Uses

A high-contrast photograph of the moon
A photograph of a desk

I try to buy things for life as much as possible. Simple, single purpose tools that are durable and will last a lifetime.

Computers

I've recently gone through a round of upgrading my computers, which resulted in a Mac Studio. I don't love that it's not upgradable, but, like previous Apple products I've owned, it will be used until it simple cannot, and upcycled into a solid Linux machine for future compute needs.

Eris

New primary workstation, replacing Hyperion.

Hyperion

Former primary workstation. Now used as a test bed and gaming machine.

Artemis

Work-issued computer and travel device.

Orcus

Self-hosting homelab core. Pi-hole, Pi-KVM, backup sync node, etc.

Desk + Studio

Audio / Music

Since switching back to macOS, I've returned to Logic, the DAW I as a teenager and at university studying sound design and mixing. Reaper is the best DAW on Windows, but it's weirdly sluggish on Mac, so to Logic I returned. It's lovely to get a thousand little QoL features I've missed back too.

Art

Hardware

Software

Camera

I use a Sony A6100 as my primary shooting camera. I bought it at the height of the pandemic when my camera.

A photograph of camera sitting on top of a burgundy notepad on a bamboo desktop. It's a modern camera, but features a wooden grip and a manual lens made of steel with a visibly wide aperture

When I was a teenager, my Dad gave me his old Nikon D3200 DSLR he wasn't using anymore and the autofocus was so terrible that I ended up teaching myself to be faster manually on the barrel. I figured it was good practice for focus-pulling as a filmmaker, but now I just prefer using fully manual lenses. My photography party trick is being fast enough to focus on moving flies on the f0.95.

Stationery/Art Supplies

I'm a die-hard bullet journaller and I've recently switched from Leuchtturms, which I still love, to Pith, which I love even more. The plain cover stock and lay-flat design make me extremely happy, and the paper is simply gorgeous. They're also made and sold just a few miles from me.

A photo of a Cara Cara sketchbook and Yuzu notebook from Pith, both with unfinished board covers.

I've always been an ink and wash kind of traditional artist. I don't need much more than a decent pencil, a decent ink pen and a good watercolour brush.

Writing

I write in Sublime Text because I hate linters and correctors that shout about syntax errors, incomplete declarations or spelling mistakes after only one keypress, something that Sublime's ecosystem has mercifully managed to avoid entirely.

I use a self-authored tool called Meander to print screenplays, manuscripts and other production documents written in the plain-text Fountain format.

Programming

I write most of my software in Odin or Go, and I'll use Lua if I need something scriptable. I'll use Python only if forced, but I like shell languages like Bash and Fish.

I like Quake-style shells because I always have one running and want it to appear whenever I need it. On macOS, this means iTerm, on Windows it's Windows Terminal and on Linux it's just Alacritty because I implement the Quake mode using a dedicated Calm Window Manager workspace with a hotkey.

Games

Almost all of my active games and software projects are directly implemented with or rely on components from my self-built toolkits Lena and Forest.

Other software

I use Zen on desktop and Firefox/DuckDuckGo on mobile.

I'm not in love with Obsidian, but it does the job of managing and tenuously connecting my massive library of rambling essays, snippets of information and project notes and keeping them offline and local-first.

Bucket List

I recently 'completed' my home studio, which is to say I have all of the equipment I've ever wanted in a form that's as good or better than my needs. Anything I get now is just a bonus.

I'd like to get a camera that can shoot film in RAW. My dream photography camera is one of the Sony a7 series or a Hasselblad X2D, and if something in those lineages comes up as a hybrid (and I have an excuse to invest) I'll jump on them.

I also really, really want to go to a split keyboard for some reason. My keyboard neurosis is well documented, but I'm craving half-boards for ergonomics around my desk, like being able to put them on either side of my pen display when I'm painting.

As far as software is concerned, I'm generally in the process of solving anything I don't already have. Ochre aims to solve digital sketching and painting for me, and I've got this idea I can't shake about building a CRDT-based version controller into Forest for managing software projects from within their own compiled builds, the same way my Forest projects contain their own asset pipelines or code generators in dev builds. It would be lovely to get away from Git.