Ethics

On Candace Owens

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Before Candace Owens became known as a conservative firebrand and commentator, she was a leftist. And as a leftist, she started a very small online publication called Degree180. And under that brand started a Kickstarter campaign for an online platform called Social Autopsy.

The project was panned from all sides. Owens and her company became public enemy #1 overnight.

So what was Social Autopsy? It was a platform for doxing and deanonymizing people en masse. The devastation such a platform would have wrought on the world, had it actually gotten off the ground, cannot be understated. I’ll let her own FAQ video shed light on this:

Surprisingly that video is still live – at least as of the time this article went public. It was released March 22, 2016. Keep that date in mind.

The Kickstarter went live on April 12, 2016, and… didn’t last long. In launching the campaign, Owens and her company did the smart thing and tried to create something… But if a later post by Owens was any indication, the site wasn’t supposed to be publicly available. But whoever was coding the site didn’t bother setting up even simple HTTP authentication to prevent that from happening. What little was there was collected by The Wayback Machine.

Part of the backlash against her came from both an expected and unexpected direction: Zoe Quinn. If you know anything about Gamergate, you know that name very well.

For the uninitiated, I’ll try to be brief.

Back in 2014, one of Zoe Quinn’s ex’s published a scathing article about her that became known colloquially as the “Five Guys” controversy as that is how many men the ex alleged Zoe Quinn had… engaged at various times. One such person was Nathan Grayson, a gaming journalist. At the time, Quinn had created a game called “Depression Quest” (still available on Steam) and was trying to get attention on it, so her affair with a gaming journalist became a focal point, even though her game hadn’t yet been completed at the time of the affair.

Prior to that article being published, massive collusion between game developers and media publications had long been alleged.

And what happened on August 28, 2014, certainly didn’t help any claims to the contrary.

Twelve (12) gaming publications published the same article, known as the “Gamers are Dead” article, on the same day. That is seen as the colloquial start of what became known as “Gamergate”. Actor Adam Baldwin – i.e., Jayne from Firefly – is credited as coining the term and starting the hashtag on Twitter.

One discovery that solidified just how right Gamergate was about the gaming media was the GameJourosPros mailing list.

The gaming media moved swiftly to control the narrative – and mostly succeeded, given the Wikipedia article on the topic – and reframed “Gamergate” as a hate campaign against women in gaming, eventually women in general, and, specifically, Zoe Quinn. Trying to dodge the allegations coming from Gamergate by acting like they were now trying to protect women and minorities in gaming or acting on their behalf, which led to the start of the NotYourShield hashtag.

Now the one thing that needs to be highlighted is how compressed the timeline for this actually was. The time between “Five Guys” article and the “Gamers are Dead” articles going live was… less than three (3) weeks. The long-standing allegations against the gaming media and developers, along with Quinn going after another group called The Fine Young Capitalists, a women-centric gaming development organization, led to this blowing up quick and violent.

YouTuber ShortFatOtaku (a.k.a., “Dev”) has a very good overview of the entire controversy:

And a pretty good timeline of the whole thing is available on Tiki-Toki. Yeah, there’s a LOT more to this than those trying to control the narrative want you to know.

I’d be lying if I said there was no harassment toward Zoe Quinn or any of the other prominent women in gaming – e.g., Anita Sarkeesian. But contrary to a very popular belief – again, just look at the Wikipedia article on it – the vast majority of the attention of Gamergate was directed at the gaming media. Calling for greater transparency and an end to the massive conflicts of interest that were uncovered. Zoe Quinn was a tiny blip on Gamergate’s radar and practically non-existent on their list of targets.

But she used her victimhood from that to form a non-profit called “Crash Override Network” aimed at providing resources for those experiencing online bullying.

Anyway…

So what does Gamergate have to do with this? Because Quinn reached out to Owens while the Kickstarter was still live, and Quinn alleged that “Gamergate” would go after Owens. And it’s Candace’s response to Quinn that reveals that Candace Owens has… always been a conspiracy theorist.

Quinn’s one-off allegation did end up being true, but also incomplete. No one wanted Social Autopsy – except those hoping to use it for nefarious purposes. Everyone could see what Social Autopsy could turn into.

