Today in Townscaper: Learned that garden paths exist! And how to make them!

Monday puppy update: sunbeam.

Some special debug modes in Minecraft require pressing F3+some other key, which is a real mess for accessibility; function keys aren't meant to be modifiers of other keys, and the Minecraft folks have some explaining to do on this.

That said, my son came to me with a problem: He wants to do something called "showing chunks" in Minecraft, which requires F3+g. Pressing F3 on his 60% keyboard requires using the _fn_ key, so if he presses another key while holding that key, it also activates the alternate function command mapped to the second key. Without some kind of reconfiguration, his keyboard literally cannot send the combination of fn3+g.

After banging my head around forums for a while, I was surprised that nobody seemed to have posted a working solution. So here's what I came up with, using the key programming available on the Ducky One 2 Mini:

We're going to set the left shift key to imitate F3 without needing to press fn:

1. Press and hold fn+alt+2, to enable the second keyboard profile. This will separate the keyboard abuse we're going to inflict from the main profile.
2. Press and hold fn+alt+tab for several seconds until the keyboard blinks
3. Tap left shift: this selects it as the key to be programmed
4. Press fn+3: this selects that combination as the input to map to the newly-programmed key
5. Press fn+alt again to save the macro
6. Press and hold fn+alt+tab again to exit macro recording mode

Try it out: left shift+g should now emulate fn3+g and toggle the "show chunks" setting on and off. Importantly, this key is bound to profile 2; after using it, swap back to profile 1 with fn+alt+1, so that left shift works as expected again (or just bind it something that makes more sense). 

Today in Townscaper: A series of terraces lead steeply upward from the pier, to a tower where either a wizard or a coffee shop overlook the town.

I started playing with Townscaper last night. It’s a city-building toy that lets you paint colorful houses and buildings over an empty seascape. It’s absolutely delightful.

Oh dear. I just learned that I am That Dad who shouts COASTER PLEASE when my kid puts a glass down on unfinished furniture.

The White House is a shitshow as positive tests continue to roll in, and Pence is now playing chicken with Harris in order to claim a political media cycle. What an embarrassment, what a pathetic failure.

I’m getting incrementally better at Star Wars: Squadrons. It has cross play, so if any micro.friends are down to try blowing up some capital ships together, well, Red 5 is standing by. 🎮

Likely not on the radar for most of my academic, stats and data sci friends: the Tableau conf is free and online this week. While the tool may not be in your wheelhouse, it’s almost certainly in your institutional/civic infrastructure. Good oppty to see the conversation here.

Gotta take the little satisfactions where I can find them these days, and I just refactored the shit out of this dishwasher load.