 Right welcome back everybody and thank you again for joining us today. I'm sorry for the hiccups there in the stream but we're back live now a quick announcement that I want to give is a giveaway actually the second giveaway of today and then during the course of this presentation we're going to do a third one so you have the chance to win an OSCP course and the link is at the bottom of the screen and with that I'll pass it down to you guys awesome thanks yeah hello everybody and welcome today we're going to be building a couple keyboards from the key company they sent us these pretty awesome thermal green portico kits that we're going to put together today yeah so I guess full disclosure they they sent us all of this stuff to to give away to everybody today and send out so we're gonna be doing that um also uh look for a link at some point um when we do give these away it should be a google form coming out that you guys can can jump in on um so yeah uh without further ado how you doing Lang man I'm good how are you good man can't complain can't complain good to see you again in a minute I know right I've I've got all of our 808 stuff set up here you know with my fun board and and desk mat so yeah yeah obviously we'll talk about later but yeah yeah no no subtle shill for this yeah no no subtle look you know it's helping kids though man it all goes to a charity like I can show when it's gonna has to do with kids listen $7,000 that goes to a charity that has a budget of 40 is like a huge contribution so I'm not I'm not upset about it yeah yeah absolutely well yeah we can get into that later so uh did you wind up doing any mods here stuff today I did uh I did some switch mods and then I actually opened this up not so long ago for the first time and found like some pretty cool extras in here like this like neoprene like case filler that they're on now I think it's actually pretty great so um so a couple of things you know I'm certain that anyone watching the stream that you know you're using your keyboard a ton of the time right you know I I hope I hope for your sake it's not like that run of the mill like Dell or HP thing that you get with your company issued uh computer um but that said a lot you know I I know that a fair amount of folks either have maybe like an ergo docs or have bought an aftermarket mechanical keyboard um but it can get kind of difficult to get there so so there's this huge like subculture of mechanical keyboard obsession uh that that Andy that has been a part of and I still am very active in um and so you know that's kind of what we're talking about today so so this kit um is is is a 65% keyboard so to give you an example you know that's a smaller form factor it's got all of your main alpha keys and and arrows as well so right like that's that's kind of what we're talking about so I have several software engineer friends who are big into the 65 realm because they still get their arrows um and that's what we're going to build today so I I absolutely tangent full on that so I'm sorry Andy about that but um no absolutely do you want to walk them through like all the parts and stuff since you've got the setup going on I'm just adding some stabs right now yeah yeah man so so so um a couple of things so your your mechanical keyboard words are going to come with a few different things uh there is a very lively debate about what makes a thing mechanical in in the community uh so I will keep it very simple and will not go like super into that um but you have different parts right you've got your keycaps which this comes with keycaps this kit comes with them and they are the terminal colored you know with your black background and your and your green text with green accents and then you've got your case right you've got your whole keyboard that comes together and I've I've intentionally pulled it apart because I have to build some things but um you've got your plates and you've got your PCB your programmable circuit board and to your point uh Andy you know you've got this interesting kind of neoprene bottom here not only does this add weight to the case because it is you know an injection molded plastic to keep costs down but also these kind of hex shapes help with sound distribution and also dampening so that you don't in in 2050 when we finally go back to an in-office situation um you know you're not annoying everyone around you so and then and then uh other other big notable parts of the keyboard which this case uh this this whole package also comes with a cable so it's a nice like coiled kind of vintage style cable uh it's usb-c so you know it's it's not 1997 anymore so we've got usb-a to usb-c and then um the one thing that is not included in the kit as far as I'm aware is our switches so mechanical keyboards come with discrete individual switches right so so instead of a typical membrane keyboard where you're depressing a piece of rubber that's that's closing the circuit you have individual discrete switches um and that's we're gonna we're gonna put some of those in today and we've got the the terminal themed colorway for those as well so I'm doing I'm doing my best to not like full on shill for the key company I'm doing my best to educate you as well um there are other parts inside of of your keyboards and if you're if you're using a mechanical keyboard or even even if you're using like a membrane keyboard the four dollar one that came with your setup you know it's got all of these same things it's got your programmable circuit board individual discrete switches and also stabilizers for your larger keys so you've got your enter we've got a full backspace here which I personally hate we can talk about that if you like and then shift keys and I left spacebar undone so that I could if anyone is interested in building their own or getting into there I could at least show you how relatively easy it is to do that so those are the main parts of your your keyboard that we're talking about also a lovely thing for those of you that travel and still need something that doesn't that isn't a a an hp laptop keyboard it does come with this this this travel case as well so that's that's something that's nice too um but remember it's not it's not limited to just this one thing right there are there is a massive thriving business around custom keyboards in this hobby and you know all different kinds of form factors I showed you 65 percent this right here is like an ergonomic 40 percent so it's removed the number row there's no f-row apparently my camera thinks that that is a face so that's cool um we have like full ergonomic with with the with the number row but no f keys right um we have I'm sorry and I'm just using my own personal boards now so we've got uh a traditional 60 percent with arrows and a numpad if you need that if you're in excel we've got the sexy 60 percent everybody loves that we've got some Hebrew here and then uh a personal favorite of mine because it's a set I designed we've got a tkl this is every gamer's friend a tkl we've got some artisans here you know we're doing that so lots of different options Andy I've talked for six minutes I think what thoughts or comments or things you have yeah yeah absolutely I think that definitely explains the game in a of a quick customization uh examples that you can do maybe maybe it's good to start with uh why why bother and like where where did where did custom keyboards come from into like a multi-vendor um height beast driven like clout like the tldr or or nerd response which one would you prefer I mean you know it's like we got dep count people watching you might as well get in the details okay so so there is there is this situation that has happened uh with mechanical keyboard specifically where you harken back specifically to vintage keyboards right um if you're if you're someone who's been in the game for a while or you grew up as a gen X or a millennial and and the internet was either blossoming around you or computers became more and more accessible for you um at the time you