Everyone except… Candace Owens.

And she puts her penchant for conspiracy theorist thinking on display, along with her abject ignorance of the online space, in crafting one hell of a narrative, both in that post and on Twitter, in which Zoe Quinn and Randi Lee Harper turned to and led the Gamergate calvary to get Social Autopsy shut down.

Yeah, it’s… bizarre in the kindest terms.

So after all of that, Owens went dark online. Her above-linked response to Quinn & Co. was taken down sometime between September 14 and 17, 2016.

Her last post to Degree180 was on November 13, 2016. An article called “Dear Liberals… Love, Former Liberals,” which kind of hints at her… transition. Degree180 itself went offline sometime in 2017 when their hosting expired and wasn’t renewed. SocialAutopsy.com eventually went down as well, also sometime in 2017 when their hosting expired.

Sadly, though, the idea of a doxing site like Social Autopsy didn’t die with Social Autopsy as we saw with the high-profile leaks from the very insecure servers for an online platform called Tea. And contrary to labels, it wasn’t a hack. They just had the critical servers publicly exposed with no authentication, meaning anyone who could find the endpoints had access. And finding that information was pretty simple to anyone familiar with “developer mode” in a desktop browser.

Moving on…

July 9, 2017. Owens reappeared with a new YouTube channel called “Red Pill Black” and a new video called “Mom, Dad…I’m a conservative”:

Now was her… transition into a conservative genuine? Given the aforementioned article, I think so. Since it’s either that or she’s playing one hell of a long con. And she did say “Social Autopsy is why I’m a conservative.” So the conspiracy theory she manufactured to explain the backlash against Social Autopsy led her to becoming a conservative… Anyone seeing red flags on that?

Despite attempts to get her to do such, such as by Blaire White in an open debate on The Rubin Report on November 7, 2017, Owens has, as far as I’m aware, never openly and unambiguously denounced or disavowed Social Autopsy – and I welcome correction if someone has it. I mean, at least there’s video of Trump unequivocally denouncing white supremacists despite repeated claims he never did so.

So taking the above, it should be no surprise that Candace Owens has a history of running with wild theories. It’s one of the reasons Brigitte Macron, the First Lady of France, has filed suit against Owens for the outlandish theory that Macron is… Male-to-Female Trans. The lawsuit was filed in Delaware and is docketed as Case No. N25C-07-194.

And then there are all the wild accusations Owens has been throwing around regarding Charlie Kirk’s assassination on the scale of the kind of theories that the JFK assassination couldn’t possibly have been just a one-man operation. Now there is evidence suggesting that the person who carried out Kirk’s assassination had conspired or colluded with others before the fact but otherwise acted alone in carrying it out.

But Owens, for some reason, doesn’t seem to think the reality behind it is that simple. That the assassination plot extends well beyond the person who carried it out and a few other individuals close to the assassin. And Social Autopsy and the conspiracy theory Owens manufactured to explain the backlash to it shows that her penchant for conspiracy theorist thinking isn’t new or unordinary.

The bigger problem is how far her conspiracy thinking is now going.

Immigration

“No one is illegal on stolen land”

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Let’s put this notion to bed already: “No one is illegal on stolen land”. A statement that sounds enlightening to the unenlightened, intelligent to the unintelligent.

Sovereignty is the name of the game here. You either have it or you don’t. There is no in-between.

Libertarians argue that everyone has their own personal sovereignty. And that we cede some of that sovereignty to create governments to protect that personal sovereignty. In much the way States ceded some of their sovereignty when creating the Federal government via the Constitution.

Part of the personal sovereignty we ceded to create governments is the power to make and enforce laws. So let’s take this to its logical conclusion.

“Stolen land” means there is an illegitimate claim to it. And I’ll avoid diving into the complication that would create if you tried to unravel that. Since… if you were to actually try to completely unravel that, you’d be talking about undoing millennia of land conquest across the world. Including by the various Native American Tribes in North and South America. Yeah, no, they absolutely are NOT innocent in history, and it’s about fucking time leftists stop pretending they are.

But, again, to say that the land occupied by the States comprising the United States is “stolen land”, you are, in short, saying that the sovereignty of the United States and all States therein is illegitimate. And by saying that, you are, by extension, saying that the Constitution is illegitimate because the sovereignty of the States that created it is illegitimate.

