Vortex Race 3 Keyboard Review The 7. Percent Solution. Tenkeyless keyboards lose the number pad on the right side in favor of a more compact footprint. I say, why stop thereVortexgears 7. 5 percent Race 3 features nearly all the functionality of a tenkeyless board in a smaller, sleeker package, and its gorgeous to boot. While Ive been a tenkeyless keyboard fan for ages, its only in the past year that Ive started going even smaller. These days my primary driver is generally something in the 6. F keys to an additional function layer F1 is FN1, for example. For some, thats a pretty extreme jump, especially those who need those dedicated arrow and F keys for gaming. A 7. 5 percent board like the Vortex Race 3 is the perfect middle ground. The Race 3 takes the standard keyboard layout and gets rid of all the extra space. The division between number keys and F keys is gone. The Delete key is in the top right corner. The bottom row and and right Shift have been pruned to accommodate arrow keys, and four of the functions normally located above the arrows on a standard keyboardPage Up, Page Down, Home and Endare stacked along the right side. Save the odd sized Escape key in the top left, its an elegant design thats got most of what a keyboard user needs in a much smaller space than a tenkeyless board. The Race 3 comes packaged with a keycap puller, a cable and a set of extra RGBY and Mac keycaps, in case you cant tell your CTRL from your COMMAND. Also in the box are a pair of cute little aluminium feet, for the slight angle choosy typists crave. Vortex Race 3 Specs. Switch Blue Cherry MX also available with Brown, Black, Silver, Red and ClearCase CNC Aluminium. Keycaps Dye sublimated PBT in DSA profile. LEDs Caps lock and layer indicators under space bar. USB Key Rollover Full. Mario uses items, which give him various powers, and differ between the games he is in. The first powerup Mario used was the Hammer in Donkey Kong. Whos going to bear Witness The listeners, of course, because this album, unfortunately, proves to be one hell of a burden. The end is in sight. Destiny 2 is coming. We know it, you know it, and now Bungie has finally admitted it, by way of the Age of Triumph, a final, celebratory special. Switch Mount Type Plate. Dimensions 1. 2. Weight 1. 6. 9 lbs. Primary Interface USBCord Length 6. At A Tale of Two Chefs, our goal is to exceed our clients expectations and to remind them of the simple beauty in great tasting food. We provide Specialty Catering.
Price 1. 39. 9. Whats Great About It. Small Footprint One of the biggest benefits of a 7. By getting rid of the space between the F keys and number row and losing a few function keys, the Race 3 fits 8. Its an efficient use of space that results in a very striking look. Its all keys, no space. Well, space bar, but no extra space. Sturdy Little Thing Between the solid aluminum frame and its short DSA profile keycaps, the Race 3 is all width without a lot of height, which makes for a very sturdy little board with no discernible key rattle. Multi Layer Programming Though it features just about every key I need function F1. Print Screen, the only dedicated key I miss, the Race 3 also offers three programmable layers on top of the default layer, allowing users to create custom profiles based on their needs. Its also great for making macros, with each programmable key handling up to 3. If youve got a regular spell rotation in your favorite MMO, this should handle it. Hit a button, go make a sandwich. Great Keycaps The Vortex folks know the importance of good keycaps, and so far every board Ive owned from the company has had top notch caps. Though while the popular 6. Poker 3 boards from Vortex use taller OEM profile caps, the Race 3 uses the sort of thick PBT plastic caps that also came on the tiny Vortex Core, a 4. These caps are dye subbed, so the legends will never die, and the PBT plastic should resist shine a sort of polish that comes with wear better than less fancy ABS keycaps. Color Options The Race 3 comes outfitted with a subdued set of grey and beige caps, but it also brings the party along with an included set of RGBY modifier keys. These bright splashes of color really bring the board together for me. Whats Not So Great That Escape Key Where most 7. Ive seen like to line up the top two rows of keys instead of the standard staggering in order to keep key sizes standard, the Race 3 Vortex decided to go with a larger escape key instead. It might not seem like a big deal. It looks fine and works fine. But youre hardly ever going to see a premade set of keys that includes that