had these incredible keyboards at your disposal you had IBM beam spring computers if you're on the earlier end of gen X you had all of your model m like all of your buckling spring that that really satisfying like typing feeling and sound that just kind of was ubiquitous for your experience associated with a computer right so then we came of age and we got to our office setting and they said here is an hp rubber dome that sounds and feels like you're typing on rotten over soggy rice so enjoy your work experience now but we we took typing classes and all through our lives we use these great keyboards so that's kind of where the genesis of like being obsessed with with like wanting a better keyboard came from um and and so it really was until about like 2016 2017 was like a super niche hobby um but then uh gamers kind of picked up on it right because because you could customize weights of springs for individual switches and really kind of get into that so then it was like oh okay i like a lighter switch because that actuates better that makes me a better gamer i'm gonna put quotes around that because it's ridiculous um but anyways well you had the whole like you know the hhkb the duck saver like the whole korean market too like yeah i mean obviously obviously like outside of the us like you have a massive massive market associated with keyboards like korean customs especially are super important and super super desired because their attention and focus early on in the career really really made part of what the community is what it is now um and and i mean there's there's over a billion people in china and many many many people in you know metro china use some form of of keyboard right so uh there's there's a big big big market there so much so that you know we're getting requests for adding more chinese vendors for certain things because you know they're almost aren't enough right well yeah that that's a good place to take this conversation next right so like now that we kind of know okay you know it what where it came from and kind of why all of this rampant customization for you know i mean even the last year right like getting getting matching colored stabilizers like these green things we're putting on these pcb right now and like you know every switch color under the sun was not a thing and many people think that you know in max in max style switches are just like that like that is a keyboard switch right but but like a lot of this started from uh people doing google form group buys where they say like hey i've got a i've got a keyboard dream i want this form factor this size or i want i want this thing um and and much like a kickstarter per se they go through and they're like okay well uh i need to find enough people that i can split the cost of manufacturing to a point where where it's not massively expensive right and and from there you had a couple uh internet vendors like online stores if you will pick that up and say hey uh we can we can kind of officiate this and we can we can do this in a manner where it's not you know paypal goods and services to make sure you can file a complaint if you never get what you bought and like you know that was like you know your novel keys and your tixie mech which is now omni type rebranded um and then from there like there was really i want to say in the last five years specifically just an absolute explosion of options and vendors and you know community members coming together like you know for those of you if i've got like my keyboard folks in chat right now like you guys remember boxgate and like you know we're box switches we're cracking everybody's stems and someone in the community is like you know i uh i mean i a 3d model like i can design something and like i think within a month they had like a metal like this metal yeah the stem shaper gave everybody stems like but but like the community's like that just on steroids about everything and you know that harkens back to like the plank right and you know the the roots there and qmk got one back there yeah like you know you go from the plank and jack jack hummer who you know did qmk and uh really set a standard for the community as far as firmware and and it kind of just took off from there where people just couldn't get enough i mean to the point now where if you join an officiated group buy on someplace like cannon keys or the key company or you know wherever granite the key company um um i don't think runs gmk sets very often but they don't they don't like it they back up for like a year like a year for production times yeah like that's how popular it's gotten which is just crazy it's how to how to how to how to uh wade into that water um yeah the the one thing i think the main takeaway from all of the insanity that we're kind of freezing over right now is that there are many many i mean i mean well over a million people that are weirdly obsessed with keyboards and it's not just from like an aesthetic thing although you know some folks are very focused solely on aesthetics it's really a i have this tool i use every day i would like to be able to customize it in the most efficient or or lovely way for me possible right um and that's kind of where it has blossomed there is a very high preponderance of software engineers that are in the custom keyboard hobby i myself am a professional learning i'm an instructional designer um so i'm typing a lot of copy and and scripting a lot of the day so i think it's folks that are using that tool frequently um but the the reason that i say that is like this we are talking about this right now in the event that you have a disposable income that you want to do something like this right like here are the parts of a keyboard at a high level you can have basically anything you ever want and if it doesn't already exist the community is probably trying to do that like you know it's like standard custom steno keyboards yep like that's a thing you know uh if you want to type super fast if you you know you've got your hhkb uh blocks i specifically didn't show off my hhkb because i hate it personally yeah i know you're not a i know you're not a topper fan i know you don't like rubber domes i know that's not your thing uh that said it is an exceptionally favorite keyboard of the community so yeah my that's what the hobby is like all about is about preference right like right now i'm lubing stabilizers to make sure they don't sound a certain way which most of the community does um but i'm using lube that almost no one does uh also i think that we should mention for those that aren't knowledgeable about custom keyboards when we talk when we say things like q m k we're talking about the protocol for which we're we're programming the the pcb's right the programmable circuit boards when i say lube i don't mean special time i mean a lubricant for mechanical parts inside of our keyboards um yeah so it's it's important i think that i make those distinctions um yeah this is probably a good time to kind of transition into like what what what is the process like what are these parts we're using what is the process for building these boards and like why like why is there modding why don't they why doesn't it just come sold that way and like you know and i think a good start to that is is to say you know a lot of what we're building right now um it is kind of standing on the shoulders of giants and that you have a kit that normally when you get a group buy and you buy a board it shows up with a kit that contains a range of of of extra parts but normally at minimum a pcb such as the one you see that i'm holding now a case for that to go into and then a plate these can be all kinds of different styles they could be integrated into the top of the case they can be some some sort of what's called top mount system wherein the pcb accepts the mx switches or the op switches if that's what you're using through the plate and then it's secured to the bottom of the case through screws that screw through both of these pieces and then as of recent