Lobsters Battlestations and Screenshots (2024)
source link: https://lobste.rs/s/jrh1od/lobsters_battlestations_screenshots
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Lobsters Battlestations and Screenshots (2024)
Feel free to post your current setup/battlestation/screenshots! I really enjoy these every year, and while deskto.ps is now a great place for screenshots, this really encapsulates everyone’s larger battlestations :)
Previous threads can be found at:
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I’ll always upvote Bass
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Thanks, it is! I should have posted some details:
The keyboard is an original IBM Model M (circa 1991). My laptop is a Thinkpad X1 Carbon (6th gen). The little blue case on the shelf houses an apu4d4 that runs an OpenBSD router.
The vintage monitor on the shelf works, and I like to tinker with it using an FPGA every now and again. I don’t have a use for it right now, but if anyone has any fun ideas to give it new life, I’m all ears!
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I had been using it as a terminal window, but I think it’d be more fun to do something graphical, e.g. gameboy emulator, or a blit emulator, etc.
The keyboard tray is from vivo. I bought it used; I’m not sure it’s worth the full price listed on amazon (it’s a little flimsy). The tray is supported by tiny little screws, so, if you get one, I’d recommend replacing them with bolts.
Re: your other comment, I should have used the direct image link, but I can’t edit the comment anymore :\
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Very nice setup! I’m gonna have to get myself one of those laptop holders too, too many computers lying around.
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I was wondering whether it was handmade, that makes it even better :)
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ooohhh, foxtrot <3
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I took a pic of my narrowboat office setup for this edition of Battlestations just now and made it available in a short post: Battlestation 2024.
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I usually work from coffee shops. I don’t have a battlestation, I’m a travelling procrastinator… Still, I’m always impressed and amazed by these threads. Love’em. I can’t get around multiple screens, they’re not for me. I’m easily distracted and will avoid multitasking. So, I tend to favour small computers with small screens. Not much to see but I wrote a bit about it at here.
This is my usual work setup, a latop and a comfy place. The doggo is named Buck and he’s always at this shop.
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I remember reading your post back when it was published and it resonated with me a lot. Cool to see you’re still sticking to your guns and rocking the single monitor life.
If they could improve/upgrade the surface Go I feel like it would be such a no brainer for a lot of people that travel frequently. Sadly it feels a big neglected in the lineup.
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100% agree, for me it’s such a joy to be on a small screen for much of the reasons you say, and it also means my laptop is actually portable & I can use it in the same way anywhere.
In general I hate having a lot of things running, I hate having a lot of tabs because they just drain me. I learned for myself that if I haven’t looked at a tab in a few days, I will not look at it in a week. Reducing my avg number of tabs to under 9 has done wonders for my general happiness.
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It’s not staging, it’s cleaning!
Needed to happen anyway, this was a good kick to get a superficial start. In retrospect I wish I’d taken a “before” picture (I have nothing to hide!), but you’ll just have to take my word that it doesn’t look like this 95% of the year (see baskets).Desk
This is honestly not super ideal, I got this desk as a hand-me-down because my SO needed the working space of the larger, prettier desk (see below). I don’t love the rounded corners and posts make it easy for things to fall off, and the wicker cabinet doors are practically useless for both my brain and my space (out of sight, out of reach, out of mind). But we all make do sometimes[1].For example, my desk used to be vry sml.
2022In 2023 I was using this desk that my SO stripped, stained, cleaned the brass– it’s gorgeous, and I’m shocked I don’t have any photos from when I was using it. I could take one of it now, but it’s not “mine” atm– do have an older photo from when it was first finished (the flecks have aged out with a few more conditionings), but it isn’t even from like after I settled into it:
2019no screenshots because it’s just default KDE, i used to make rainmeter plugins but that time is past.
