More Burning Issues

Fighting the cold while cooking outdoors in the niches and nooks of Helsinki.

It's surprising in hindsight how poor gear and clothes were in use last winter. (Another post here, and one more.) Instead of an everyday winter jacket with a broken front zipper, there's now a parka-style proper outdoor clothing, thermal shoes with teeth, and additional layers of clothing.

The crab-style gloves have been adequate for warmth, but they are not ideal for handling pots and utensils. Having lighter gloves underneath didn't help all that much. Possibly something to improve in the future.

I initially had some doubts about the light-weight collapsible chair, but it has served me fine enough for a year.

Kuusiluoto

Last winter saw a number of interesting exercises with gas and spirit burners. I thought most problems and beginner mistakes would be in the past, but new gear brings new opportunities for making mistakes.

This time around the walking distances have been short, but the snow on ice made walking much heavier. Christmastime and the illnesses of late have confined me to the sofa, so I'm not especially fit for the part of a snowplough.

Trangia the trustworthy. The Winter gas canister was maybe excessive.

The first session at Kuusiluoto had no problems, the Trangia was used for a number of tried and tested ready-made meals. The temperature was well below -10°, but this gave no trouble as the sun was shining and the air was practically still. It was still nice to get moving in the end.

With the second session at Kivinokka, though the weather wasn't as cold, closer to -5° or -7°, spending more time in a slightly more windy weather did take its toll. It was silly to have lighter clothing after all.

Potatoes were boiled with a Jetboil 0.8L kit, vegetarian "meat balls" were fried on a pan, and even some thin spinach pancakes were warmed. These were both made with the Outzone spider burner. 

For boiling the water, the remains of a gas canister tried bravely but didn't really cut it in the sub-zero weather. A full newly opened Jetboil canister did more than enough work and the taters were soon a-boiling.

All gear out, a sign of trouble?

The Outzone burner behaved weirdly when the gas was running out, something that might not have happened in warmer seasons. Again, the full canister gave much better heat. I'd still say the Outzone is hardly optimal for winter. Much of the time the output didn't feel appropriate for a gas burner, but more like a candle flame. Question arises how much more gas does the Outzone waste in trying to produce the heat, compared to a Trangia or the Jetboil.

I've begun eyeing burners with gas regulators, it did not occur to me the more costly burners might be expensive for a reason...

Some happenstances: I managed to trip the loose Jetboil burner so the inlet caught a tiny amount of snow. This resulted in sputtering and coughing, but it was soon up and running in full speed.

Kivinokka

Again, all the experiences tend to highlight how well thought out the classic Trangia kit is. For snowy terrain, it's good to have that stable round stand and the wind shield. Sure, after working with tinier and lighter gear it might feel a little bulky, it also fits quite many things inside.

The winter season isn't closing quite yet, but soon the ice might not provide safe shortcuts to islands.

Killingholma, only a few degrees below zero.

Some customization is always in order. I mentioned the "thermal" shoes with built-in metal teeth. I have protective covers for the shoes when visiting shops or other inside space, but they tended to slip off.

Well, I shouldn't use the covers so much on the streets, but it would be uncomfortable to just put them on for few minutes.

For most of the time the studs are not all that useful really, but they do give good grip when going uphill or downhill on a packed-snow route.

Quick fix

I used carabiner clips and key rings to tie the heels more tightly to the shoes. Even then I've had one of the covers slip off after a longer walk. 

The loop on the shoe is likely a weak point, not intended to handle weight, so I'll figure out something else eventually.

The Shrimp

The Shrimp in its half glory

I've come across this fun-sized keyboard on occasions. The idea is at least partly sound: if you don't need all the keys for games, why pay for those extra keys? 

Well, I'm half-joking. A real use case might be playing games with mechanical keys on a laptop, but without taking along a full-sized keyboard. 

The problem was the Shrimp was quite expensive for what it seemed to deliver. But now I could have it for a reasonable price (20€) so I was more than tempted.

It's quite thick.

Yes, there are also other problems with the idea, such as that keys 1-5 might not be enough for weapon selection in some games. Redefining keys can help there.