we talked about in the last five years there's been like a like a rampant explosion of of all kinds of just different preference driven things for more more flex feel or a firmer feel or like a sound profile and out of out of that want for extreme niche personalization has come a lot of these components that you're seeing now you know that have like um these sandwich mount types or some have gasket mounts or some are are a hybrid mounting style full isolation or yeah or like i don't i don't know the difference anymore like i live and breathe the hobby and i can't keep up like yeah i mean the means of bound really like in terms of in terms of all of that and and on top of that um it seems like everyone is opening a store to sell switches and uh switch openers and like lubrication stands and like there's some oddly feverishly hot want to come out with like the next you know the next thing in the community um off of what just came out you you accidentally gave me such a good segue into a conversation that happens in the community very frequently especially as a professional learning person myself uh there is an extremely steep curve that is getting into the hobby outside of just like buying a relatively very easy kit like this this is hot swap so you just push your switches that you've chosen in there you don't have to lose your switches all of this is super easy but the second that you start having conversation about like plate materials is do you prefer brass or fr4 or a or stacked acrylic like all of this stuff then it it goes from zero to a billion very quickly so um that in store uh you know again shill shill company they have they have kind of an introduction to keyboards 101 um if you're interested in that kind of a resource also many folks just kind of learned through discord or the rmk or excuse me reddit r slash mechanical keyboards forum um you know there's there's no right or wrong way to do things asking questions and watching streams is typically the best um but yeah i just if if you have time or are looking for a hobby or want to customize your typing experience not only can you do all of that yourself there are many many nerds such as myself that will help you in that journey and would love to do that so if this is something that you're like golly jeez i sure do want to do that it's you know you don't have to do it alone or or or just you you know yeah um yeah i've built many a board for people who are you know in one of the social areas and like yeah i you know don't know if i want hot swap or not but i also don't want to start or anything like well don't let that stop you like i'll like send it to me i'll just build it and send it back to you like that's fine yeah um yeah and it's it's also uh kind of kind of it depends on what kind of boards you get right so like the boards we're building today um have hot swap components which means on the bottom of this pcb they've got these um kale style acceptance that will zoom in on mine uh yeah so they'll they'll take the the pins that you have on um those keyboards which is right and they'll complete the circuit on the pcb um and another way to do that is is to just literally solder them on a pcb that you um get with a kit that does not have hot swap sockets and a third option for that is what's called milmax sockets um and those are basically like metal sleeved housings that go into um these pin resteptors are you right over there yeah i i'm sorry you said milmax and i had a little bit of a reaction i'm sorry i just you don't like milmax so so my problem with milmax is that unless you are good at soldering already milmax will make your life horrifyingly terrible like yeah you're gonna have a couple bad a couple bad joints like to figure out we'll do we'll do it in the in i'll try and put it on my camera so like uh at the bottom you have hot swap super easy and then like slightly above that soldering like the the electrical requirements for soldering a keyboard are exceptionally uh resilient and very forgiving and then right up here at the very top of the hell scape that is keyboard world is milmaxing a keyboard to make it hot swap so as a beginner i don't recommend them and although i know you were just saying that's an option i felt like i had a duty to inform everyone that golly jeez i don't recommend that uh sure not out the gate yeah so like back to preference back to preference right that's the thing that i prefer because yes i can solder once and if i ever have to take apart this board for any reason like my joints are already done and i'm not redoing that work all of the time um and risking damage i've got a desolder station and i'm happy to solder all day so like me i don't care about hot swap like at all but i also scream every week of my life so yeah you know it's different different expectations i have i showed you what seven boards and they're all my personal boards and there's another six or seven just right there and that's before we talk vintage like there's different levels of the community man like yeah yeah absolutely absolutely um yeah so up to this point basically uh i know lang looks like he's uh pretty close in tow what i have at this point is uh the stabilizers installed and these are these are what are going to allow for like the actuation of your your larger keys and in a manner that keeps them on this switch right otherwise you would depress this key and like your your spacebar has a like pretty much a 50-50 shot of just shooting right off this right off this switch that would be here um and normally people use these for anything that is too you or larger that is to say that any one switch position on these pcbs is one unit uh in size and any keys that are outside of that single one um either alpha alpha numeric or or number key that you're used to um are some number of units larger than one yeah so the two you keys that you're going to see on a traditional keyboard are your backspace your enter both shifts are larger than two you your spacebar and if you have a numpad your zero key is usually or your enter and plus it depends on what layout you've got there but um yeah yeah yeah and uh andy i will i will caution you to not forget your little standoffs that go on the pcb because this is hot swap that yep securely anchors your plate to the pcb this is a rare option that comes with this stuff so because there's no solder that's literally connecting the two we've got screws that are going to hold these two pieces together so yeah so normally when we were going to put these together if it wasn't going to be hot stop like right what we would be doing um would be on the back of these pcb's right we would be purposely positioning these um with the switches loaded into the plate and um depressing down when we're trying the solder to make sure there is absolutely no gap between any of these components because the one thing that we don't want is rattle whether that stab rattle or that's like you know any any kind of uh switch ping or or or sound notes that we don't want yeah do me a favor if you if you're watching this and you have an like like one of those traditional i got it when i joined the company plastic keyboards that they left on your desk and you know you're just using it because it's not a thing that care that you care about just go ahead and tap on that spacebar a couple of times and and when the 80 decibels of rattle happens that's what we're trying to avoid with all of this so yeah and that's really why like typically with these stabilizers um up until very recently these bottom feet would cause um some issues that you would have with that set very sound we're talking about so you you would have to go in and clip these and people would say you know oh well why don't they just make them so you don't have to do that anymore that's what everyone wants to buy and they are getting to that point but for a long time it was just because you know they have those molds and you can just clip them so that's what people would do they would clip them and then um they