Vi HartInterview
Mathemusician, philosopher
Adapted from Vi Hart's interview on Uses This, published 9 July 2015. 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
For regular (non VR) filming, I mostly use a Sony HDR-PJ790 Handycam.
For VR filming, I'm recently obsessed with the Ricoh Theta camera.
Right now I'm wearing a pair of Senal SMH-1000 headphones.
For work I've been using a 15" MacBook Pro for the past year for basic emails, writing, normal video editing, and webVR development with the DK2 or Galaxy Note 4.
GeForce GTX TITAN Black+ 1 other
We do our heavy rendering on a Windows machine we built named Tessa, that right now is running three TITAN Blacks, two Xeon E5s, and other tasty things.
At work I've got a few Dell Ultrasharp 32 Ultra HD monitors and a couple different cobbled-together standing desks (one for using Tessa, one for putting laptops on), or else I use the MacBook while lounging on a couch.
Right now I'm at an IKEA Björkudden Bar Table with a shoebox on top.
I like to pretend I use my Linux machine (a converted Chromebook), but, not so much.
I use Sharpie pens for writing in my own notebooks, and a Pentel Graph Gear 1000 mechanical pencil for writing in the margins of books (they come in a variety of graphite sizes and I switch depending on the size and feel of the book and paper).
I'm liking the Vater Sweet Ride in sugar maple for jazz sticks right now (so light and whippy and subtle!).
I use Etymonic ER20 earplugs for not-too-loud stuff.
Communication
We have a Whisperroom that is good for recording, and also regularly gets used for people's Skype meetings, phone calls, and the occasional nap.
I spend a lot of time in WordPress writing tech posts.
Productivity
Browser
I spend way too much time in Chrome, writing emails.
For webVR development I mostly use Firefox Nightly, sometimes Chromium if I need the better debugger.
Coding & Development
We have this fully-loaded 17" Alienware "laptop" named Beast that mostly gets used for Unity and 3D modeling stuff these days.
Design
Media
For sound production, I love Audacity.
VLC media player for playing sound and flat video.