Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Keyboards

Episode Date: November 8, 2021

Alex Schmidt is joined by writers/podcasters Jeff Rubin ('The Jeff Rubin Jeff Rubin Show' podcast) and Cody Ziglar (Rick & Morty, Marvel Comics) for a look at why keyboards are secretly incredibly fascinating. Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week's bonus episode.

Keyboards. Known for typing. Famous for just typing, we're not doing the music ones. Nobody thinks much about them, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why keyboards are secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode. A podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt, and I'm not alone. My guests today are Jeff Rubin and Cody Ziegler. Really exciting. Really great. Jeff Rubin is an old, old pal of mine from the collegehumor.com days.

That was a very formative place for me, working at College Humor. And Jeff Rubin is many, many things. He is the creator of liesgame.com. That is a free multiplayer game that you can play with your friends. It's not an app. You just go to the website and then get a room and get down to it. It can be over Zoom. It can be in person, whatever you want. There's new questions since he was on this show last time. And it's very, very fun, very, very quick. Just a really great way to, you know, liven up a hang and have a good time. Again, that's liesgame.com.

Very easy URL as well. Jeff also hosts a wonderful interview podcast called The Jeff Rubin, Jeff Rubin Show. And he's now doing a very, very funny series of videos. They're on his YouTube and his TikTok. The username for both of those is Jeff Rubin, Jeff Rubin. his YouTube and his TikTok. The username for both of those is Jeff Rubin, Jeff Rubin. It's a video series where Jeff reviews children's books because he has a new father and he's, you know, he and his son are receiving a lot of them. And he has the absolute best angle on these things. The next one is about Paul learns to be polite. If anybody knows that one out in the literature world.

Anyway, you may remember Jeff from the Wooden Blocks episode of this podcast. Also, I have a new guest today in Cody Ziegler. Zieg is an amazing podcaster and writer. He's written for many TV shows, including Rick and Morty. He's written comic books for Marvel. And then podcast wise, he co-hosts The Dark Weeb with Brody Reed. And he's also a frequent co-host on the Crooked Media podcast X-Ray Vision. And he guests all over on shows like Yo! Is This Racist? and The Daily Zeitgeist. He's very busy. Jeff's very busy. I am so glad they both made time to get way, way, way into this topic with me. Also, I've gathered all of our zip codes and used internet resources like native-land.ca to acknowledge that I recorded this on the traditional land of the Canarsie and Lenape peoples, acknowledge Jeff recorded this on the traditional land of the

Patwin people, acknowledge Zig recorded this on the traditional land of the Gabrielino-Ortongva and Keech and Chumash peoples, and acknowledge that in all of our locations, native people are very much still here. That feels worth doing on each episode. And today's episode is about keyboards, and we're talking specifically the typing kind that do characters, and not the musical kind. That is a patron-chosen topic, many thanks to Stephen the Lesser for making it happen. He led a months-long push for that on the Patreon and made it very fun for everybody, too. I'm really thrilled about that entire process and that it got us here. Also, extra thing to say, this will be the second time in three weeks that the show does not start with the Stats and Numbers segment, because guests just

asked exactly the right questions to bring in a takeaway sooner. And I'm finding that fun. I would love to know what you think about that. I think the more the show flows naturally, the better. And so that's what's going on. Anyway, with all that setup complete, please sit back or return your fingers to the home row because even when you're not actively typing, it is nice to be home. Either way, here's this episode of

Secretly Incredibly Fascinating with Jeff Rubin and Cody Ziegler. I'll be back after we wrap up. Talk to you then. Jeff, Zig, it is so good to have you. And of course, I always start by asking guests their relationship to the topic or opinion of it. Either of you can start, but how do you feel about keyboards? I guess I'll go first. As I mentioned before we started recording, I had no strong take on keyboards either way up until three weeks ago. A friend, Heather Ann Campbell got me uh my first mechanical keyboard

it's a gundam keyboard we're both fans and she got me that and uh i i haven't even plugged it and actually use it i just typed it dry and like i get it like i'm i completely understand the appeal of like buying expensive mechanical keyboards like it feels like i'm at like an old like typewriter like typing out like i'm the detective typing up like how old mrs kinsworth killed her killed her husband to get the insurance money or whatever i love it i can't go back but it sounds like you feel like an old murder mystery novel character but also it's a gundam yeah is this all happening yeah yeah it's just modeled i mean i wish i wish i would i should have brought it out it's just like very steep yeah it's like it's got the colors of like a gundam and like it has like emblems on like certain keys and stuff

and uh it really does feel like uh i feel like i'm actually like doing work when i am typing like i only use it for like writing i i write tv and stuff so like i use it for that because i feel like i'm actually like doing actual work when i do it it's uh it's a great feeling i and i get it i get it 100 now i'm sold very tactile that's awesome yeah and yeah i like jeff what you said about steampunk being thing now i want one of those victorian murder mystery people to like have a mac as they're doing the cases yeah so i don't do mechanical keyboards i've never tried one but the reason is because i actually have uh i'm into ergonomic keyboards and it's like hard enough to find an ergonomic keyboard i like i if i could

find one that was also mechanical i'd probably go ahead and do it but i'm an ergonomic keyboard weirdo like i started i remember like when i started working and just like a few months into like working after college my my wrist started hurting, and I was like, uh-oh, I have a lifetime of this ahead of me. I better figure something out, and I got an ergonomic keyboard, and it totally solved the issue, and I've been rocking them ever since. I get a lot of weird looks, you know? It's like kind of like a bat computer thing. It just like makes the computer look like bigger, but it's just, you know, kind of a different shape. I love keyboards, and I hate pens. If I have to write something with a pen now it is miserable like if i have to like write a

check and i'm like you know like 100 and zero so like by the time i'm getting to the sense i'm like my my wrist is cramping up i'm like i'm so i i think i if i need to like write something it takes me a while to find a pen because I almost own no pens or pencils. I'm like all, I'm all about keyboards. I do. I'm way slower with a pen or pencil. Like my typing speed is like fine, but for some reason my handwriting is incredibly slow. Yeah.

I relate to that. Yeah. I've circled back around where now I do my handwriting on my iPad. Like I just cut out the physical pen and paper anyway. So it feels like I literally have a notebook right next to me, but I never use it. I just go straight to the iPad now. It's a weird little circumvention that I've been doing. I don't know why.

