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

Hi.

My name is Tobias Lidman-Strauss and I’m not cut out to be interviewed about this at all. Because I’m not a pro. I’m an enthusiast when it comes to all the things split-keyboard wizards ordinarily know. So, why am I invited to this particular party? I mean, I even predominantly work with a mouse.

See, I am an architect. And we don’t type, we draw. Luckily, since I’m one of the new school of architects that can’t even draw properly with a pen (even if I do own an old Wacom and do like to purchase stationery), at least I work with a mouse. And to tell you the truth, I can’t even touch type. I mean, I’d rather die than watch my keyboard when writing, but I have a peculiar style where my left index finger takes care of many more letters than it should. Etc. But I type around 80 words per minute. And I do love to type.

So. I’m an architect. I mostly design apartment buildings. I am from Sweden, and this is where I ply my trade. Since I mostly click things at work (except for writing all those emails), the keyboard is reduced to firing of shortcuts for functions (though not to be sniffed at, Autodesk Revit shortcuts are hardly Vim motions!). But that brings me to who I am and why I wound up on a ZSA blog. I am a person who doesn’t value productivity (Tell that to my boss!). But I do value, well, is frictionlessness a word? I subscribe to the idea that to grow into a tool and merge with it is one of the most amazing feelings you can have. It not only is the gift that keeps on giving, with small dopamine hits of satisfaction every time something works exactly the way you want it to, but even if that feeling was to stop— You’d still have a tool that you are very produc… oh.

But for me it’s important to clarify that I never ever wanted to become more productive. I’m a socialist from Sweden, after all! I just want my computer to do exactly what I want, or preferably, think. And to this day, I’ve not found a better way to do that than with a keyboard. See, ZSA, you should never have doubted me. I got there in the end.

Outside of work I do have an amazing daughter whom I have yet to introduce to computers and keyboards, which means she is yet another kid that will grow up understanding touchscreens before they understand the keyboard. A new world. I also have a wife who is wiser, kinder, more empathetic, more intelligent, and sexier than me. She is however, less adept than me at typing. So, that’s something at least.

Hobbies? Oh, boy. Here we go: I go on deep dives regularly. Not into the sea, mind you. Into new areas I previously knew nothing about. And in a sad turn for my paycheck, mostly stuff that doesn’t improve my—say it with me—productivity at work. And often ends up with me spending money. I’ve always been interested in programming (but not to help me design buildings, sadly), I’ve always read books (but not about architecture, sadly), I do make music… sound… well, noise on synthesizers (mostly hardware, but also via programming) at times. I recently learned to fly a kite. Also to repair pants with sashiko. Drill somewhat straight. Use a gas stove in the woods. I love to visit a good spa.

For being hugely into experimental music, I’m also quite adept at singing quite a lot of famous songs from musicals, if singing could be described as “remembering half the lyrics and reciting them off-key.” I like organizing things. I love boxes. Shelving. Fits well with the interests in drilling. I’m a sucker for all kinds of folders (digital or analog). Cooking was more fun before kids. Sake is more fun after (the) kids (go to bed). Tabletop RPGs and board games are great hobbies. I love a good waxed jacket, but also a suit. And old Carhartt replicas. Ties deserve to be around your neck, and not around your head (I say without pretty much ever wearing one).

History is fun. What food did they cook during the Renaissance? When did the first elevator make tall buildings a thing? Who is Robert Moses? (Do read The Power Broker by Robert Caro! It’s almost about architecture). When I was young, I thought I’d learn how to fly single-seater airplanes. I didn’t. I own several cameras, and part of me thinks I am as good as my grandfather, who used to be a photojournalist. Most parts know I’m not.

I like to run! As far and as slowly as possible. I must admit I do have a fondness for the occult (As Alan Moore always says, there is a reason why a magical Spell is spelled spell. And the spells are found in a Grimoire, i.e. grammar). And we are back to writing. The power of writing, and how it can change the world. I fucking love to write. As far and as quickly as possible.

See, I told you I am an enthusiast, not a pro. You just can’t be good at all this. At least I can’t.

What hardware do you use?

I use a computer. I don’t mean to sound snotty, and I’m particular about many things, but not computers. I’m too fascinated by them to care too much which one. I want them all.

And I’m on the long road of making computers feel less like objects and more like an extension of me. That has never meant using 3D glasses, or having a huge screen or the like. “Extension of me” means precision, not immersiveness. And even though I do enjoy the physical parts of computing (chunky bits of plastic and metal, the clacking of a keyboard, HARDWARE), I think after so many years pretending I’ll learn electronics and soldering any day, I have just realized I don’t care too much about the hardware as long as it’s amazing to touch and just works.

So yeah, I use a Macbook Pro. Never heard the fans spin, it doesn’t get hot, and I love the battery as much as any man can love a battery. I will probably move to a Framework running Linux at some point, as soon as they can provide me with an ARM variant of their right-to-repair laptops.

