Thomas Pain

Uses

The things I use on a daily (or at least regular) basis

Last updated May 2022.

My desk

Hardware

Compute and video

My laptop is a Lenovo ThinkPad E14. It has an Intel i7-10510U, AMD Radeon RX640, 16GB of RAM and ~1.5TB of storage.

This drives a Iiyama ProLite B2480HS 24" monitor, atop which is a Lego man and a really old Logitech C920 webcam.

Peripherals

My peripherals are, very intentionally, either wireless or small or a combination of both. I move things around a lot to work on paper at this desk, so this just makes them easier to move.

The keyboard is a Let's Split mechanical keyboard that I bought as a kit and assembled myself. It's got Momoka Frog keyswitches, and has some indicator LEDs modded into it by yours truly. I wasn't sure I'd like it when I bought it, but turns out I do quite like it. It's good.

Between the two halves of the keyboard is a custom macropad that I built during the UK's second COVID lockdown in January 2021.

My mouse is a Logitech G305 Lightspeed wireless mouse. I'm of the opinion that Logitech makes some of the best wireless peripherals for their price.

Audio

My audio setup is probably what I derive most value from in my entire setup. Incidentally, it's also probably the most expensive category, if you ignore the computer itself.

I use a Schiit Modi 3 USB DAC instead of the analogue output on my laptop. The difference this makes in sound quality alone is frankly stunning, even on low end speakers.

The output of the DAC is fed into a Behringer Xenyx 502 mixer, which plays double duty as a headphone amp. Though the potentiometers on this thing are dying and they introduce all kinds of distortion into the audio.

Connected to the mixer are a crap set of Logitech desktop speakers and a pair of AudioTechnica ATH-R70x open-back headphones. On the side of those headphones I have an Antlion Audio ModMic. The specific model of ModMic I have has been discontinued, but it's held up well.

Finally, under the desk, there's a Chromecast Audio wired into the mixer that I use to stream music to my speakers when I'm not sat at my desk.

Software 🐧

Neofetch output

I use the i3 window manager on Linux Mint 20.3, which is a combination that gets a lot of weird reactions. I do not, in fact, use Arch, by the way.

Within i3, I use a custom status bar called cdmbar and the Suckless project's st terminal.

My favourite colour scheme is Gruvbox, and my IDE of choice is either Visual Studio Code or anything my JetBrains Education license lets me use.

For my shell, I use Bash alongside Oh My Posh with the robbyrussel theme.

Here's a list of some of the other bits and pieces I use on a regular basis, too:

Stationery

I like pens and paper and stuff arguably a little too much.

My main pen is a Pilot Metropolitan fountain pen that I use Waterman Intense Black ink with. That said, I also use two Waterman Allure fountain pens, one with L'Artisan Pastellier Vert Lumière ink and the other with Diamine Pumpkin ink.

I also use a Rotring 600 0.5mm mechanical pencil and Pental Ain Stein HB leads. To undo my mistakes, I use Faber Castell 18 71 20 dust free erasers. They erase stuff plenty well.

All my pens and pencils are kept in a Lihit Lab A7687 ACTACT Compact Pencil Case. Lihit Lab make excellent pencil cases, I never want to buy one from another brand ever again.

For a bullet journal, I use a Moleskine Art Collection Bullet Notebook. This has different paper to normal Moleskine books, so it's good with fountain pens, but I still find that the best pen to use is something like a Uni-Ball.

If I need A4 lined paper (which I quite often do), I turn to a very specific type of Silvine A4 Narrow Lined Refill Pad (model A4RPNM, specifically). It's a good weight, it's narrow lined, it deals nicely with fountain pens, I'm happy.