And the sovereignty of the States is illegitimate because the sovereignty of the people who created those State Constitutions is also illegitimate.

Again, there is no in-between.

This all means the United States has no right to national defense, since national sovereignty implies that right. So if any other country were to come into the United States and try to take us over, our military should, in short, just stand down and… let it happen. And, alongside that, anyone who wants to enter the United States is free to do so at any time and cannot be removed for any reason – i.e., “no one is illegal on stolen land”. No one can have an immigration status, so no one can have an illegal immigration status because… the sovereignty of the United States is illegitimate.

And before you scream “actually… your argument is invalid because it’s a slippery slope”, a slippery slope argument is not prima facie invalid, though a lot of people like to argue such. Because they can’t respond to what’s been said, and so need an easy out while screaming “Your argument is invalid, so I win by default!” Yeah… no.

Especially since we are seeing that very slippery slope play out in real life. With the attempts to interfere with immigration enforcement that have already led to two high-profile deaths.

And we’re seeing the erosion of sovereignty – both Federal and State sovereignty – play out in leftist cities when it comes to property rights – i.e. personal sovereignty – and the abject refusal by city and State prosecutors to actually prosecute personal property crimes like theft and squatting, which has led to some interesting political swings as well.

Yet Billie Eilish wants her property rights protected, hence the restraining order.

Again, you can’t have it both ways. Either the sovereignty of the United States is legitimate, meaning so are any laws passed that comply with the Constitution, or it is not.

Saying “no one is illegal on stolen land” immediately implies you see the sovereignty of the United States as illegitimate. So… when are you leaving?

Crime/Due process/Law

Affidavits aren’t what you think

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Contrary to popular belief, affidavits aren’t infallible.

People lie in affidavits… all. the. time. People lie on the stand under oath… all. the. time.

And that’s simply because… there’s largely no penalty for doing so.

You see… perjury is a rather… interesting crime. I wrote an article 10 years ago about the difference between “I don’t believe you” and “You’re lying”. And it boils down to whether I can prove that 1. what you’ve just said to me is false and 2. that you knew at the time you made your statements that they are false. Welcome to Perjury 101 and why I said there is largely no penalty for lying under oath, whether on the stand or in an affidavit.

The simple reality is that… perjury prosecutions are very, very few and far between. Even when there is a “smoking gun”, a perjury charge that could be easily proven beyond reasonable doubt – e.g., Bill Clinton lying under oath about his affair with Monica Lewinsky – there still may not be a prosecution for it.

The fact there’s largely no consequence to lying under oath – aside from losing out on whatever the lying was trying to facilitate or protect – means that you should always treat an affidavit or someone’s testimony with skepticism. Lots and lots of skepticism.

Someone attesting to something in an affidavit doesn’t make those statements prima facie true.

Since… anyone can really attest to anything “under penalty of perjury”. Such is about as meaningful as swearing to something with your hand on the Bible. Neither make lying impossible, yet many are quick to presume such.

Affidavits are often given the presumption of being incorruptible, infallible, and they’re treated as if they’re immune to being incorrect and, therefore, unimpeachable. Such as the above screenshot from an affidavit from the latest Epstein file drop.

Why would would someone attest to something in an affidavit that isn’t true, right? That’s about like asking “why would someone lie?” Not just “lie under oath”, but “lie” in general.

And one reason is, again, that the risk of actually being prosecuted for perjury is extremely low. Not zero, sure. But those prosecutions definitely aren’t happening as often as they really should be. Witnesses provably lie on the stand all. the. time. Yet almost none of them are prosecuted for it. Attestants to an affidavit provably lie in affidavits all. the. time. And yet… almost none of them are prosecuted for it.

And that is due to how due process actually works in criminal cases. The burden is entirely on the prosecutor to prove beyond reasonable doubt that 1. the statements in the affidavit are false and 2. the attestant knew at the time they attested to it that it is false. There are so many things that work against this, making perjury a damned hard charge to prove.

