Uses This

Who are you, and what do you do?

I'm Brook Shelley, and I am a Senior Partner Engineer at Slack. I work with our awesome Platform team to help companies build apps that integrate with Slack. My roommate is a cat named Snorri Sturluson, and he is cute. I also write on my own site, and cook a lot. Sometimes I powerlift at Max's. I live near an IKEA, which I try not to go to every week.

What hardware do you use?

At work I have a 2018 13" MacBook Pro that I use in clamshell mode at my desk, with a large LG monitor, a Apple Magic Trackpad, and a Microsoft Sculpt keyboard that ideally keeps me from having wrist pain. Thanks ergonomics folks! My Mac is one with the Touch Bar, and honestly, it's fine. I hope one day my Mac gets Face ID though. Music goes to my ATH headphones or my AirPods, depending on if I'm at my desk. I like the switch to USB-C, and always have a YubiKey in one of my four ports, as well as a USB-C -> USB-C cable to charge my personal 2018 iPad Pro 11". I went with 256gb of storage and WiFi on my iPad, though now that I use Google Fi, I kind of wish I had the cellular model to take advantage of their free data-only sims. I've got a space grey iPhone XS 64gb that I use to listen to podcasts and music, or keep up on Twitter.

When I'm at home or on the bus, I primarily use this iPad with a keyboard attached, and use cloud services to handle things I previously hosted at home. The flexibility of a handheld touchscreen that becomes a pseudo-notebook is really great, and the iPad just feels fast. There's a few things I can't do on an iPad, but largely I've worked-around them, or offloaded those tasks.

I have an Apple TV, a Samsung Plasma (that the Wirecutter recommended years ago), and a few consoles. Most of the time I forget I have video games, and watch Swedish mysteries or dark comedies. My oldest hobby is reading, and I use a fancy schmacy Kindle for that. It's waterproof, which means I can read in the bath, or in the sauna. Also, I'm clumsy and I've dropped Kindles in the toilet before (don't @ me), so everything I own needs to be vaguely waterproof. A notable exception to this rule are my Lamy Safari fountain pen, and my Hobonichi Techo. I use my Techo to keep a log of my day, with various datapoints like how I'm feeling, what I ate, and how I slept, and a fountain pen makes me feel fancy when I'm writing. I carry my iPad and notebook to work every day in a rotation of bags. I cook in two Lodge cast iron pans because they're bombproof, and its rewarding to slowly build a patina with repeated bacon cooking. Morning coffee (Ethiopian single-origin) comes via a Hario burr grinder, and a Chemex, then lives in a Zojirushi travel mug.

And what software?

I live in Slack whether I'm at work or at home. I run a small social Slack, and am part of a few others. I do most of my writing in iA Writer, and push it to GitHub Pages/Jekyll with Working Copy on my iPad or iPhone. I code in Atom or in Glitch on my Mac or iPad, respectively. The rare email goes through Spark, and I keep up with websites via RSS on Fiery Feeds backed by Feedbin. Podcasts live in Overcast, and all of my todos live in Things, which has a spectacular dark mode. I listen to music on Apple Music, mostly because I wanted metal on my watch for the gym. I'm a big fan of Safari, and use its Reading List in lieu of a read-it-later app. If I lost 1Password I'd probably cry. I love using it for multi-factor authentication as well. I take occasional notes in Bear, or in a Field Notes memo book that was XOXO Festival swag. I know where to go during the day because my Apple Watch 4 tells me via Fantastical. If something isn't on my calendar, it's not real.

What would be your dream setup?

Honestly, I'm pretty happy hardware-wise with what I use right now. It's likely I'll upgrade my iPhone in the fall, as is my custom, but my iPad and work computer are both outstanding. Ideally I wouldn't have wrist pain ever, and could happily work on the Smart Keyboard, or something equally portable too. I do want a better calendar app, because Fantastical is kinda wonky on my iPad, and Timepage doesn't have new Apple Watch updates. Maybe one day Google Calendar will remember Apple makes a watch, but I doubt it. I'd love Atom on my iPad, and the ability to seamlessly use my iPad on a big screen, then take it to meetings. I already use all my macOS apps at work in fullscreen mode, so going all-in on iOS isn't much of a leap. I hope Apple makes AirPods with passive noise-cancelling soon, because the bus can be loud. Generally, we live in a wild future that is full of gadgets and gizmos that make life easier, but I also wish we had healthcare for everyone, living wages, and affordable housing.

Uses This is supported by ZSA, makers of the Moonlander, ErgoDox EZ and Planck EZ keyboards. They also publish an awesome newsletter.