Notices by ɗ𐐩ʃƕρʋ (deshipu@fosstodon.org)

I got it all working. Now I have a touchpad built into my keyboard. I had to bodge i2c pull-ups and the button order is weird, so I might make another PCB for that shield to fix that, but then again maybe it will just grow on me and I will leave it as it is.

#Keyboard

I spent the day struggling with the cirque touchpad. I already made a breakout board with the FPC ribbon socket and everything needed to connect it to my keyboard, but didn't have the time to try it until today. It didn't make it easier that the chip I'm using in my keyboard doesn't have enough memory to fit the library – I had to strip it down. Eventually I just used unused half of pcb to make a separate breakout, and used a dev board. It only wortks with i2c, probably the pins are wrong.

@fermuch My point is that it really doesn't, because you have to instead work on maintaining the automation, and you are also using the work of many people before you who created the tools and materials and designs needed for that automation. And you get to work extra hard whenever anything breaks or needs updating. So on average, you get pretty much the same amount of work, just different kinds and done by different people.

@fermuch I didn't mean "work" as in employment. I mean work as in effort.

I think that the most misunderstood thing about automation is that it removes work. It does not. All it does is shift the work around – often to a place that is less visible. Sometimes it lets you rearrange the work so that it is more efficient or can be applied at a greater scale – but it never completely eliminates it. It lets a single man wield the power of a hundred people who labored to make his tool, but the work still needs to be done by someone, before it can be stored and unleashed.