• Churchill quote: Applied to reported US-Russia draft framework as end of beginning in Ukraine peace process.
• Negotiators: US envoy Steve Witkoff, Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev, possibly JD Vance, Marco Rubio, Jared Kushner.
• Deal status: Trump administration sees imminent agreement; Russia stresses none reached; uncertainties on concessions and Ukrainian acceptance.
• Donbas terms: Ukraine withdraws from 14% held area, to be demilitarized under neutral peacekeepers.
• Other regions: Ceasefire along front lines in Zaporizhia and Kherson; Russia abandons full provincial claims.
• Sovereignty concessions: US recognizes Russian control over Donbas and Crimea, implying sanctions relief; Ukraine not required to.
• Military and security: No long-range missiles for Ukraine, force size limits, US guarantees, Russian okay for EU but not NATO membership.
• Additional elements: Russian as second official language in Ukraine; proposals for UN/BRICS ratification, suspended sanctions, stockpiled arms.

When it comes to the reported draft framework agreement between the U.S. and Russia, and its place in the Ukraine peace process, a quote by Winston Churchill (on the British victory at El Alamein) may be appropriate: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” This is because at long last, this document engages with the concrete, detailed issues that will have to be resolved if peace is to be achieved.

The plan has apparently been worked out between U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev (together reportedly with Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the president's son-in-law Jared Kushner) but a great deal about it is highly unclear. The Trump administration reportedly believes that a deal is imminent, but the Russian government has been at pains to stress that no agreement has yet been reached. We do not know if Moscow will try to exact further concessions; the details of several key points have not been revealed; and above all, it may be impossible to get the Ukrainian government to agree to essential elements, unless the Trump administration is prepared to bring extremely heavy pressure to bear on both Ukraine and America’s European allies.

It has already been reported that President Zelensky has rejected the plan and is working with European governments to propose an alternative — though so far, nothing that the Europeans have proposed stands the remotest chance of being accepted by Moscow.

Among the most difficult points for Ukraine will be the reported draft agreement that Ukraine should withdraw from the approximately 14% of the Donbas that it still holds, and that it has sacrificed tens of thousands of lives to retain. But with the key Ukrainian town of Pokrovsk seemingly close to falling, the Trump administration apparently believes that the rest of the Donbas is sooner or later bound to fall too, and there is no point in losing more Ukrainian lives in a vain attempt to keep it, and also risk Ukrainian military collapse and losing more territory beyond the Donbas.

The draft agreement also reportedly softens the blow for Ukraine by stating that the area handed over will be demilitarized and controlled by neutral peacekeepers. In the other two provinces claimed (but only partially occupied) by Russia, Zaporizhia and Kherson, the ceasefire line will run along the existing front line, and Russia will abandon its demand for the whole of these provinces.

In a huge concession to Russia however, the Trump administration — and possibly other countries like Turkey and Qatar, that helped mediate this proposed deal — is willing to recognize Russian legal sovereignty over the Donbas and Crimea (which would also imply the lifting of many U.S. sanctions on Russia) though it does not expect Ukraine to do so.

The draft agreement apparently excludes long-range missiles for Ukraine and would impose limits on the size of the Ukrainian armed forces, though we do not know how great these limits will be. The Ukrainian government agreed to the principle of arms limitations at the Istanbul talks in March 2022, but has since categorically rejected the idea.

The draft agreement also reportedly includes unspecified U.S. security guarantees to Ukraine, and a formal Russian acknowledgment (already stated by President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov) of Ukraine’s right to join the European Union, in return for the exclusion of NATO membership for Ukraine. It has not been revealed however whether this would require a change to the Ukrainian constitution to restore the previous commitment to neutrality, something that could be hard to pass through the Ukrainian parliament.

This is also true of another key element of the reported plan — the establishment of Russian as a second official language in Ukraine. This is a neuralgic issue for Ukrainian ethnic nationalists, but they should recognize and respond with gratitude to the fact that in the face of the Russian invasion the great majority of Russians and Russian speakers have remained loyal to Ukraine.

Predictably, the leaked plan has drawn immediate denunciation from both Ukrainian and Western sources, with it being described as a demand for Ukraine’s “capitulation.” This is mistaken. As the Quincy Institute has long pointed out, an agreement that leaves three quarters of Ukraine independent and with a path to EU membership would in fact be a Ukrainian victory, albeit a qualified one.

This should be obvious if you look at the Russian government’s goal at the start of the war of turning the whole of Ukraine into a client state, or alternatively of seizing the whole of eastern and southern Ukraine. It would also be a Ukrainian victory in terms of the 500-year-long history of Russian, Polish and Turkish rule over Ukraine. And by way of additional evidence, you would only have to listen to the howls of protest that an agreement along these lines will evoke from Russian hardliners, who still dream of achieving Russian maximalist aims. European comments that this draft agreement concedes Russia’s “maximalist demands” are therefore nonsense.

When it comes to the Western security guarantees to Ukraine promised (but not specified) in the draft agreement, it is crucial to recognize that in international affairs and in history there is no such thing as an absolute guarantee, let alone a permanent one. There are however a whole set of commitments that can be included in order to deter future Russian aggression: the peace agreement should be ratified by the U.N. Security Council and endorsed by the BRICS; Western economic sanctions should be not ended but suspended, with a snap-back clause stating that they will automatically resume if Russia resumes aggression; designated long-range missiles and other arms can be stockpiled with a legally binding guarantee that they will be provided to Ukraine if Russia restarts the war.