1: That, and I bought a PRS I can’t actually afford. I’m looking for work, but my SO assures me we won’t need to let go of it :p
On a related note, I’m currently holding my maternal Grandfather’s ~1966 Bavarian Framus Star-Bass 5/150, the kind that would have been toured by the Rolling Stones IIRC, which (having orig. came in Sunburst Rot and been spray-painted by a prior owner) he stripped, carved, and painted. It’s got a nasty split across the back (I’m talking horizontal), and I hope to have funds someday to see it brought back to life. A set of cleats and extra-light strings should do it, but the extent of the damage (and thin-ness of the wood) is going to require professional attention, and as mentioned, I’m in increasingly dire straits and won’t be able to see to it anytime soon.
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my level of attachment to my current desktop stack is so low that i’ve just lived with a.) an incorrect system time, and b.) this for several weeks
entirely my fault that it’s like this xD
and sometimes I tell people, “this is the kind of problem i wouldn’t be having if i didn’t know how to fix it”; i’ve just had other things on my mind :p-
my level of attachment to my current desktop stack is so low that i’ve just lived with a.) an incorrect system time, and b.) this for several weeks
Haha, well the default KDE wallpapers are quite good, so there’s less reason to change them anyways!
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Looks like a lily58. I have a sofle and it’s great, btw. I havent felt the need to shop for a new keyboard in a couple years now :-)
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It’s nice to see my two main interests (programming and guitars I’m not technically able to afford) converge on lobsters! That bass is beautiful and I hope things change such that you’re able to get it restored soon.
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Love to see a trash can Mac Pro out in the wild. I love them.
Can you tell me more about that TEAC unit, including model number? The image is a bit too grainy to see it.
Thanks!
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That’s a TEAC A-H500i. I use it to drive electrostatic headphones. You can get one reeeeasonably cheap on eBay and I think it sounds great and (maybe even more importantly) it’s built like a tank. I mean, not literally - it has no way to make progress over uneven ground - but definitely metaphorically. I love it.
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Love it! Swear I grew up with a digital keyboard that had the chonky array of buttons like that, probably pre-dating variable volume keys at a budget price. Used to rock the Andromida wallpaper too, what’s rendering those variable-width title bars? And speaking of the other kind of keyboard, are you using tap/hold homerow mods? I wanna ask about what you’ve settled on for symbols and punctuation, but don’t wanna be overbearing c:
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I’m using Vial - https://get.vial.today/ - to program my keyboard layout. I have kinda a home row mod, yes - I can’t strongly recommend my layout to other people because it’s overcomplicated. Happy to send you (or post) all the details if you like though.
That is not Andromeda. I love Andromeda, but the Sombrero Galaxy is even better! See my frequently-updated blog about the Sombrero Galaxy here: https://xeny.net/news%20from%20the%20Sombrero%20Galaxy
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ah, forgive my naïveté! i see it so disproportionately on net. that’s super cool c:
and i am interested in everyone’s layouts– especially complicated, hard-to-reccomend ones (eg. adaptive keys)! i’d say that’s because defaults are the least interesting, but the first (and least consiquential) question i ask about any commercial KB is “what layers does it ship with?”
So I’d love to see, in whatever manner suits you c:
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Here’s my layout. I use layers 0, 5, 6, 7 and 8:
https://teddy.xeny.net/layer-0.jpg
https://teddy.xeny.net/layer-5.jpg
https://teddy.xeny.net/layer-6.jpg
https://teddy.xeny.net/layer-7.jpg
https://teddy.xeny.net/layer-8.jpg
Although I don’t recommend that you use that layout, I DO have one piece of advice (in two parts): use plenty of layers, and as much as possible stick to ten columns and three rows. I don’t actually use the outer two columns on my keyboard at all, and I barely use the thumb switches. The feeling of typing without having to move your hands around or extend your fingers much is lovely.
