/uses
Computing
This covers my personal stuff; work provides whatever’s necessary and appropriate for that.
Hardware
ThinkPads. I’ve sojourned with a Mac and a Framework 13; those experiences taught me to value ThinkPads more. Lenovo has bad years, but laptops do not progress much anymore, so that’s fine. I’m typing this on an X1 Nano gen1.
On my desk (IKEA sit/stand, nothing special), I have two Dell U2720Q monitors. They’re fine. With my Niri setup I would maybe have preferred an ultrawide, but I also use these for work, so having two places to put windows in is good. VESA-mounted in fixed positions.
Keyboard is a Keychron V2 Wired, with a knob, blue switches. It’s mostly for QMK, rather than the mechanical-ness, but having proper feel is good, too. I map CapsLock to Esc when pressed, and Ctrl when held, use homerow mods (when I remember to use them), have a navigation layer active when Space is held, and map the knob click to Win+F4 for muting the mic in the work calls application.
For other inputs, I have a Logitech M705 Marathon wireless mouse (excellent battery life, no-fuss connection via dedicated dongle, I’ve used it for years and years with no issues), a Wacom One I rarely use, and a Behringer X-Touch Mini MIDI controller I use approximately never (I do have it set up in Darktable, but I don’t really remember how).
Desk speakers are Creative Pebble V3. Very compact, connect to USB, and are enough for webinars and beeps. Sound-wise, I also have a Fifine K688 on a boom arm, connected through a Behringer UMC404HD. There’s also an Arturia Microfreak synth plugged in, which I occasionally fiddle with on an unserious basis.
All periphery is connected to an MOKiN USB-C hub, so work and private laptops can be easily switched in.
Router is a Keenetic Ultra KN-1810 (it’s not very annoying), with an SFP module for the provider’s GPON (this is annoying). “Server” is a miniPC with two HDD slots from AliExpress. I cannot recommend the particular model.
My son uses my old Framework 13.
There is a VPS in the picture.
General software
Strong preference for free, community-run, software, for enshittification-avoidance. As much as it can be avoided. I dislike software that has features, which may be visible in some of the choices.
This is not a software stack I recommend to people (that would be Fedora Silverblue, or any of the other modern immutables). It works well for me.
NixOs as a distribution, with home-manager for dotfiles. I use a flake covering all my computers. This has allowed me to have a maintainable setup for everything; this section would have been much more primitive without NixOs and the maintainability benefit it gives me. Maintained Nixpkgs modules are a huge benefit by themselves. As a side benefit, this is all much more transparent for LLMs. I try to avoid overusing that.
At close-to-hardware level on the laptop, I use keyd to replicate my QMK setup. It works well; doesn’t always feel as seamless, but works. These tools all have subtle differences in how they handle mod-taps (like the homerow mods); it’s hard to describe, but some implementations feel more natural and produce a lower density of errors; I suspect it’s also user-specific. I like this one.
Computers are all use Yggdrasil as an overlay networking layer. It’s amazing, highly recommended.
I run xray-core proxies everywhere for ad blocking, connecting mobile phones to LAN-only stuff, geoblock avoidance, and content filtering in case of my son’s pc.
Fish shell for a shell. The scripting syntax is much saner than Bash. Interactive features are nice, too. Embrace the ’90s.
In terms of graphical stuff, I run Niri as a Wayland compositor. The scrollable-tiling setup works very well for me on a laptop. With multimonitor, it gets fiddly due to the incorrect workspace/viewport model. On X11, I used Xmonad, and I wish it had a good Wayland alternative.
foot as a terminal. It’s reasonably simple and well-made.
GNU Emacs, with meow as a modal editing layer. I’m still unsure of whether I derive enough value from the ecosystem to balance the loss of editing efficiency from Vim, but Emacs is a program everyone needs to see and appreciate.
Firefox to run uBlock Origin. How would I even, otherwise?
Self-hosting
There is no cloud, just other people’s computers.
- Email, via simple-nixos-mailserver on the VPS. Works great. Had some issues with deliverability, initially, but fine now. Spam filtering and such work very well. I wish sieve was better integrated in Thunderbird; I currently rely on a Frankensetup where my old notmuch-based setup filters and files things.
- My Git repos, with Forgejo. Not strictly necessary for what’s essentially a one-user setup, but I like having the web views sometimes.
- Photos, for myself and family, with Immich. The product is great. I have my doubts about FUTO, though.
- File syncing with mobile phones, with Nextcloud. This is one of the most annoying pieces of software I use, with fiddliness, strange upgrade procedures, slow Web UIs, and the general German-made-software feel. But I can’t quite manage to move my family to Syncthing, so here we are. I try to get my money’s worth, and use calendar and contacts sync, too.