Above all, Ukraine should retain the complete and guaranteed right to receive and develop the defensive weapons that throughout this war have played a key part in slowing the Russian advance to a crawl and inflicting immense casualties on the Russian army. Because in the end, the greatest deterrent by far against Russia starting a new war is how badly its armed forces have suffered and performed in this war. If Russia has achieved its basic stated goals in Ukraine, would any future Russian government really want to go through this again?

Certain Western officials, politicians, and commentators believe, and have stated openly, that keeping the Ukraine War going is “money well spent” because it weakens Russia without sacrificing U.S. lives. But apart from the deep immorality of sacrificing Ukrainian lives for this goal, the longer the war goes on the greater the risk that Ukraine will suffer a far greater defeat, Russia a far greater victory, and the U.S. a far greater humiliation.

Given the growing evidence of Ukrainian military weakness and Russian ability to press forward with its offensives, simple prudence dictates the search for an early peace on reasonable terms. That is what the present plan promises, and everyone who truly has Ukraine’s and Europe’s interests at heart should support it.

• Frankfurt reference: Quotes "On Bullshit" to describe empty speech during Plaskett's House floor defense.
• WaPo revelations: Reports text messages showing Epstein coached Plaskett on questioning Cohen in 2019 hearing.
• Censure resolution: Failed after targeting Plaskett for Epstein involvement.
• Constituent claim: Plaskett describes Epstein as a constituent sending texts amid others after viral moment.
• RONA exchange: Epstein explains "RONA" as Trump's assistant Rhona Graff; Plaskett asks Cohen about her.
• Advice denial: Plaskett asserts no need for advice on questioning, cites prosecutor experience.
• Additional texts: Epstein compliments outfit, notes chewing; exchanges span seven hours from morning.
• WaPo critique: Plaskett waves transcript, accuses selective 30-second clip ignoring full five-minute questioning.

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Late Tuesday night, I recalled the late Harry G. Frankfurt’s increasingly relevant, “On Bullshit.”

When we characterize talk as hot air, we mean that what comes out of the speaker’s mouth is only that. It is mere vapor. His speech is empty, without substance or content. His use of language, accordingly, does not contribute to the purpose it purports to serve. No more information is communicated than if the speaker had merely exhaled.

I thought of that book as I was watching Democratic Delegate Stacey Plaskett’s performance on the House floor as she defended herself on a censure resolution inspired by revelations in the Washington Post that she received coaching from world-renowned scumbag Jeffrey Epstein during a 2019 hearing, as she prepared to question former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen.

The Post story and accompanying video are damning. Of course, the revelations are a bigger story because they involve Epstein. He was still a few months out from being charged with a slew of sex trafficking offenses, but he was still a registered sex offender, as she effectively said, “Jeffrey, take the wheel.” However, this is bad no matter who was driving her questioning in real time. She was nothing more than a ventriloquist dummy, and if you haven’t seen the video, judge for yourself:

Epstein was only a constituent

The censure resolution failed, but make no mistake that her performance was “Mission Accomplished”-level bull. Plaskett starts by heaping praise on herself for a “moment that went viral” earlier in the hearing during an interaction with Republican Congressman Jim Jordan. That, she claims, prompted “innumerable texts” from friends, foes, and constituents.

And I got a text from Jeffrey Epstein, who at the time was my constituent, who was not public knowledge at that time that he was under federal investigation and, who was sharing information with me.

So of all those supposed “innumerable texts,” Epstein just happened to stand out as if he were any other constituent. It was just a coincidence, then, that a few months earlier she landed $30,000 from him for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and that he had already given maximum amounts to her own campaigns. Yes, he was a constituent, but so what? Bob Menendez also had “constituents.”

“I don’t need to get advice…”

Now I heard recently from someone that I was taking advice from him. Let me tell you something: I don’t need to get advice on how to question anybody from any individual.”

This one is my personal favorite because the video from 2019 clearly shows she did need advice!

Epstein pointed out to Plaskett that “Cohen brought up RONA - keeper of the secrets.”

“RONA” is Rhona Graff, a former executive assistant to Trump. Plaskett was thrown for a loop.

“RONA ??” she texted back.

Forty-one seconds went by. She still couldn’t figure it out.

Plaskett: “Quick I’m up next is that an acronym?”Epstein: “Thats his assistant.”

Just in time. She proceeded to ask Cohen three questions about Graff, twice referring to her as “Ms. Rona.” Plaskett grew up in Brooklyn, so I doubt she was exhibiting Southern pleasantries.

In any case, Epstein was pleased. “Good work,” he texted.

Plaskett also mentioned her experience as a narcotics prosecutor in New York and her appointment to the Justice Department after 9/11. “I know how to question individuals,” she said.

The Washington Post

Plaskett takes aim at the Post, saying she questioned Cohen for five minutes. In case there’s any doubt, she waves a transcript as if to say, Proof! Plaskett then complains, “The Washington Post only shows you 30 seconds and takes from it one individual’s name that I got from Jeffrey Epstein, and didn’t know who the individual was.”

This 30 seconds claim is more nonsense. While the video shows Plaskett questioning Cohen for roughly 30 seconds, most of it shows her and the text exchanges just before her questioning begins. The text exchange concerning “Ms. Rona” spanned about 10 minutes, although not continuously. The first text exchange, however, occurred several hours earlier, before the hearing began.

In fact, there were many more texts throughout the day that were reported in the Post’s story but weren’t shown in the video, which of course Plaskett conveniently ignored. The exchanges, after all, indicated they were buddies.

At 10:02 a.m., Epstein texted Plaskett: “Great outfit”

“You look great,” he added at 10:22 a.m. “Thanks!” she replied shortly afterward.

