FEB.07.2026 - #57

Hi all 👋, this week while writing clicks 'n clacks I was reading about dithering (more specifically Return to Obra Dinn's rendering process) and playing Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, thinking about how it's the new “can it run Crysis” benchmark with its recent "Unobtainium" update.

As an update to a feature from #45, GMK has begun to announce the finalists for their keycap design contest—public voting opens soon. I've additionally been obsessing over this teenie-weenie little board that could be a perfect gaming pad, reading up on the complicated nature of screenshot shortcuts, and perusing Steam's sale on typing games.

Down the rabbit hole we go into issue #57!

→ A majority of my reading and exploring the web is done through RSS these days—blogs, articles, essays, news, podcasts, you name it—if it's got RSS, it's going into my feed. All the content is organized into groups to avoid tackling all 150+ feeds at once, and currently I read it using Reeder. However, I am always eager to test new solutions, so once I stumbled upon Twine by Sasikanth and Eduardo, I was curious. I've only started using it on my iPhone, but it is multi-platform on both the App Store and Google Play, and is receiving both consistent large updates and fresh new features. The colour-changing themes, reader-view, and a design that blends seamlessly for both Material and iOS themes are highlights for me so far. Due to the sheer amount of feeds I needed to import, I did get this hilarious notification after importing, but the app handled it well, ran smoothly, and even auto-organized the sources into the aforementioned groups. Bonus points for having a reasonably-priced lifetime option for power-user features.

→ Spent some time this week watching videos from Andy, AKA Garage Tinkering, on his long-term project to recreate the UI/HUD from Need For Speed Underground 2 and retrofit it into his Nissan 350z (along with a full restoration). This year-long journey on the channel features a wide range of sub-projects, from super tinker-y ECU car-stuff I struggle to understand (but still love watching), to the NFS project, and even some oddly soothing Alcantara ASMR. The details in all of Andy's videos are exceptional and I know I sound like a broken record talking “open-source everything and the kitchen sink”, but a majority of the work done is publicly available on the GitHub, yay!

→ 2-for-1 special on clicks this week! Winyl and CD Wally—made by Adam and Charlie respectively—are some fun explorations of music curation that I discovered this week which just happened to have similar vibes. Both are helping to bring the focus back on full album playthroughs in different ways. Winyl revives the Cover Flow interface, while the aptly name CD Wally recreates the feeling of flipping through those physical, flimsy, plastic wallets. Say goodbye to algorithms, confusing playlists, or getting distracted in music apps—just throw on an album and listen.

→ I am beginning to notice a rise in popularity of magnetic/hall-effect boards among keyboard enthusiasts. Normally these types of boards, whether it be something like a Wooting, Nuphy, or even a Logitech tend to skew towards the more gamer-esque side of aesthetics. Typface, a group of designers and machinists, have come together once again to present to the world, the Kafka. A simple, tasteful board that's powered by the popular VenomHE PCB, granting it all the features of a hall-effect board, but with a calmer style. Just like Typface's other projects (including the Cosmic Sans featured back in #13), the Kafka is named after this font since the Typface team is obviously very inspired by, you guessed it—typefaces. Cherry on top for this keeb is that it's prebuilt, meaning you don't have to worry about building it yourself, but still comes with a hot-swap board and optional plates in different materials for those who want to tinker. Canadian vendor for this project is UniKeys.

→ NovelKeys is releasing a second run of this extremely bright and fun keyset designed by MVKB. “Hi! Viz” is a neon yellow kit with the GMK CYL profile that did very well on its first round almost 2 years ago. This time it's a little more than just a keyset—they're bringing back the deskmat and artisan cap, while adding some brand new novelties and a recolour of a classic switch makes this run an entire collection! Perfect for those who want matchy-matchy everything. The group-buy just kicked off this week and will run until the end of the month, so check it out!

→ Another double feature! Just as I discovered the recent release of kc_orange by Keycapsule, I stumbled upon one of their older sets, “Back to School”, that I just couldn't pass up. The former of these two sets is a huge blast of nostalgia for me, and are inspired by The Orange Box, a bundle of video games by Valve that were among the first games I ever played on PC. Lots of choices and little easter eggs, like a “missing texture” artisan, or only making 333 copies of the set are scattered into the creation of kc_orange. The latter set has a simple ruled-paper design with a transparent ruler spacebar and pink/blue rubber eraser backspace that I wish they'd sell as an individual artisan 'cause it's too cute! To sweeten the deal, the “Back to School” set is discounted right now on the Keycapsule website. Steal!

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!!