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I barely use the thumb switches
Yeah! Those home-row layer keys on the left side of Layer 0? Definitly the first thing to catch my eye. I’ve got a lily58, and the innermost thumb-keys are definitely not as easy to use as i’d have hoped. I’ve always though the kyria looks good in retrospect, but you’ve got some real interesting ideas c:
All those Layer 7 “spaces”! and the colons on the inner left index, that just feels so right, i’m sold~
thx so much for sharing ^u^
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I don’t use the left hand of layer 7. I was too lazy to blank out all the keys I was just experimenting with and don’t actually use - sorry!
I am very happy with the keys on the far left of my layer 0 (except, as I mentioned, the outer column). It felt weird to put Q there on its lonesome, but really one doesn’t use Q much and almost never except with U (which I have on a roll close by). (ETA: your layout on github does the same thing. Great minds!)
I love the lily58. The things I really care about in a keyboard is that it should be split and it should not have too many keys.
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I have two desks:
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My “datahands station” which is where I sit in a chair and use the datahands keyboard (I have one of those weird eink monitors there. If you’re curious what it’s like to code on one of these and you promise not to laugh at me for sucking at rust you can see a vid here: https://veganbuddies.org/blog/029-screencast/ )
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My standing/kneeling station This is great for meetings. The grates you see in the wall are from an original 1930s centralized convection heating system (can be powered by wood or coal). This is cool and works very well, but I tend to use the modern heat pump system instead to reduce emissions.
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What’re those baubles you’ve got above your mouse (if you don’t me asking)?
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The spherical one is a sphere of labradorite. My wife bought it for me, ~20 years ago, because I’m a “fiddler”. When talking or thinking I’ll pick something up and fiddle it, carrying it around … and then, generally, put it down wherever I happen to be. She was so sick of losing things that way that she bought me something I’d preferentially fiddle with.
The container is a small bottle of fountain pen ink for my two pens. One - another gift from my wife - is a Monteverde Invincia in black (not carbon fibre; I’m still a little puzzled by the asesthetics of that model). The other is a Muji aluminium fountain pen, which feels surprisingly nice in the hand, and writes smoothly, given its low price. Both are lurking in the stationery and tool holder under the monitor.
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Battlestation. I recently moved to a new place so the environment looks pretty different, but looking back at last year’s setup I realized I made quite a few hardware changes last year!
Both the laptops are new, the one on top is a Framework 13” 12th gen with a zigbee dongle attached to it (I’m looking to get Home Assistant set up but I still don’t have the hardware to install it, so in the meantime I’m trying to get an unsupported thermostat working in Zigbee2MQTT), running NixOS. Below it is the MacBook Pro I use at my new job with the Ergo M575. I got an Xbox elite controller and I’m loving the back paddles! The desktop is still pretty much the same, I just swapped out the RTX 2060 for a 3080 Ti and gave the old one to my brother. It’s still running Windows 10 and I’m thinking of dual booting NixOS to see if I have any problems running videogames. The Steam Deck convinced me that almost everything will work just fine, but I haven’t taken the time to make some space on the SSD :P Then we have a Kensington Expert, Razer Deathadder, Røde microphone, the thing on the left is the router and IKEA sit/stand desk and office chair, all of which I’m still pretty happy with.
Bonus: my scrungy temporary cabinet for the Raspberry Pi 4 home server and my Hyprland desktop on the Framework running Zigbee2MQTT and neofetch just for the occasion :)
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Love an L-shaped desk. Nice setup! And bonus points for use of the word “scrungy”. That cabinet also reminded me of a terrible (but good enough) “case” for my silent X terminal that I built in the early 2000’s as I was fascinated by remote boot (kernel via TFTP, root filesystem via NFS, etc) and also hated fan noise (the terminal was based on a passively cooled Pentium CPU with no HDD and a custom EEPROM on the 3Com network card to do the booting. (I’d left the floppy drive in there after prototyping the boot process from a floppy drive before I got the EEPROM done).
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Thank you! Love your scrungy case as well :) I’m glad the raspberry pi is also passively cooled, all the stuffing in mine is due to the HDDs vibrating a lot. When I tried putting them in an old wooden cabinet (without the foam panels) in my old house it practically acted as a sound box for the spinning disk and you could hear it over the noise of my desktop’s fans!
