Who are you, and what do you do?
I'm Miriam Suzanne, and I make (mostly collaborative) things. I like working with creative teams. Around these (online) parts, I'm mostly making things with HTML and CSS. 20 years ago my theater needed a website, so I learned to make websites. Then another for my band, and it snowballed to become OddBird – a small web agency that's been doing some pretty big client and open-source projects.
That's a fun team to build with, but I still have my arts career running in parallel – a theater company called Grapefruit Lab, a band called Teacup Gorilla, a novel called Riding SideSaddle, and a new album coming soon. I've been fortunate to build a life around my curiosity for different media, tinkering, and story telling.
What hardware do you use?
I just got a Reverend Wattplower short-scale bass, which I'm enjoying. I play that through a GK amp most of the time.
All my writing and coding happens on a 16" MacBook Pro. At home, I run that through a CalDigit TS3 Plus dock into two external monitors (I couldn't tell you what brands, whatever was reasonably priced and recommended). To help my old wrists, I got a ZSA Moonlander keyboard and switch between a Logitech MX Master 3 and MX Vertical mouse. I stand at my desk. Anything that's the right height and has enough space – I have no loyalty to the surface.
When I'm recording videos or running workshops, I sometimes add an Elgato Prompter, Logitech Brio webcam (meh), Audio-Technica AT4040 condenser microphone through a Scarlett Solo interface, and a couple FotodioX FlapJack soft LED lights. Why are the power cables so short on these lights? On the road, I use the Anker 727 Charging Station, a Roost laptop stand, and the Logitech Spotlight for presenting. Basically everything there comes from other people's recommendations. I don't know how they compare to alternatives.
All told, it's more than I need. But each tool came at a particular time, for a specific job, and the pile has slowly built up over the years.
And what software?
Mostly VS Code and iTerm2 for coding. I've started using Vivaldi as my primary browser, because I like to customize everything – and I didn't like where Arc was headed. But I spend a lot of time in the Mozilla dev tools. How are they still the only ones with good flexbox and webfont inspectors? I've been using the Alfred launcher for years. I know there are more popular options now, but I haven't seen any reason to switch. 1Password, Bartender, probably a few other utilities.
I use Notion Calendar (née Cron) but I'm skeptical. I want something with a year view. I recently switched to Obsidian for organizing my personal life, and that's working well. We use Slack at OddBird, and Coda for Grapefruit Lab. Files are all on Dropbox. When I do graphic design, I'm most familiar with the Adobe suite – but I'm learning my way around Figma. This paragraph gives me anxiety. Obsidian is the only tool I'm not renting. The rest can be ripped away from me, or destroyed by VCs, and I have to start from scratch. I hate modern software.
I run a Mastodon server, using Masto.host. At OddBird, the tool stack depends on the project. But most of my personal sites are built with Eleventy, because it's flexible and doesn't generate any output that I didn't ask for. I use Sass for the same reasons. I don't like when my build tools generate code that I don't understand. I'm on my third or fourth iteration of self-built web-based presentation software – now using web components! HTML and CSS do what I need in a way that PowerPoint & Keynote will never understand. The web is pretty cool.
I don't like any of the writing apps I've tried (most of them). Word processors are too much, Scrivener is even more, and code editors are too little. Everything specialized is too nerdy when I'm collaborating on a script. iA Writer is pretty, but I can't teach every new collaborator how to use Markdown. When it comes to collaboration, the choice is between real-time editing (awful) or sending files back and forth (worse). There should be better options.
To create a light plot, I recently discovered Drafty. That worked pretty well for me. I've been doing a lot of CAD in Fusion 360 – designing a mechanical clock from scratch. That's also required LightBurn and PrusaSlicer. I joined the local maker space for access to tools.
What would be your dream setup?
- A real good collaborative text editor for non-technical/creative writing.
- A full maker space within walking distance (I can walk to the pottery studio, so that's a good start)
- Let's go all in: good public transit, and a walkable city.
- Can I walk to the theater too?
- A universal basic income, so we're not all wasting our labor on one capitalist hype cycle after another.
That ought to cover it. I don't need more hardware.