size of an Escape key. Nothing that cant be solved with a blank, but the Escape key is also a prime spot for special sculpted artisan keycaps, and nothing made with one space in mind is going to look quite right there. Customization. Two things to keep in mind when customizing the Race 3. First off, that Escape key. Again, gonna be hard to find one that size. Youll have to either have something custom made, or use a novelty key there. Second, the keys on the board are DSA profile, which is a uniform key profile created by the folks over at Signature Plastics. There arent a lot of third party options out there for DSAthere are some, but not a lot. Happy hunting. Final Thoughts. While it wont sway the I need to have a numberpad crowd, the Race 3 is an excellent graduation point for folks looking to slim from a tenkeyless. The condensed layout is a significant space saver, without making the sacrifices necessary to go straight to a smaller 6. This is the third Vortex board Ive purchased, and though Ive been doing more building than buying lately, the combination of build quality and functionality Vortex delivers will keep me coming back long after Ive replaced all my other boards with my own insane creations. Katy Perry Witness Pop. MattersWhat makes Perry such an enigmatic pop star is that she doesnt seem to try so hard, even when its clear she is. Steven J. Horowitz, Billboard, 1. June 2. 01. 7LOL at all your limitsKaty Perry, Hey Hey HeyClose your eyes for a second. Yes, youre reading an album review, but lets indulge. Close your eyes and think of the phrase Katy Perry. What do you see Whether you find Perrys defiantly mainstream brand of color coated anthem pop fascinating or terrible is beside the point you still have a very clear vision of what at a Katy Perry is. Shes the girl next door and also a cunning business magnate, these two concepts going hand in hand as she very much knows how to market her brand of party affected empowerment anthems the world over. The churning I Kissed a Girl, her triumphant announcement of a debut single, flirted with the risqu in a way that was simultaneously taboo and yet wholly accessible. But it was the bouncy tell off Hot n Cold that actually solidified Perrys status as a hitmaker, that same bubbly, flirty persona soon perfected on 2. Teenage Dream, leading her to hit tours, 1 singles by the bushel, and a permanent place in the pop diva firmament. Yes, even then, love or hate her, hot or cold, you could close your eyes, think of Katy Perry, and know exactly what who she was and what she was selling. By the time youve read this review, youve probably read more than a few articles indicating that for the first time in her professional career, Perry was in an odd predicament promoting Witness, her new true blue pop effort. It seemed that no matter how much she tried, she just couldnt capture the pop zeitgeist as easily as she was once able to her singles flopped, her public appearances were bizarre and off putting, and she mentioned the truly obnoxious beef shared between herself and Taylor Swift no less than six times during Witness promotional cycle, to say nothing of her 9. Truman Show indebted live stream of her in a house with dinner parties and celebrity stop ins following the albums release. At times it was honest and revealing, occasionally it was fun, but mostly it was the cap to a series of bizarre stunts used to promote her latest LP. Yet all of this PR ephemera and decorative gossip frosting belie a very simple question what is Perry trying to say with Witness Although she made numerous statements following Hillary Clintons defeat in the 2. U. S. presidential election that she wanted to make something akin to empowerment pop embodied by the very confused pseudo political statements in rambling lead single Chained to the Rhythm, Witness instead seems to drawn its sonic blueprint from her 2. Unconditionally, which she stated was her favorite song off of 2. Prism. Big, broad, and largely driven by synths and piano, Unconditionally proved to be fairly rote if not passable fare from the Katy Perry song factory, strong in its romantic intent but lacking anything that made it distinguishable from any insert here pop starlet. Opening with the title track, Witness specifically avoids horns, sawing string sections, and other colored textures in its pursuit for profundity, pushing the synths front and center as it aims for an awkward middle ground between catchy dance beats and the singer songwriter saccharine. Hey Hey Hey flickers EDM strobe filters across Perrys very distinct imagery, where