Ludovic ChabantInterview
Software developer (Epic)
Adapted from Ludovic Chabant's interview on Uses This, published 9 July 2019. 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
My main computer is a mid-2014 MacBook Pro -- the last good prosumer laptop Apple designed, in my opinion.
A black, full-size Topre Realforce with variable weights (to give my pinky fingers a rest), dark labels, and a red Escape key.
DeathAdder (Left-Handed)+ 1 other
A left-handed Razer DeathAdder mouse, which is pretty much the only existing left-handed ergnomically shaped mouse on the market today (if you know of another, please ping me!).
A Behringer XENYX 802 mixer that lets me control how sound goes in the Mbox.
A couple of Yorkville YX10P speakers for sound.
Some super old Sony MDR-CD380 headphones plugged into the Mbox.
Then, there's another custom-built PC housed in an Antec ISK mini-ATX case.
A 4-bay Synology DS415+ which contains all our family photos, movies, and documents, our digital purchases, my software repositories, etc.
It also runs a bunch of services like our Plex server, and has our printer (an OfficeJet Pro 8100) connected to it so we can print stuff from anywhere.
My previous NAS, a 4-bay ReadyNAS NV+, serves as a backup of the Synology one.
I tried a half dozen models of headphones from the usual, well-known audio manufacturers, but, for my "on-the-go" headphones, I was surprised to find happiness with the Sony WH-1000XM3: it's comfy, light, foldable, has non-stupid controls, good Bluetooth, and decent sound.
A cheap no-name stratocaster replica, and an old Cort C4 bass that I really ought to upgrade to a more "pro" bass like a Fender Jazz Bass or something.
An old TD-8 Roland V-Drums electric drum kit, with a couple of part upgrades.
I like doing a bit of photography with my Canon EOS-70D and the few lenses and filters I own.
My favourite lens is probably the "pancake" 40mm lens.
For the rest, I frequently use a bunch of Pigma Micron for inking.
Communication
IRCCloud: lots of open-source software discussions happen on IRC, and this is the one company that makes IRC feel modern and easy.
Fastmail: email is still super important, and Fastmail provides a solid service that doesn't use your data for anything else than it's supposed to.
Productivity
GoodReader: my favourite PDF reader on the iPad, especially since it can sync PDFs with my NAS.
Inoreader: I'm a big RSS feed consumer, and my current service of choice is this one.
Pocket: my ever-growing list of potentially interesting stuff to read and watch.
Browser
Path Finder: make the macOS Finder not suck.
Being a Vim user, I frequently use Qutebrowser for a bit but it never sticks and I end up back with Firefox.
Notes
Security
1Password: just get it (or at least another password manager, but that one is good!).
Coding & Development
Vim: the editor I'm writing code with.
Fish shell: my fancy, colourful shell.
Mercurial and Git: where the code goes.
Design
After several years at Electronic Arts on the Frostbite team, I very recently joined Epic Games' Unreal Engine team.
Media
Overcast: for listening to a handful of podcasts.
Photoshop Lightroom+ 86 others
Lightroom: for my photo libraries and for making it look better.
Reaper: the DAW I use for my musical compositions.
Storage
Backblaze B2: my first level of backup is on my 2nd NAS, and my second level of backup is to upload all the important stuff to Backblaze in an encrypted format.
Other
It acts as a general purpose home-theatre/entertainment device, with things like Plex and a bunch of game-console emulators.
I use it mostly for reading role playing games PDFs and comic books -- it's perfect since the screen size more-or-less matches the physical size of these books.
Transit: how to get from here to there using public transit.