And if the statements in the affidavit are not provable either direction – meaning there is no evidence supporting the statements and nothing to prove they are impossible – then you can’t prove perjury occurred since you can’t prove the statements are false. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. And an example of this is the attestant to an affidavit or a witness under oath testifying to something that happened several decades ago for which no evidence is possible supporting the statements.

An easy example of that is Christine Blasey Ford, PhD, and her testimony against the confirmation of now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Pretty much everything Ford testified to was not provable. But because she was making those statements under oath, many presumed them to be correct merely on her assertion they are correct.

And people do much the same with affidavits, presume the statements are true or must be true even when they aren’t provable simply because someone was willing to sign their name to a piece of paper.

But when there is no penalty for lying, why should affidavits or testimony be trusted at all?

Again, in a perjury prosecution, the prosecutors have the burden of proving the statements false. Sometimes that’s easy – e.g., Bill Clinton and Mark Fuhrman. But rarely is that the case unless you have a “smoking gun”.

But even having a “smoking gun” doesn’t guarantee someone will be prosecuted for perjury.

Never accept an affidavit at face value. And if the affidavit is making claims that are not provable in either direction, there is no reason to accept it as true unless there is other corroborating evidence. But generally affidavits are gathered because there is no other corroborating evidence.

Debt

Worthwhile payments not being made

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

And here’s the original tweet:

Let’s throw some numbers on this…

First, I doubt he borrowed the $79 thousand up front. Instead that was probably how much he borrowed across 4 years. So from, I presume, about 1982 to 1986. Which really was one of the worst times to be borrowing money due to inflation.

I’ll also presume the loan was in deferment while he was in school, so interest was being assessed that entire time unless he was making payments to at least keep up with that.

Now back in the 1980s, the total amount you could borrow through the Stafford loan program – i.e., “Federal student loans” – was $2500 per year according to this article. Stafford loans have the benefit of a capped interest rate. They’re still variable rate loans, but they were capped at 8%. In the 80s, this meant the interest rate was less than inflation. But capped interest rate also meant limited borrowing.

Again, it was limited to only $2,500 per year. Yet on average, Dave was borrowing nearly $20 thousand per year. So that extra $17,000 per year he borrowed would’ve come from private lenders and was not Federally insured. Meaning Dave was borrowing at whatever interest rate the banks came up with. And it was likely a variable interest rate as well.

And if the loan was in deferment while he was still in school, he likely accumulated interest across his 4 years in school such that he, in effect, owed about 1.5x what he borrowed in total. So already he was in the 6-figures for student loan debt and he hadn’t even started paying it back.

And that was in the 1980s. Just the principal alone, adjusted for inflation, would be about $230 thousand today. Add in the interest, which likely would’ve been capitalized – meaning, rolled into the principal – when he entered repayment, and that’s the equivalent of $300 thousand today.

And yet, he was paying on average… from late-1986 into 2022, so about 35-1/2 years… about $400 per month. On 6-figures of student loan debt.

And in that time, he’s accumulated $121,000 in interest at a rate of about $285/mo. Meaning the total interest being assessed averaged, given his monthly payment, probably about $675 per month, meaning an average interest rate of about 10%.

To get out from under the loans would’ve required him… probably tripling his monthly payments. Doubling would’ve at least overtaken the interest being assessed and allowed the principal to reduce. But tripling his payments was really the only option to make substantial headway and get the loans paid off in a more reasonable timeframe.

He should also have tried refinancing the loans at the various times when interest rates were at their lowest.

Foreign policy/Immigration/Law Enforcement/Police

The Constitution doesn’t say what you think it does…

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

I recently learned of this tweet’s existence:

The Constitution limits the government in its dealings with anyone, whether they are a citizen or not, legal immigrant or not. The Fifth Amendment says clearly “No person…” Something Lippincott would know if he’d actually read it. The Due Process Clause requires an adversarial process wherein a person who is being held by the government can challenge that detention and the reasons for it. Meaning if a person is detained by ICE on suspicion of being an illegal alien, the person being detained must be given a chance to challenge that before some properly appointed tribunal or a Court of Law.

Article Three of the Constitution also says the judiciary has jurisdiction over “all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority”. That includes enforcement of Title 8 of the United States Code, which is Federal immigration and naturalization law.