would put their like insert grease of your choice whether that's you know gpl 105 or 205 or cry talks or you know whatever that is into here and it helps it's debated whether or not you know based on preference you want to leave your stabs but it's a pretty common um i i i don't know many many hobbyists that are like gosh lubin your stabs is dumb like it's it's super rare it's super rare to tell you don't use band aids because your your keyboard isn't hurt like also extremely diy to the point that there for many many years was the band aid mod where it's if you want it to not sound bad you caught band aids to put on the pcb so where the stabilizer hits it doesn't doesn't make up an undesirable sound i'll use that word yeah grease desirable grease trampolines yes yeah so yeah and another modification that we've done i assume you have i have is i've put different kinds of greases on these switches and this is what a switch will look like when you've disassembled it right and you use one of these switch openers to then open the switch which consists of a leaf spring a an actual spring which causes the stem to actually up and down the stem itself which is the gray part and then the top and bottom plastic housing and these have little pins in them and that's the that is the positive and negative contact for the leaf spring which is shaped something like a p right and then when the stem of this switch which i i believe there there should be a guide that's getting linked that'll have better pictures of this and walk you through all this that you can use later but it'll it'll show you exactly what the difference is between linear switches and clicky switches and tactile switches right and it's the shape of this little bitty stem on the side of on the side of this plastic piece and whether or not that is shaped like a lightning bolt or a straight linear curve right and the degree of that shape is what's going to affect the feel of that switch and so i've been in this hobby for five years and no one has ever described a tactile force curve as a lightning bolt until now and my brain hurts with how accurate that is yeah yeah yeah yeah and you know and there's and there's like there's very hotly debated like what you use on these switches right it's like for me my my spice every time is 105 on the springs and 205 on the stems i'm not asking questions i'm not doing anything else now see i'm a heavy girl i'm a heavy girl i put heavy lube on them springs like give me a 205 on the springs give me a 205 on the on on everything else because i use linear so like i want smooth as butter but not so much that it slows the spring down which this is this right here and this this is a shocker for a lot of people this keyboard right here is my daily driver i use this every day i work i use this at least five days a week and in it i have linear springs not a surprise but the weight on the linear springs is 150 grams and that's my daily driver that's how i type now your traditional gaming keyboards that you get that has like cherry cherry reds or whatever that's 55 grams so almost triple the weight because like why why else would i not type on on that you know like we got them swole fingers right like the only strong thing in my life is my fingers yeah and and as if we haven't delved into the the plethora of options and you know this this escape of things that you could customize add add infinite right switches oh my god like you can change the spring the spring curve like curve type you can change the weight friend ben owns more than a thousand variations of switches yeah in his collection um here's frankensteining switches different parts which is my goodness my goodness i think it's very important that we mention although we sit here and we are like dousing the world with knowledge about keyboards we are nearly complete building a keyboard like that like it is much easier than it sounds so like if your keyboard is not quite there or you bought a custom and you're like i wish it did this instead like all of these things are possible and that's not a sales pitch for any specific company yeah that is just if you're not pleased with the thing you use all the time especially if you're a gamer and also using it for work uh highly recommend that this is something if you have disposable income that you get into also yeah and i mean if you don't you can take any board you have now and apply some of the things we've been talking about like the the greases and louvres and modifications and lining your board with sorbethane or drawer liner or you know any any number of modifications and see if this is even something that you enjoy or or quite frankly notice so for those of you who have for those of you that have purchased an hhkb right because you're hackers right like it's i feel like it's a requirement to own the thing that says hacking in the name okay if you take this apart and you fill it you know you know that like i think they call it like magic stuff for the magic foam that you spray into the bracket it expands if you spray that in the back of this case it no longer is like this hollow terribleness it all of a sudden becomes a better keyboard to use and add some weight and like structure so for the cost of i think eight dollars from a from a hardware store you could make your two hundred and fifty dollar keyboard better already and what an exceptional segue to talk about why why uh people only seem to buy and sell metal boards with with big brass weights that you can't better engrave than that you can't see with big brass weights um hold on a second everyone loves putting logos on you know on the bottom of the board with with with the weights and that's all about that heft and that and that premium that premium feeling with big brass weights well sometimes it's not about the weight sometimes it's about the board that you wanted oh my god my headphones right now sometimes time to go first joins uh the hobby and you know maybe maybe the thing you want has a literal clock on the back you know because yeah why not um and even though the board sits like this and i never see it i wanted it because reasons right well that's the same reason people you know like we have these uh kiwi switches that they that they sent us to obviously aesthetically match the board and the same for um these green c three equal stabilizers that they sent us to match massive right like no one's gonna no one's probably gonna see the switches or the stabs but like like i know like we we know it's there and and you know there are certain things too such as like conventions for mechanical keyboards just like kikon you know and and people go to those specifically the flex like i got one in september you know it's it's like a car meat of keyboards people just show up they pop the trunk and you know pop the hood and let everybody uh know what they've been working on my favorite thing to see in a keyboard meet-up is this where someone's like really close in there yeah like yeah it's like when a dude starts a car at a car meet-up they're like yeah oh yeah yeah but that's that's that's what it's right like that the search for the like uh odyssey in like the in game just the perpetual ball up the hill no that's this is this something the sisyphean yeah sisyphean yeah that's the sisyphean task is trying to find in game you know that that holy grail perfect combination of things i have decided long ago end game does exist but i choose to ignore that i own end game already because i just like keyboards and want to continue the struggle yeah i've decided that my perfect combination already exists and it's this keyboard here it's this keyboard right here okay i i love this i literally ruined it i i patinaed the copper on this to be blue because why not it's it's it's heavy it's 11 pounds of a keyboard because why would i not want that in keycaps fall off it has a palm plastic plate with with very specific key switches in it in arabic language keycaps on it because i don't speak arabic but it's beautiful to me um and