At around 10:40 a.m., a broadcast feed cut to Plaskett, showing her moving her mouth as if she were chewing something.

At 10:41 a.m., Epstein sent this message to Plaskett: “Are you chewing”

“Not any more,” she replied. “Chewing interior of my mouth. Bad habit from middle school”

At 12:50 p.m., Epstein asks: “How much longer for you”

“Hours. Go to other mtgs,” she replied.

The intermittent exchanges spanned nearly seven hours, from 7:55 a.m. to at least 2:34 p.m. There is no substance to this twisted version of the record, just a deeper pile of bull.

“Weaponized it for Political Theater”

Plaskett now presented herself as a victim of government weaponization:

“They’ve taken a text exchange, which show no participation, no assistance, no involvement in any illegal activity, and weaponized it for political theater, because that’s what this is.

This is another trait of a good bullshitter: Imply your critics are doing something they’re not. No one accused Plaskett of doing something illegal by texting Epstein. It was just a way to deflect from her actions.

Fortunately, she’s not a voting member of Congress since she represents the Virgin Islands. Obviously, though, she still has a large platform. Who’s coaching her now?

• 60% User Experiments with Planck: Spent three weeks using 40% ortholinear Planck to master QMK and advanced keyboard features despite preferring 60% layouts.
• Rejects Dedicated Arrow Keys: Advocates home row navigation via layers instead of reaching for arrows, inspired by WASD and chording like Ctrl shortcuts.
• Thumb Keys Excellence: Praises multiple thumb keys for space, backspace, delete, enabling corrections without disrupting home row position.
• QMK Mastery Achieved: Learned advanced QMK features like leader sequences, macros, tap-hold timing, and custom modules through constraint-driven design.
• Home Row Mods Revelation: Implemented modifiers on home row keys for ergonomic shortcuts, fine-tuning timings for reliable tap-hold behavior.
• Typing Challenges: Faced steep ortholinear learning curve, typos, reduced speed with symbols/numbers, and constant mental overhead for layers.
• Build Quality Assessment: Found Planck's construction meh with hollow sound improved by foams and switches, prone to switch removal issues, suitable for budget use.
• Lessons Applied to 60%: Returned to 60% boards enhanced with QMK skills, home row mods, and thumb backspace nostalgia.

tl;dr: As a die-hard 60% user, I spent three weeks with a 40% ortholinear Planck as a self-imposed "internship" to master the advanced features of QMK and other skills that I refer to as the "keyboard dark arts". The good: thumb keys are a revelation, Home Row Mods ftw, and QMK is awesome. The bad: the learning curve is brutal, the mental overhead for coding is exhausting, and the build quality is aggressively just okay. While I'm happily returning to my 60% boards, the Planck was an invaluable, if occasionally infuriating, teacher that gave me the skills I was after.

An overlit and poorly taken photo of the green Planck rev7 keyboard with Drop Jasmin MT3 keycaps and BSUN Maple Sugar switches

Why would you do this to yourself? What's the point?

I got these questions a lot in various forms. And they are fair, to be honest. I frequently looked down at the Planck and asked myself the very same questions.

Some of you are already deep into this hobby and already use keyboards that most people would consider unusable abominations. You already get it. Those who aren't/don't... this review is for you.

There are reasons, but to understand them, we first need to start thinking about keyboards a bit differently. Let's begin by stepping down to 60% and slaying a sacred cow: the arrow keys.

Fuck Arrow Keys

That's right, I said it. Go ahead: gasp, boo, hiss, clutch your fucking pearls.

To be clear, this isn't about not having or using navigation features: we all need to move the cursor around somehow. What you don't need are dedicated arrow keys.

Many of you are sitting in front of a standard full-size or TKL keyboard right now. These are very straightforward: if you want F5, you reach up and press the F5 key; if you want Print Screen, you reach over and press the Print Screen key. If you want the cursor to move up a line, you reach over and press the ↑ key. Easy peasy.

Here's a new way of thinking about this, though: all that reaching around the keyboard for different keys isn't just inefficient, it's poor ergonomics. What if the most critical functions were always right under your fingers on the home row?

Stop reaching and start chording.

This isn't groundbreaking: cut, copy, and paste are indispensable features that have never had dedicated keys on any standardized modern layout. You don't reach across the keyboard for a key, you chord Ctrl (or Cmd) + X, C, or V. Your fingers never leave the 40% portion of the keyboard. We're just applying that same logic to the arrow keys.

This principle isn't even new. Gamers discovered this decades ago with the rise of first-person shooters and keyboard-mouse controls: you need your right hand on the mouse for aiming, but the arrow keys are also on the right. The solution was WASD as arrows. By moving navigation to the left hand's home position, they freed up the right hand for the mouse. While our goal isn't landing headshots, the core lesson is the same: putting essential navigation in a comfortable position under your fingers instead of chasing dedicated keys across the board is a massive win for efficiency. We're just applying that battle-tested wisdom to everyday typing.

Next, take a look at your Caps Lock key: it's a useless little bitch taking up prime home row real estate. With the magic of programmable mechanical keyboards, we can transform it into a key that opens up a layer with things like Enter, Backspace, Delete, and yes, even arrow keys, all right on the home row. You don't even need to buy a new keyboard to experiment with this: all you need is access to VIA or Vial.

This advice isn't for everyone, of course. Some people don't want any challenge at all from their keyboard, just something nice to type on. That's fine. For those of us willing to experiment, yes, it takes a little elbow grease to get there. Yes, it takes some retraining of your muscle memory... but for serious typists, the payoff can be significant. And fun to configure!