- Nextcloud Talk. I already have like half of it, and it delivers push notifications on mobile, including on iOs.
- Miniflux (patched) as an RSS reader. The interface works well for me. Everyone should have an RSS reader.
- Vaultwarden. Works well. I have concerns about Bitwarden-the-company, but they do have mobile apps.
- My own stuff, such as this website.
Smartphoning
I use GrapheneOS, on whatever runs it (currently Pixel 10). It’s much more difficult to avoid the attention economy on phones, so here we are.
Fennec browser, so I can use uBlock Origin. Mobile apps for my self-hosted stuff.
As few non-FOSS, service-based apps as possible. If a PWA is available, it’s a definite preference. If no PWA, and the website is extremely unergonomic or the experience needs things that the browser can’t provide, then I will consider not using the service, and only if it’s unavoidable, I’ll use an app. So I have Telegram and Whatsapp.
Stationery
I like to think on paper, with a pen. Best paper is Rhodia, dotted (№16 pads). My favorite pen is the LAMY 2000. Generally, fountain pens with a proper filling system (e. i., not cartridge) are good. I can recommend the PenBBS 456 (vacuum filler), and Majohn M2 (eyedropper) as reasonably cheap modern options. I have some, filled with different ink colors, or in bags for when I’m out and about. Pilot Iroshizuku ink.
A phat 5.6 mm Koh-I-Noor Versatil pencil for when I need one. Random watercolor pencils if I want color.
Making
A FlashForge Adventurer 4 Pro 3D-printer. Was cheap, is enclosed, prints well if calibrated well. Not quite as non-fussy as newer models, doesn’t detect failed prints, no multicolor. I draw my functional models in OpenSCAD. It’s not my dream language, and it’s slow, but it’s good and has lots of documentation and examples available.
An Aufero 2 laser engraver, rarely used. Works well enough for my purposes (paper, 3mm plywood). The software situation for these things is just atrocious.
For paper printing, I have a Brother HL-L2371DN laser printer. It’s excellent. An Ethernet connection, IPP, zero maintenance. I also have a color Epson EcoTank L8050. It prints well, and accurately, and is cheap and easy to fill. I’m really surprised at the modern state of inkjets. But: no Ethernet; no IPP/AirPrint.
For bookbinding the stuff I print, I do Coptic (with bent needles and waxed thread) when I do signatures. It’s easy. The edges end up uneven, especially if you use larger signatures (as I do, for laziness). I pare the long side with a chisel, which gives a very nice, clean edge. Layout/signatures are easily done with pdfjam. If I just print A4, I glue the block together, reinforcing with thread (saw 2mm, into the block in a few places, put bits of glue-soaked thread in there) and a strip of bookbinding cloth. Had no major issues so far.
Sadly, I have no space for proper woodworking, so my box of tools is mostly idle. For sharpening, I have a JET JSSG-10, which is a Tormek clone.
Photography
I have a Fujifilm X-T2. It’s old and doesn’t have all the autofocus and IQ advances, but it works well enough, and I like the interface. For glass, I have an XF35mm F2 R WR (my favorite), an XF16-80mm, and a 7artisans manual macro. A Godox TT350F speedlight, with their remote trigger gizmo. A Godox ringlight. No-name tripod and flash stand.
Processed, if not in-camera, in Darktable or Spektrafilm.
I’m not very good at all this.
Media consumption
I read books on a Kobo Libra 2. It has the things I want (no-nonsense durable design, physical buttons, decent formatting, is fast enough), so I like it a lot. My previous device was a PocketBook Era 700, which was awful. Before that, I used Kindles, most recently the Voyage; I liked it well enough, but two broke after a couple years of use, so not recommended. Paperwhites were fine, but the whole software setup was clunkier than Kobo (hard to get text left-justified, weird NIH file formats). My old Kindle Keyboard still works, but had even clunkier software. My first ebook was the Sony PRS-505, and it was perfect, we will never see its like again. I shouldn’t have sold it.
An early LG OLED TV (B7, I think). I’m very happy with the panel. A Denon AVR-X2600H receiver, with Q Acoustics 3000i series speakers in a 5.1 setup (fronts are bookshelfs). An Ugoos AM6B box with CoreELEC and a RaspberryPi running Snapclient are plugged into the receiver. Various small speakers around the apartment are also set up with Snapcast.
Jellyfin for hosting video. Mopidy+Snapserver and Navidrome for music.
Snapcast is very nice. Runs on cheap devices, easily turning old speakers into multiroom-connected endpoints.