Whack-a-Key comes to typ.ing

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Hi Enrique,

Hitting a single key with precision isn't like typing text. I'm talking about something like Volume Up or Down, a macro you use once or twice a day, or an F-key. This is what the latest training mode in typ.ing is all about. More below.

On the topic of typ.ing, here's the leaderboard for June:

• #1: Zedkaido, with 109wpm at 99.8% accuracy across 30 challenges. I don't know about you, but my mind is a bit blown.
• #2: y6oxz43p with 96wpm at 95% accuracy across 30 challenges.
• #3: moonlander_whiz (no extra points for the username, though I do love it), with 111wpm and 93% accuracy across 30 challenges.

Below you'll also find a beautiful video from Jo's visit to Tokyo earlier this year, where she got to interview one of our best friends in Japan, Hiroko. The layout tour is also unique; this month's layout has only two layers and no home-row mods, and doesn't even use all of the keys on the Voyager, leaving the outer keys blank. It does all this through copious use of combos. The most interesting part is the key arrangement itself, which is entirely unique based on the author's (Thomas Schnell) own text corpus.

Speaking of "entirely unique," have you ever heard of a wallet made out of cork? Turns out Robin has been using one for years, as you can read in ZSA Loves: Corkor Wallets.

This month's featured interview is with one of those people who do so much, it feels like they must have two or three extra hours in their day. Inspiring (though not to the point where I'll attempt an ultramarathon myself 😬). And finally, the beautiful wallpaper features a printable from our good friend, Ming Thein, who's constantly working to elevate our aesthetics ever higher.

As always, thanks so much for reading, and do write back -— simply reply, I'm always happy to chat. :)

All the best,
Erez

“The keyboard is the tool I touch the most throughout the day, so being excited by touching and looking at it is an important element of my keyboard.”

- Hiroko Nakayama, ErgoDox EZ & Voyager User

Whack-a-Key

Now in typ.ing

Our latest mode ported over from Oryx. This one is exclusive to ZSA keyboards, for technical reasons: It shows you your layout on-screen when you get a key wrong, and also flashes the key on your keyboard! Quite cool.

Featured User Interview

Tim Gorichanaz

Professor

Tim is a professor of information science. In his free time, he writes novels, plays classical guitar, and grows orchids. Also, he recently completed the Western States Endurance Run, one of the toughest endurance events in the world.

"I never did any sports growing up—in fact I was quite overweight for my first 20 years. Then my mom signed up my whole family for a local 5K race, and I fell in love with the training. I ran marathons for a few years, then was drawn to even longer races. Now every year I run one or two 100-mile races, plus some shorter distance events."

Voyager 28k

This is an entirely self-developed key arrangement, based on a text corpus consisting of thousands of pages of English/German legal and technical documents as well as 15 years of email. Even if the key arrangement is not for you, the use of combos is worth looking at.

Things we liked

Poolsuite →

Leisure Enhancer

The clock at the top-right of this streaming service says it’s 1997, and the rest of the UI tries hard to live up to that. It’s a bunch of instrumental music. There are playlists and themes, and low-fi video loops as you’re listening to the tunes. There are ads but they’re tastefully hidden away in the nooks and crannies of the UI, like a button labeled “Vacation” which of course I had to click.

The Mane Quest →

All about horses in video games and video games about horses.

Do you like horses? Do you game? This is for you. Full of deep dives like “The best horse games to play in 2025” and coverage of a “murder-mystery horse MMO”, as well as calling out game developers for making horse-related errors in their design like “straight fetlocks on hind legs”. Not a gag — this is for real and it goes deep.

Moving Archives x Harley Davidson →

From Google Arts and Culture

Harley Davidson has many, many old and interesting still photos in their archive. What if those images moved? As you might expect from Google Arts and Culture, this is very nicely executed. Both the interface (I prefer the desktop version) and the videos. Pairs well with some piano music.

Lidraughts →

Free online draughts

Based on Lichess, this is a free, no-ads, open-source site for playing draughts, aka checkers. You can play against humans or AI, watch live games (over 500 games are being played live as I write this), and practice draughts problems. The site also features five additional variants of draughts, so if you don’t find the traditional game too deep or engaging (which I can understand) you may want to look into those.

Zen Browser →

Arc, but Firefox

I’ve been using the Arc browser for a while now, but The Browser Company decided to stop developing it. It still works, but if you’re looking for something that’s a bit more actively maintained, as well as open-source, Zen Browser is an interesting one to check out. It looks just like Arc, but it’s based on Firefox. Available for macOS, Windows, and Linux. Free.

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

This month we get to feature work by our close friend Ming Thein, this Voyager printable and the one-off keycaps he created out of aluminum. You can see more of his creations at ming.watch.

Thank you for reading!