APR.11.2026 - #65

Hi all 👋, this week while writing clicks 'n clacks, I've been witnessing the public's first reaction to the release of Surf by Flipboard. It's a new social service aggregator that pulls from the likes of RSS, BlueSky, Threads, etc. to create unified feeds—I've tried it in beta a bit, but I'm waiting to see if it catches on more. I also checked in every evening on One Strange Thing, a “daily dispatch from the realm of the unexplained” created by Chris from The Hiro Report for a dose of spookiness. This write-up on the new Interface typeface by MD was my favourite read of the week, and I had the pleasure of seeing The Super Mario Galaxy Movie in a theatre packed with kids delirious over Yoshi 🦖🥚.

For my birthday, my amazing partner got me the low-key budget heavy hitter Eave65 by SwagKeys which I hope to build soon. Keychron made a completely unexpected decision to open-source all their hardware designs for the sake of learning. And the organizers of CAMK have already announced and begun selling tickets for the Canadian Summer Mechanical Keyboard meetup in July!!

Let's dive into this week!

→ Argent Comics, sub-brand of Croatian printing, pressing, and publication brand Pigment Collective, is joining forces with DC to create an extremely exclusive edition of the Batman: The Killing Joke one-shot comic. Pigment Collective's other sub-brand, Amaranthine Books, have already released larger-than-life reprints of popular novels including Catch-22 and The Hound of the Baskervilles—so I have high-hopes for this newest print. This “avant-garde” edition of The Killing Joke is printed using a Giclée technique, more commonly used for photos and fine art, and the bound-pages are sheathed in a case just like the camera on the iconic cover. The case is made from aluminum and leather, features a carrying strap, and the focus lens of the camera is even magnetic and moves freely! Truly an over-the-top creation paying homage to the iconic story, which I hope to see in actual fans' hands when the product officially “releases”. I say “releases” because all 47 volumes will be sold privately and you must preregister now to even get a chance to purchase one—crazy stuff.

→ Dime is a Montreal-based skate wear brand that my partner and I have been obsessed with since our first trip to Quebec years ago. Countless hoodies, hats, laptop stickers, and even wallets later—we are always looking forward to what they will drop next. This time, they've teamed up with Timex to remix the classic T80 internals with some edgy flair and badass metal accents. The punk leather-studded strap and funky new typography on the watch face are the highlights here. This new collab will release on Saturday April 11th at 1 pm EST, only a few short hours after this newsletter goes live. As of writing this (April 10th) I'm unsure of the final price, but the OG T80 isn't a break-the-bank watch, so I am hoping I can participate in this drop and the price stays below $200 🤞.

→ Bring an old Kindle, Kobo, or any web-accessible e-reader back to life with new functions, games, and modern service-syncing with ReKindle! It's built to be friendly for e-ink displays and adds some essential functions like a Calendar, Notes, read-it-later service, pomodoro timer, and many more features that would be too much to list here. This simple-looking website was built by Ukiyo, and even though it's obviously meant for e-ink devices, I had lots of fun just using it on my PC and phone—specifically using it to browse Wikipedia! For lovers of minimalism it's a great toolset, and though I didn't get the chance to test this specific function, you can even create a ReKindle account to use a plethora of community and social features on the site. A great concept to breathe new life into any old devices—hope to see this continue development, gain more traction, and grow its user-base!

→ Joining the Bauer family of keyboards from Omnitype is a fully redesigned, premium 65% build—modestly named the Bauer65. Coming straight off of the success of the Bauer Lite and its Design Lab, this new board is taking a slightly simpler but more fine-tuned approach. High quality materials, a few layout options (WK, WKL), 4 distinct colourways/finishes, and the choice of an MX, DynaCap, or HE PCB. No major design overhauls or flashy additions here, just keeping what worked and making small improvements. The biggest surprise for me is the cross-compatibility between this board and the Lite—all components (internal and external) work on both boards, further increasing the count on the 8 billion permutations of Bauer creations already possible 🤯.

→ Ray started Asian Joy Collective as a love letter to family, culture, and the happiness that comes from sharing food with loved ones. All the incredible artisan creations featured on the website are designed, sourced, and handmade in Brooklyn, New York. Many of the keycap creations also have a magnetic twist to them—a detachable teapot lid, straws for the canton cartons series, swappable heads, or different sushi items to plate up make these perfect for customizing and fidgeting! My personal favourite from all the various releases are the stainless steel Mooncake designs—they're my favourite Mid-Autumn festival snack!

→ We're time-travelling allllll the way back to Issue #23 where I featured the BNK-16 by Binepad, to revisit the upcoming product they teased during that time, the knobX1. It's finally becoming a reality and there is so much I love about it so far. First, the price is much more reasonable that I was expecting—starting at $60 you get a pretty solid standalone rotary encoder. My guess is that the cost of production is lowered by keeping this version wired-only, but personally that's not a problem for me. Second, the champagne colourway immediately caught my eye and might even get me to pick up one of these come release day.

That’s all for this week! I hope you enjoyed it, and now it’s time to hear from YOU 🫵. I want to know your opinion—what you liked, what you loved, what you didn’t like, what you skipped. Email [email protected] (or reply to this issue!) and have a great weekend!!