Goodbye Microsoft Sculpt

I mean, the Odysey was useless, but at least it worked consistently badly at super low speed and was amenable to being hacked apart and reused for the science fair.

But the Sculpt….UUUUUGH. This POS is sold as “Ergonomic.” What it is is, the opposite of that. I realize some of you have one and you like it. Good for you. You can have mine if you beat the trash truck tomorrow.

Not only is it a chiclet keyboard–a fact incompatible with “ergonomic” in any sense–not only does it refuse to type unless keys are struck with just the right angle of attack and force, but it turns out that if you rest the weight of both hands too near the middle of this waste of good plastic, it transmits a keystroke that causes Windows to open the settings window on top of whatever you were typing in.

Microsoft, really? I know your ferret needs something to do during the summer, but do you really think product design is the right fit? Of course, I’d have paid more for a better keyboard if you made one, but the current generation of Microsoft® Natural® Ergonomic has a space bar that causes the prospective shopper’s thumbs to start aching before they can type “a jak; a lass; all fall; ask all dads.”

Let me help you out, Microsoft. Ergonomic keyboards have real, mechanical switches of any reliable design capable of typing a key with less than 50 grams of force. Everything else is negotiable. Anything less is not ergonomic. About a dozen crowd funded and home-brew efforts currently manufacture and sell, or have designed and support self construction of, vastly superior products. But hey, you’re a huge multinational threatened on all fronts by the rise of open source software, what do you need with customers?

Lesson 1: Never buy hardware from Microsoft.

Lesson 2: Never buy software from Microsoft either.