Uses
This page shares the hardware and software that I use. These are not necessarily endorsements, because I am much more of a satisficer than a maximizer. These things are all good enough for me and I’m pretty happy with them, but your mileage may vary.
When possible I’ll note the year when I bought the thing, in parentheses.
This page was last updated March 28, 2026.
Home office
In my home office, I have two desk setups, one with a personal computer, and one with a work computer. They’re positioned across from each other, against opposite walls.
During the day, I’m sitting in my Herman Miller Sayl Chair (2020), which I bought during COVID. I like the look of it and find it fairly comfortable. I can do a little push, roll, and spin if I need to pop over to the other desk for some reason, but for the most part I’m just on one side of the office on weekdays and on the other side on weekends. I could probably just have one desk if I could figure out how to nicely switch out the computers without having to do an elaborate dance of unplugging and plugging in things. I’ve heard of “KVMs” but I “can’t be bothered”.
Work setup
- Apple Studio Display (2022)
- Good monitor. My first 5k display. Has speakers, webcam, and microphone that are all “Good enough for me”. Expensive enough that I’ll probably make myself keep using it for many more years.
- Work-issued MacBook Pro 14” with M3 Pro (2024)
- Good computer! I mostly use it in clamshell mode.
- Realforce R2 keyboard (2021)
- Full name is “REALFORCE R2 KEYBOARD MID SIZE (IVORY) 55g KEY WEIGHT”
- I remain obsessed with it. It has the excellent Topre switches that I first was introduced to in the Happy Hacker Keyboard, but it’s a more normal layout. I was so enamored that I bought another one, but unfortunately they weren’t selling exactly the same one, so I got a black one with “Mixed Key Weight” – and it’s NOT THE SAME 😭. It’s in my closet now.
- Magic Mouse (2025)
- I like this mouse! Sure, it’s dumb that you can’t use it while it’s charging. But it works well for me. I had some older ones which I replaced in 2025 when they swapped the charging port from Lightning to USB-C.
- BANTI 44”x24” Standing Desk (2023)
- I bought this one on Amazon for $99 and was fairly certain it was going to snap in half within days, but it has surprisingly held up decently
- For a while, I walked on a walking treadmill while it was up, but then my neighbors downstairs got annoyed, so now I just stand at it occasionally
- HandStands “Memory Foam Ergonomic Mouse Mat” mouse pad (2022)
- I wish I remember who recommended this. Good mouse pad. It has a sort of wrist pad built in, but it’s subtle
- KansoDesigns Wooden Monitor Stand from Etsy (2024)
- Just a nice little riser. It’s nice to be able to push the keyboard under the monitor and clear some space for a notepad.
- Keychron Q0 Plus QMK Custom Number Pad
- I mostly use this as a volume knob that happens to have other buttons on it. I can program the buttons to trigger automations, but I’m not really an automation guy. I have one, which toggles my computer’s audio output between the Studio Display’s speakers and any headphones that might be plugged in.
- AKG K240STUDIO Semi-Open Studio Headphones
- I am not really an audiophile and hardly ever use these, but every now and then it’s nice to “lock in”, put on some hardcore music, and really focus for, say, 5-10 minutes
Home desktop
- Mac Studio with Apple M1 Max (2022)
- Using a desktop computer is kind of fun because it doesn’t come with you. I spec’d this out with 64GB of RAM which felt very indulgent and still does. I expect I’ll be able to use this for many more years without issue.
- Dell 27” Monitor (2014)
- With the full Amazon name of Dell U2713HM-IPS-LED CVN85 27-Inch Screen LED-lit Monitor
- I like this guy a lot and am pleased that it’s held up all these years. It’s 2560x1440 which I guess is 1440p, not “HD” or “4K”. It looks pretty good to me. There was a point when I tried replacing it with a 27” 4K monitor but I kind of hated it, everything felt wrong for reasons I couldn’t articulate. I gave that monitor away, and later learned that there are certain sizes and resolutions that you want to avoid with macOS. You live and you learn.
- Unicomp Spacesaver M White Buckling Spring USB Keyboard (2014)
- I bought this one after reading this King of click article and still love it quite a lot. I did send it in for a repair in 2020 when the space bar stopped working. It feels mostly indestructible.
- Magic Mouse (2025)
- Same as on the other desk, but in black
- The Floyd Table (2019)
- A nice big dining table makes a pretty good desk
- HandStands “Memory Foam Ergonomic Mouse Mat” mouse pad (2022)
- The same one as from the other desk
- The same KansoDesign monitor riser (2024)
- It’s nice to let the Mac Studio live under it. And there’s eneough room on there for the monitor and the speakers too.