that exists as my end game and you know what i'm going to do with it i'm either going to continue to ruin it by continuing to mess with the weight or i'm going to auction it for a charity at christmas time this year and i'm going to get rid of it like i hope somebody buys it for five thousand dollars because that is absolutely in the realm of the cost of someone would pay for these keyboards you could buy this kit that we're building right now for 135 dollars shipped and then buy switches and have a keyboard or you could be an aftermarket whale that wants the one of one thing that exists and spend five grand on the thing and that is the gamut of the hobby at this point yeah and that's a perfect time to talk about like okay most people enter the hobby through like they want something that's easier to type on or they want something that's more attractive and they search like where it goes quick that's why i joined yeah you know they start from keyboards they find the subreddit you know and then they figure out that everyone who's selling literally anything related now has a discord they join those um you know mechs on deck and top clack are great ones if you're googling along at home i highly suggest those are starter communities i also have a plug for my very good friend keeb noob newb she is fantastic and and very welcoming so um i also have a discord but my discord exists solely for people to ask when cafe is happening again so like you don't need to join mine like it's fine cafe cafe is a meme it's only brown olivia it's only brown olivia that's like that's another thing it's just the hobby is so big now that i've never seen a community before like just detail oriented about stuff that just doesn't matter sometimes like pulling out calipers to test literal literal micro millimeter differences in things and then you know this isn't what i this isn't what i paid for this isn't what i got but that's what really people being like has a consulting business to match colors of keycaps like that is he he scientifically matches keycaps so that the end product is exactly what was represented yeah correctly like like that's we are a community of nerdy nerds like it's it's not even funny yeah yeah it uh yeah it you know and everyone gets bit too right like it's always i do i do my first one and then it's like you know oh i want to you know i want to get one like this or like now i now i kind of want one that has like all of these functions and then pretty soon before you know it you know you've got you've got the pelican case with a pick and pull foam you know and you're you're you're you're you're painfully connected to whatever alert system you're using to let you know that you know the the key cult raffle is happening in 37 minutes which only say real real talk um the one thing and if anyone out there is like me and it's very big into reality shows i i look i live a good life i feel like i'm a good husband i love my children i feel like i'm a good dad my guilty pleasure is terrible reality shows because they make me feel better about who i am as a person okay so the one thing that the keyboard hobby has that i highly recommend to you is if you like drama girl we got it holy hell it is chock full of who did this and what happened and if you want to be a part of it you can be if you don't want to hear it you absolutely can avoid it but i have entire discord channels devoted to just specific humans that cause drama like i am not kidding it's it's pretty much like just you know well sitting on the vegas strip and that midnight and just the people watching watching hit the fan yeah yeah i think alone is like just years of drama in a human and i love it yeah yeah just just just wild um so at this point i've got the switches inside of the case and pcb and everything was connected and set up um and then i've installed that into uh the case which was a two-part case with the screws on the bottom and and this specific kit i i didn't get to see you do you know what plastic type this is i don't think so this as far as what exact plastic type it is i am not sure i believe that it's pps okay based solely on the cost effectiveness of pps and injection molding yeah i've stats on like everything but plastic type i could be wrong though yeah so do not quote me on that i do not know i am a dumb so yeah for sure um oh thank you for agreeing that i am a dumb i best friends here appreciate that no no i just agree that you didn't have to answer and that's okay you know i'm i'm here for you you know what after two man i don't know if i'm supposed to swear so i've been censoring myself uh yeah um because boy howdy do i swear but yeah i've chosen not to you're welcome omar you're welcome all right so we're gonna put this together uh also i've been trying to time it to the full hour so i know that you're ahead of me but i still have 13 minutes to screw this together and put keycaps on so you know i feel like one of us is winning even though we're behind so yeah yeah and we have the giveaway the giveaway for both of these to go give away did you say singular giveaways because i'm giving this one away too yeah built by a pro stream i can't even say without laughing i have like 11 people that watch my stream once a week and so i believe that i'm a pro streamer when that's a lie but i do build boards pretty nicely so if you ever need one help like i don't charge to build stuff if you ever want me to put this all together and you're like golly geez that's too much to learn you just send it to me i put my at as my name i on all socials that's where i'm at twitch the instas those are really the two i use uh discord a lot hey when you put caps on do you still like say every single key when you go across the road and make sure you put it with the right place i don't know how many boards i've built and you would think i had this thing memorized and i just don't i've been streaming for like 14 months now and i've probably built 200 boards in my life um on and off stream and i still pull up my key tester to know exactly where every key is so i don't say them i just cheat constantly because um i'm a terrible human uh yeah and i'm not going to refute that ever yeah i absolutely just you know a s d f g h got it moving you know all right we are nearly finished here yeah what what the what do we what do we miss so far i know we had an agenda worked out to kind of walk you know i had it pulled up and my brain just kind of went you know we didn't talk about we um do we have questions i can't see the chat um are there questions that we should be answering because let me check let me check real quick i i uh feel bad about that um one thing that i did want to mention is we kind of breezed over it earlier you know um the the thing that i think keeps me loving the hobby so much is the ability to not only connect with people but also give back so um you know last year andy and i partnered on creating this key set that is here on this keyboard now um and he did an incredible most all of the work to be completely fair um and designed this lovely desk mat that we're looking at here inspired by the 808 the trs 808 rhythm composer and we and through that got to donate seven thousand dollars to a charity called the children's music fund um their website is the cmf.org um if you are in california or you like children or like helping sick children i highly recommend you go to them um they actually do music therapy with with children who have to be in hospitals for extended periods of time so to kind of cut the monotony of their lives and maybe enrich them they give lessons they they play music for them they give concerts um you know they have a small budget of about forty one thousand dollars a year and they're extremely highly rated in terms of funds going to the actual thing that they say they're gonna do um so you know we we likely will be doing another run of the 808 set so you can get a key set and donate at the same time but if you just like to give money to good things or good people you know the