The Keyboard Dark Arts

I'm a 60% user at heart. That's my sweet spot. The thought of using anything smaller as a daily driver is extremely unappealing, to put it nicely: I write a fair amount of code, and I need easy access to numbers and symbols. At the same time, I don't need anything larger. I appreciate the more compact form factor and the extra desk space, and (as you can probably tell) I vastly prefer home row navigation to dedicated arrow keys. A 60% keyboard has all the keys I need and none that I don't.

So why did I buy a 40% keyboard? An ortholinear one, no less? No, seriously, why the fuck would someone who writes code buy a keyboard that doesn't have dedicated keys for numbers or critical symbols like \, -, =, [, ], `?

To the wider world, where to find the "missing" keys on a 60% layout is a solved problem with several freely available solutions. Take the HHKB-style arrow keys [;'/, accessed via a Function key made from splitting right Shift. This "solution" always felt hacky to me (see what I did there?). It forces an awkward reach for the pinky to anchor on the Fn key, then requires you to pivot your hand to hit the arrows. Need Page Up? That's an even deeper, more strained reach, all while your pinky is held hostage.

If your goal is saving desk space or achieving a certain aesthetic, that may be a workable solution; but if the goal is maximizing speed and ergonomics, this ain't it.

I (and many others) figured that a better solution was hiding in plain sight on the other side of the board: the prime, underutilized real estate of the dumbfuck Caps Lock key. By turning it into a layer key instead, I could get true home-row navigation with IJKL with no pinky strain. That simple idea quickly snowballed. I pulled in other essentials like Backspace, Delete, Enter, and modifiers to where I could reach with my left hand, building an entire layer that was not just a workaround for missing keys, but a genuine ergonomic upgrade over the standard positions of many keys I did have. I almost never, for example, use my Backspace key anymore: Caps Lock + d for Backspace is faster and more ergonomic.

My setup was good, but I was stuck in a rut. I knew it could be better. I wanted my home row to do more, but I had also reached the limits of my knowledge and capacity with the Vial software.

To get to the next level, I needed to go back to school. I saw the Planck as a ticket out of my comfort zone: a masterclass in constraint-driven design. By stripping away so many keys and adding thumb keys to (somewhat) compensate, the Planck forces you to fundamentally reconsider core aspects of the layout. Where does Enter go? Backspace? Where's the fucking right Shift? How do you remember where all the symbols are‽‽

There are no easy answers, no one-size-fits-all solution. Not even close. The only way is a descent into the keyboard dark arts: the world of QMK, aka Quantum Mechanical Keyboard. This isn't just remapping keys and adding layers, it's an entire programming language for your keyboard. We're talking tap-hold and double/triple-tap timing intricacies, leader sequences that turn your keyboard into a command line, dynamic on-the-fly custom macros, and layering schemes so complex they'd make an Inception architect's head spin. The result is a layout that is custom-fitted like leather to each typist.

I call these skills the "keyboard dark arts" because they are the kinds of things no sane person using a standard layout would ever want or need... but it's that knowledge and those skills that I was after. The Planck wasn't just another keyboard to add to my collection: it was an internship, a trial by fire in these dark arts. A vision quest.

And this, my friends, is the crux of my reasoning for buying the Planck: sometimes you have to break something down to understand how to build it back up better and stronger. I knew going in that this would be painful. I knew I'd hate it. But to truly maximize the potential of the 60%, I needed to step completely outside my comfort zone—I needed a keyboard that would force me to question assumptions and teach me the art of QMK.

And that's exactly what the Planck did.

The Review Part of the Review

Look, I'm not going to reinvent the wheel here talking about the Planck's build quality—plenty of people have already beaten that horse to death. But since you're here, you get my takes anyway.

The build quality is aggressively meh... but so is the price, so I wasn't expecting much to begin with. The sound profile out of the box is, to put it politely, quite bad: hollow, metallic, and clangy. The foams helped considerably, but we're still a far cry from "good" as some hollowness and clanginess lingers.

One gripe I will bring up is that the board has "eaten" a fair number of switches, meaning they never came off the plate in one piece. They were in so tight that the switch housings came apart rather than just come loose. At one point, attempting to remove a single switch resulted in the plate and PCB separating entirely, with every other switch being yanked out of their hotswap sockets and pulled up with the plate in the process. What the honest to god fuck?? Two thumbs down there. Get your shit together, Drop.

I tried both the POM and steel plates before settling on BSUN Maple Sugar switches on the steel plate. I used Drop's Jasmin MT3 Ortho keycaps with a green case. The result is decently attractive and a reasonably good typing experience—and that's coming from someone who's already quite picky. It's not going to blow anyone's mind, but even if you're a bit of a snob like me, it (barely) passes muster.

Now, let's dive into the meat of this review: what I loved and hated about living with the Planck.

The Good Stuff

Let's cover what I really liked about the Planck. It wasn't all frustrations and typos.

Thumb Keys Are the Light and the Way

Seriously, having so many keys for my thumbs instead of one giant spacebar is fucking brilliant. I love it. Hands down my single favorite feature of the Planck.

I put a 2U spacebar on the right, since I almost exclusively hit Space with my right thumb. It was the perfect size—no more, no less than I needed. (My brief, disastrous experiment with a single-wide spacebar proved that.)

Think about it: your thumbs are incredibly agile and dexterous, yet on a standard keyboard one of them hits a single giant spacebar, usually in the same general spot, while the other floats around doing absolutely nothing. What a waste of real estate and talent!