Ethics/Free speech and press/Journalism

Deadspin defamation lawsuit quietly settled out of Court

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

As 2025 was coming to a close, along with the Chiefs season as they finished out with a losing record, there was another Chiefs-related event that went unnoticed. I’m not finding anyone talking about this, at least. And a Google search brings up nothing. And I decided to go looking into the case after being reminded of it recently.

First, let’s rewind to the tail end of 2023. Deadspin published an article by Carron J. Phillips in which he singled out a 9 year-old Chiefs fan with some rather disgusting statements against him and his parents. In response, the family of the 9 year-old filed a lawsuit against Deadspin’s then-parent company, G/O Media, in Delaware, the State where G/O is incorporated.

Not long after the lawsuit was filed, Deadspin was sold off to Lineup Media and their entire staff laid off.

In 2024, G/O tried a bit of a last-ditch effort to quash the lawsuit. And in October 2024, they were slapped down, with the Court saying that the Deadspin article made “provably false assertions of fact”. After that ruling, I said this on a private Facebook post:

Deadspin’s new parent company just needs to settle this. The only thing continuing to fight this lawsuit will do is just cost them more. Talk with the family, come up with a number, create a college and trust fund for the kid, give a heavy donation to the Tribe the kid and his father’s family belongs to, and just end it…

The case is N24C-02-051 – Raul Armenta, Jr., v. G/O Media – filed in the Delaware Superior Court for Newcastle County. After the Court ruled against G/O, the case proceeded to discovery starting later in October 2024. And per typical with discovery in a civil case, motions flew back and forth into August 2025. Then… they kind of stopped.

The last motion in August 2025 was directed at G/O media to “compel G.O Media to produce financial documents, improperly withheld documents, and social media messages”. Opposition to that motion was filed a month later.

Then the docket went quiet.

November 13, 2025, a little over a year since the Court slapped down G/O media, another docket entry. A “confidential petition for approval”. So I guess that “motion to compel” told G/O they were… screwed, and they spent the next couple months negotiating behind the scenes on a settlement.

Which would be approved on December 16, with the case officially dismissed with prejudice on January 6, 2026, with the final order of dismissal filed on January 8.

So one of the most egregious defamation cases in modern journalistic practice was very recently settled out of Court on undisclosed terms. And it really should’ve ended at the end of 2024 and not been dragged out another year.

Crime/Ethics

The problem with “not all”

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Stop saying “not all”!

Why? Let me illustrate with a simple example.

You’ve probably seen numerous times the marketing statement “9 out of 10 dentists recommend”. So… “not all dentists” make whatever recommendation follows that. And it’s perfectly reasonable to say “not all dentists recommend using…” specific dental hygiene product.

However if only 1 out of 10 dentists make a certain recommendation, saying “not all dentists recommend using…” is technically accurate but extremely misleading.

Whenever I hear “not all”, you’re basically telling me it’s a small minority, typically including the person uttering “not all”, who are excluded from whatever follows “not all”. A few more insidious examples.

  • “Not all men are rapists”. So an overwhelming majority are? Absolutely not.
  • “Not all blacks are criminals.” Only a minority of blacks commit crime.
  • “Not all gun owners commit crime.” Again, it’s only a minority of gun owners.

And, more starkly, “Not all gun owners commit mass shootings” is not the same as the far more accurate statement that “The vast, vast, overwhelming majority of gun owners do not shoot anyone”. (I’ve been a gun owner for 16 years and have never discharged my firearm except at a gun range.)

And on this topic is a phrase that I’ve seen come from women a lot: “It’s not all men, but always a man”. Which 1. dismisses the fact that women do commit sexual harassment and assault against men and other women – on which I have personal experience on the former – and 2. pulls the fallacy of making it sound like it’s only a minority of men who do NOT commit sexual harassment and sexual assault.

It’s like saying “It’s not all blacks, but always a black person” (or a black man) when talking about crime. Which makes it sound like the overwhelming majority of blacks, and only blacks, commit crime.

So… yeah… just stop using “Not all” entirely.