Do iPad, and maybe you'll explain this, Alex, but do iPad and iPhone keyboards, do virtual keyboards count as keyboards in your view? I was thinking about that as we prepared here. I think they do count, and I don't really have any interesting information about them beyond, oh, they're cool. Like, it's an evolution of it and kept it going. But I think they count.

Yeah, it's part of the family. Yeah. Because that, but like, even when we move to everything can be touchscreen and like, I feel like something like star trek said oh it'll just all be voice computed nobody types anything there's like three buttons and then you talk that's it but like in real life as soon as we had touch screens we were like how do i fit a hundred keys onto the screen i did this immediately do you guys since we already brought up anime i think it's good i'm not a huge, I'm not a huge anime person.

But I've seen, I've dabbled, and I saw, I think it's Ghost in the Shell, which I saw, like, in high school, like, a long time ago. And there's, I think it's in Ghost in the Shell, there's a shot of, like, I think he's, like, the bad guy, and he's over a keyboard, and he hovers his hands over a keyboard. And then his fingers kind of, like, he's got, like, robot hands, and they explode into tiny little fingers, and he starts typing, faster because he has like a finger per key like his hands have been modified to turn into like one finger per key so he can type faster which seems much harder than designing like a more efficient keyboard or whatever but i always that shot really stuck with me like i think about it often that's funny yeah i remember i was taking typing classes at the time and it filled me with such dread when i was like you know in middle school but like this guy's typing like 2 000 words per second because each individual digit has its own like five little digits that pop out

it was very very stressful and this other image has also stuck with me for a very long time i jeff i hope this is it doesn't embarrass you but the previous time you were on the podcast we also talked about that ghost of the shell scene. So it really did stick with you. That's incredible. It's really in your head. I can't find a way to break it up about wooden blocks. I will have to. I just remember we talked about it.

That is incredible. I don't think I talk about it quite that much. I am a little embarrassed, but it did really stick with me. It did really stick with me. I use the GIF a lot when I'm like starting to get to work on something, you know? Yeah. You know, I just remembered something else about keyboards is I've often looked up how Japanese and other like kind of languages with more than 26 characters, how keyboards work. I feel like I've looked that up several times because I always forget.

Like it's – I can never like hold on to the information for, like, how those things work. Obviously, I mean, I don't speak Japanese, so it's, like, of limited use to me. It's hard to retain. But, like, yeah, it's like, you know, like, MacBooks still have the same shape and kind of form in Japan. And, like, I don't quite understand how that works. You know, I think we can jump straight into a takeaway of the show. We'll go back to some other stuff later uh let's go into takeaway number one oh and my notes are down here so it looks like i'm paying attention but uh takeaway number one you're dming this conversation about yeah roll three for crit

he's like behind like a dm screen yeah i think he's using a block sound but it looks like he's like about to send us into the dungeon to kill goblins with gold or something takeaway number one other languages have their own quirties and this kind of a quick one because a lot of its visuals will have pictures linked for people. But there's sort of the QWERTY setup is very English language centric. And it turns out most other languages, not only are there some variations on the keyboard, but also it tends to be standard. And then one thing I found along the way with that is that in languages with a lot of characters, like you said, like Japanese or Chinese or other languages, there will tend to be just this same QWERTY keyboard.

Like they don't bother changing that up. But what they do is they use what's called an input method editor. So on the inside of the computer side, they're changing what those keys do. And then you can do things that add up to the characters did they have japanese pre-computers were there japanese typewriters like before they had that input side of it like oh did they just not have keyboards until they had a digital solution kind of to help manage it yeah that i don't know i would imagine it just had to be the latin alphabet if you want to use a typewriter. Yeah.

Because it's just too many characters. How would you do it? Right, right, right. Yeah. I was wondering if you have to, like, I think the minimum is like 2,000 to be, 2,000 characters to like be sort of like fluent and have everyday conversations. Like, I did wonder that too. Like, how do they get around?

Or maybe they used a romanticized version of the language. I don't know. Now I'm just completely taking swings in the dock. I have no idea. I don't speak Japanese. I've never studied it. Zing, not to put you on the spot, but is there kanji on your shirt? That's true.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I say that as I have my Little Shop of Horrors Japanese T-shirt that I have on. Yeah, there's rules. That rules. It's really cool. Thank you. And you just feel very authoritative to me since I can see you wearing it. Yeah, you know, I watched it.

As you know, I've seen Ghost in the Shell many times. I obviously have a grip on the culture. I know so much about it. What's great about that, though, I love Ghost in the Shell. You know, there's this one scene. What I love about your shirt is it's got like – it appears to have Japanese translations of like every word. And it says Rick Moranis above the title. And then under that, there's some Japanese.

So I can only assume that's how you say Rick Moranis in Japanese, which is just like a handy little cheat sheet to have, you know. I mean, when you're learning any language, the basic phrase book is like, hello, how are you, Rick Moranis? And then from there you pick up other things. Yeah, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids is translated in every language. It's your go-to phrase. Yeah. That's a fascinating thing with keyboards. There's going to be some examples here where they change the keyboard slightly because it's a simple enough alphabet that that makes sense.

It's like, say, the Canadian alphabet. You have extra E's and A's and O's. It turns out online, there's no research about Canada, actually. It's a not understandable place. It's really amazing. It's so different. But yeah, according to Daniel Engler, who wrote this for Slate that I read, with the example of Mandarin Chinese, there are a few different input method editors. There's one that lets you type the pinyin for characters, which is like the English phonetic equivalents. You're doing it by sounds.

But then he says speed typists in mainland China use an input method called Wubi. And when you type a character in Wubi, you don't spell out how it sounds. You punch in a sequence of keys that corresponds to what the characters look like and how they're drawn. Oh, wow. So if, if he's right,

there's at least two whole different ways to do a QWERTY keyboard into those characters. What about stenographer keyboards? I feel like that's something else like I've looked up and like been like, how do those work? And then I watch a video and I'm like, oh, interesting. And then 30 seconds later, gone. Like I have no idea. But while I'm watching, it's like, you know, like I'm watching a video about like Bitcoin or something. I'm like, I think I get it. And then 30 seconds later, if you were to explain it to me, I have no idea.