community helped us do that but i also urge you to at least check them out especially if you're in southern california that's where they do most of their operations um that's that's really the main thing i wanted to talk about aside from keyboards today so yeah and i know we posted the guide too for people to be able to consult after the fact because i know we just threw like an absolute ass and i i would not everyone understand how to build a keyboard now with yeah like that was that was a lot for you guys so yeah um check check that link out um save it that way you have a good reference um you can always reach out to me on all of my socials too it should just be uh andy doring on any platform um that you that you want to hit and i am always more than helpful to to sure but anyone through um the complicated landmine field that is trying to build your first custom keyboard i would i would like i would be remiss if i didn't let people who know andy uh aware into this piece of knowledge uh but he is one of the most desired artisan makers in the community and even more so because he doesn't you know he's he's moved on from that now so um not only was he one of the first artisan makers i ever came in contact with uh but also one of the best so i'm a lucky man and um if you know him in real life you should please please ask him to share that with you because golly jeez it's awesome so you're you're a gem you're a gem your face is a gem got him yeah didn't even see it coming nailed it didn't yeah do you have i don't have any of my artisans with me i didn't fly with my case this time i am lazy but i do have artisans in front of me yours i don't have in front of me but like here's an example here's an example so speakers in collaboration with 808 because obviously 808s come out of speakers um some more but uh just recently i got into a friend qcaps he makes these blanks that are just giant question marks and i love that so much they're shaped like a keycap they're made of resin they've got designs on um an incredible one that i only have one of is hello caps and he makes little kits and little cats little cats and then lateralum she makes these fun things that was a cafe collaboration you know we've got jam jams and space jams this is a seal in pajamas named jam jams how amazing is that we've got space jams the seal in pajamas in a spacesuit because why not look at this little alpha keys look artisans are a whole thing okay and that's a whole another realm if you appreciate art or you just like silly things in your keyboards man we've got a lot of options for you there yeah if you want if you want a rabbit hole you won't recover from boy boy do i have a niche and a niche for you like we're we're very specific keyboards and keyboard layouts not niche enough for you well let me introduce you to artisans because you can spend entire years with the paychecks on those bad girls and boys and you shan't recover from them so enjoy that yeah i guess uh a real quick like artisans in 30 seconds right is like people uh sculpt people sculpt keycaps out of um a whatever medium they like they create silicon molds and then they hand die resin um with pigment and then they apply those to the molds under pressure to make sure that there's no bubbling and cracking and those are like decorative uh one-off normally one you uh keys for your board that are still very much like very low supply very high demand people find you know just like supreme or coach or whatever whatever your whatever your coach we gootsy okay yeah yeah yeah you know whatever your flavor is but but like there might only be like seven of a certain colorway of one of these things made and people just they chase them and they post on you know reddit you know like mech market and into these discord channels where people are buying and selling and trading these boards to try and track down this stuff and and the you know the hunt and the search for most of most of keyboards really um is is really like one of the biggest draws i would say people people get on that uh that FOMO high and they just gotta have it you know people people literally trade entire collector level boards for single artisans i am not at all making that up there's a lot of like overlap with like audio and stuff to you people will trade like really nice four five thousand dollar pair of headphones for like a whatever board they're looking for or like people trade a bunch of different uh a bunch of different key sets or boards for like uh gaff or like yeah the bongo cats or you know whatever that is and bongo cat i am all up i'm all about it i love the bongos man okay come on key cat pullers definitely need to have one of those if you're in the hobby yes okay we're nearing completion ladies and gents all right where's that there it is i'm not my friend are you a flipped space bar gal uh i am i am flipped space bar stepped caps uh silent black stem in the space bar switch kind of person still using the silent in there okay okay i've specifically bought a batch of silent blacks just to harvest the stems and do that specific thing which i have done on this board for whoever winds up winning this um this board is gonna go to someone and they're gonna love it okay okay they're gonna love it well your color is much better than mine i'm i'm very washed out but well and funny funny enough um it's actually more blue than it is in person it is it is very accurate to terminal extremely green gmk terminal or uh the terminal caps that they've ran gmk i believe was the original color way that that that yeah they are very very accurate to that um and this is what the board looks like lit up um it has a range of colors that you can't you can't have a custom plastic keyboard without rsgs and bs yeah only do they make it look cool but they also make you a better typist and gamer i get it not a thing a thing a lot of people don't know more color means better gamer i get at least five extra wpms when i turn the lights on it's basically like turning the air conditioned on in the carola you know it's going down yeah yeah the second the second that you turn that ac off you know you got that 10 horsepower back yeah well with the uh with the little bit of time we have left um i believe that they put the giveaway link at the bottom of the stream you guys can click that check it out it should be a form you could fill out um and we'll go ahead and try and get some winners picked as we wrap up these bills um and we'll put these in the mail uh anywhere anywhere in the world you're not geo locked on this one um while i while i got a minute i want to thank you uh key company again for sending us uh lang and i these amazing hoodies to wear um i wore my inside i'm in my dungeon outside on the strip but it's cool baby so to send us that they sent us these kits to give away uh these kits will also come with a black case variant that you'll have to um i'm sending uh all also along you'll end up getting um extra parts for that case uh you get at least i think a 7u stab some extra switches and then also you know their their standard tkc stickers and stuff i don't know what they're gonna do with the 7u stab though baby like like yeah are they gonna are they gonna mod their pcb and their and their plate and all that like look y'all can have it it's just it's fun you never know it'll you know they'll find their preference first and they'll go from there you know uh and it also comes with these color matching cases honestly this is a pretty this was a this was a super slick kit like this is probably taking over my recommendation for giving somebody uh like a where a where to go for their first board over like maybe kbd fans just because i i would also like to say that novel keys has really killed it on this too did they have the the nk 65 right they've been coming out with variants of yeah they have very very entry-level friendly things oh look at her she all rgp um and and it would it would not be a keyboard build stream if we didn't do some typing sounds okay so so let me just