Foreign policy

On Venezuela

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Venezuela needs change. Just like Iran, Russia, China, and plenty of other countries around the world. Including Ukraine. And if you don’t know why I’m including them, let me just say that Zalinsky isn’t as friendly as you’ve been led to believe. Remember, the enemy of your enemy is NOT your friend. Anyway…

Venezuela has demonstrably gone downhill since the Chavez government took over in 2002 and started trying to nationalize *everything*. Which that unto itself wouldn’t have been the nails in the coffin for Venezuela, except Chavez – and the later Maduro regime – replaced those who knew how to run the businesses with their political cronies. And when you replace someone who knows what they’re doing with a puppet of the State who ticks all the right political boxes… poverty is the inevitable result.

Just look at their nationalized oil industry. Chavez replaced all the people who knew how to run it with his cronies. And that’s one of the ways Venezuela went from one of the wealthiest countries in South America to one of the poorest in the world. And that’s why socialism inevitably fails… Because those in power favor political alliance over expertise…

So while Venezuela has demonstrably gone downhill and there are numerous human rights violations that likely warrant Maduro being taken to The Hague to stand trial, we should not have gone in and done this without international cooperation. If there was an arrest warrant against Maduro from the International Criminal Court, that’s one thing. But as far as I’m aware, there is no such warrant.

So… this is just about regime change. And the Trump administration installing a puppet government of its own… not a good look on our own domestic front, let alone the international stage.

The United States has tried regime change off and on since WWII. It’s never ended well. Since the fear now is… will Venezuela become another Afghanistan, Libya, or Iraq? And by that, I mean, will someone just as bad or worse than Maduro seize power and plunge Venezuela back into extreme poverty after we leave? History leans toward that being a Yes.

Technology

Research before buying

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Almost 10 years ago, a site called, of all things, Motherboard made an article called “PC gaming is still way too hard“, talking about the apparent difficulty of building a PC. I responded to that article and the absurdity it presented. And along with debunking the points it presented, the larger gist of the article is that… tech sites should not be posting articles where the author absolutely has no idea what they’re talking about.

And on that note… a site called How-To-Geek recently published an article by Sydney Butler called “Stop buying mechanical keyboards — my membrane keyboard is better“. And the article is just loaded with issues.

Now some history on my part. I currently use a mechanical keyboard. Custom mechanical keyboard, actually, that I built in the summer of 2023:

I am considering replacing the key switches with Gateron white switches, which have a lower actuation force and travel. But they are double-spring switches, which will be an interesting feel. At minimum I’ll swap out the letter keys to try them out.

I used a Das Keyboard Professional Model S with Cherry MX Red switches I bought back in 2015. (Model No. DASK3MKPRORED – not available anymore.) It became my go-to keyboard while working in an office.

Around that same time, I bought a Razer gaming mechanical keyboard to use at home. After the COVID lockdowns, I stopped using the Das Keyboard until I spilled something on my Razer and now it doesn’t entirely work right – I should consider pulling it apart and seeing if I can repair it. And one of the switches on that Das doesn’t work right either, and I’ve considered seeing if I can swap that out. Though I do also want to swap out the all-black keycaps with white keycaps.

So all that just to say … I have a bit of experience with mechanical keyboards. They aren’t for everyone, and aren’t without their downsides. Membrane keyboards allow for more compact keyboards – though low-profile switches have been around for a few years now. They also tend to be far less expensive. But they do also tend to require more actuation force and are far more difficult to actually clean – and yes, you do need to clean them periodically just like with mechanical keyboards.

But going back to Sydney, he does highlight two additional issues that… aren’t really issues if you look around and research the totality of options that are available. Of which it’s painfully obvious reading his article that he… didn’t.

So what are those issues? Key travel and noise. Let’s start with the first.

I have to press down how far?

I’ve tried various types of switches, and, of course, people will point out that the switches that are generally good for gaming aren’t going to be the best for typing, but honestly, the problem hasn’t mainly been how the switches operate, but just how much travel is involved in depressing a key,

“Tried various types of switches”? Yeah I don’t buy it. Or otherwise he would NOT have used tactile standard profile switches.

But first, here’s a slight reality check: membrane keyboards actually have more key travel compared to mechanical keyboards. And, as I highlighted above, require more actuation force compared to mechanical keyboards.

