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Two months ago, my friend bought a new Chromebook. He told me yesterday that while he is happy with the computer overall, he's not that impressed by the quality of the keyboard. My friend is an aspiring writer, and he spends hours a day writing English-language fiction.

Here's the text he sent me:

My only problem with this computer is that the paint on the letter key I press the most is already fading away!

Then, he sent me the following photo:

My friend's keyboard.

Now I'm confused. He writes in English, and as far as I know, he's not a big fan of alliteration. Why is his "d" key the one that wore out first?

Emory Bell
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    Is his name Donald Dudley? I'm not sure if we can really answer this without some knowledge of your friend. – Rand al'Thor Apr 04 '18 at 15:08
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    And why your friend's keyboard has black dots between keys? – Saeïdryl Apr 04 '18 at 15:11
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    Maybe his left hands middle finger has very coarse skin. – Welz Apr 04 '18 at 15:11
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    On my keyboard the C is the most worn out letter. I think it is because I use Ctrl-C a lot, and do so with a flat fingertip and with more force than most other typing. I don't know why the d would get more use than other letters. – Jaap Scherphuis Apr 04 '18 at 15:14
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    @Alex My friend tells me that there's a very simple reason for it, but he won't tell me what that reason is... – Emory Bell Apr 04 '18 at 15:14
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    He scratched it off? It fell and hit a rock right there? – Welz Apr 04 '18 at 15:15
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    @Randal'Thor My friend says you don't need to know anything in particular about him. It's definitely not his name or the names of any characters that he writes about. – Emory Bell Apr 04 '18 at 15:16
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    @Saeïdryl grid illusion in real life...! – puzzledPig Apr 04 '18 at 15:20
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    He plays a lot of FPS games and has a tendency to strafe to the right. – sirjonsnow Apr 04 '18 at 18:05
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    @EmoryBell You have me really curious now, is this an actual situation that you were also trying to figure out, or did your friend tell you the answer beforehand? Either way I really like this question, I just can't tell if this was also a riddle to you, or if you were somewhat "playing the part" to give the riddle a good theme. I'm almost hoping it's the latter; because you set a really good tone to this. – JMac Apr 04 '18 at 19:21
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    is this some sort of Vi-vs-emacs trap? – WillC Apr 04 '18 at 23:52
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    He is also a programmer, uses vi as a word processor and deletes a lot of lines (dd) by the line..... – mckenzm Apr 05 '18 at 01:58
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    Looks like the space bar is worn completely clean, though. It would make sense. – Octopus Apr 05 '18 at 09:04
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    The fingernails on my middle finger are usually a bit longer so I tend to hit the d key more with the fingernail than with the finger itself. same for the a key, but there its more in a corner. – PlasmaHH Apr 05 '18 at 10:57
  • @mckenzm maybe he's a vi using programmer and his colleagues all like to comment-out code instead of deleting it. – bdsl Apr 08 '18 at 20:38
  • Poor title. It should be maximally specific and informative, but as it stands it reads like clickbait. A better title would read something like "Why has the 'd' key worn out first on this keyboard?" – Max Barraclough Apr 09 '18 at 16:47
  • ..not seeing any "wordstar" keymap solutions yet.... – mckenzm Apr 09 '18 at 22:14

8 Answers8

123

Maybe your friend is using

the Dvorak keyboard layout

Because then the 'D' key:

would be used to type 'E', which is likely to be the most used letter in an English text.

jwodder
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Ankoganit
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96

Your friend does all his writing using:

vim.

He is constantly rewording sentences and editing his writing.

As such, he often uses the command dd to delete a line and dw to delete a word.

He is also quite new to editing with this software.

He doesn't know he can combine commands with a number such as 37dd to delete 37 lines or use . to repeat a command, so sometimes you see him entering commands repeatedly, EG: dddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd

You should really send him a command cheatsheet, so he can stop abusing his keyboard and, more importantly, his flexor tendons.

Paul
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28

Your friend can 'Touch Type'. The 'd' key is the start point for the left middle finger when touch typing. Therefore, your friend would be touching the 'd' key frequently during normal keyboard activities.