pull up a type thing and i will type for you so what's your what's your level setting method are you uh are you uh i'm gonna click my fingers i'm gonna use my mouse i i'm what i'm what's called a bad streamer that isn't good at what i do so i don't level set at all just straighter with typing test i don't know uh no snaps no no clicks we're just going okay so i actually have to select here uh that's a keyboard it it types it does things um and it makes sounds uh thank you for coming to my ted talk yeah it's it's it's yours for the freeze dot com and if you want to get with kick you can find um the all of the information about it on their website you can also find links to the key map so you can figure out how to change your rgs and v's um it's qmk um supported so you can redo the key map if you want to have okay but not there not fell not not be a supported i don't think so i could be very wrong again dumb don't trust me okay yeah i'm sure if mac merlin gets on his porting with port streams and ports it it's over it's over i'm sure wait where's the case so this is how we do it in the jeff world we put it in the case it's built does it fit like i want it to it does but again dumb you guys dumb how do i actually get things in a case i don't know here we go we're just gonna jam it all in there it's it's all yours it's all yours friends there's my weird 40 percent um yeah yeah uh what else what else what else what else what else i hope that friends enjoy this a lot yeah you washed out sweetheart that's okay though i know i i'm just rolling with the logitech i'm i'm i'm mobile i'm mobile right now i got the logitech on my face but i also have like studio lights because i'm you know a pro streamer you know just the proist of pros you know like got my my flown cameras oh shake my desk and you know what doesn't happen cameras don't move you know oh oh no we did it live we showed up and we built we built a little operation center well i'm sorry i'm sorry i was unaware that this was the stream where you were gonna tell me that you were better than me i love streaming with you you're so much fun you're so much i'm so happy that this got to happen thank you thank you thank you uh all the extra parts i gotta put in there i gotta put in listen hey we don't we don't want to we don't want to run over time more than we have to and we're also going to uh make sure that we announce the winner we're gonna leave that form open for a little while to give everyone an opportunity um because this is probably the only form in this hobby you're going to fill out where you feel like you had enough time to do it um we're trying to get something so we really want you to milk this experience i uh i do feel like with the bongo cats i have enough time however like 12 000 entries i never am gonna win one of 10 caps like you know that's yeah cheers to winning i guess yeah forms open for seven minutes good luck yeah so well all right yeah hey man thanks again for joining me thanks for thanks for always for being down to do another wild project with me you always say yes every time i ask you that's why i'd be baskin um and and again you know like um i'm i me me jeff i'm not trying to sell anybody anything if you do like if this did interest you even a little bit reach out the the the at lang like you can i i am extremely accessible ask questions please please i'm not don't you don't have to come to my twitch stream and sub you don't have to join my discord you could just ask questions it's fine hit me on instagram hit me on discord whatever you know you don't have to do any of that so um no pressure yeah anyway oh it's your house oh mar thanks for having us i don't know thank you thank you you're you got like the dslr like you got mirrorless on your face like oh it's all over oh man all over you're like not messing actually you're gonna like these ones more shoot oh oh it's oh my god hold on hold uh okay so on the bottom it's the star was the gmk that's the star was one that's boba fat right dsa boba fat yeah dsa boba fat or not dsa that's the gmk one that's the gmk i didn't know they did a gmk run i've been out many and then the one up top oh my god what's the uh red riot nope no uh i can't remember the name but s a a nice gentleman is that s a berserk oh berserk damn there it is killing me killing me down but not out so got it still got it right well i'll take my al and i will leave thank you guys i really appreciate it thanks for having me guys thanks thanks for having us no problem welcome everyone i'm baird arnell with the red team village and i'm here today with ryan dory and matt eidelberg from optiv everybody how's it going and uh thank you so much for being here today and i want to uh thank optiv for being a sponsor for the red team village ctf this year your support really helps uh and it goes a long way at uh allowing us to provide a big event both in person and virtually can you tell me a little bit more about optiv yeah absolutely so to put it very simply optiv is a pure play cyber security partner and what does that mean we we aim to do security all security all the time right we can help in ways of advisory deployment and even manage operations right so ultimately our our goal is very simply to help organize the organizations realize a more effective security program and posture and uh for for both of you specifically what what do you do at optiv so i'm a senior director inside of threat management which is a larger umbrella but i specifically have the privilege of leading our attack and pen team um so my focus is on the direction of success of that team and i achieve this largely by enabling uh the great folks around me such as uh mr. eidelberg here attack and pen my primary role is leading the adversarial simulation services this is our uh branch that focuses primarily on red and purple team operations my role in there is not only executing these types of engagements but also focusing on helping to innovate the team and grow uh more operators to perform these types of engagements all right and uh and for the for that uh attack and pen practice uh what do you like working there yeah so for me uh first and foremost uh it's it's the close family atmosphere that we have on the team uh and what i mean by that is i've been on the team for almost nine years now i've been in attack and pen the entire time and i'm not alone in that there's several other individuals on the team that have been here for a single amount of time such as such as matt himself so what that yield is a really good dynamic of folks to work well together while we uh simultaneously you know pursue our passion of offensive security and just add on to that i would say in a single word the community uh the team itself honestly strives constantly to push the boundaries to teach each other new things whether or not it's a you know failures from previous engagements to help educate for future uh kind of tests or even success stories it's all about sharing and kind of bolstering each other and through knowledge sharing absolutely and uh you know and a plug for that that giving back to the community aspect you know i was on your github the other day and uh i was looking into scarecrow and i know i've got that on my list to do a deep dive on after after defcon you know love love the fact that uh you know a lot of big players in the information security share that research share that tooling that they create yep that's what we strive to do here and for your team um you know what types of people work there yeah well what are their backgrounds so it's a good variety of backgrounds right so we have folks uh some from being a good part of us being veterans uh to business minded folks to engineering folks etc right uh but like i mentioned earlier there there's the ultimate uh commonality right of a shared objective of offensive and passion for offensive security testing and then what we qualify that success really is is helping leave our clients better than we found them at the end of the day and of course you know