Sydney’s selected keyboard has Cherry MX Brown standard-height switches. It’s as if he didn’t bother looking at low-profile options. Cherry has two low-profile options: red and silver, with silver having less travel than red. Both also have less travel compared to Gateron’s low profile switches, but we’re talking fractions of a millimeter.

You do need to research your options and, preferably, go to an electronics store with a variety of keyboards available to try them out. Micro Center is a great option if you have one nearby. Regardless of whether you’re looking at mechanical or membrane, or whatever other types of keyboards are out there, go to an electronics store and try one out if you can. Don’t just pick a keyboard and go with it.

And Cherry MX Brown switches are, arguably, the worst option to start with if you’re not used to a mechanical keyboard. Linear switches are the better option – e.g., the Gateron Red switches I mentioned earlier.

Okay, no, Cherry MX Blue switches are worse still. And if you’re someone who insists on using a blue-key mechanical keyboard in an open office, you might as well just … end it all yourself to save yourself the arguably worse fate your coworkers are planning under the radar…

And why would that be?

Click-clack…

Typing on a mechanical keyboard, even the model I bought which is supposedly one of the quieter options on the market, is a source of constant annoyance to me. I bought my wife the same Keychron to replace her old mechanical keyboard, and it was a big improvement in noise level, but I can still hear her through the wall. I need noise-canceling headphones just to tolerate the keyboard in front of me.

What’s rather sick about this paragraph, let alone this entire article, is How-To-Geek links to this “related” article from Sydney’s: 5 Ways to Get the Benefits of a Mechanical Keyboard Without the Noise. To Sydney’s credit, however little he deserves, he said he tried his mechanical keyboard for a year, and that “related” article was published in March. Still, some collaboration between the two would’ve been worthwhile as it would’ve saved Sydney from making a blanket statement about mechanical keyboards.

But would he have needed to try his keyboard for a year to determine whether it’s for him or not? No. Most who switch to a mechanical keyboard usually take to it pretty quick (like me and my wife) or determine pretty quickly that it isn’t going work out. A year with a keyboard is not required. Or you decide that a mechanical keyboard will be great for you, but not the specific keyboard you started with.

Which is why, in actuality, if you’re going to switch to a mechanical keyboard, going with a gaming keyboard is the place to start. Since they all tend to have linear switches. Since they don’t have the noise problem of tactile swtiches.

And near-silent linear switches have existed for several years as well. Which is a great segue to my wife.

After her gaming mechanical keyboard suffered a similar fate to mine, I decided to build her a custom one over going with a prebuilt. I’d been curious about the custom scene for a while and decided she could be my guinea pig. Here’s her bill of materials – everything coming from Micro Center:

  • Glorious GMMK 2 96% White Ice bare keyboard
  • Glorious Aura Keycaps v2 – White (v3 available)
  • Redragon Bullet-QL Peach switches (A113QL) (5 x 24 switches)
  • Glorious Coiled Cable 4.5 ft. – Nebula

The Bullet-QL switches are the main feature here. They are whisper quiet. I considered them when building my mechanical keyboard due to the lighter actuation force. But I need the keypress noise. I’m too used to it at this point. It’d take me way, way too long to get accustomed to near-silent switches.

And other quiet options exist. You don’t have to live with the noise.

Research first

So options abound in the mechanical keyboard scene. If you’re considering a mechanical keyboard, absolutely do some research first. There are a myriad of options available. And consider the custom mechanical route as well to get a keyboard that is best suited to your needs. You can even mix switches, combining tactile and linear. Or combine switches with different actuation forces so you can have, for example, light switches for the main keys and heavier switches for the keys you use less often – or vice versa if you want that.

Just… don’t go with tactile switches unless you’ll be using them at home and you live alone. Otherwise I’ll presume you have a death wish. Especially if you’re inconsiderate enough to use blue or, worse, green switches in an open floor office.

Server projects

Single-node Kubernetes “cluster” on Fedora 42/43

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Just putting this out there for those who might need it. This will install Kubernetes from the official repositories, using containerd.io from Fedora’s repositories as the container runtime and Calico as the network fabric. It will also pull in Helm for deploying Helm charts.

