NOV.23.2024 - #00

Hi all 👋, thank you so much for subscribing to my newsletter, clicks ’n clacks. My intention with this email blast is to deliver some exciting, insightful and awesome content right to your inbox, every Saturday. In this issue, I will introduce the style, content, and format of the newsletter, as well as share some thoughts and links I collected during the creation of it!

Starting with a quick introduction, my name is Andrew, a Cybersecurity professional who recently transitioned into the wonderful world of product design and management. I am mostly active on Posts.cv and a little bit on Threads, but most of the time I’m lurking about in Discord(s).

I love sharing and talking about cool/quirky/inspiring content I find on the internet and in all the amazing communities I am a part of. My hope is to shine a light on this content, and the incredible people that make it! I’ll also share tidbits and anecdotes about my life and all the discoveries I make.

I’ve formatted this newsletter around the two most common areas of discoveries I make. First up is “awesome internet stuff”, also known as clicks, which can range from new apps to interesting articles/blog posts or just any engaging threads/discussions I click (ha, get it) on every week. I found myself drowning in bookmarks, save-it-for-laters, and tabs left to be open forever. So I figured, why not go beyond simply squirreling these away, and instead, share them with whoever wants to listen?

Next up is “equally awesome keyboard stuff”, also known as clacks, these can be anything and everything related to world of mechanical keyboards: group buys, new releases, fresh builds, typing tests, artisans, et cetera, et cetera. The world of mechanical keyboards was such a large subset of what I discovered and consumed every week that I had to make it its own category. Also, pairing it with clicks to get the name clicks ’n clacks was just perfection. Side note about the name, I won’t exclusively be showcasing or talking about “clacky” keyboards, all keebs are most certainly welcome, clicks ’n thocks just didn’t have the same ring to it.

And that’s all there is to it. Each week, you will receive 3 clicks 🔗 and 3 clacks ⌨️, plus my (not) very insightful commentary and thoughts on it all!

Now that all the technical aspects are out of the way, I would like to also acknowledge all the inspirations and people that got me to this point. As mentioned before, I saw and continue to see amazing people create amazing things every day and it pushed me to finally create something myself and share it with the world. I am now going to ramble off people and communities in no particular order; Marcin Wichary + Shift Happens (his incredible newsletter and awe-inspiring book about the history of keyboards), alexotos (awesome keeb content creator and fellow Torontonian), Andy Chung + the amazing read.cv / posts.cv community (so many awesome and inspiring people creating stuff there), Noah Jacobus + the Font Awesome team (for the amazing open and free icon set used to design the inaugural clicks ’n clacks logo), Microgramma typeface (incredible retro font created by Aldo Novarese and Alessandro Butti, also used in the clicks ’n clacks logo), and so many other creators making newsletters (hiro.report, Today in Design, workspaces.xyz, HeyDesigner, and Plinky: Links You’ll Love just to name a few).

All of this, all these people, and so much more, inspired me to start this amazing journey!

Now onto the juicy stuff! I only have 2 clicks and 2 clacks to share in this issue, as I don’t want to overwhelm you, dear reader, with all the introduction(s) and other information already covered.

clicks 🔗

•  Apostrophe placement → This very meta link and discussion about apostrophes relates to the creation of this newsletter. While trying to find a suitable name, I found it difficult to choose between which form of “and” to use in “clicks AND clacks”. I had originally decided on the use of the ampersand (&) to fall in between the clicks and clacks, but quickly found out that ampersands do not work in URLs, and I was sure to confuse some by switching between “n” in my custom domain and the ampersand in all other content. But this then brought up a whole new issue: if I were to choose “n”, which contraction of “n” should I choose? This led me down a bit of a rabbit hole to this Stack Exchange discussion, and ultimately, I discovered it to be mostly user preference with ’n’, ’n, n’, and n/N being the most common usages. I believe ’n’ to be the most grammatically correct, but I found ’n to be the most visually pleasing in the clicks ’n clacks logo/design. Who’d’ve known there’d’ve been so many contractions I’d’ve picked from? ’Tis such a tough choice—someone’d’ve warned me, or things’d’ve got outta hand! Okay, I’ll stop (for now… hehe).

• Bluer skies and shifting socials → During the setup and creation of this newsletter, I found myself diving headfirst into social media in a way that I never have before. I’ve been more active, more interested, and more critical than I ever have. I have also made these discoveries at an interesting time— more users than ever before are flocking to new social media sites (Threads, Mastodon, Bluesky, etc.)(partially due to the US election results), and it is such an interesting time to analyze/dissect the growth of these platforms. The article linked, and a fascinating report by MIT Tech Review, outlines the troubles and shifting sands of the social landscape. I am mostly indifferent to these changes and waves, as I (at least for now), have no particular allegiance to any one of these platforms and I am choosing to cross-post (using a nifty little app called Croissant across a majority of them to try to understand them all better.

clacks ⌨️

• Creating the Commodore 64 → An amazing long-read detailing the creation and technical challenges of one of the best-selling computer systems of all time. The Commodore 64 heavily inspired the vibe and a look of this newsletter, so I thought it important to point out its rich history and the impact it made on the computing and video game world.

• Micro Journal - writerDeck → I love when I discover new subsets/niches of the mechanical keyboard community, and this has got to be one of my favorites. This is a writerDeck, a small keyboard-like device with one sole purpose—to write. Most writerDecks are usually DIY (with some mainstream/mass-produced options), and I loved reading about Un Kyu Lee’s process while designing and making the Micro Journal(s). Small discoveries like this, just when I think I may know it all, fascinate me the most about mechanical keyboards: someone, somewhere is always dreaming up something amazing and making it a reality.

At last, we’ve come to the end of the very first issue of clicks ’n clacks. I hope you enjoyed it all, and now it’s time to hear from YOU 🫵. I want to know your opinion—what you liked, what you didn’t like, what you skipped because who’s going to read a 30-min-long article on keyboards—you know, that kind of stuff. Reach out at mail.clicksnclacks.com (or reply to this email!) and have a great weekend!!