folks have a very specific uh or can have a specific subset of interest inside the team uh that could be iot to embedded to wireless to low level windows stuff to evasion etc right so there's definitely some some sub pockets for people to really go a mile deep on um great and with such a diverse group uh what makes somebody a success in amp so aside from uh technical acumen which obviously is held you know it's an important quality on this specific uh role right uh is the ability to show ownership and leadership and give back to the team um really you know owning a specific service or an offering uh helping others mentoring etc we hold that in incredibly high value um and then as we mentioned earlier with regard to um like source zero and scarecrow right is the the public thought leadership to help the team immediately and then also give back to the community as well yep and just to add on to that i would say the eagerness to learn and improve your tradecraft um honestly the ones we see that excel the most are the ones that not only focus on themselves but also make sure that they help their fellow teammates or co-workers whether or not they're struggling with something or helping to help them also pursue and grow their talents those are the ones that i see often have the biggest success here that's great uh absolutely i mean this is this is a team sport uh doing what we do yep uh for the for the red team village one thing that we we uh really love to do is is offer a lot of it uh environments for training we do workshops we we uh participate in a lot of different cons um and one thing you know we want to do is bring as many people into this community as possible and so i'd like to ask for both of you you know what is your advice for people who are interested in cyber security as a profession yeah absolutely so i mean i'll speak to you know the path that i took to get here and i think it holds true to the to the question right but i think it's very important and imperative for folks to have a a deep foundational understanding as to how uh things work right so what i mean by that is how does active directory work how does networking function how can you manipulate these things to maybe work outside the bounds it was intended to right so that can apply to even development web applications etc oftentimes i get asked by people that are a bit younger say in college or whatever and they're like hey should i take this security class i'm become a pen tester well i would really encourage folks to get a lot of those more foundational understandings to how things work before they move to the stage of trying to you know move to the adversarial emulation types part yep and i would just add to not just focus when you're learning on red team tactics it's incredibly valuable in the current landscape to focus on both blue and red team having that ability to speak both can really augment your skill set and you know this is very much a cat and mouse game-based industry and just knowing both sides their playbooks can really help you understand the strengths and weaknesses of both sides so when you're coming up against a red team or a blue team you know what they are great at what their weaknesses are to really help plan out those attacks or even your knowledge set to improve on those that is phenomenal advice this industry is is a challenge because there's so much breath and death that you can take not to mention that it's evolving every single day so it's impossible to keep up so you've got to have that thirst for knowledge and and without that foundation it is quite difficult i mean you might throw that exploit and get that get that shell back but then the question is what do you do next right and so great advice i want to thank both of you for being here today thank you again for the sponsorship looking forward to to meeting you in person and and also with with death con right around the corner you know looking to engage with old friends and and make some new ones so so thank you again absolutely thank you for the opportunity and we're looking forward to seeing some folks out of defcon yep thank you oh and i forgot to plug uh octave is actually throwing a party at defcon right and you've got a uh you got an invitation out there yeah absolutely so come check out some of the source zero folks uh i believe it's friday night and the 26th floor if i remember right so yeah come by and say hi excellent looking forward to that knock knock who's there this guy what's up red teamers what's up defcon it's your favorite fake brilliant billionaire investor my little birdies cheap cheap cheap cheap cheap cheap cheap cheap cheap i like cheap things that's why i'm rich they let me know that lunar fire is under fire but that is a tres colmas company and that's got so much smart shit in it and so it's unhackable or is it no it isn't not even you boy and girl geniuses can do it you would have to be the human equivalents of cars with doors that open like this or like this are you can you will you don't come back everybody today is almost a wrap and um first things first i'm sharing the leaderboard of the finals and guess what ai generator is in the first place and then followed by ep ept and then by son of anton but not by much actually the second place is is whole held by three teams in there oh it's pretty rough pretty rough competition that we have right now so andy i have some winners i think here for the keyboards so if you don't mind actually i'm sharing the screen here and announcing the winners awesome yeah so it looks like congrats to psycho 1843 or psychoslave and also grants to marshal hacks for being the winners of those terminal boards we will definitely get those out to you guys as soon as we can grants again thanks for watching thanks for being here with us today and thank you to the keyword company for sponsoring the event as well and thanks thanks again now this thing or daniel can you highlight some what some of the i guess the main questions and the activities and in the discord channel and also the things that are upcoming for tomorrow um honestly everything in discord has been pretty quiet we've had some questions from the the ctf participants and uh you know our team has been doing a really good job addressing them as they've come up everyone seems to be cooperating with each other and not abusing machines too bad and all that sort of stuff so i'm really happy to see everything going as smoothly as it is i know these things are always kind of crap sheet you can't ever you can't ever anticipate the types of attacks everyone's going to launch so everything seems to be running really smoothly though coming up tomorrow we're going to have our our pre-show at 945 these are all pdt times we'll begin our finals at 10 a.m we've got a guest interview coming up at 11 and mar dina who that guest is do we know yet it's a surprise it's a surprise guest okay and then at noon we're going to announce our winners for the ctf so we only got a couple more hours tomorrow to work on it um and then we've got i'm guessing another surprise guest coming up at one we don't know there either all right and uh we'll close out our contest tomorrow at two and we'll have our closing stream at three and we're gonna announce a few winners of the oscp courses of today so we had three today we're collecting all the the winners tonight and then we're gonna announce the first thing in the morning and then we're gonna have more giveaways throughout the day tomorrow oh yeah we've got tons yeah yeah and as a matter of fact we probably have to pick up the pace because we have a lot we're going away we have tomorrow absolutely and then one thing to highlight of course you know stay tuned for the defcon closing ceremonies which is actually after our closing ceremonies as well so so with that thank you again thank you for the staff thank you to the volunteers everybody on staff on site you have been instrumental and the this ink you know thank you so much and we'll see you guys tomorrow yep see you