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I’m at home improvement levels of unemployed so I recently upgraded from the min price IKEA tabletop to something nicer and stuck cable trunking round the edges to get all the wires out of the way.
Wallpapers rotate through mostly my own (astro)photography
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Do you have any online home for your astrophotographs, or a description of your techniques and equipment? It’s something I’m quite keen to get into this year.
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This is the current state of things.
Work on the right, personal in the middle, music on the left.
The screens are 43’’ 4k TVs, which I think are about the best bang-for-the-buck when it comes to uninterrupted screen space.
There’s a big ol’ guitar amplifier (a 5150 III 50w combo), a Neural DSP Quad Cortex and some other guitar effects stuff under the desk on the left that you can’t see.
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Here’s my workstation. The surroundings are a bit messy since we recently moved to this place :) My ergodox is not setup here yet, but it’s mostly the same setup I had at my other place. Except the location is much better!
Out of the picture is a 12” dobsonian telescope, more Go stuff and more instruments (Oud, Shakuhachi, ukelele and mandolin, apart from some other guitars). Also not pictured: two cats
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Here’s my desk setup. New sit/stand desk, and I built a desktop PC to run a big display. My usual keyboard is an Iris with norman layout, it’s in the shelf on the right while I procrastinate fixing a key I dripped tea into. The mouse is a Cooler Master MM710 - I used a trackball or trackpad mouse for years because it set off my RSI, but I’ve been fine with a very light mouse for maybe three years now. The controller is a Pro 2; I’ve been on a break from work and I set up RetroArch to replay some favorites from the late 90s. Chair is the same Aeron I’ve owned ~22 years.
In the back there’s a barrister’s bookcase to keep the tech odds-and-ends together without getting dusty, and there’s some art right under the monitor waiting to get framed and hung between the constellations. The door leads out to the Standard Chicago Wooden Back Steps; weird patio flooring courtesy cheap landlord.
I’m not taking a separate desktop screenshot because my desktop setup is unchanged from the last one, just a (much) bigger display. I really love on Linux that the desktop UI barely changes year-to-year.
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Not a picture from me, but a request for advice:
When I was working at Microsoft, I had. Dell 43” monitor at home and a moderately decent camera on top. I’m now no longer required to use Windows (thank $DEITY, I didn’t realise what a productivity hit it was until I stopped) but I had to give the monitor back and so I’m looking at a replacement. The newer version of the one I had is the U4323QE, which also has USB-C power and GigE, so works as a docking station. I’m tempted by that, but I’m also noting that a few 43” monitors with better reviews are about half the price and maybe I should get a separate dock.
I currently have an HP dock that I got second hand (I actually wanted a USB-C to micro USB cable but no one sold them and so the dock was the cheapest thing I could get locally that let me plug in the FPGA board to my Mac). Apparently its display output uses DisplayLink and is not very reliable with Macs. I would like:
- A monitor that is big enough that I sit back in my chair properly and don’t hunch forward and hurt my back.
- A single USC-C cable to connect to my laptop (MacBook Pro) to get power, display, Ethernet, and external USB.
- Not to think about the problem again for at least 5 years.
Any suggestions?
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CalDigit TS3+ does just that with my work M1 MBP for the last 2 years. They have released some newer models in the meantime, so maybe compare / check the reviews. My main complain is that MacOS doesn’t have a volume slider for the SPDIF audio output, and I couldn’t figure out a blackhole driver filter I want (I can just add a volume control easily, but since I’m there I want to add some filter chain like dynamic range compression for video calls and I wasn’t able to make it work yet).
I have a Dell U4021QW now (and can recommend it), which has the USB-C dock thing, and it’s connected to my personal Linux desktop and my work laptop. It works perfectly as KVM switch, but I still use the dock for the Macbook – I want keyboard, mouse and webcam to be connected to the machine that’s on monitor, but I didn’t want macbook to lose ethernet and audio output when I switch display to the personal machine for a moment.