she refers to herself as Marilyn Monroe in a monster truck before karate chopping all the clichs and norms. If this sounds a bit incongruous, thats because it is, with Perry trying too hard to be lyrically exuberant despite the fact that beat here indeed does leave her couplets chained to the rhythm. From there on out, Perry and her team aims for a grab bag of sounds both retro and contemporary, as the melody lines of Roulette are tuned peculiarly close to Eurythmics Sweet Dreams Are Made of This. Tsunami shares a lush sonic universe with indie synth luminaries like Tory y Moi, and closing piano ballad Into Me You See comes off as one of those dry piano ballads by Hot Chips Alexis Taylor, which is fitting given it was co written and produced by Hot Chip. I built a wall so high No one could reach, she sighs. A life of locks I swallowed all the keys. While its easy to nitpick the lyrics, some rhymes still come off as empty gestures, the words being delivered in earnest even if they dont make a lick of logic. I was a ship floating aimlessly So camouflage was my own worst enemy, she continues, before asking at the end of the chorus Is this intimacy, to which the answer is no. There is nothing intimate about this unless one is to find intimacy in confusion. Witness biggest sin, however, is that even with all of her collaborations and 8. Perry has lost what makes her so distinct. Perry interpolates trends into her sound but never fully commits, each new mid tempo piano number pulling her farther and farther from her established persona which, pros and cons aside, was at least capable of delivering memorable, talked about bits of pop iconography. As her 2. 01. 5 Super Bowl Half Time show proved, a little bit of spectacle can go a long way towards selling even the most basic of concepts, and without that large scale performance aesthetic to back up her ideas, Witness songs simply falter in the glare of the spotlight. Just like the fan group for any major artist, Katycats may think they want a sequel to Teenage Dream or Prism, but the truth is that you want your favorite artist to move forward, to challenge themselves, to try something new. With Witness, the sleek production and rigid sonic textures end up doing more harm than good, vacuum sealing her voice and most of her personality into dry, readily forgettable numbers. When she shouts cos Im a goddess and you know it Some respect, you better show it during the meandering Power, there is no buildup or emphasis to this empty declarationjust an expectation that it will be followed. Perry runs into this issue multiple times throughout the disc, surrounding herself with dry electronic flutters while hoping the lyrics will do the heavy lifting. She integrates the genuinely intriguing phrase Am I a car on fire into the chorus of the sleepwalking Mind Maze, but after four minutes of floating, lifeless synth pads and key stabs ripped right out of a far more interesting Planet Mu release, one would be hard pressed to describe what the song is even about afterwards. How thrilling is it, then, that Witness penultimate number is a charming, bright little bite of sunshine called Pendulum, with its Stephen Schwartz styled Broadway uplift, full backing choir, and refreshingly uncluttered arrangements giving a breath of optimism into what is otherwise a very dry, mechanical album of bland introversion. Its so easily the best song on Witness that one wonders what else Perry is hoarding in the stated 4. This one bit of genuine, unforced, feel good songwriting helps pull the rest of Witness into stark light a little bit of optimism goes a long way towards grounding the rest of Perrys dire, curious navel gazing, and Witness couldve used a lot more of it. So whos going to bear Witness The listeners, of course, cos this album, unfortunately, proves to be one hell of a burden. Evan Sawdey started contributing to Pop. Matters in late 2. SLUG Magazine, The Metro U. K., Soundvenue Magazine Denmark, the Daily Dot, and many more. Evan has been a guest on Huff. Post Live, Revot. TVs Revolt Live, and WNYCs Soundcheck an NPR affiliate, was the Executive Producer for the Good With Words A Tribute to Benjamin Durdle album available for free, and wrote the liner notes for the 2. Andre Cymones hit 1. A. C. Big Break Records, the 2. Til Tuesdays 1. 98. Voices Carry Hot Shot Records, and many others. He is the co founder and host of The Chartographers, a podcast for pop music nerds, and has hosted Pop. Talk for Pop. Matters. He currently resides in Chicago, Illinois. You can follow him Sawd. Eye should you be so inclined.