Note: This is for development or learning use, and hobbyist depending on your use cases. These commands will get you started. They will require tweaks for security and/or performance if you need Kubernetes for production.

Make sure the system is up-to-date (sudo dnf update -y) before running this. This is best run on a fresh install.

# First, set up the Kubernetes repo and install the packages. Change the 
# version to whatever you want to use. Latest is 1.34 as of this writing.

kube_version=1.34

cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/kubernetes.repo
[kubernetes]
name=Kubernetes
baseurl=https://pkgs.k8s.io/core:/stable:/v$kube_version/rpm/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://pkgs.k8s.io/core:/stable:/v$kube_version/rpm/repodata/repomd.xml.key
EOF

sudo dnf update
sudo dnf install -y \
    kubectl \
    kubelet \
    kubeadm \
    kubernetes-cni \
    containerd \
    helm

# Make sure swap is off. Only needed if you installed Fedora with a swap
# partition or you're using a swapfile.

sudo swapoff -a
sudo dnf remove -y zram-generator-defaults

# In most other tutorials for setting up Kubernetes, you would be disabling
# the firewall here, but whether that is necessary will depend on your use
# case. For a single-node "cluster", that isn't necessary. And for a
# multi-node cluster, you can can allow through the ports you need rather
# than disabling the firewall entirely.

cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/sysctl.d/99-k8s.conf
net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-iptables  = 1
net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-ip6tables = 1
net.ipv4.ip_forward                 = 1
EOF

# Turn off SELinux

sudo setenforce 0
sudo sed -i 's/^SELINUX=enforcing$/SELINUX=permissive/' /etc/selinux/config

# Reboot!

After this, reboot to ensure everything takes. Sure, there are other commands that you can run to pull in the changes without rebooting, but rebooting is a near-guaranteed way to ensure everything takes and loads as expected.

Next is setting up the “cluster”:

# Change the CIDR and subnet to whatever you want to use.

kube_subnet="192.168.2.0/16"

# Make sure the CNI configuration in the containerd config is pointing to the
# right path. This prevents the CoreDNS pods from getting stuck in
# "ContainerCreating".

sudo sed -i 's/\/usr\/libexec\/cni/\/opt\/cni\/bin/g' /etc/containerd/config.toml

# Enable and start containerd. Enable but do NOT start kubelet. Kubelet will
# be started as part of kubeadm's initialization.

sudo systemctl enable --now containerd
sudo systemctl enable kubelet

# Pull base images and initialize the control plane

sudo kubeadm config images pull
sudo kubeadm init --pod-network-cidr=$kube_subnet

# Now to set up kubectl to finish the setup

mkdir -p $HOME/.kube
sudo cp -i /etc/kubernetes/admin.conf $HOME/.kube/config
sudo chown $(id -u):$(id -g) $HOME/.kube/config

# Set calico_version to the latest available:
# https://github.com/projectcalico/calico/releases/

calico_version=3.31.0

# Apply the Calico network fabric and "taint" the control plane node.

kubectl apply -f "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectcalico/calico/refs/tags/v$calico_version/manifests/calico.yaml"
kubectl taint nodes --all node-role.kubernetes.io/control-plane-

After this, run kubectl get pods --all-namespaces and, eventually, you should see something like this (the “vbox” in the names is because I was running the above on a VirtualBox VM):

NAMESPACE     NAME                                      READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
kube-system   calico-kube-controllers-5766bdd7c-b2j58   1/1     Running   0          2m31s
kube-system   calico-node-rjpff                         1/1     Running   0          2m31s
kube-system   coredns-66bc5c9577-5zdl9                  1/1     Running   0          2m58s
kube-system   coredns-66bc5c9577-pkz4b                  1/1     Running   0          2m57s
kube-system   etcd-vbox                                 1/1     Running   0          3m4s
kube-system   kube-apiserver-vbox                       1/1     Running   0          3m4s
kube-system   kube-controller-manager-vbox              1/1     Running   0          3m4s
kube-system   kube-proxy-b8mtq                          1/1     Running   0          2m58s
kube-system   kube-scheduler-vbox                       1/1     Running   0          3m4s

And now you have a single-node Kubernetes “cluster” on Fedora 42 against which you can deploy new pods or Helm charts.