Anticipating (correctly) a steep learning curve with a ton of errors, I put Backspace and Delete as left-handed thumb keys. And it was fucking glorious!

With a traditional Backspace, when you make a mistake, you have to lift your right hand off the home row, reach over to the Backspace key, fix the error, then return to home. It's a constant, if minor, interruption to your flow if you have fat fingers. But with Backspace under my left thumb? I could correct errors instantly without ever breaking stride. My right hand stayed planted on the home row while my left thumb handled all the cleanup. I could even hold Raise with my right thumb, right next to the Spacebar, to turn those keys into "delete next/previous word."

The ergonomics are night and day better. No stretching, no reaching, no breaking your wrist position. It's one of those features that sounds minor on paper but transforms the entire typing experience once you've lived with it.

Fuck a giant spacebar, why isn't this standard?

Manufacturers, take note: give us more split spacebars, you cowards!

It's Fun to Configure

While using the Planck does feel sometimes like solving a damn Rubik's cube, the actual process of iterating over the layers and configuration is surprisingly fun. Type 2 fun, maybe, but fun nonetheless.

Here's the thing: I'm the type of person who gets genuinely excited about optimizing systems. I'll spend hours refactoring code just to make it more elegant. The Planck tapped into that same part of my brain in a way my 60% boards never could.

With standard layouts, customization feels like rearranging furniture in a house someone else designed. You're mostly just remapping a few existing keys—maybe swapping Caps Lock for Control, swapping modifier positions to accommodate macOS vs Windows, or putting media controls under a function layer. It's useful, but it's not creative. There's no real need to rethink where Backspace goes because its default location, while arguably suboptimal, is okay.

The Planck, on the other hand, is a blank canvas with insane constraints.

Every key placement becomes a deliberate choice. Where do you put Enter when there's no dedicated place for it? Do you give up easy access to '" to put it on the home row, or do you move it down to share a key with Shift? What are the timing settings that allow Shift and Enter to share a key seamlessly for how I personally type so I'm not constantly sending incomplete messages? Or maybe we should leave Shift alone and Enter could be a thumb key? Each decision cascades into others, creating this intricate web of interdependent choices.

Every iteration felt like solving a design problem. I'd identify a pain point—say, I couldn't find underscore reliably, or I was having trouble accessing Cmd+[ to un-indent code—then experiment with different solutions. Each solution would work for a while, then reveal new problems that needed solving.

It's the same dopamine hit I get from debugging a particularly gnarly piece of code or finally cracking a math problem that's been stumping me. The difference is that this puzzle was mine—every solution was tailored to my specific typing and workflow quirks.

That iterative process of problem-solving and refinement? That's where the real magic happened.

Which leads me into my next point...

QMK Is the Shiiiiiiiiit

Vial is good, but getting my hands dirty with QMK was a revelation in what's possible with a simple keyboard. This is the heart of the "dark keyboard arts" I was chasing.

If Vial is a moped that gets you around town, then QMK is a stripped-down Formula 1 car: insanely powerful, infinitely customizable, but demanding serious skill to master. If Vial is a Swiss Army knife, QMK is a fully-equipped machine shop where you can forge any tool you need... assuming you know how to operate a lathe.

I was resistant at first, sticking to the online QMK Configurator and avoiding the C code... but that was a mistake. Once I dove in, I was hooked. The result is my QMK userspace repository, containing all my code, keymaps, and even a few community module contributions. For a detailed breakdown of the layout that resulted from this experiment, see the layout README.

This experience cemented a new rule for me: no more non-QMK keyboards. I was seriously considering a Neo60 Cu until I realized I couldn't load it with QMK. That's a dealbreaker now. Having tasted the raw power of what a keyboard can be, I can't go back.

Comically Small

Finally, this thing is hilariously small. I have a fairly large desk with ample space for a full-sized board, so this thing just looks completely absurd in my setup. It makes my 60% boards feel like battleships. It's only twice the size of my damn mouse. My watch's strap is longer than this thing is wide. It's ridiculous!

This translates to awesome portability. Tossing it in a bag would be an afterthought, and while I never took it anywhere, it would be the perfect coffee shop or travel board. You can have a decent typing experience on the go without lugging around a 15-pound block of aluminum and copper.

But for a die-hard ortho user, that portability is more than just convenience. While your brain can store multiple keyboard layouts, it can only have one proficiently loaded into your RAM at a time. You cannot simply switch back-and-forth from ortho to staggered—it takes time and a storm of frustrating typos to readjust your muscle memory. For anyone fully committed to the ortho lifestyle, being able to bring your board with you on-the-go is a necessity.

The Bad Stuff

Alright, let's get into the bullshit. It wasn't all fun and games, and some parts of this experiment were genuinely infuriating.

The Humbling Experience of Typing Like an Idiot

There's no way to sugarcoat this: learning an ortholinear layout from scratch is a deeply humbling experience. You have to commit to being a shitty typist for a while, and it fucking sucks.

Your muscle memory is actively working against you, turning every word into a battle. The bottom row is by far the worst offender because all of the keys are a half-unit off from where your fingers expect them. Every time I went to type a c, I'd hit v or x at the same time. The result was a constant stream of typos like I really fuxcking sucvk at this.

Even after three weeks, I was pretty good, but never fully got comfortable. On Monkeytype, with just lowercase words, I clawed my way back to a respectable 110 WPM. But the moment I had to introduce punctuation—and note the lack of dedicated dash or parenthesis keys—you can take another 30 WPM off. Numbers? Cut the speed in half and double the errors. Outside of that, there were endlessly frustrating series of cascading mistakes: Oops, that's a typo, where's th... oh, fuck, did I just hit tab? Undo that too. Oh my god, did I just escape out? Ok, restore foc... argh... there, focus restored. And now ba.. NO, NOT FORWARD DELETE, BACKSPACE. FUCKING FUCK.

