The LOKi Keyboard

One of my star editors, Loki the Tortie, favors a workstation with instant access to the keyboard and the monitor. Please note that this strategic location also includes a cardboard box of suitable size and, as cat fanatics know well, an empty box is filled with a cat in the earliest possible nanosecond. She puts in long hours, so a workplace with good ergonomics contributes to overall productivity.

loki.keyboard
The coincidence of the alpha characters LOKI suggests that a trickster may also be at work here 🙂

Loki possesses some skills that make her work remarkable:

  1. The ability to patiently ponder interwoven nexi of data trails, this requires deep concentration.
  2. A studied demeanor of sustained mindful concentration.
  3. A profound autonomic snore and schnark.
  4. Sustained purring: a low vibratory murmur punctuated with sudden twitches of inexplicable insight.

I have recorded the intervals of Loki’s breathing/purring, using a set of statistical measures: each calculated, graphed and annotated in apocryphal lab notebooks in a carrel deep within the bowels of a hypothetical library at an unknown university, one where my research is not conducted.

IMG_0774.jpg
Loki the Tortie in a familiar research station

Let us now proceed to Loki’s most recent research. Least, but for from first, Loki issues discrete keystrokes — typically in the range of 0.75 to 0.85 seconds with a stroke of a paw or claw trail.

Here is a link to some signature work recently keyed  in 0.732 seconds:

2p;;;;;;lok

A cursory glance suggests that Loki needed to urinate: 2p. The semicolons may be delimiters, some code or an urgency to cover the distance to the litter box — perhaps indicating 3 sets of paws (3×2=6 semicolons). In this vein, it is interesting to speculate on that missing “i” from an expected “loki”. Clearly, more research is needed.

These eleven (11) characters are as compact as any regular expression I’ve ever seen, they recall the intense memory restrictions of mid 20th Century computers such as Eniac. Coding in those days placed enormous restraints on code size at the machine level, so rapid nimble paw and claw strokes are a tribute to Loki’s computational genius and the elegance of her code.

semicolon.claws

Right now Loki  the Tortie is in the middle of a mind meld with a couch cushion. I eagerly await the results of that meld 🙂

Meanwhile I want to read up on the work of Marc-Antoine Fardin, winner of the Ig® Nobel Prize for 2017:

PHYSICS PRIZE [FRANCE, SINGAPORE, USA] — Marc-Antoine Fardin, for using fluid dynamics to probe the question “Can a Cat Be Both a Solid and a Liquid?”

Thanks for reading.

Author: Bill Ziegler

I am a former resident of Delhi Township. These are memories of my life and times in that community during the 1950s and 1960s. A time capsule.

10 thoughts on “The LOKi Keyboard”

    1. Hi there Hariod! Always great to hear from you, my friend. How goes the writing project at your edge of the universe? Loki has just jumped in to express her delight at hearing that Swaq is a member of the Akin Behaviors Community and Support Group (ABC&SG)
      Loki raises a sharp claw in Swaq’s general direction (eastward), whatever that signifies 🙂

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      1. Lisa is quicker on the uptake than I, noting that SWAQ is a perfect mirror image of LOKI for the left handed keyboarders. Meanwhile, I have checked the authority in all things word-slang slanted (The Urban Dictionary) and found another take on a theme of SWAQ 🙂

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      2. Ah, life has rather gotten in the way of all writing — both short and long forms — for the past several weeks Bill. Some things are more important, eh? Well, more important than my periphrastic lucubrations.

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        1. Thank you for the kind response, my friend. It’s always a privilege to encounter you here, to participate in your world and to join with such fascinating spirits — each a fellow pilgrim trying to figure out what the heck is going on out there, in here or over there— quite a delightful coterie.
          Life does get in the way of writing, but without life the content is a bit meager. In any or all events, the only thing we can be certain of is the unexpected. 🙂

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    1. Thanks for reading about LOKI, ospreyshire. Quite literally, she just jumped into her 8″ x 11″ cardboard workstation and is quite at home. To be honest, she always jumps into that workstation as soon as I sit down here 🙂
      I still hit the enter key when she exits via the keyboard to discover the Google finds for her search terms. While I was typing this reply, Loki added this:
      https://www.google.com/search?q=%C2%BF%C2%BF%C2%BF%C2%BF%C2%BF%C2%BF%C2%BF%C2%BF%C2%BF%C2%BF%C2%BF%C2%BF%C2%BF%C3%86%C2%BF%C2%BF&oq=%C2%BF%C2%BF%C2%BF%C2%BF%C2%BF%C2%BF%C2%BF%C2%BF%C2%BF%C2%BF%C2%BF%C2%BF%C2%BF%C3%86%C2%BF%C2%BF&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
      A magical creature indeed (and in action).
      So pleased that you enjoyed this post. 🙂 Thanks again.
      Bill

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