The other problem might be that you can't use it for chat, but it doesn't matter as I don't use the chat. Pros will use headsets anyway?

Unboxing reveals a carry bag, a USB cable (USB-C shape at the Shrimp end), and a bulky wrist rest which is attached to the keyboard with a magnet.

Many keys have double functions built-in, using the fn key. I didn't even notice at first there's an Enter/Return key accessible with fn+ESC.

The WASD highlighted

Connect the keyboard and it begins to flash in all colors of rainbow, as gaming keyboards tend to do these days. With the button on the top-left knob, I can turn the lights off or switch between configurations. The knob also seems to control the light level. My favorite is the fairly muted option with only WASD and ESC keys lit in blue.

Just trying it on a text editor or a terminal proves the keys work just as well as a normal keyboard would. It's just missing a bunch of keys.

As the manual says nothing about further customizing the key lights, I assume it can't be done with OpenRGB and such.

The other knob controls volume, albeit quite badly on my Linux Mint/Mate. I have to sort of click-click it with care in order to change the volume, rotating didn't work too well. The small "minus" key works as a mute button. Using the knob hidden button, Mint launched the control center window. Not sure what it would do in Windows.

The knobs come loose quite easily, which I guess is meant to support portability. Otherwise something nasty could happen to them in a bag.

Everspace 2 highlights the typical problem: weapon/item activation keys

I did try a few games quickly.

After a short session of Half Life 2, I thought the keyboard did okay. At first there's a strange phantom limb sensation, as if the right side of the keyboard were missing. This, even if the game mostly doesn't need the keys there. At this point I didn't have the full weapon set (1-6) or the Gravity Gun (G), which would have needed more keys than the Shrimp provides. The keys can be redefined, but HL2 keys are kind of an institution.

Edit: After playing HL2 further, I found I don't really need to redefine keys. I can use the gravity gun fast enough by flipping the crowbar key. Later, I used the mouse wheel to select the pheropods. Not perfect, but quite possible.

With Control, all the essential movement and combat keys are present, and it was quite pleasant to fight with the Shrimp. I've lost the touch for this game in a very short time, though. I had to redefine a key to get to the loadouts and missions, because they normally open from G, M or I.

Popping over to Everspace 2, the strafe, pitch, yaw, hover and thrust nicely fit in the cluster and actually give something of a "hey I'm controlling a space ship" feel. TAB brings the menu screen. The consumable/one-off items are activated using keys outside the number range. These could be mapped to the "function keys" (behind fn) but it's perhaps less than ideal. The ULT key default is G, again outside the Shrimp horizon.

With a ZX Spectrum emulator, so many games have redefinable keys that Shrimp kind of works, although this is quite nonsensical experiment.

I suppose the Shrimp would work 100% with Fortnite.

The cosy wrist rest

To be honest, I haven't much reflected on how I use my everyday keyboard, HyperX Alloy, when playing games. So, having a keyboard like this makes me more conscious of the hand and wrist placement, resulting in uncomfortable positions even if this might not be the device's fault. Time will tell.

A minor point against the wrist rest is that taken together, the two parts are going to occupy as much room as a small keyboard anyway.

Still I believe it's a good idea to use the wrist rest. Although the magnets are not super strong, combined with the rubber feet the keyboard and the rest stay put. Maybe it ought to be a little lower.

There are no tilt adjusters, which might be another tiny minus. Such an option could have complicated the magnet connection.

Separated

Well, does The Shrimp provide a smaller number of superior keys? It does, even if I don't see them as better than the HyperX Alloy keys.

The Shrimp can be considered a space saver, both in a bag and on the table, but as the full-sized keyboard is going to be here anyway, it's not going to help in decluttering the desk. One more curiosity to the collection.

Some ideas also loom in the horizon, such as using this keyboard for a custom-built software, but we'll see.

Quick Edit: I tried the Shrimp with an Android Galaxy phone, and it works. Game support for keyboards is quite limited, but just to test I downloaded Asphalt 8 Airborne. Not too bad, even if not my cup of tea of game. Oh and Sonic the Hedgehog Classic. So perhaps this is one more use case for the Shrimp.