Could I have given it more time and gotten back to full proficiency? Probably. But after three weeks, I felt I'd learned what I needed to and was ready to go back home to my 60s.

Those of you who main these kinds of keyboards? Kudos, seriously. You have more patience, grit, and skill than I do. My 'internship' was difficult enough; I simply cannot imagine using something like this as a daily driver.

The Constant Mental Overhead is Exhausting

Beyond the physical clumsiness, the mental load of using the Planck for any real work was significant. A standard keyboard is transparent; you don't think about where the keys are, you just type. The Planck was the opposite: a constant puzzle I had to solve just to get my thoughts onto the screen.

It may sound minor, but the constant cognitive friction of going, "Okay, there's the dash, tap tap tap, and now there's the open parenthesis, and... no, backspace, now here's the... fuck, that's not it either, THERE's the open parenthesis... tap, tap, tap... now we need an underscore... ope, wrong layer, here's the underscore" takes its toll. All those little micro-interruptions are murder on your flow state. When you're deep in a coding problem or trying to articulate a complex idea, the last thing you want is to be derailed by figuring out where the fuck you put F7.

While by the end I was quite fast with a few symbols—mostly -, _, !, =—the rest presented a constant mental load with frequent misfires. It wasn't until I switched back to my 60%s that I realized just how draining that was: the feeling of simply hitting number and symbol keys without a second thought was remarkably freeing.

It's Cheap (and That's Okay)

Let's be clear: the Planck is an entry-level board, and at $99 for the base kit, the price is fair. It wouldn't have made any sense for me to drop $500 on a keyboard intended as an educational detour. I needed a tool for a temporary job, and for that, the Planck was a great choice. It delivered a decent typing experience for my "internship" without breaking the bank.

That being said, coming from a premium board like the Luminkey LX60 Copper Edition—whose kit cost three times the Planck's—or even the KBDfans Tofu60 2.0, the difference is stark. These are admittedly unfair comparisons, but it's what I have, and it highlights what you give up at this price point.

The main thing is the feel. I'm used to keyboards that could double as bludgeoning tools. My Tofu60 2.0 is also a budget board, but it's a dense block of aluminum and brass that feels like a serious instrument. The Planck, by contrast, feels like a toy.

While its weight, or lack thereof, is a huge plus for portability, it feels flimsy and insubstantial at a proper workstation. It slides around and sounds like complete ass without foams (and still not great with). For someone who appreciates the tactile and aesthetic presence of a well-built keyboard, it was a constant, if mild, disappointment.

So, What Did I Learn?

This whole experiment was about pushing my boundaries and seeing what was on the other side. The Planck was a difficult, frustrating, and ultimately successful teacher. Here's what I'm taking with me:

The Power of QMK

QMK is not just about remapping keys and layers. It's not just having your keyboard arrange the modifiers properly based on what operating system it's connected to. It's a fundamental reimagining of what a keyboard can do. It's about transforming a static input device into a dynamic partner that you can teach to handle your most common and tedious tasks. It's about outsourcing the boring parts of typing to your keyboard's firmware so your brain can focus on what matters.

Take the Leader key. I've taught my keyboard my personal and work email addresses. Now, instead of typing them out, I just hit Leader (P/W) E M, and the keyboard does it for me. I've even taught it how to tOgGle aUToMated spONGEBOB mOckiNg TExt mOdE (Leader S M), because why the fuck not?

This extends to automating common formatting. With my implementation of xcase, I can tell my keyboard to turn spaces into underscores, hyphens, or any other character on the fly. Need to type an obnoxiously long file path? Leader X C /, and suddenly all/of/my/spaces/turn/into/slashes.

And finally, there's user-defined automatic typo correction. With autocorrect running at the firmware level, my keyboard knows I'm a dumbass who types 'teh' a dozen times a day and just fixes it for me, everywhere. You know what's even better than a thumb Backspace? Not needing to hit Backspace at all.

That's the real power of QMK. It’s a toolkit for building a keyboard that becomes a true extension of your own mind—one that anticipates your needs and handles the grunt work for you.

Mastering Dual-Key Timing is a Superpower

This was the holy grail for me. I'd struggled in Vial to get a dual-function Caps Lock key that worked reliably—one that could serve as a lightning-fast layer key on hold but still function as a normal Caps Lock on tap. It just wasn't possible; there was too much overlap between tapping and holding. I eventually settled for turning Caps Lock into a dedicated layer key, with the literal Caps Lock feature accessed via holding Caps Lock and hitting the spacebar. It was functional, but not great.

As it turns out, solving this problem required the full arsenal of QMK's advanced timing features. Nailing the precise combination of TAPPING_TERM, HOLD_ON_OTHER_KEY_PRESS, and RETRO_TAPPING felt like cracking a code. The result is flawless: I can trigger the layer in tens of milliseconds for rapid-fire Backspace from the home row and reliably activate Caps Lock on a tap. No misfires, ever.

This single victory made the entire painful experiment worth it.

Home Row Mods FTW

This is a genuine revelation and one of those 'out of the box' ideas that I may never have been exposed to had I not picked up the Planck. Having modifiers on the home row keys is a massive ergonomic and efficiency boost, and I'm never going back.