Stenographer keyboard is kind of its own language in a way, you know, like the way you input information there. Those stenographer keyboards, there's like, I need to look up the exact number, but more than a dozen keys. And you type a word by hitting all the letters at the same time. That reminds me, I've been, there's been these TikTok videos that have been popping up in my algorithm of these cats that use this keyboard that's like 10 buttons. And you just rest your fingers on it. And like you manipulate, sort of like ghost the shell. popping up in my algorithm of these cats that use this this keyboard that's like 10 buttons and you just rest your fingers on it and like you manipulate sort of like ghost the shell like you just manipulate your digits and like each each each i guess a button is is coded to like a series of letters so like you can basically type you can basically if you're really good you can type like

300 400 words a minute by just like divvying out like your fingers like that uh i look it up at infinity because it's very interesting to watch i would never in a million years type like that because it seems uh incredibly stressful i feel like i would have an aneurysm but it is interesting seeing like cats just like develop new ways to type the thing about typing and i imagine we'll get i don't know alex like to the quirky layout and like maybe like the like why the keyboard is laid out the way it is or whatever but like what it's it's a crazy thing to have to learn so like once you learn to do it one way like i have no interest in like relearning even if it was like twice as good it'd be so hard to relearn typing i've been doing it for so long

i've internalized it i'm sure like probably within our lifetime they'll invent something that's better and like young people will use it and like will not get it and like um keyboards will probably fade away or something but the the learning curve for learning something new you know yeah um many years ago i interviewed um bennett fadi who made the game quap um and getting over it if you're familiar with them they're like kind of intentionally frustrating games like if you saw them you'd probably recognize like seeing like let's plays of people like kind of playing and cursing QWOP is the one where there's like a

racer and his like limbs each button controls a limb and his limbs are flailing and getting over it's the one where there's like a guy in a pot and he's like oh yeah yeah yeah yeah anyway his point about QWOP was like he actually came up with that game because he was he learned about this guy who um had an artificial arm and he controlled the arm with the chest muscles and like over time he learns to control it just as like it's a hard

you have to relearn how to use your arm because it like operates in a totally different way like you're using your chest muscles but over time he like relearns like a new i guess paradigm for moving and i get i think that's kind of like what learning a new keyboard is like like you really have to like learn a new system well enough that you're like not thinking about it that you can just like do something else on top of it you know which just seems so intimidating yeah well it's not even just retraining your brain you're also like you're saying that you got to retrain your muscle memory it now like instinctively like i know to go to the like you know i know like my home keys or whatever they taught us in in middle school or high school whenever we had to learn it but like learning the muscle memories like for me like at this point i'm like i'm 35 or 34 like

if it's not if like learning new muscle memories seems so impractical at this point like i'd rather just give up and like not do the thing at this point do you think if i gave you a blank keyboard i'm assuming we can all touch type as probably everyone within the sound of our voice can but if i gave you a blank keyboard could you fill in all the keys like without kind of ghosting it like if i sat there and i was like all right i'll pretend to type hello and then i'll figure it out but like if you just gave me the blank keys and we're like where do these go i don't think I could do it. Yeah, I think I could get the middle the middle row pretty good. But like once it once I leave that and I got to start hitting I's and O's and P's, like I think it's going to be going to get a pretty messy, pretty fast.

Yeah, mine. This is a fascinating experiment. I'm looking at my computer and there's a little indents at the F and the J for my index fingers. So to like line it up, I think if the blank keyboard had that guide, I could, I could get pretty far. And if it didn't have it, even if everything was the same shapes, I wouldn't know what to do. I'd be lost. I could type on a blank keyboard. I just like, even now you're like F and J have a little nub on them. And like, I touched that nub a million times a day. I'm looking at it right now.

And like, I never would have been able to tell you they're on the F and J keys. You know, I had to look big time. Yeah. I think also playing video games like, uh, like the,

the ASDW, like I got that on lock just from like playing, you know, for choosing stuff, but like anything outside of that, I'm lost. I got nothing. I got,

it's going to be a rough, uh, well, it's weird how a keyboard is, has become such a definitive video game controller. And like E is probably still the best way to control a first-person shooter or whatever, you know. It is still the best way to play competitive video games at a high level if you're like very serious about it. Or even semi, whatever. Like keyboards are a – and it's funny because like they're not designed as a video game input.

But video games have kind of like wrapped themselves around keyboards in a weird way or a lot of pc games have anyway you know shooters and mobas and that kind of yeah it's funny that you speak of that like that the ergonomics of like your keyboard is like you know you look at a controller video controller like it's obviously so perfectly suited for like human hands to hold and it's crafted all that stuff but like we even when it comes to like playing like like you said, high level competitive games, like this brick that has, that does not see, that does not scream ergonomic or like that. It could,

that it's, that its form could follow this function. It's still the best, one of the best means of doing it. It's very interesting thinking about that. Right. You're doing like Skyrim or, or fallout or the late,

like the latest in video games. And it's on a device with like the page up key still that's a great let's get rid of some keys i guess i think they're pretty there's a lot of look there's a lot of keys we could cut page up page down like i feel like that predates the mouse like there's a few keys out there i mean i'm looking at the macbook again like the laptop i guess you have to be a little economical but like i don't know even even like this this bracket plus curly bracket button do i really need the square brackets and the curly brackets that often maybe if you're a programmer or something yeah that seems like i mean yeah i guess programming also seems like a holdover from like

copywriting days like when you're you know i guess if you're like on a typewriter typing up something for shipments or whatever, or doing legitimate old copyright, maybe you need three different types of brackets. Parentheses aren't doing enough for you, so you've got to bring in the other ones. Or when 99% of computer users were programmers, too. It's like, well, I need a bunch of wacky symbols. And then I'm like, I want to open email. And I don't got any of this.

Yeah, it's not me typing in pizza into Postmates now. It's evolved past the need for multiple brackets. I assume they start getting used in code because there are buttons that everyone has that aren't being used for anything else. I'm looking at the pointy brackets that you use for HTML. And I assume they're just like, what's something that we're not currently using that we can use? And that's what they came up with. They looked at keyboard with and that was the least useful thing and they're like all right well now it does this we talked about like regular qwerty and then there's regular qwerty with a totally different input method for different characters there's also i didn't know a lot

of europe is doing this but some european languages are doing a slight variation on qwerty that makes my head hurt from an English language perspective. I sent you guys a picture of AZERTY, which is a French keyboard layout. It's apparently slightly more optimal for the French language, but you know, just a few keys have moved around. And obviously it's called AZERTY because that space where QWERTY is on an English keyboard, it's slightly different. Oh, this makes me get my chest tight. It's interesting that the Erdy stayed.