Caveat: it’s a Thunderbolt 3 dock, not USB-C – there’s apparently some subtle difference. My company’s IT likes it (it’s not affected by their imposed lockdown on USB devices), but my Steam Deck doesn’t work with it. One standard socket is great, we can use all sorts of mutually incompatible cables and protocols with it!
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Thanks. I had some bad experiences with docks. During the pandemic, even Microsoft couldn’t get hold of enough Surface docks, so ended up buying Targus ones. They were awful. They added an electrical hum that made the 3.5mm audio out unusable (worse, this leaked through the power / USB-C cable into the laptop and so it also made the laptop’s 3.5mm audio out unusable). My setup is a somewhat strange mix of old and new: audio on my computer goes to a NAD 3020A amp and a couple of moderately decent (though less nice than the amp) speakers, since I had them lying around and they gave much better audio output than anything from newer decades that wasn’t insanely expensive.
The only other things I want to plug into the display have plain HDMI or DisplayPort connectors, so I’m not worried about them sharing the display. One is an Xbox (which doesn’t see much use - it’s the old one) and one is the Morello box that will mostly be headless.
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i also bought those screens with ethernet. (because it was 16:10, not for the docking) and I find myself really enjoying the lack of cables.
ymmv, but if you like clean setups it’s definitely worth the premium. displaylink will be fine for a single screen, it’s the displayport pass through that might be an issue if you want to daisychain displays.
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How’s the display quality? I’ve read some reviews that complain, but I found the older model totally fine. I think the quality near the very edges was not fantastic, but with a 43” display I’m not really using the edges very much.
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But I tend to just want my terminals to be rendered nicely.
That’s 99% of what I need too.
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I’ve had several Dell UltraSharp’s over the past few decades and have always been happy with them. Something about the screens make me less tired than other screens. I currently have a 30” 4K BenQ that had all the “great for photographers” ratings but for some reason I feel more tired using it than with my old Dell, I’m considering replacing it. (The Apple monitors are also very nice, but hoooo-boy are they pricy)
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I bought the Dell 32” 6K (U3224KB) when it came out last year, to pair with an M2 Ultra Studio (after about 5 years using dual 24” 4K P2415Q’s), and if you can afford it, I would recommend it to basically anyone (assuming their Mac can drive 6K).
It has TB4 in (plus DP and HDMI in), provides up to 140W power, 4 USB-A 3.2 and 2 USB-C 3.2, 2.5G ethernet.
But for me the killer factor is not having to worry about DPI. It’s essentially the same DPI as Apple’s Mac/Monitor displays, so you get that super-crisp display, no performance degradation (when using a “scaled” resolution).
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I can’t say I’ve really used it sorry (in 14 years of working remotely I think I’ve used a video call… once?).
But it seems to interact with macOS fine though, and it certainly produces a clear image on the screen if I open up e.g. FaceTime or Photo Booth.
The only possible downside - the speakers (which are along the top) are very clearly meant for things like audio/video calls. If you want to play music/media a lot, you’ll probably want speakers with a bit more depth to them.
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Thank you for inspiring me to give my desk its first good scrubbing of the year.
Inventory in the alt text: https://sometimes.social/@jordan/111726784634895966
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There’s a pair of mismatched 27” 4k monitors driven by an M1 MBP; I use an older iPhone as my webcam. The keyboard is a MoErgo Glove80, which I am getting used to but am so far very happy with – it’s replacing a Kinesis Advantage, which I used for decades. There’s also a big PC under my desk driving the portable monitor at the bottom, mostly used for home server tasks. There’s a CalDigit TB3 dock, which I like but am thinking of upgrading to one with 2.5Gb/s Ethernet and more USB-C connectors. You can also see my Asus satellite router, which I use to get better performance from my 8Gb/s FTTP connection.