For those who are unfamiliar, here's the gist. Each of your eight home keys (ASDF and JKL;) has two jobs: when you tap it, it prints the character; when you hold it, it acts as a modifier. For my keyboards, A and ; are Ctrl, S and L are Opt, D and K are Cmd, and F and J are Shift.

If this sounds like a horrific idea that would interrupt your typing flow constantly... you're not wrong. Getting the timing right requires some finesse—your keyboard needs to reliably distinguish between a tap and a hold. For Ctrl, Opt, and Cmd (or Alt and Win, if you will), this is relatively straightforward. Shift, however, is a different beast and entirely dependent on how you type. Since Shift is used so frequently mid-typing flow, the timing requirements become incredibly precise. Unless you're willing to invest significant time fine-tuning the settings to match your exact typing rhythm and speed, I'd recommend avoiding Shift as a Home Row Mod except for consistency with chording.

Even ignoring Shift, think about how often you use modifiers. Every copy, paste, and shortcut requires you to contort your fingers into an unnatural position to reach Ctrl or Cmd. Home Row Mods eliminate that entirely. The modifiers are already right under your fingers at all times. Instead of reaching down for Command with one hand and tapping C with the other, I just hold K and tap C. It's faster, more comfortable, and dramatically reduces hand strain. It's one of those changes that feels so right, you'll wonder how you ever tolerated the old way.

The Nuance of ABS in MT3

I do not like shined keycaps—the 'stickiness' bothers me, I prefer my fingers to glide over the keycaps—so I've always stayed away from ABS. Give me a fresh, rough-ish batch of PBT any day.

For this board, I broke that rule and went with Drop's Jasmin MT3 keycaps in ABS. I was mostly curious about the MT3 profile, and I figured I wouldn't use the board enough to fully shine the caps by the time my "internship" was over.

The keycaps are starting to smooth out, but are still in good shape.

And I'm a big fan of MT3. The scooping is super comfy. And honestly? The profile makes the shine less of an issue for me. I think it's the fact that the scooping gives the key some texture regardless of shining. I could see myself running a set of MT3 ABS until I could see my own reflection in them. I'd still prefer to see Drop offer more MT3 in PBT, but I'm no longer an absolutist.

60% is My Home

This experiment solidified it for me. The Planck was a fun, educational, and occasionally infuriating detour, but 60% is where I belong. I need my number keys, and I need a layout that doesn't make me feel like I'm solving a fucking puzzle to type a backslash.

The Planck, again, was a vision quest. It forced me to learn, adapt, and master new skills. It taught me the true power of QMK and revealed the ergonomic benefits of Home Row Mods, as well as how to master tap-hold timing for the Caps Lock key. I'm returning to my 60% boards not because the Planck was bad, but because it succeeded in giving me the knowledge I needed to break out of my rut and make my preferred layout even better (the current state of which can be found here). I'm glad to be back, but I'm also grateful for the journey.

And I'm really going to miss having Backspace under my thumb.

One of the biggest legal and political battles in Washington, D.C., today concerns whether the president must spend money that Congress has appropriated. Russ Vought, head of President Trump’s Office of Management and Budget, claims that congressional appropriation laws provide a spending ceiling, which the executive can undershoot if he cannot find a good use for the money. Trump foes say that he must spend all appropriated funds, and they have even sued to try to force money out the door.

While Congress holds ultimate power of the purse, and some types of spending are mandatory, the president has the discretion to decide when certain appropriations are not needed. Every president has used this authority. Lawmakers can and should give the executive more explicit power to withhold funds when he can accomplish a congressional goal more cheaply.

The Constitution is typically laconic on spending powers. It says: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” The Founders worried more about a president spending money without congressional say-so than one withholding largesse. Everyone understood the logic when, in 1803, President Thomas Jefferson refused to spend $50,000 appropriated to provide gunboats for the Mississippi, since the Louisiana Purchase made them unnecessary.

The Supreme Court has acknowledged the president’s “traditional authority to decline to spend appropriated funds.” In 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt wrote that “the mere fact that Congress, by the appropriation process, has made available specified sums for the various programs and functions of the Government is not a mandate that such funds must be fully expended. Such a premise would take from the Chief Executive every incentive for good management and the practice of commonsense economy.”

In 1974, however, after President Richard Nixon took aggressive action to limit spending, Congress passed the Impoundment Control Act, which required the president to seek congressional approval to withhold funds. Congress still grasped that circumstances sometimes make spending the money impossible. Under the law, the president is allowed a “programmatic delay” in dispensing the money if viable projects are not available or the spending would be wasted. If the delay goes on past the time Congress provided, the appropriations get canceled and returned to the Treasury.

Advocates of forced spending underestimate how often the government, for sensible reasons, does not or cannot spend the available funds. By one estimate, almost $25 billion in appropriated funds—about 1.5 percent of the discretionary budget—get returned to the Treasury yearly. The Government Accountability Office estimated that the Pentagon alone returned more than $80 billion to the Treasury over six years because it could not find good uses for the money within the projects that Congress designated.

The president often struggles to spend funds in a timely manner, even when Congress gives him years to do so. Typically, more than $1 trillion in unused funds carry over into the next fiscal year. The Biden administration famously had trouble spending money on its big programs. It received tens of billions of dollars from Congress to connect rural communities to the Internet, but it had not made a single web connection by the time Biden left office.

Congressional appropriation acts seem to offer the president significant spending discretion. The typical language in an appropriation act says that, to use an example from last year, “$1,750,000 shall be available until September 30, 2025, for expenses necessary in carrying out related responsibilities of the Secretary of Interior.” The money is made “available”—not required.