They were like, oh, this Q and W have to move, but the E, R, T, Y are just in the right place. Actually, in that first row, the Q and W are the only letters that move. The rest are still the same as the English keyboard. I wonder... It seems crazy. I'm certain there's more efficient ways to organize the keyboard.

And I'm like, now we have like basically infinite data about how people use keyboards and I'm sure they could do something better. But the problem is like, all right, let's say I get this keyboard and like I learned to use a Zerdy and like, wow, it's much better in France. I like, if I ever go use another keyboard,

like I'm in real trouble, you know? Like we kind of just have to all use the same thing practically, right? I think so. Now I'm wondering, I'm wondering if trouble, you know? Like, we kind of just have to all use the same thing practically, right? I think so, yeah. Now, I'm wondering if there's, like, I mean, I'm sure the French can't be the only ones to have this. Like, is there, like, a German version of this? Like, you know, is there, like, a...

Yeah. I'm wondering if there's, like, divisions for each, like, language group have this specific keyboard, because I'm assuming, especially if you're speaking a language that has, you know, like you're saying, like, Russian, like, a Cyrillic language, like, you know, that's more than 26, you know, letters in the alphabet. Like, I'm just curious how that breaks down country by country or at least language by language. That's a perfect question, because the source for most of these slightly different ones is mental floss. And the other two big ones they picked out from Europe are Germany and Russia. And the German one is one called

Quartz. So it's slightly different. It's sort of like Izzurdi. I didn't send a picture, but we'll have it linked for people. And then the Russian keyboard, because like you said, Sig, there's this Cyrillic alphabet. So you can do like a QWERTY style keyboard, but it's all different. And it turns out Russian keyboards have a standard QWERTY. Everybody uses this layout. The Latin alphabet acronym for it is J-C-U-K-E-N. I don't know how to pronounce it. But Jakutkin or whatever is a standard format for Russian Cyrillic keyboards.

And I sent you guys a picture of... I don't know Cyrillic, so it just looks like a random Of you know it I don't Know Cyrillic so it just looks like a random Keyboard to me but they know it very well Yeah I took Russian For a year in When I was in like community college It's like this is I have not spoken it in Over a decade but like looking

At this keyboard I was like yeah it would have been much much easier To type on this than trying To figure it out on a Old like an american keyboard a us english keyboard oh wow i guess you know looking at these alternate keyboards and thinking about like how you know even if you learn it you still have to deal with so many other keyboards is that right do people have to deal with keyboards beyond their own or is that just my life like maybe you just learn your keyboard and that's your computer and that's okay you know you don't it doesn't come

up often i i alex do you know if um say like you have like an iphone like can you when you switch languages like did it switch the keyboard that you're using do you know anything about that like if i like if i had this in russian like would the keyboard switch to this jukin jukin or whatever i'm curious to know about that layout they're still sticking to accordi i yeah i especially with Apple stuff, there's like every keyboard. Like you can get whatever language keyboard you want uploaded. It adds an option, kind of the way you can switch to an emoji keyboard that like lets you just kind of switch between keyboards. And yeah, that's what I was getting at is like the virtual keyboard thing does kind of solve this problem because like keyboards can be whatever layout you want.

But I think virtual keyboards are not as good as regular keyboards but also i'm wondering if that's like an old man opinion of mine and if like kids are like you know feel the same way about keyboards that i feel about pens and they're like oh yeah that old thing no i just like type it on my my thumbs are much faster you know like look how much smaller and more efficient it is and i don't know what the long term of that is i guess yeah well yeah even with the um thinking like so i have i guess i have two keyboards on on my phone now i know how i got them uh one is like you know regular typing with your thumb but other one is like the swipe typing like if you just like uh yeah like i've been using that a lot lately uh the past couple of weeks and like you should not be texting when you're on your

car people first of all but if you happen to be at a stoplight it is much more faster and safer to do it with like just swiping with your thumb you know while you're while you're idling as opposed to taking two hands and texting the new york equivalent of that is you can do it while you're like hanging onto the strap on the subway like often in the subway you'll find yourself like with only one hand just because you're hanging on to something else for dear life so it definitely comes up yeah the swiping thing is interesting because that is like a new way of inputting text onto a keyboard that is probably not going anywhere and like will probably be around for some time and i bet like there are some young people who prefer it and like you know it will become the way they enter text into

computers i don't know yeah probably some old people too but you know yeah we'll be phased out long by then and i guess in between the oldest and the newest shout out to t9 t9 folks oh my god where you had to do way too much tapping yeah t9 is so funny because it was just like what it was like such a it was it was like a week you know it was like it's such a everyone you can really like i week you know it was like it's such a everyone you can really like i don't know i feel like it was a year where we all knew it and then it was just gone it was just like wiped out like the dinosaurs you know like just so useless yeah it's such a one-to-one holdover from like having touchpad phones or like you know you have to dial in 1-800 big car like you would tap the five six times or whatever to get to the thing and like

once they once they realized we could just put actual keyboards on this thing it's like we a little 1-800-BITCAR. You would tap the 5, 6 times or whatever to get to the thing. Once they realized we could just put actual keyboards on these things, we didn't need to do this anymore. We've gone past this. Remember pre-iPhone? A lot of the pre-iPhone smartphones had tiny, qwerty keyboards on them

with 50 tiny keys or whatever it is. That was bad. Apple, I think, sort of revolutionized that. I don't think anyone really makes... Blackberry, you know, 50 tiny keys or whatever it is. And that was bad. And like that, like, you know, Apple, I think sort of revolutionized that. And I don't think anyone really makes like BlackBerry, I think stuck with it for a while. Cause like there were, as is kind of a theme I'm hitting on here. Like there were old people who were like, no, no, this is the way. And they didn't want to adjust to the virtual screen. I think BlackBerry like was like, we're sticking with the physical keyboard for like our core

customers or whatever for like a little longer than usual. But now obviously everyone, you know, has moved over to the screen, which is just a much, it makes much more sense. Yeah. I have funny, I remember the first phone I had that had a physical keyboard. Like you have to turn to the sides, flip it up and then like actually type on it. And like your phone was so thick because it had to have like an actual little small mechanical keyboard inside of it. And like heaven forbid, if you like bump into anything and like it cracks your screen, then you're like it's just game over. But I am glad that that like two to three year period where like everyone had like a full little typewriter in their pocket was a fun time to be around.

