Aurynn ShawInterview
DevOps evangelist, giver of talks, writer of software, conference junkie, profes
Adapted from Aurynn Shaw's interview on Uses This, published 15 May 2021. The kit is drawn from their answers and each reason is an excerpt, lightly edited. Shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read the full interview ↗
Is this you? Claim this kit →Hardware
It's plugged in to a Dell P2715Q 4K display, and just let me say, once you've committed to high-DPI screens it's impossible to go back.
For videogaming, I use a pair of Steelseries Arctis-7 headphones, which sound perfectly nice and have great audio pickup.
For srs music lznz I use a pair of Grado SR225 open-backed headphones.
For out and about listening and audio environment management, I have a pair of Nuheara IQBuds Boost, which are extremely extremely great at making loud and difficult-to-hear-in environments manageable.
C922 Pro Stream Webcam+ 2 others
For video, when I am occasionally found streaming, I use a Logitech C922 webcam, which is also fine.
As I sit for a living, I have recently invested in a Secretlab TITAN XL chair.
For the PC keyboard I use a Logitech G PRO mechanical keyboard.
While photo editing I use a Wacom Intuos 5 tablet.
My phone is the last truly great iPhone, the iPhone XS.
Apple Watch Series 4+ 4 others
My smartwatch is an Apple Watch Series 4.
For a screen protector, I use a Paperlike, which, if you use your iPad for writing or sketching of any sort, I highly recommend.
My daily driver pen is a Pilot Knight fountain pen, using a converter loaded with blue-black Parker Quink.
My alternate daily driver is a Pilot Metropolitan in turquoise, loaded with Pilot iroshizuku syo-ro, a dark teal that is exceptionally on point.
My absolute favourite fountain pen is a Parker 51, with mine being manufactured some time in the 1940s.
Todo apps are an endless point of contention for me, and I've gotten the most value, for most of my non-CRM todo needs, out of some physical notebooks and the Bullet Journal method.
Communication
For IRC, the only real macOS option is the still-excellent Textual.
Productivity
As I run my own business, customer relationship management is hugely important to me, and as such I'm so thankful to have stumbled across the Mac-native, Mail.app-integrated Daylite by Marketcircle.
Coding & Development
For short and medium writing, I use the text editor Ulysses.
For medium to longer writing, I use the ever- and exceptionally-capable Scrivener.
For turning stimulants into software, I've spent most of the past decade and a half plugged into the venerable and much-loved TextMate.
Unfortunately Visual Studio Code picked up all of the post-Sublime Text-or-Atom mindshare, and any new attention given to TextMate is from die-hards like me.
Since TextMate is on that slow fade to niche obscurity, I'm in the process of picking up my tools and moving to Panic Nova, a fully-native macOS code editor that has very agreeable performance characteristics.
Media
Other
Destiny 2 is probably the game I, as of this writing, spend the most time in.
I'm also known to indulge in Fallout 76 (it's better than you think!) for my online persistent loot-oriented gaming needs.
A boxed copy of Sundered, a Metroidvania-y game by Thunder Lotus,