- Mackie speakers (2019)
- The full name from Amazon is Mackie CR Series CR3LTD Limited Edition Silver Trim 3” Creative Reference Multimedia Monitors (Pair) which is so long oh my God
- I think these sound pretty good! I like that I can plug headphones in to the front of them
On the go
11” iPad Air (2025)
Mostly a YouTube machine tbh.
iPhone 17 (2025)
I would love to get rid of this and be a modern luddite or whatever, and I might still get there, but not yet. iMessage is a prison.
Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 4 14” Laptop (2025)
This is my laptop I use when traveling or when I’m on the couch or at a coffee shop. It’s mostly just an excuse to play around with Linux, which is a hobby I got back into in 2025 and I’m continuing to have fun with. I got it before a trip because it was fairly inexpensive and they had it in stock at Micro Center. The hardware is a mixed bag: the keyboard is good, the screen is fine, the battery life sucks, it’s pretty slow, the speakers suck, the webcam sucks. But I’m using it just for casual computing and it’s good enough for my needs.
It’s running Arch Linux with the GNOME desktop environment. GNOME is honestly so cool. It’s not exactly copying macOS but it’s familiar enough and has very tasteful and consistent design. I think if I were helping a normie get started with Linux I’d probably set up Fedora with GNOME which seems super user friendly to me.
Coming back to Arch after several years away, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that they’ve made it much, much easier to get started.
iOS software
Some apps I use on my iPhone:
- AnkiMobile Flashcards – for studying Mandarin Chinese
- Chess.com – for playing Chess
- Doppler – for listening to MP3s
- Duolingo – for studying Mandarin Chinese, mostly because I am afraid to break my streak, even though it’s not actually very good at teaching me Mandarin Chinese
- Fastmail for email and calendars
- Lichess – for playing Chess, but feeling better about myself because it’s a cool FOSS nonprofit
- Overcast – for podcasts
macoS Software
Some apps I use on my Macs:
- Alfred – for launching apps and keeping a clipboard history
- Dato – for looking at my calendar in my menu bar
- Doppler – for listening to MP3s
- Things – for keeping track of to do lists
- Reeder – for high volume RSS feeds that I want to scroll past but not let pile up
- Reeder Classic – for RSS feeds. I recently stopped using Feedbin after 13 years, so now my feeds are all local, which is a different experience
Linux software
Some apps I use on my Thinkpad:
Some apps I use on both my Macs and my Thinkpad:
- Ghostty – A nice terminal emulator
- Google Chrome – for web browsing
- with a few websites installed as progressive web apps so they can kind of act as standalone apps
- I switched from Firefox at some point because it worked better with Google Meet, which we use at my job, and it’s pretty much stuck for now
- I have the default browser set to Wikipedia these days
- Obsidian – for note taking. I have one set of notes for work stuff and one for personal stuff. I use it as a sort of journal and also a wiki to help me remember various pieces of jargon and also what people’s jobs are
- Visual Studio Code – a code editor that I sometimes use for certain tasks that it’s well-suited for, although it’s not my default editor
Terminal-based software
- I’m still happily using Fish shell
- I switched from vim to neovim in 2025 and feel sort of guilty about it
- My most commonly-used programs are probably neovim, git (enhanced with delta), rg, bat, eza
- I’m still mostly programming in Ruby all these years later
LLM stuff
In May 2025, I signed up for a year of Claude after reading this blog post and thinking it was worth learning more about it. I spent $200, which felt like a lot at the time. Claude Code seemed interesting because it didn’t require you to switch editors, which felt like a non-starter to me. I’ve since used it almost exclusively to work on Seasoning and have found it to be very impressive and useful. I’m ambivalent about the social implications of the technology, namely that it may lead to mass unemployment. I also occasionally use the Claude chatbot web interface when I’m trying to think of an adjective that is on the tip of my tongue, and other similar, contained tasks. I am determined not to become dependent on AI tools. I also am fairly conservative about granting tools like this unfettered access to my system. Tools like Claude Cowork and the ChatGPT desktop app seem kind of crazy to me to let run wild on my computer. And of course the same applies to Claude Code, which I have run and trusted not to do anything too wacky, but I’ve since uninstalled it; I plan to figure out how to containerize it before running it in the future.
I haven’t decided yet about renewing my paid plan, but I’m leaning toward not.