“Uses This”

Who are you, and what do you do?

I’m a professional software engineer and once engineering manager. I work a day job but I’m also working with a good friend and former boss to bring screen.garden, a real-time collaboration tool for PKMs and the web, to life.

In my free time I sing with a local queer TTBB chorus, play table-top RPGs, watch Formula 1, and play video games.

What hardware do you use?

I work atop a sit-stand desk I bought when I first started working remotely in 2017. It stays in the “sit” position 99% of the time. For work I use whatever machine my employer provides. Right now that’s a 14in M3 MacBook Pro. Personally, I have an M1 MacBook Air which I love. A single thunderbolt cable runs from either of those machines to a CalDigit TS4 which connects it to power, ethernet, a USB hub, and my display.

I use just the one display, a GIGABYTE M32U, which is a 32 inch, 4k, 144Hz monitor. Whenever someone is talking about replacing their monitor I always bring up refresh rate. It’s one of those things that sounds like you wouldn’t notice but it actually makes looking at a screen for most of your day a lot more pleasant. I’ve sat a no-name-brand monitor light and a Logitech webcam atop it.

I have a collection of mechanical keyboards (ErgoDox EZ, Keyboardio Atreus, to name a couple) which all live in a drawer while I type away on my Glorious GMMK Pro with Glorious Panda tactile switches. I think Glorious’s branding is a bit “cringe” to say the least but they were the only custom keyboard option I could get same-day at the nearby Micro Center when I needed to replace my Pok3r following a coffee spill incident.

I talk to my coworkers and friends through a Blue Yeti mic that I bought when a former employer gave everyone a couple hundred dollars for work-from-home equipment in early 2020 (despite my having already worked from my home my entire tenure there).

At the edges of my desk are piles of scrunchies, a couple hair clips, my AirPods Pros, a pair of Sennheiser HD 600s, my iPhone 14 Pro Max (I always go “Max” or “Plus” for the extra battery life), an Aquaphor lip balm stick, some hand lotion, and a nice candle.

Away from my desk I have a collection of cameras but the one I use the most is my Leica M6 which I usually shoot with a Voigtlander Nokton Classic 35mm f/1.4. I digitize my negatives with a beat-up Sony a6000, a cheap macro lens, and a Valoi easy35.

I have a couple Apple TV 4ks to stream content from the cloud and also the Plex Media Server running on a Synology NAS. I have a couple TVs in different rooms but the Xbox Series X stays connected to the 65 inch LG C1 OLED (once again which a high refresh rate).

Finally, currently sitting on my nightstand wrapped in some FiiO IEMs is a 5th iPod Classic (aka an iPod Video) whose hard disk I’ve replaced with a 512gb microSD card. It’s really incredible how well it still works.

And what software?

These days I’m macOS all-the-way. I’m fully integrated into the ecosystem and the ergonomics and reliability of development on the platform is unparalleled in my opinion. Obviously I use a ton of software so I’ll limit (mostly) to things I keep pinned to my dock (although most of the time I’m launching things from Alfred):

• Firefox to browse the web
• Fantastical to manage several calendar accounts. I could just use Calendar.app but there are few features (like travel time and automatic event merging) that keep me renewing my subscription.
• Mail.app for emails...
• Things 3 makes sure I get things done. I switched from an Android phone to an iPhone many years ago just so I could use Things while I was away from my computer.
• Kitty to run all of my command line apps. I always work within a tmux session so my terminal emulator doesn’t really matter all that much (because I’m never using tabs or splits or whatever) but Kitty is quick and the alternative icon I use for it is really cute. I’m a vim user (neovim really) and have been since 2015. My neovim setup could be its own post...
• Music - I switch between two libraries: 1. My local library which I sync with my iPod and 2. My iCloud, Apple Music backed library
• Dash 6 (usually via Alfred) to quickly reference documentation. Elixir / Hex package docs support is incredible
• Obsidian for personal, work, and TTRPG notes. I keep my plugins list slip with just Templater, DataView, Tasks, Periodic Notes, and of course screen.garden.
• Readwise Reader as my read-later service

I have to shout-out Lightroom with Negative Lab Pro for converting scans/photos of film negatives.

What would be your dream setup?

I’ve obviously spoiled myself already so I’d keep most things the same but...

I’d love a thunderbolt KVM of some kind that would let me swap quickly between machines at the press of a button. I also feel like I’d benefit from a larger desk.

I think about replacing my webcam with the Sony a6000 and replacing that with a newer, higher resolution mirrorless camera.

I’m really hoping the ARM desktop / server market continues to become more accessible to the consumer market because the Synology NAS is looking a little worse-for-wear these days. I’ve thought about replacing it with a custom build x64 machine but the additional power consumption and heat keep me from doing it (I’m spoiled by these Apple ARM machines...).