# Flat keyboards break fingers
*Something about metal plates and pancakes.*

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Ask any nerd about keyboards and you'll probably end up getting a
lecture about *mechanical* keyboards. Probably cherry MX. If that
doesn't ring a bell to you, congratulations, you're a not-tech-savvy
person that somehow found my website. Good news, because this
post is for you.

You see, this isn't about mechanical keyboards. Or any other type of
special high quality clicky clacky keyboards. This is about
standard-issue, run-of-the-mill, plain-as-jane keyboards. Those $10
mushy pieces of shit you can get at about any computer or electronics
store. More specifically, those current day *flat* pancake keyboards.

Now you've probably noticed the trend of keyboards
getting flatter and flatter. They look trendy like that, but that wasn't the
reason for their invention at first. The initial flat keyboards were made as
a compromise between having a decent keyboard, and having one flat enough to
properly fit in a laptop. It made sense, unless you liked lugging around a
thick briefcase-sized computer. There was a functional reason to make them a bit
flatter.

But now it's the dawn of 2021. Flat keyboards are a trend, the flatter the
better. They look sleek and modern. They also type like absolute dog shit.
In fact how people type on them at all is a mystery to me.

Let's discuss travel distance. The flatter you go, the
less distance there is until the key bottoms out. You'll want a bit of distance;
having a bit more improves precision, having a bit less means it's less tiring
for your fingers. Unfortunately the modern day keyboard was hit by a truck tire
and ended up so flat, there's barely any travel distance left. If you want to
know what typing on one of these feels like, try hammering your fingers on your
desk. Don't actually do that though, you'll break your fingers. Just as much as
you'd break your fingers on typing on one of these roadkill keyboards.

People in the past were quick to complain about this sort of thing, yet here
we are. We somehow stopped giving a damn. We've gone form-over-function, except
function got literally thrown out the window. Do the people designing these things
even use their computers? Probably not, I'd assume they just have a really fancy
apple computer they use as an ornament for status symbolism.

Now I want to point out that there have been many decent flat keyboards in the
past. I've typed this rant on a thinkpad t450's keyboard. It's not perfect, but
it goes a long way to prove that so long as you don't turn it into a pancake,
a flatter keyboard can and will do the job for you. It's an example that
form *and* function can come together in a nice package. So next time you go
out to buy a new keyboard, try spending the extra buck on something quality.
Heck, you might end up enjoying what you buy for once.