gsquaredxc
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someguy
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  • That's pretty good! I have almost completely rubbed the "f" and "j" nubs off on my keyboard (I type in the dark!). – Chowzen Apr 04 '18 at 17:27
  • Yes, this happens to me too, and it's purely because that's the longest finger on the left hand. Strangely enough, it's the 'l' that's rubbed off on the other side, because my right hand is at a slightly different angle. – Will Crawford Apr 05 '18 at 15:17
  • This was my thought – Joe Apr 05 '18 at 18:34
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    ... except OP's friend specifically said "the letter key I press the most is already fading away" - that's different from merely touching it to keep one's hands in their home position. – Rubio Apr 05 '18 at 20:55
  • @Rubio There is one hidden assumption in the question: It is stated that the letter key the friend presses the most is fading away. The question is why is "d" fading away - not why is the friend pressing "d" the most. The hidden assumption is that it is fading BECAUSE it is pressed the most - but that assumption could be wrong, and it could be that it is fading for another reason (merely touching it). (My "d" key has faded a lot more than the original picture - and I don't use Dvorak layout.) – Hans Olsson Apr 06 '18 at 12:21
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    @HansOlsson The question is explicitly "Why is his "d" key the one that wore out first?" and the puzzle explicitly says "the letter key I press the most" (and note does not say "letters"). A hidden assumption that pressing the key causes the fading is immaterial; the one key fading is the one key pressed most, regardless of why, and we know this because we're explicitly told that. In any case, if mere touching was cause enough, you'd expect both D and K to wear; that's not the case here. For that matter, Chowzen's comment would suggest different keys entirely, and we can see F isn't faded. – Rubio Apr 07 '18 at 00:41
  • I touch-type, and my most faded keys are A and S, but D is next. – Barmar Apr 07 '18 at 07:20
  • TOUCH TYPING != HOME ROW. Home row is a method of touch typing. Some people like me use their own self-taught method of touch typing which does not involve wasting time with the home row. – Dev Apr 09 '18 at 00:47
  • @Rubio - I'm not denying that Dvorak explains why it is pressed the most - but the question asked was why it is fading. And people are different - on my keyboard I don't see any wear on f, j, or k - but a lot on s and d; without using Dvorak layout. However, in reality the answers are not exclusive: people use a Dvorak keyboard on a differently labeled keyboard clearly rely on touch-typing and home row resting due to its design. – Hans Olsson Apr 09 '18 at 07:57
11

Your friend might be a gamer.

Gamers very likely use the WASD keys to control the movement of their game characters. And because D is controlled by the index finger, which I assume tends to be stronger than the other fingers, wore out faster.

Marcus
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    Gaming? On a Chromebook? – T.J.L. Apr 05 '18 at 00:39
  • @T.J.L. I heard that you can run Windows 95 in Chrome just fine. – wizzwizz4 Apr 05 '18 at 14:04
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    With normal usage on most games W is going first, followed by roughly equal amounts of A,D and then finally S. – Cubic Apr 05 '18 at 14:57
  • @T.J.L. If it can run ECMAScript in a browser, it can game. – Lan Apr 05 '18 at 19:11
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    Maybe the friend actually said he's an aspiring 'righter'. As in someone who goes right all the time. – BenM Apr 06 '18 at 18:25
  • @T.J.L. If you rip that ChromeOS drek off of it and install Gentoo a chromebook will handle all kinds of games. The graphics acceleration is mediocre and the memory is usually pretty small, but there's lots of fun stuff that fits and works just fine. – Perkins Apr 06 '18 at 20:35
  • No need to call me out on replies, folks... It was a joke. The number of upvotes on the comment indicate most people got it. – T.J.L. Apr 06 '18 at 20:37
  • +1 because the WASD keys on my ol' keyboard have no letters left. Also, there are literally ruts in the left Shift and the space bar. – COTO Apr 08 '18 at 16:26
  • Of course gaming on a ChromBook! He gets so little FPS, he had to hold down the D key for an hour until he saw his movement on the screen. Well, he didn't actually see his player character move....he saw a "WASTED" message. But I guess you get the point.... – Klaws Apr 11 '18 at 09:20
10

If he's typing in dovark then he shouldn't care if the paint goes away. Alternate hypothesis:

His "writing" is KSP movies. The chromebook isn't running chromeOS anymore but some other OS and is hosting Kerbal Space Program. The key by far the most commonly used key to get rockets into orbit is d.

Joshua
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5

When reading his mails, he uses "d" to delete a single mail (and the unlabelled space bar for paging within a single mail). He habitually reads his mails when he is just eating (a moment of divided attention). That can lead to greasy fingers that are particularly hard on the keyboard paint.

Yes, I know you already accepted a different answer but I find that kind of use actually impacting the keyboard and certainly the print on the keys. Though my main problem at some point of time rather were sesame seeds getting stuck below the keys, interfering with typing until you crack them using significant pressure.

1

Another big factor is the angle at which his nails hit the keys. The d key might be vulnerable because he was applying a nail to the top end, thereby slowly eroding it.

On my work keyboard I no longer have any visible lettering for a and s. My c is 80% gone and d about 50%. Thereafter I have only minimal damage to e and x, with the rest of the keyboard still being 100% intact.

animal
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0

Your friend might be writing in:

morse code using 'di' and 'dah' notation

Adding to a comic scenario, they:

Write the morse code fiction in vim!

nomad.lw
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