Who are you, and what do you do? What do you like to do outside of work?

I’m Arturo. I do app development for a living. Mostly frontend these days, but I also dabble in backend and data analysis. At my day job, I focus on developing the Roku and Android TV and Mobile apps for a company called Haystack News.

Outside of work, I like to get obsessed with different art forms. I’ve spent the last three years reading Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive, although the last book was not what I was expecting, so I’m dialing back from his works to read some classics. I just finished 1984 and I’m about to start Perfume. I’ve also started writing my own stories, but consistency is an issue for me.

I love watching movies and shows that allow me to connect with parts of the human experience that I wouldn’t otherwise experience in real life. I also love rewatching them to understand the storytelling tools the authors use to foreshadow and enhance the impact of an ending. Recent favorites of mine have been The Substance and Pantheon (TV show).

I also like coding for fun and learning tools that I wouldn’t be able to use at work. My latest side project has been writing an app that scans your Spotify library and tells you which songs you can find on Bandcamp, an alternative music platform that pays its artists way better. By working on this project, I’ve finally been able to properly get into tools that have interested me for a long time, like Go, HTMX, templ, and server-sent events. At its core, this is a simple web scraper, but the challenge has been making it faster (scanning in parallel) and as accurate as possible.

The motivation for that project was that I’ve recently decided to depend less on streaming services in general and platforms with terrible privacy policies in particular. So I’m interested in owning my music, my e-books, hosting a home server for my shared files and photos, having a local media server to watch movies, etc.

Last but definitely not least, I’m a fan of wearing Crocs everywhere. I wear them at home, at the office, on walks, on dates, at the beach, at the store… Wearing Crocs all the time is the most “me” thing I’ve done in recent years, and for that I’m proud.

What hardware do you use?

I’m not a hard-core video game fan, an audiophile, or a 4K-only purist. Most of my time in front of the computer involves editing text files and running programs, so my setup focuses on that and isn’t very fancy. I have a single 1080p ASUS monitor that sits on top of a thick, abandoned copy of Les Misérables (to bring it to eye level) and is connected to a computer that I bought from a friend, which runs on an Intel i9 CPU and a GTX 1080 graphics card.

I’m a Logitech fan, so I have the classic G432 headset and G502 HERO mouse. I also have a Vizio TV sitting next to my monitor for when I need to debug the TV apps I work on, though it’s mostly off.

I used to own a mechanical Logitech keyboard, but I gave it to my dad after I purchased the ErgoDox EZ from ZSA. I made the switch because after years of working and playing computer games, my wrists and fingers started feeling a lot of strain. I have a friend with carpal tunnel syndrome who scared me into taking my wrist health very seriously. So, as soon as I started feeling pain, I looked into purchasing a split keyboard. I chose ZSA because I also think wired-yes devices are superior, both for their commitment to right-to-repair and because I think their designs are sick.

Having never owned a split keyboard before, the ErgoDox seemed like the safe choice for me. I got it with the tiny standing arms and wrist rests. Thanks to the online tool, I was able to get used to it and regain my regular typing speed within a couple of weeks. I haven’t felt any pain in my fingers or arms ever since, even when typing for long periods of time.

And what software?

For development, I have to use VSCode for Roku projects and Android Studio for… well, Android. These two are very slow, but I depend on them because of their specific platform tooling. When I work on personal projects, I use the Zed editor, which I like way more, and Vim for quick file edits.

My setup runs on Pop!_OS, which I switched to from Ubuntu after I messed up my setup by trying to install the drivers from my Nvidia graphics card. My computer wouldn’t turn on after that, and since it was the middle of the week I decided to just wipe everything and get back to work ASAP instead of getting to the bottom of the problem.

For day-to-day browsing, I use Firefox and the Startpage search engine, both focused on privacy, although I’m thinking of migrating to Librewolf after Mozilla’s latest statements. I use Proton Mail for email and calendar, VLC for media, and Obsidian for note-taking and story writing. I keep everything synced across devices using Syncthing, and I use Bitwarden as my password manager.

What’s your keyboard setup like? Do you use a custom layout or custom keycaps?

My setup is pretty straightforward. Since I wanted to get used to the keyboard as soon as possible, I remapped the sides of the keyboard to have the usual Left Ctrl, Shift, and Alt on the left side, and backslash, quotes, and equal on the right side. I also mapped the vertical keys in the middle (Meh and Super) to the shortcuts used for opening terminals on my home desktop and my work laptop, respectively.

Pretty vanilla, but gets the job done :)

What would be your dream setup?

I think the next step for me will be to get a standing desk. My company got us some for the office, and I really miss it when I’m working from home. I’d also like to upgrade my monitor, because I constantly get a screen-tearing effect when watching videos or playing games. Finally, I’m a fan of using a computer headset, but it becomes unbearable as the temperature rises in summer. I’d like to have a pair of desktop speakers and a standing microphone, which would easily fit in the middle of my split keyboard!