Casey JohnstonInterview
Writer, editor
Adapted from Casey Johnston's interview on Uses This, published 20 November 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
I have an early 2020 MacBook Air (pink :)) that is probably my primary computer, if I'm being honest; I like to sit outside in our backyard in outer Bed Stuy and work.
I have an iPhone 11 Pro, for the same reason; when I'm not on my computer I'm on my phone, and there is no room in my life for my phone to suck.
Actually my phone is not really my camera anymore, I bought a Fujifilm X-S10 a couple months ago, my first mirrorless camera, but I'm not carrying that around with me.
I just got some Sony WH-1000XM4 noise-canceling headphones on-sale-ish on Prime Day, for also the same reason; New York apartments are too small for me to have an office so I deserve that little investment in trying to control my environment.
I just upgraded the RAM maybe 8 months ago to 32GB from 8GB, and I'm still rocking a GeForce GTX 1060, which I was more ashamed of until I saw a graphics card poll recently and it's still the most commonly used one (I assume because everyone, like me, has been priced out of upgrading by bitcoin miners the last two years).
I'm a pen hoarder, too, but then I will do shit like developing an undying loyalty to some random Bic Round Stic.
Communication
My worst habit is that instead of putting notes in Evernote, like when it TAKES MULTIPLE MINUTES TO LOAD, is that I will text whatever it is to myself, because iMessage opens instantly and even if the text doesn't go through it's recorded on the end of the device where it was written.
Other than that, I spend a lot of time in Slack, which is where my work chat is as well as some friend-based chats.
I run a Discord server for readers of my column, where they can post about how their lifting is going, what they're eating, ask each other for form checks or tips on gyms or equipment, stuff like that.
Productivity
Browser
Notes
Security
I keep passwords in 1Password, which is such a lifesaver.
Coding & Development
Design
Media
When I stream I use Streamlabs OBS.
Storage
What was the roadblock I was having with Time Machine backups?
My Backblaze is currently broken and I haven't figured out how to fix it yet but technically I back up to that as well as Time Machine locally.
Dropbox for sharing my Scrivener files between computers.
Other
F.lux for orange-ing my monitor at night.