It is funny that people are like, all right, well, keyboard big will make keyboard small. And then like Apple or whoever, like someone will come along and like really innovate it and like move things forward but yeah you can see like how people like it takes a minute to figure out how to do the new thing um and like your instinct is to just like just slightly update the old thing but like actually sometimes it requires like a you know a real rethinking right you can't just shrink stuff as as we learned from Rick Moranis, obviously. It's not a solution to situations you're in. There's more QWERTY stuff here in another segment they'll take us into about the origin of it. And on every episode, it's usually our first thing, but I flipped it around. But the next fascinating thing about the topic is a quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics.

And this week, that's in a segment called There's a stats man counting in the sky. He'd like to tell us numbers, but he thinks he'll blow our minds. Lovely voice, Alex. Thank you. Excellent. The throat clearing. The throat clearing is what made it for me. Yeah, folks, I cut out about half an hour

of warm ups limbering the guys were really great hanging out for it some really beautiful runs he was doing some really beautiful triplets it was really really fast

it was really really great but yeah that name was submitted by Susan Bernson thank you Susan we have a new name for this every week please make it as silly

and wacky and bad as possible submit to SipPod on Twitter or to SipPod at gmail.com. And this segment has the origins of QWERTY in it this week. Because the first number is 1878. 1878 is the year when the first documented appearance of the QWERTY keyboard layout popped up. It was in a patent application for a typewriter. Cool. Is there like a John john cordy who invented it oh uh i wish seymour cordy that is i'm surprised he didn't you know i think it's because so his name is christopher latham

shoals and now my theory is because shoals has S's, he couldn't like just plug his whole name into the keyboard. You know what I mean? Like it would repeat. was mainly a gun manufacturer. Oh, yeah. But in a... What a crossover. Yeah. And apparently... And this is Smithsonian talking about this. I guess in the 1870s, Remington was weighed down because the Civil War ended in the U.S. And so they needed other business to do their, like, precise mechanical engineering in, and they hit on typewriters.

It's such a... It's too bad the Civil War ended, you know? Yeah, yeah. It's a real... they really took a hit that's that's that's a shame but yeah and so then they got into typewriter making they used qwerty keyboards on those and then they also gave away free typing classes in order to like get people hooked on only knowing QWERTY and only using Remington. And then later on, they formed a cartel with other typewriter makers and then all of them used QWERTY. And that's really why we have it today. It's just straight from typewriters. That's so funny. I mean, it's also so American, like we're going to create a market and then

we're going to falsely inflate it to make it be like our product, the only one that can serve it. It's sort of, it's like the whole got milk campaign that just like kick-started and they're like product like you know just to get mixed milk milk sales up it's very funny to see that that's being used to sell keyboards and not even keyboards like uh one layout one very specific layout of keyboards is very funny yeah right it's like got qwerty it's like oh you want somebody to type without qwerty and then everybody looks at you funny yeah yeah yeah what are you a poor you don't use qwerty please you don't have a gun typewriter lame bad i guess it makes sense like they would have to stand it i'm glad they standardized because like if you had to relearn typing with every like typewriter you got yeah i wasn't there

or anything but that seems like it would have been difficult um so it made sense they had to like align around a standard but i'm not surprised to learn that you know someone got rich doing it yeah i guess it is capitalism partly optimizing something it's like we're gonna make all the money but also people do want this part i guess yeah yeah broken clock is right twice a day yeah did you guys take typing lessons because i are when i was a kid there was a computer class but like you couldn't do that much interesting stuff with computers so like they would teach us to type and i knew how to type because i was a little dork believe it or not and um um but i think that was unusual at the time like most of my classmates like did not know how i mean they all know now or whatever but like i wonder now

like i think you probably like kids just show up knowing how to type i would assume you know yeah i imagine yeah imagine especially if they're doing like coding classes and stuff now like i'm imagining it's like it's just like people just know how to do it or younger people know how to do it like i so i feel like i had typing classes in elementary school um i'm from the south so like it was basically like the first time we ever got computers like we'd always do those like typing games like you know sure words would come down you type it like that's how you would do it and i think that eventually evolved to like i think think in maybe like early high school, we would do the same thing, but the words would get a little bit more complicated. Like that was basically how we got, how they like rushed.

They're like, hey, we're gonna take all these farmers and teach them how to actually like type stuff. And like that's basically where we ended at. It's like typing, you know, precious or something like that's the big word that we're learning today, this week. I feel like in my sixth grade computer class in the 90s, I learned how to type. I feel like in a current day sixth grade computer class, you probably learn like Java or something, you know. Photoshop. They give you actual skills. Yeah.

Yeah. What were you going to say, Alex? Oh, and I had a similar experience to Zig with grade school being learning it, but I, and then I, but I also, we, we had a computer and I think I exclusively used AWSD and shareware games. Like I remember being real grouchy about having to learn typing in school as an enforced thing. I just hunted and pecked until somebody made me do it better. Yeah.

Some of those typing games are pretty compelling like there are like some that like there's good there's some typing games you can play if you're a grown-up typing of the dead is a popular one but i feel like there's a few like web typing games that like let you compete on a leaderboard and i've definitely seen friends get very into that yeah you can do it faster than others like any other race like it's just it is fun to like concentrate it's not so fun i'm not like but like once in a while there you get the appeal of like concentrating and trying to type as fast as you can you know and like really like focusing on the task yeah is that fun once in a while that's fun it's not like a great it's a self-challenge

i get it like i i also have monstrous fingers so like i i do i've over the years i've evolved to where like now i just like i can like just type with like four fingers basically because otherwise i'm smushing multiple buttons so like every now and then as a challenge like i'll try to like i'll play like a typing of the dead just to see how fast i can get and i don't get too far because i got these big thick stubby fingers and like this would have up as i'm as I'm typing along. But getting into the zone is pretty fun. Yeah, that's right.

You can get into a flow state with it. It's really fun. Yeah, well. There's also a kind of legend, maybe true thing, where people claim that the QWERTY layout was designed to prevent typewriter jams, like to make it inefficient and spread out the letters. Smithsonian says that's not really verified anywhere. They also cite a 2011 study from a team in Japan that looked back at the historical record and says that QWERTY came from feedback

from telegraph operators. So English language telegraph operators, like the shorthand that was useful to them, they pushed for a typewriter that was optimal to that. So that might be it, but it's not totally clear why we have this exact layout. I'm just saying, if you were like, all right, blue sky, we're inventing keyboards. Where should all the letters go? I'm probably like putting all the vowels in the middle, right? Like just, just an S, you know, like the vowel. I guess A and S ended up pretty prominent.