There are real costs to federal agencies spending money just to meet congressional deadlines. One of the worst-kept secrets in Washington is the “use-it-or-lose-it” mentality that afflicts agencies in September, the last month of the fiscal year, after which most appropriations get canceled. Spending on contracts in the last week of September is about five times higher than in other weeks of the year. Research shows that contracts from that period tend to perform worse than others.

Despite critics’ grumbling about Trump’s use of executive power to limit spending, Democrats were unconcerned when Biden used executive power to increase spending—vastly. By one measure, President Biden through his executive actions added up to $1.4 trillion to the deficit. He issued a rule expanding Medicaid spending by $135 billion and other rules expanding food-stamp spending by almost $200 billion. The Trump limitations on spending, by contrast, have generally saved a few billion dollars.

Whether all, or just some, of Trump’s spending decisions are lawful under the Impoundment Control Act and whether the act itself is unconstitutional remain open questions for the courts to decide. But both parties and the press should acknowledge that the current situation—in which attempts to boost spending by executive action get green-lighted, while efforts to reduce spending get lawsuits and injunctions—is the opposite of what the Founders intended. The purpose of public spending is not merely to reward friends and allies but to accomplish objectives for the American people. If a president can achieve a congressional goal by spending less money, he should do so—and Congress should allow and celebrate that action.

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

• CDC Webpage Revision: The CDC updated its webpage to state that vaccines might cause autism, changing from previous assertions of no link.
• Confirmation Process Context: During Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Senate confirmation, he assured Sen. Bill Cassidy that statements denying a vaccine-autism link would remain on the CDC site.
• New Webpage Language: The revised text claims that "vaccines do not cause autism" lacks evidence, as studies have not eliminated the possibility, and notes ignored studies supporting a link.
• HHS Assessment Initiative: The Department of Health and Human Services started a comprehensive review to investigate autism causes.
• Previous CDC Statements: Earlier webpage content referenced a 2012 National Academy of Medicine review and a 2013 CDC study showing no vaccine-autism connection.
• Data Quality Act Reference: The new page indicates prior CDC assurances violated the Data Quality Act and points to aluminum adjuvants as a potential factor in rising autism cases.
• Scientific Counterpoints: Over 25 peer-reviewed articles find no link between vaccines, including MMR, and autism; a recent Danish study of 1.2 million children showed no association with aluminum.
• Ongoing Tensions: Sen. Cassidy and Kennedy have clashed over vaccine policies, including changes to advisory panels and access restrictions, with the webpage header retained under an agreement.

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com.

https://www.wsj.com/health/healthcare/cdc-changes-webpage-to-say-vaccines-may-cause-autism-revising-prior-language-061e2dc2

CDC Changes Webpage to Say Vaccines May Cause Autism, Revising Prior Language

The text on vaccines had been a focal point for concerns about RFK Jr.’s views

By

Liz Essley Whyte

and

Sabrina Siddiqui

Nov. 19, 2025 11:49 pm ET

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention webpage that previously made the case that vaccines don’t cause autism now says they might.

The contents of the webpage came up during Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Senate confirmation process. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R., La.) in February said Kennedy had assured him that, if he was confirmed, the CDC would “not remove statements on their website pointing out that vaccines do not cause autism.”

The revised webpage says: “The claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism. Studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities.”

The new text posted Wednesday also notes that the Department of Health and Human Services has launched “a comprehensive assessment” to probe the causes of autism. 

The webpage had been a focal point for both vaccine skeptics, who criticized its earlier language, and public health advocates, who wondered how far Kennedy would go to change federal agencies’ language around vaccines. 

The page previously said: “Studies have shown that there is no link between receiving vaccines and developing autism,” citing a 2012 National Academy of Medicine review of scientific papers and a 2013 CDC study. 

The new webpage says the CDC’s previous assurances on vaccines and autism violated the Data Quality Act. It suggests aluminum adjuvants could be behind the rise in autism cases. “Though the cause of autism is likely to be multi-factorial, the scientific foundation to rule out one potential contributor entirely has not been established,” the new page reads.

Kennedy in September suggested pregnant women taking Tylenol could also have fueled the increase in autism. He previously said pesticides, mold or environmental toxins could also be to blame.

Cassidy declined to comment. 

He and Kennedy have increasingly sparred in recent months, as Cassidy has accused the health secretary of backpedaling on his vow to protect vaccine access. At a contentious Senate hearing in September, Cassidy criticized Kennedy for unwinding mRNA vaccine programs, replacing a key CDC advisory panel with vaccine skeptics, limiting access to Covid-19 vaccines, and firing former CDC Director Susan Monarez when she disagreed with his approach to vaccines.

Scientists have said that while it is impossible to prove “never” conclusively, no association has been proven between vaccines and autism. More than 25 peer-reviewed scientific articles have shown no link between autism and the MMR vaccine—a longtime focus of vaccine skeptics due to a 1998 study suggesting there was a link, which was later retracted. A Danish study of more than 1.2 million children published earlier this year found no link between aluminum in vaccines and neurodevelopmental harm, including autism.

“It is absolutely definitive. There is no link between autism and vaccines. Zero. None,” said Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, a professor of pediatrics, epidemiology and population health at Stanford Medicine.  

The bottom of the CDC webpage now says that the header “Vaccines do not cause autism” remains on the site with an asterisk because of “an agreement” with Cassidy.

“We are updating the CDC’s website to reflect gold standard, evidence-based science,” HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said.

Write to Liz Essley Whyte at liz.whyte@wsj.com and Sabrina Siddiqui at sabrina.siddiqui@wsj.com

Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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