Other than that, I quite often use an external USB-C screen. An amazing product: Whip it out, connect one cable, you have another screen. Fold it again, put it on top of some books in the bookcase, and your tiny desk is no longer a mess of cords, but rather a place to do scrapbooking with your daughter. A small cheap panel such as the one I’ve got does not have the best color rendition, and the refresh rate is not on par with modern gaming screens. But it doubles the screen size of my laptop and requires just a single cable and no extra power brick. I do have a black cordless mouse from some gaming peripheral company (Steelseries?), which was their only product without tons of branding and blinking lights. It’s great, but their firmware doesn’t work on the Mac anyways, so I can’t set up macros for the keys.

I do have a Voyager Keyboard. The reason that I’m here. Other than that, I use a modular synthesizer (again, nice hardware that is all about workflow, and not at all about being productive or getting things done—for those who know, modular synths are the perfect analogy for my whole philosophy), and other strange synths like the Ciat-Lonbarde Cocoquantus. And pens. Pens are awesome.

And what software?

All of it. Many diverse interests have led to diverse software use. Proprietary and FOSS. Windows, Mac, Linux. I’m slowly circling back to more Linux, more FOSS, more configurable systems. And to be frank—mostly I want a system that changes when I want it to change, and not before and not without asking.

Right now my MacBook Pro runs AeroSpace as a tiling window manager, Karabiner-Elements to remap my built-in keyboard with home row mods and a few other things, JankyBorders to mark which window is active, and Homerow.app to enable me to use my keyboard for the odd mouse click when I’m lying on a sofa with my computer in an unergonomic position on my stomach.

I’m on Brave when it comes to browsers, because it’s good at randomizing fingerprints, which just feels like something everyone should do. I’m not paranoid, I know I’m not important, I just want to own my own data. I can freely share much about me (like in this interview), but it should be my choice.

At work I use a Windows computer because it’s needed for Revit, which I design in. Of course I can’t escape Excel (no one can, and people who say they never use it lie). This is not a comprehensive list, but now we come to the most important part of my setup.

“So, Tobias,” you ask, “what do you write this in?”

Emacs. Yes. Emacs. Why? Because it is the closest I’ve come to feeling connected to my hardware. Because you never need to think about how to connect files, programs, and activities (that is not true; you think about it a lot, because suddenly you can do it). If you keep everything in plain text files, anything can operate on them. Writing notes during work, journaling, emails, personal notes, sprinkling in to-dos in the middle of the text, being able to scrape them out, and syncing them to the phone as an actionable item is a completely new feeling. Well. 1970s new. Since everything is a text buffer, and everything is coded using Elisp, it removes barriers and everything is connected. And you can always try new stuff, because pretty much everything is compatible with plain text.

The downside is, as has been joked about for fifty years now, that you end up losing copious amounts of time because you want to configure it to be just right. But remember, I’ve already said I’m not interested in productivity, so that doesn’t bother me. Having 90% of my interaction with the computer in Emacs or the browser just makes me finally feel connected to the hardware. In Emacs, I use evil mode, which means Vim keybindings. They are better, and you will find them more commonly in other software, so again it makes more parts of the whole behave in the same way.

Try it!

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

I quickly learned when I started using the Voyager that home row mods are essential. Which made my life in my built-in keyboard miserable. So I’m now using Karabiner to get them right on my built-in keyboard as well. Took a while to get them to chord well and get the timings right. I’d almost say that is the best thing my Voyager has given me—a kick in the butt to start modifying my built-in keyboard as well.

It’s always a bit more of a hassle to get a non-English keyboard layout to work well than an English one, since many default shortcuts and macros are made for an English layout. That means that many standard configs will conflict with a Swedish layout. You also need to deal with å, ä and ö on a regular basis, and those added keys make me happy that the Voyager isn’t too minimalistic.

I use blank keycaps because I don’t like keycaps to give me false information, and they would because that is just what happens when you customize your keyboard. At least that is the official story. It’s probably because when I was 13, I knew a guy who spray-painted his keyboard black and understood FreeBSD. And I wanted to be him. I started with clicky white switches, because of the sound. I have now switched to a mix of Kailh Twilight (silent linear 35 g) around the stronger fingers and Kailh Nocturnal (silent linear 20 g) out by the pinkies. Also because of the sound.

I really have not much to add. I’m constantly tinkering. Everyone just needs to find their own way.

What would be your dream setup?

My dream setup would be to have a very quiet repairable laptop running Linux with a perfectly set-up tiling window manager, with a 13-inch screen and great battery life for daily use. That computer would be me.

I do already use an E ink device for books, but I’d like a larger one with a color screen to take notes during meetings. It would also have to be hackable so I could sync my entire life to it in plain text files and run Emacs on it, at least over SSH.

I would also love to have a desktop computer and a proper workspace at home. Right now, I’ve just decided it takes up too much space. Two large screens (well enough, as a window manager makes any more a tad superfluous for most uses), and a more ergonomic mouse. I used to be a gamer back in the day, so I just can’t find a way to accept an ergonomic mouse, but at some point I will probably just have to when muscle problems start creeping in.

The desk should be huge, I would love to be able to work on other more analogue projects next to the computer. Mostly I want to have a proper office/hobby room, where I can leave stuff ready to go, and get started quickly on a project when I get spare time—the dream of many a parent.

So. I actually mostly need an additional room. I guess I should call an architect…