Personally I’m not sure it’s worth it longer term. 5x3+2 is my preference but I’m doing this to sort my layers so I can try some of the unibody split keyboards that have less keys to go round.

Yeah I’m doing it to establish a common layout for my symbol / number / navigation layers more than anything else, so I can expand from there to some 28 and 30 key keyboards as well as the Ferris Sweep with some consistant muscle memory.

It’s my own layout starting from Colemak DH with the “missing” outer keys on another layer.

Somewhere in the middle? More of late night realisation than anything else.

To be fair I am planning on putting them back at some point.

I’m working on a core 18-key layout that I can expand anywhere up to 34 keys, so I have a consistent layout that I can use on some of the unibody split keyboards that are usually in that range of keys.

I use the Hario Switch almost exclusively for pourovers. It’s glass plus you can throw in immersions with it. Bit spendy compared to the plastic cones though.

Beautiful design. I love the casing over the nice view and roller.

Yeah they’ve left the dipper in it too.

I know you don’t want to spend too much but there’s also no point buying something that misses the mark in terms of the grind you need for the espresso you want. When I was looking at grinders for espresso I narrowed it down to the 1zspresso J-Max for a hand grinder or the Baratza Encore ESP for a machine grinder. Both are a bit more expensive than the basic options but give much more versatility for dialing in grinds.

Yes it’s to keep my wrists a bit further apart but also to give my pinky fingers less work to do.

Yeah I’m new to it and still getting used to it. I’ve gone the slow but accurate route, which is incredibly frustrating, but I’ll get there.

Haha its actually a Neon Genesis Evangelion themed keycap set so the additional keycaps are icons of the angels. I have them wired up to Vim and AutoHotkey shortcuts.

It’s mostly a copy of my 34 key layout so the thumb keys are shift - space - enter - layer. Having the spacebar would throw that off. I was tempted but in the end I didn’t want to lose a key on the top three rows for “enter”.

I just worked out that a rotary controller can be mapped onto a mouse scroll wheel, which suddenly makes a lot of sense. I’ve been sitting here thinking “why would I want a volume knob? Why would I want two?” Is there anything else I am missing about rotary controllers?

I think once you accept that standard keyboards are laid out as they are just by convention and nothing else, and that moving to a new layout will take a bit of time, the prospect of having a keyboard where everything is exactly where you want it to be becomes quite thrilling. This is actually my first bit of real typing using Colemak DH. It is excruciatingly slow to touch type but I didn’t know it at all two weeks ago. In two more weeks time I’ll have my first split keyboard in my hands. So it’s definately doable…

I was going to write a bunch of things about the Switch but I guess they would apply to most other pourover drippers too. I’m coming from the Chemex as a comparison, which is lovely but a bit slow and unwieldy for that one cup of coffee.

Having said that what makes the Switch stand out to me is that it feels like such a high quality piece of kit, and having the immersion element in the mix really suits me. My brain interprets that as “big aeropress” for whatever reason.

Here is a better angle as requested:

Will do tomorrow.

Yes that’s basically why I got my Switch and its mostly the way I use it: percolate for the bloom then immerse for the brew. Although I’m going to play around with that soon.

I can only compare it to the Chemex, which is a bit of a different beast. I find that I can get a great balance of extraction and flavour out of the brew because I can immerse. For my work coffee I have settled into a medium grind of 18g coffee + 54g water, gentle pour for bloom, followed by a full pour (to 300g) at 30 seconds with the switch up so that the brew immerses, then switch down at 2 minutes to let the brew drain through the settled grounds. Then I vary the grind to sort any extraction issues with the particular beans I have.

I’m not sure if glass v plastic will make a difference like the ceramic does. I prewash my filters with boiling water which will heat up the Switch but I’m not sure how effective that will be.