Everything is a mess but that’s just my jam.
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Hi fellow Glove80’er! (about 6 months in)! Also used a Kinesis Advantage prior to that.
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My home office. Normally, my desk is not this psychopathically tidy, but I just happened to clean up.
Featuring, roughly from left to right:
- A secondhand Dell monitor with FHD resolution and VGA input. Used for testing some FPGA projects.
- A Hakko FX888D soldering station
- My FPGA dev boards: A Mimas v2 and a (miniSpartan 6+](https://hackaday.com/2014/06/14/the-small-cheap-minispartan6/). They are both Spartan-6 based, so very ancient.
- A Creality Ender v3 3d printer
- A Brother HL-L2350DW black and white laserprinter. After using HP trash for a long time, it is excellent. It can’t scan, but it just works.
- The tiny black box in the back is an ODROID N2+ running syncthing
- An IKEA desk light
- My desktop, with an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X CPU, 64GB of DDR4 RAM, and an AMD 6800 XT GPU and an X570S Aero G motherboard, if it means anything to anyone.
- Two Xiaomi BHR5039GL screens. The cheapest QHD monitors with 165Hz I could find; they are excellent for my purposes (reading, programming, gaming, video).
- Xiaomi IMILAB webcam. It’s OK.
- My PowerLocus P6 headphones. They are the cheapest headphones with active noise cancelling. Wireless but also support an audiojack, which I use.
- My ThinkPad Wired USB Keyboard with TrackPoint
- My Trust Verto Economic mouse, love it.
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Main machine is unchanged since last year except that I grabbed some RAM at a favorable price and it now has 128GB. I hardly ever need that, but it’s nice not even thinking about it.
New laptop is a Framework 13 AMD edition, replacing a System76 Lemur Pro 9. While I genuinely like System76, the hardware they get from Clevo is just not that great and in my opinion it’s been getting worse. So I decided to try something else, and I’ve been mostly happy.
Specs on the FW13 are:
- Ryzen 7840U (8 cores, 16 threads, 3.3GHz with 5.1GHz turbo)
- 64GB DDR5-5600
- 2TB WD SN770 SSD
- 13.5” 2256x1504 3:2 LCD
Assembly was easy, and it’s been snappy and enjoyable to use (as you would expect from specs like that). I was a bit hesitant about going from a “14 inch” 16:9 to a “13 inch” 3:2, but it’s actually been great. Back in 2005 I was sure that 16:9 was just too wide for productivity use and that it sacrificed too much vertical space, and it looks like the market is finally starting to agree with me.
The audio volume and display brightness are both vastly superior to my System76 machine. I used to crank audio up to 100% on the old laptop and it still wasn’t enough, now 40% is more than sufficient, and bass actually exists. The modular I/O ports are also cool, although 4 of them is just barely enough.
Battery life was pretty poor out of the box, but after a kernel upgrade and applying some tweaks from the forums, it’s quite reasonable. If I set it for “performance” and max out all the cores with a compile I can kill the battery in an hour flat, but under gentler use I can get 5-6 hours out of it.
The MediaTek WiFi card they supplied is terrible, but replacing it with an Intel AX201 made things better (like 4x throughput in a good-signal part of my house and 10x throughput in a poor-signal room).
On the most minus side, they don’t seem to have the same caliber of folks working on the EC and BIOS that System76 does, and there are a number of annoying EC bugs, including the “plugged”/“unplugged” state not updating properly, and the lid generating a wakeup event when you close it with the system already asleep. I’m hoping for fixes but they’re not very responsive. Their suggestion for the second issue is “just use suspend-on-lid-close, we don’t support any other configuration”. Argh.
Plus I miss System76’s ability to remap the keyboard in firmware.
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I’m halfway through a months-long road trip across the US. Staying at my parents’ house, so I’ve been using this pillow as a desk for a few weeks, and the cat as a wrist rest :-)
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That is a very tolerant and understanding cat! <3
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