But like it's just I wonder how they ended up with like this specific layout that we all like have internalized into our brains so deeply now, you know? Yeah. Now I'm staring at my keyboard like the letter I and the letter O are only a little bit easier than those brackets over there. Right? Like that's. Yeah. Come on. Those are important vowels, vowels folks i get on a

soapbox about them folks we need to stick up for them i mean z is it z and x are kind of stowed z x and q are all stowed away in the corner i guess that makes sense yeah you're not really using those well i mean ziggumar but sure yeah i get it oh yeah yeah that's true yeah it's yeah it's really just for me. Me and my family. We're the only ones really making use of those Zs. Yeah. And my name's Alex. Hey, wait a minute.

Jeff. Now we're mad. Now we're mad at Jeff for Z and X erasure. Jay, the Jay key, gets one of those little nubs, you know? It's an important letter. Yeah. You're our guiding homestar. Well, and speaking of keyboard rearrangementment next number here is 1936 just

another year 1936 that is the year when august dvorak shared his new keyboard design the dvorak keyboard have either of you used that or tried to use that i've heard of it and never done it no i've heard of it again just being like dork adjacent my entire life i've definitely like heard it but i don't think i've like seen one sold at a Best Buy or anything, you know, like I've seen it as an option in some settings menus or something. But like I can't say I've ever seen it. And I my understanding is it's faster. I'm sure that's right. It's like such a dorky thing to be like, I'm going to learn the faster thing.

It's going to make me faster and more efficient it will make every keyboard i interact with it'll make everything more difficult for the rest of my life like every keyboard like i'm gonna have to change the settings i'm gonna go to your home like try to use your keyboard and be like oh boy it's qwerty this is so slow it's like to gain this like i get it i'm sure it's faster i have no doubt it's faster if you're like willing to do the work but like i'm maybe this is my personality i'm just like whatever society's doing is fine i don't want to like i'll just go with the flow on this you know yeah i'm looking at it right now and like layout wise like i like most of the symmetry like it like visually it makes sense to me like looking at

like it just have a couple of the top are those in the middle and a couple more at the bottom like i like visually how it looks but uh to jeff's point like you know it's good enough for like most of the people on the planet like well i'm not gonna be the one that's gonna buck the buck the trend like i'm not gonna want it's gonna be stirring the pot here yeah it would cause so much stress just like with there's so many times you interact with keyboards so if there were like two types it just would take so much work like i i guess i i don't know i'd love to hear from like a dvorak person who like really uses it like i don't know like how long it took and if it was really worth it because it does i don't know. I'd love to hear from a Dvorak person who really uses it. I don't know how long it took and if it was really worth it.

Because it does, I don't know, it's kind of mythical. I know it's out there and I've truly never heard. And I know some huge losers. So I feel like I know someone. Yeah, I had to Google for an account from someone who uses it, and we'll link to The Verge's John Porter, who describes kind of a mixed experience with it. There's good and bad, basically, he says. Can you just order one from Amazon? There are Dvorak keyboards. I can just buy them.

Yeah, I just Googled some, and they've popped up. I see one that's on Amazon right now, a Bluetooth one. I think you can get them pretty easily, it looks like. But I guess it's the same layout. they they've popped up like i see one that's on amazon right now a bluetooth one so i think i think you can i think you can get them pretty easily it looks like but i guess it's the same layout so probably what you do you could probably use a qwerty keyboard if you like internalize the layout like if you scrambled the keys on my keyboard it wouldn't affect me even a little bit right so like if you as long as you know the thing you can use any keyboard you just have to like i think is you just have to change the settings i guess but i'm not sure yeah that's what uh this verge article by john porter he says

he does an input method change sort of like those high character set alphabets like where he just uses a qwerty keyboard he doesn't own one and types the the got it got it and like you're saying like every machine in the world more more or less, is now the thing you used to do that you probably can switch back to, but it's maybe annoying. Like, I don't know if the curve is worth it. Yeah. And it's also apparently, according to Hackaday.com, it's sort of understudied how good or bad this keyboard is. Again, it was created by August Dvorak. He was an educational psychologist and U.S. Navy veteran. The goal was to keep the most common letters in the English language in

the home row. I guess it mainly has never taken off, but the main chance it had was World War II, because he developed this 1936, and then the U.S. military was short on typists. They just needed people doing all kinds of different things. And so they let Dvorak run a study of retraining people on his keyboard and seeing if it was faster. Because if it's faster, then you need less typists, and maybe that fixes it. And in a very small study of a few dozen people, they seem to type faster. But other sources of God say that's not very scientific, we've never like really checked if this is better or not like we still don't know yeah no one cares no one wants to learn a new keyboard thing is this like even if it's

faster i don't want to use it i think that's the important part yeah yeah yeah like i like i'm completely satisfied with how fast i type it's just about as fast as i can think like i, I don't feel as if the keyboard was more efficient, it would make my day that much better. Yeah, squeeze out a couple more words per minute. No, I'm fine. I'm good where I'm at. Right. I mean, I guess, you know, I write, but I'm not like a stenographer or a coder where, like, you know, it might really need a lot of words. Maybe there's someone, but I'm just I'm just not interested.

Sorry, Mr. Dvorak. It does seem like someone could like train an algorithm to figure out just like what I feel like a computer could solve the best keyboard layout. I still wouldn't want to use it or anything, but like I feel like it's extremely solvable by a computer to figure out like what are the keys people use and just make this as efficient as possible. That's true. I feel like pre-internet that was very hard to solve and like now we have the tools and then oddly the internet

maybe makes it easier than ever to shop for a different keyboard like the the internet's nature might make this finally improvable but but we're all old and don't want to yeah i'm sure i'm assuming all these all these have very dedicated and very active red communities. So I'm sure they've done the research. People have done the research. You just have to compile them all together. Extremely toxic Reddit communities where they're just really rude to QWERTY people and just harassing them and doxing QWERTY supporters. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're like commenting and then attaching a video of themselves typing it the way they do, like to prove it.

Next thing here is a big trumpet sound for a big takeaway. Before that, we're going to take a little break. We'll be right back. I'm Jesse Thorne. I just don't want to leave a mess. This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam in a few places. Yes, I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR.

Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience. One you have no choice but to embrace because yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. Well, off of those kind of keyboards let's get into some even other ways this could have gone another main takeaway for the main episode takeaway number two our keyboards could have been shaped like balls uh really just one ball but this is a story a fun story about an early version of the typewriter i

just sent you guys a picture of the hansen writing ball which was one of the first commercially successful typewriters i mean i don't know anything about engineering it seems hard to make round metal things seems much harder than straight metal things like curves seem hard i mean it appeals to my ergonomic interest you know like okay i can kind of see this i feel like i feel like this is a domino but the first domino was this and the last time it was like just a hovering orb that like you stick your hands in to like manipulate the things in like the year 2045 or whatever like i i would love to see the trajectory of this thing where it would have ended if it actually caught on because it looks rad it looks awesome like we all live in spheres instead

yeah like the whole world is around are all the letters on one ball or do i need two balls one for each hand yeah so this is it's a single spherical shape with the whole set of keys on it. And they, when you see it, folks, like... A one-ball solution. Yeah. And it looks like typewriter keys, but it's just on sort of a ball, and then there's kind of a roll of typewriter paper below it. So you're using the single ball to... I can't figure out where you put your hands,

unless you're, like, hovering over it like a little squirrel or something. But but you this looks so much more complicated to build and there is no discernible advantage. Just looking at this picture like I like it's not clear like what it would do better. It looks it just looks crazy. Yeah, I got to find someone typing on this. But even the paper looks like it's curved. Like, it writes on... The paper is curved?

Everything's round? Exactly, yeah. The whole thing is... Like, especially with computers versus typewriters, I think of stuff being square. Like, we had those beige boxes in the 90s and stuff. Like, it's all squares and rectangles and corners and stuff. And then a Danish inventor named Hansen came up with this Hansen writing ball the 90s and stuff like it's all squares and rectangles and corners and stuff and then uh a a

danish inventor named hansen came up with this hansen writing ball where it's a whole spherical situation it's just a completely different way of doing a keyboard it looks like it was fun to build but yeah it's just so much more complicated yeah i i'm not i'm not buying it literally you're literally not going to buy it. Yeah, that's correct. It's true. Yeah, and for a few different reasons, we've ended up with the flat keyboard shape. And apparently one big factor was the invention of the shift key.

The shift key turned out to be a hugely important typewriter key, because then it let them basically have less keys for more characters and it made typewriters cheaper to make and easier to make but the the shifting made the most sense on this sort of flat menu of keys that that we're used to shift key makes a lot of sense but it's really cool to imagine it like mechanically like on a computer like great whatever it's nice and we use it but like mechanically the idea there's like one button you hold that i guess shifts like the underlying mechanics so like they're all on that's it's clever i bet that was uh i bet that was neat when they first invented it don't know who did invent it and whoever did it must have felt like splitting the atom like i can i can do everything now with

this typewriter yeah it's interesting because shift is probably like, it's probably called the shift key. Cause it, I assume it shifted the mechanics and here we are like a hundred years later or whatever. And we're still called the shift key, even though like, you know, it's all Silicon now.

Yeah. It's like the mechanical piece of it maintained, you know, like delete, there was no delete or escape key. Like these are, these are new computer rewards, but shift like kind of,

and I guess return also a little bit like the entity on my laptop is called enter and return and shift and return both kind of and i guess tab maybe too i don't know what a tab is to be honest but like yeah they seem like holdovers from the old mechanical errors yeah yeah it's cool well and speaking of computers there's one more big takeaway for the main episode takeaway number three we also could have ended up with computer keyboards that only have five keys. Oh, how does that work? Yeah, one more time. We almost had computer keyboards that only have five keys. And that's because there was a super crucial technical demonstration in the early history of computers, where a lot of things we do now

were demonstrated and also a totally different and more reduced version of the keyboard was part of the deal yeah i gotta see five keys yeah you only get s you gotta get s in there yeah you know you needed to ask if something's plural yeah and this this story there's a few sources there's smithsonian and also an article for Wired by Adam Fisher. And then a great 99% Invisible episode produced by Louisa Beck. It's called Of Mice and Men. Amazing podcast, check it out. button and then the letter B is the second button. The letter C is the first and second button. And then up from there, you can type all the letters and you only need this one hand on just five keys. Like not your fingers don't even have to move from thing to thing. You can just go, go, go. Oh my God. Okay. So this is, okay. This is the one I would consider using. Not like I'm never going to use any of these these but this is the most appealing thing you showed like all the alternate layouts i'm not into the ball forget it this thing

like again i'm not doing but like i kind of get like why you would do it like it's different and see it does have some advantage it seems complicated to learn or whatever but it's distinct and has an advantage like i get this one you know what i bet that someone out there could program like a midi key a midi keyboard to like sure yeah do this like i'm this one you know what i bet that someone out there could program like a midi key a midi keyboard to like sure yeah do this like i'm sure that there's there's got to be some like i'm sure there's some technology that you can currently use the version of this if you want to use it i guess i wonder if there's typing nerds in the same way there's kind of like language nerds you just like learn other languages for fun i'm so bad at other languages nothing

could be i i admire this but like you know there's people who are just like, oh, yeah, I'm just like dabbling in Spanish for the week. And like, they just love. I wonder if there's that for typing. And it's just like, yeah, no, I'll learn that for a week just because I'm interested in how typing works and like just the mechanics of it. I'm sure that that's out there. Yeah, they got to be.

Yeah. Hit us up at ZipPod, ZipPodGmail.com. Typing nerds. I would love to find like the biggest typing nerd on the internet. Not like the fastest, and not like a keyboard collector, like the actual act of typing, who studied different ways of typing. I'd love to find that person. This is an odd thing.

I'm not good at sports, and I don't know if you guys are, but I feel like I'm like... That's not odd at all. We don't know if you guys are but i feel like i feel like i'm not at all we've heard the podcast alex i uh but i i feel like i'm more intimidated by the idea of learning a new keyboard than learning a new language or some other to me purely cerebral thing like anything coordination related i'm like okay that's a bridge too far i'm gonna stick to an entire another language that humans speak yeah i do feel like learning this thing

would be like learning how to golf it's just like this new way of moving your body like it is a muscle memory thing like you do have to develop some new muscle memories and like um be able to like kind of draw on them without thinking about it and maybe skiing or something would be a better example i don't i'm also not into sports believe it or not and uh but um yeah it is like a new it is a new maybe it's like learning a new instrument or something but or maybe i don't know i don't know because like a new instrument's like gonna make new sounds like this is all gonna type the english alphabet at the end of the day like you're gonna get the same output you know you know now funny enough because i used to play trumpet that's reminding me of this key set because there's just three valves and you get all the notes it's just the combos oh yeah that makes sense that makes sense i have been preparing maybe it's like

