Philip Wolfe

Enthusiast of coding, climbing, Jesus, Mustangs, Pepsi, movies, home construction, an all other things necessary to make it to retirement. (My views are my own)

[Elorm Daniel @elormkdaniel]

That tiny red nub sitting between the G, H, and B keys on keyboards has been quietly dividing the tech world for over 30 years. Half the people who encounter it have no idea what it does. The other half refuse to use anything else.

It’s called the TrackPoint. And it was born out of a single frustrating observation.

In 1984, a researcher named Ted Selker conducted a study showing that it takes a typist 0.75 seconds to shift their hand from the keyboard to the mouse and a comparable amount of time to shift back. That 1.5 seconds of lost time, multiplied across an entire workday, felt like a solvable problem. So he built something that would eliminate it entirely; a pressure-sensitive nub planted right in the middle of the keyboard, so your hands never had to leave the keys at all. IBM introduced it commercially in 1992 on the ThinkPad 700 series.

The way it works is not what most people expect. It doesn’t move like a joystick. It responds to pressure. Beneath the rubber cap sit strain gauges that measure the force applied in different directions and translate it into cursor movement. The harder you press, the faster the cursor moves. There is no repositioning, no lifting your finger, no running out of space. Infinite cursor movement from a single fingertip that never moves more than a millimeter.
The red color almost didn’t happen. IBM’s product safety division had reserved red exclusively for emergency power-off switches on mainframe computers.

ThinkPad designer Richard Sapper got around this by calling the color IBM Magenta and when the first batch shipped, the engineers made it decidedly more crimson. A loophole dressed in plain sight.
Power users programmers, analysts, executives who live on their keyboards swear by it. The reason, according to Lenovo’s chief design officer, is that your hands never leave the home row. You type and navigate simultaneously, without the constant interruption of reaching for a trackpad. Once mastered, people say it feels less like using a tool and more like an extension of thought.

Most laptops abandoned it. Lenovo never did. And the people who know, know.

[Joey Swoll @TheJoeySwoll]

He is Risen.
The darkness couldn’t hold Him.
The grave couldn’t keep Him.
Death itself lost today.
Happy Easter. ✝️

[AlphaFox @alphafox]

The Star Wars death scene we deserved:

[Andrew Côté @Andercot]

It just seems implausible this is what we are made of, essentially, nanotechnology about a billion years beyond anything we can design or make ourselves.

[Philip Wolfe @philipwolfe]

I think I finally blocked all the people who posted "I don't know why people don't use the 10 apps..." only to now have to block the poeole who post a conversation they DIDN'T have with AI and how it told them to do something stupid, and they did it.

[R A W S A L E R T S @rawsalerts]

🚨#BREAKING: Watch as President Donald Trump delivers an Oval Office address about the tragic incident involving Charlie Kirk, posting on Truth Social: ‘This is a dark moment for America

[Philip Wolfe @philipwolfe]

@PayPal claims the database breach comes from 2022 but they reset my password even though my account was created in 2023. Idiots. Bad security, bad social media police policies, bad company.

[Philip Wolfe @philipwolfe]

I just saw that @Costco switched away from @Pepsi. No loss here. They could never get the mix right at any location. Now @CocaCola fans can share the experience of getting pizza at Costco and a pop at the gas station. 79¢ now vs 59¢! Ha!

[Philip Wolfe @philipwolfe]

At this point, I am done for the night. Thanks for reading.

[Philip Wolfe @philipwolfe]

I knew this wasn't going to go well. I need to set up some ipads for my kids for school. I had an @iTunes account back in the day so I thought I would revive that. You should know that @Apple and I never got along, so of course it is a bad experience.

[Philip Wolfe @philipwolfe]

@Apple Next I work my way through the FAQ to Help to Chat thinking this will be good. The wait is 2 minutes. I type in my info and chat won't work. I turn off ad blockers, script blockers, cookie blockers and try again. It is still broken. I even updated my browser. Still broken.

[Spill The Memes @SpillTheMemes]

😂

[The Babylon Bee @TheBabylonBee]

Karine Jean-Pierre Insists Joe Biden Is Cancer-Free https://t.co/KOw4m8jhzx

[alexandre laskine @alexlaskine]

@TheCinesthetic All the Tarantino's movies !