Voyager Shifted and ZSA Cards Behind The Scenes

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Hi *|FNAME|*,

Earlier this month we announced something out of left field: A deck of cards! To me, the connection with the rest of our work was clear — it is another tool for thinking. I wasn't sure how you would see it, though; to my great delight, many of you totally got it. Hundreds of decks are making their way to people right now. If you're one of those early supporters — thank you!

We don't usually do "behind the scenes" posts sharing the evolution of a product, but for the Cards I felt it might be nice. We've got photos of prototypes, some thoughts on the physicality of the cards, and more. It's linked below. There's also a classic card game (packaged as a phone app) in the recommendations this month — I've been a little obsessed with this one.

Last month's ZSA Loves blog post was all about Blades in the Dark, so this month I figured I'd continue the theme and write about blades… for shaving. I've been shaving my head for 20 years now, and a few months ago I made a game-changing discovery.

As always, thank you for reading, and for talking about what we do with your friends!

All the best,
Erez

ZSA Cards

Behind the scenes

So what goes into making a unique deck of cards, really? And why did we make one? This blog post is a bit of a deep-dive into our reasoning, inspiration, and process. I also included photos of packaging and card prototypes from the years we spent working on this.

The Voyager, Shifted

Creating more thumb keys

In this blog post, Robin shares an interesting alternative layout for the Voyager that moves everything one row up. This means you lose the number row, but gain a bunch of extra thumb keys. The physical keycaps for doing this are all included with the Voyager, and Robin provides the firmware layout that goes with it. Cool stuff!

Featured User Interview

Chelsea Walker

Senior Software Engineer @ Microsoft

Chelsea works on Excel as a full-stack dev, and is also a cyclist, quilter, woodworker, reader, and board game enthusiast. Check out the custom furniture she built, featured in the post!

"I like to have visual indicators to help my brain differentiate between when I’m “at work” and “at home,” especially since I use the same desk for both types of pursuits when I work from home, so I have a backlight for my monitor that uses my household’s local Home Assistant and ESPHome to switch my monitor backlight from green to red when it’s time to stop working for the day, and then to blue once I’ve switched away from work."

Layout of the month: Main Layout

This is my current main layout, which has seen quite some changes over time. I drew lots of inspiration from other tours, and tried to combine both easy-to-reach with "everything's there". I have rather small hands so my heavily used keys should be reachable without having to do acrobatics all the time. I'm also a professional programmer using emacs and tmux, so I have several shortcuts and even layers dedicated to those tools.

Things we liked

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest →

Opening sentences to the worst of all possible novels.

“She was a beautiful woman; more specifically she was the kind of beautiful woman who had an hourlong skincare routine that made her look either ethereal or like a glazed donut, depending on how attracted to her you were.” That’s this year’s winner, by Maya Pasic of NY. There are loads more. This long-running contest (since 1982) does not disappoint.

Numbr →

A smart calculator combined with a notepad

Similar to Soulver for Mac, but in your browser. This is a calculator for people who like to write, like me. You can mix words and numbers, and it can use the numbers for calculations, as well as currency conversions. You can also define variables. Nicely done.

one sec →

Take a breath before you open that app

Available as a mobile app and a browser extension, one sec (yes, all in lowercase) doesn’t block distracting websites. It just adds a little friction, a modest pause so you can take a breath and maybe find something else to do that will make you happier in the long run.

Cribbage with Grandpas →

A great way to learn

This is a mobile game (paid, no IAP/banners, both for iOS and Android) where you customize your very own grandpa, right down to the eyebrows, his temper, and how talkative he is. Once you craft your perfect gramps, you play Cribbage together. The soundtrack is lots of old people talking in the background. It's a solid game — I've been trying to learn Cribbage on and off for some time, and my custom grandpa was the best way to learn.

Web Design Museum →

Discover Forgotten Trends in Web Design

You can see many of these on archive.org, but the Web Design Museum offers a more curated experience. From WinAmp to SpaceX to Microsoft.com circa 1996, all the greats are here, and carefully tagged.

Tip: We have a subscriber-only link archive with all of the links we shared over the years. Just for you. ❤️

Wallpaper of the month

I've been waiting to share this one for years. I just love the Voyager's logo, and this is its full form, with the setting sun and the "keycap" terrain.

Thank you for reading!