moving from trumpet to saxophone or something like where it's like similar like there's buttons you know but like they're like they're different and do different things. I don't know how any instruments work either, but maybe that's the metaphor. Yeah, maybe. When this this key set did not become common, but it was involved in a demonstration that happened in December 1968. There was an American computer engineer named Douglas Engelbart, who was working at a private research and development firm in Menlo Park, California. And he and his team came up with a whole bunch of different new computing things in the 60s. For example, in 1964, they prototyped the first

computer mouse. And then from there, they said, oh, we should show people all these cutting edge things we thought of. And so he booked a slot at a conference on December 9th, 1968. He gave a 90 minute demo that has since become known as the mother of all demos in like computing history, because he basically demonstrated having a computer that's on the internet. They showed the first graphical user interface, hypertext links, like collaborative real-time documents, also the concept of using a computer to map the route from your office to your home and like stops at the grocery store on the way in 1968 when no one had done this like any event. That's cool. He actually demonstrated doxing someone too. He really like,

he was like, and watch this. This is actually going to be a tool of hate, too. Look at what I'm going to do here. I'm just going to casually ruin this person's life. I think we're going to call this swatting. What we're going to do is we're going to call the local craft department. I also invented the PlayStation, and some of you are fake fans of it. I'm going to get you.

fans of it. I'm going to get you. But then the way he operated all this is partly something we don't do because he had the computer mouse that they prototyped. And then he also had this key set where it's just five buttons. And the goal was you can mouse and type at the same time fully. That was the whole point of a five button keyboard is that you can type in the one hand and use a mouse in the other hand for like a true total flow experience at a computer. I'm into it. Yeah. Yeah. Guys, I'm feeling this. Yeah. Yeah. That's definitely a one to one for computer gaming. Like, yeah, I got one hand on the mouse, one hand doing the typing. Yeah, I'm with this. I could kind of see that because when you do play a keyboard when you do use a mouse and a keyboard for a game usually you are using i don't know seven keys on the keyboard like you don't need all

40 or whatever however many are on the layout yeah so like i i can see it i'm into this idea yeah it's basically a gaming pc that's amazing amazing. Yeah, like it's just that, but before there were good games at all. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, and he his other ideas ended up taking off partly because the demo was filmed and it was seen by people there. Also, apparently, he didn't monetize them effectively. But Steve Jobs was shown like a whole set of the prototypes in 1979 when he visited the Xerox offices where they had like kept them for fun. But anyway, the key set didn't take off. And that's in spite of his goal. He started the demo with this question, quote, if in your office, you as an intellectual worker were supplied with a computer display backed up by a computer that was alive for you all day and was instantly responsive to every action you have.

How much value could you derive from that? End quote. And he tried to make keyboards like as seamless and interactive as possible. But we wanted that big flat thing from typewriters. Once we learned how to use it, you know, it's like it's just so it's just so hard to switch everyone yeah and apparently he believed people would prefer the key set once they got used to it and we might but i will not i'm i'm i'm past that now it's too late for me yeah if anyone very very young is listening go this way be in the future like yeah you can still learn yeah i get it's kind of

like if if you try to invent stick shifts now and you were like i know you know like this is a better try like i know you're gonna have to relearn a little but like we've come up with a better way of driving cars like we'd be like no like we already know how to drive cars now i know there's like a history of it or whatever so like it's sort of and but i'm just trying to think of like a comparison another industry you know we're like you really have to like change the thing everyone does daily like just like already knows how to do and like to get them to change that behavior it seems so impossible yeah no that's a great metaphor yeah if absolutely no one knew stick and then you tried to get them to do it yeah no one would do it i can't drive

stick i i can't either actually yeah zig is in an amazing roadster judging us he knows everything about stick yeah yeah i i i what i mute whenever i'm not talking but um it's it's actually it's actually 10 different gears i have two clutches it's pretty intense but it's like a fast and furious movie i'm just constantly shifting the steering wheels, like in your mouth or something like this is working. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, I'm skiing.

Yeah. Folks, that is the main episode for this week. My thanks to Jeff Rubin and to Cody Ziegler for raising their words per minute in the talking sense. That's guesting on podcast, folks. That's what it is. Anyway, I said that's the main episode because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now. If you support this show on Patreon.com, patrons get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode. This week's bonus topic is the Gotham font and how that conquered the world. Visit SIFpod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of more than five dozen other bonus shows,

and to back this entire podcast operation. And thank you for exploring keyboards with us. Here's one more run through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, other languages have their own QWERTYs. Takeaway number two, our keyboards could have been shaped like balls. And takeaway number three, we also could have ended up with computer keyboards that only have five keys, and we probably came a lot closer to that one. only have five keys, and we probably came a lot closer to that one.

Those are the takeaways. Also, please follow my guests. They're great. Jeff Rubin's free, fun multiplayer online game is liesgame.com. You just log into the website and take it from there. Jeff is also the host of the Jeff Rubin, Jeff Rubin Show podcast. Wonderful interviews there. And then if you look up Jeff Rubin, Jeff Rubin on YouTube or on TikTok, you'll find Jeff, who is a new father, reviewing children's books and doing it hilariously and really incisively. I love it. Again, that's Jeff Rubin, Jeff Rubin on YouTube and on TikTok. And then Cody Ziegler co-hosts the podcast The Dark Weeb.

He's also a frequent co-host on the podcast X-Ray Vision, which is over at Crooked Media. And then I'll have a bunch more links for Cody Ziegler's comic book writing for places like Marvel Comics, TV writing for places like Rick and Morty, and a bunch of other guest appearances on just a bunch of other podcasts. Many research sources this week. Here are some key ones. A great article from Metal Floss by Chris Stokel Walker, which rounds up a bunch of the amazing world QWERTYs. Also linking an amazing online museum page. It's from the Smithsonian Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation. And also going to link a great 99% Invisible episode called Of Mice and Men, produced by Louisa Beck. Both of those take you way, way into that 1968 computer demo, the mother of all demos,

and it's really amazing to see all that stuff happen so early. It's great. Find those and many more sources in this episode's links at sifpod.fun. And beyond all that, our theme music is Unbroken Unshaven by The Budos Band. Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Extra, extra special thanks go to our patrons. I hope you love this week's bonus show. And thank you to all our listeners.

I'm thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating. So how about that? Talk to you then.