cog in the DoD machine, to absolute perfection.
It’s good. So good i even watched season 2: review coming soon.
The last of the year’s 3 grand tours, La Vuelta usually throws up a fun 3 week adventure around the roads of Spain and, although in some ways it was a little disappointing this year, it was still a good race in many other ways.
Having lost a few good riders and teams in the first week due to crashes, illness, etc., the GC race basically came down to Movistar v Jumbo Visma with Movistar seeming more than happy to settle for second place. Although to be fair to Valverde and Quintana, they were raced in the Tour and then expected to come here and perfom against Roglič who had spent the summer doing nothing but get into perfect shape for this race. If Movistar had held Valverde back from the Tour and focused him totally on La Vuelta and made him absolute leader from the start without Quintana in the team then, oh, how things may have been so very different.
In the end the main battle was the white jersey between Miguel Ángel López and Tadej Pogačar. While everyone else seemed more than happy to just surrender to Roglič in the GC race, these two young whipper-snappers were most definitely not surrendering anything and were punching back and forth between stages all the way to the end with Tadej riding an awesome end to stage 20 that Miguel simply had nothing left in the tank to answer with. With hindsight it did look like Tadej may have deliberately held back on stage 19 while Miguel went charging off, thus leaving himself a lot fresher for stage 20 than Miguel.
And while the big GC battle teams weren’t going full gas mental, the breakaways were usually left to have it large on most days throwing up some wonderful moments for a few of the pro-continental riders — which we always love to see.
All in all, yes, it could have been better had it not been for those early misfortunes, but it was still plenty good enough.
Klapa is a style of a cappella music from Croatia. I found out about it because it’s the music that inspired the “Music of the Mazg” in Robin Sloan’s book Sourdough. Robin stated on Goodreads that the tune below, “A Beautiful Name”, was his favourite song.
And here’s the playlist for the whole album, Lipo Ime, should you be so inclined to wish to listen further.