Thefoggiest.dev

March 27, 2026

Whenever I want to move my keyboard cursor one word left or right, my mouse cursor moves now.

This is good. Let me explain.

On older keyboards, the CTRL key, often written as “^”, was just left of the “A” key. And this made sense. Being on the so-called home row meant that it was easy to reach in combination with any other key on the keyboard. This was needed, because it is after all a key that derives its meaning from being used together with another key.

Examples are ^C for interrupting a process and ^P for printing, though the latter one would probably be used with both hands.

The CTRL key location on a Sony HB F1XV MSX2+

Modern keyboards have two CTRL keys now so you would only ever need one hand for meaningful usage, but they are no longer on the home row.

Since a few years I use a programmable and ergonomically split mechanical keyboard called the Ultimate Hacking Keyboard (UHK) which allows me to switch the function of keys around. So one of the first things I did, more out of nostalgia than usefulness I must admit, was switching the CTRL and Mouse key. This way my CTRL key was on the home row again.

Excellent.

The Mouse and CTRL key on a UHK

The UHK’s Mouse key is to move the mouse cursor using the cursor keys. I have a small touchpad that I use with my thumb, so I rarely have use for that key, except when I want to draw a straight line in Miro.

The CTRL key location on an Atari STe

I sometimes curse too much, I find.

You see, I’m a bit of a sloppy typist, I’m afraid, which means that more often than I’d like, I press the Mouse key together with the “a” key when I just want to type “a”.

You can imagine what happens when I continue typing after pressing ^a in a modern text editor or document processor: cursing, ^z and re-typing that last part.

The CTRL key location on a Philips VG8235 MSX2

So at last, I have silenced my inner Luddite, have succumbed to modern times and unswitched my Mouse and CTRL keys. As expected, I do need an adaptation period, which means that now I press the Mouse key a lot when I mean to press the CTRL key. This, though, is harmless.

I hope I will be cursing less from now on. The kids might get damaged otherwise.

March 24, 2026

Some local governments inside the U.S.A. have announced or implemented laws requiring mandatory age verification in all operating systems. This to defend their children.

A laudable idea, for sure, but I haven’t the foggiest how this will achieve anything.

I do wonder how much these people know, or are at all aware of, the concept of open source software.

Fully unhelpful in this discussion would be to mention that using the GPL means that the code you download and use is yours to do with as you please, so if you need age verification, it is your responsibility to create it and nobody else’s.

Let these politicians write their own age verification if they need it so badly. Or their children.

But I do wonder, that if they really mean any operating system, would this also mean that anytime you would build a docker container with an Alpine or Ubuntu image, it would have to make you prove your age, since you are in fact installing an operating system? How would scripting work?

Could be fun.

March 19, 2026

I’ve been replaying Frontier Elite II lately, this time starting out at the most difficult starting location “Lave”, which immediately branded me a fugitive in the eyes of the Federation and the Empire, something which will cost me 70,000 credits to get rid of, per nation.

I will deal with that particular problem when I get there. For now, I’m having fun with pirates in mostly small and very difficult to hit ships interdicting me on my way to ports in systems called Diso or Leesti with a cargo of computers c.q. fruits and vegetables.

I’m flying a Cobra Mk I type ship. It is smaller than the Cobra Mk III I started out with but couldn’t afford, but bigger than the Viper that I ended in last time. A 1MW beam laser, two shield generators and some other equipment leaves eleven tonnes of cargo space.

My Cobra Mk I

Battle procedure, as even suggested by the manual, is to pause the came, switch to an outside camera and look up the assailant’s ship. When found, I press R to get some data on it, such as the ship type, the amount of shielding and how much bounty money is to be earned, if any, should I be victorious.

When I am, and I have suffered no damage, I press the * key on the Atari’s numeric island and are disorientingly thrown back onto the GEM desktop. I start GAMEX, a utility that allows me to save the game status to a file. When it has, I click the button called Play game in RAM and I continue flying my spaceship to its destination.

Putnik’s GAMEX utility

Frontier’s is a very violent universe. I get attacked relentlessly. Pirates interdict me a dozen times on each trip and money is very tight. A full cargo hold leaves me with barely enough money to buy fuel. A bounty is typically between 100 and 200 credits. Being hit when my shields are down easily costs somewhere in the 1,000 to 5,000 range to repair. Even if I could survive a trip, damage would nullify all my earnings. When I get a bigger ship, I’ll be able to afford better weapons and shields. Perhaps then I won’t have to save game states as often.