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

I’m Himesh, and I’m an actuarial analyst / data scientist at an actuarial consulting firm based in Australia. Most of my day-to-day work involves product development, analytics, and automation design. I’ve also recently been involved in AI R&D, which has been very fun to mess around with.

Since I aim to be a fully qualified actuary, I also study while working four days a week—these exams are no joke!

Outside of work, I love playing guitar and recording music. I find it a great way to get myself away from the technical, number-heavy work I do—although I play math rock, so maybe not as far away as I would hope! Still, there’s no better feeling than jamming along with my favourite prog rock / jazz fusion tracks.

I also spend plenty of time with my dogs, Zeus and Pluto. Zeus is a 65 kg Great Dane x Mastiff, and Pluto is a Great Dane taller than myself on two legs, so it would be kind of hard to avoid them even if I tried.

What hardware do you use?

At the moment, I have a Mac M2 Ultra and a 32” 4K monitor for my at-home setup. I also have an iPad Pro, which I primarily use for study.

For my mouse and keyboard, I use the ZSA Voyager and Logitech MX Master 3S. I’m a big fan of the 3S because it has a silent click, which pairs nicely with my keyboard’s silent switches (more on that below).

When it comes to music, I use the Arturia MiniFuse as my audio interface (I run my guitar through virtual amps) and have my PRS Mark Holcomb seven-string guitar as my workhorse.

When I feel like relaxing, I also have my Animal Crossing Nintendo Switch at the ready.

I also use mounts to secure my Mac and audio interface on the underside of the desk to increase desk space. I’m a big advocate for minimising desk clutter, as I find it much easier to focus.

And what software?

My primary software for notetaking is Obsidian (with Vim motions). I’m a huge fan of how minimal it can be, plus having all my notes saved in a transparent Markdown format is a huge bonus. I’ve also become an avid user of the LaTeX Suite plugin, which has allowed me to type up math faster than I can write it.

For coding, I use Positron, a VSCode fork by the folks behind RStudio. I mostly code in Python nowadays, but I also use R for stats-heavy work. I tend to be pretty picky with my theming (Gruvbox Material anyone?) but try to keep it consistent across all my software.

I use Zen browser, along with the Vimium extension to minimise my mouse usage. I find myself switching browsers often, although I always prefer ones that allow me to hide all the UI components to keep everything as clean as possible.

For music, I use Logic with Neural DSP plugins as my virtual amps.

In general, I choose / set up my software to maximise keyboard usage. I’m the type of person to spend forever learning all the different keyboard shortcuts —but I feel like it’s paid off so far!

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

I’ve fitted my Voyager with Ambients Twilight silent linear switches. I really enjoy the feel (even more than the switches I had back in my standard mech keeb days) and would be keen to experiment with the Ambients Nocturnals (which are lighter).

I’ve actually removed the keycaps for the top ten keys and have left the stock red linears in. They aren’t actually mapped to anything, but I like to fidget with them every now and then. The remaining keys have the stock blank keycaps.

I actually spent quite a lot of time coming up with / designing my keyboard layout —well before I actually bought the Voyager. Initially, I tried doing a complex layout that had no chording, but required you to remember which layer you were on (Ben Vallack had a video on something similar to this), but I found the cognitive overhead too much. Plus when I first brought the keyboard into the office, my workmates laughed at me because I failed to enter my password three times in a row…

In the end, I decided on a layout that has some light chording, although it is primarily designed so that opposite hands are used simultaneously (inspired by the Miryoku layout). I also use home-row mods which definitely took a while to get used to, but using modifiers like this has been significantly more comfortable—which is especially important since I constantly use shortcuts. In layers, I also keep the modifiers in the home row on the same hand that the layer key is pressed. I have these set up as a one-shot layer and sticky modifiers to reduce chording. My symbols layer was designed with coding in mind, and my navigation layer has been a huge time-saver when doing things in Excel / typing emails.

What would be your dream setup?

Honestly, I don’t think my dream setup is too far off from what I currently have. While there’s a couple of minor adjustments I would make (such as a better-quality monitor arm), I’m very happy with what I have. Of course getting my cable management sorted out would be lovely, but I always find a way to procrastinate.

P.S. If ZSA decides to release a 36-key low-profile keyboard, I would be keen to give it a shot!