For those who've upgraded to Sierra and are lamenting the loss of their Hyper Key (because Karibiner breaks in 10.12), here's a hack using Karabiner-Elements and Keyboard Maestro. Honestly, the escape key functionality of my original hyper key (tap for escape, hold for modifiers) has become so ingrained in my muscle memory that I'm happier doing a simple hack to make it just an escape key, and then using a basic key combo to trigger a Keyboard Maestro group with my old launching shortcuts.
