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Uses

Inspired by uses.tech — a living document of the tools I reach for every day. Opinions included at no extra charge. For the full config rabbit hole, the dotfiles are public.

OS & Desktop

  • Arch Linux — rolling release, minimal base, you build what you need. I like knowing what's on my machine.
  • Niri — scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor. Windows arrange in an infinite horizontal strip — no manual tiling, no layout management. You just scroll. Still young but the workflow clicks in a way i3/Sway never did.
  • Wayland — the display protocol underneath. Cleaner than X, fewer moving parts.
  • Fuzzel — Wayland-native application launcher. Fast and minimal.
  • Waybar — status bar. Customisable without being overwhelming.

Editor & Terminal

  • VS Code — tried to leave, kept coming back. It's the daily driver for anything substantial.
  • Neovim — with LazyVim. Quick terminal edits, git commits, the occasional "I should use this more" session. I learned the basics decades ago and have progressed... a little from there.
  • Foot — terminal emulator on Arch. Simple, fast, tiny footprint. (Yes, the pun was intentional.) On macOS I use WezTerm — GPU-rendered, Lua-configured, multiplexer built in.
  • Zsh — started with Oh My Zsh years ago, moved to Prezto, now running a fully custom config with antidote-lite for plugin management. The plugins that matter: fzf-tab (turns tab completion into fuzzy search — genuinely transformative), zsh-autosuggestions, and fast-syntax-highlighting. Leaner than the frameworks, does exactly what I need.
  • Starship — cross-shell prompt. Fast, informative, doesn't get in the way.
  • JetBrains Mono — coding font. Clean, good ligatures, Nerd Font patched.
  • Tokyo Night — the theme. Everywhere. VS Code, foot, lazygit, bat, delta, btop. One palette across the entire stack.

CLI Tools

  • eza — modern ls replacement. Git integration, icons, sensible defaults.
  • bat — cat with syntax highlighting. Aliased so I forget plain cat exists.
  • delta — git pager. Side-by-side diffs with Tokyo Night theme.
  • fzf — fuzzy finder for everything. Combined with fzf-tab for shell completions.
  • zoxide — smarter cd. Learns your directory habits. Aliased to cd so it's invisible.
  • yazi — terminal file manager. Fast, keyboard-driven, good previews.
  • lazygit — terminal UI for Git. Great for interactive rebases and complex staging.
  • btop — system monitor. Looks good, works well.

Dev Tools

  • Node.js — runtime for everything web. Currently on v24 LTS.
  • pnpm — fast, strict, disk-efficient package manager. Hard to go back to npm.
  • mise — tool version manager. Manages Node, Python, and other runtimes.
  • Git — with GPG-signed commits, Lefthook for pre-commit hooks (Prettier, ESLint, typecheck on staged files), and an unreasonable number of aliases.
  • Vitest — test runner. Fast, ESM-native, pairs well with React Testing Library.
  • Docker — dev environments and deployment.
  • Terraform — infrastructure as code. Manages the VPS, DNS, and everything in between.
  • GitHub CLI — with gh-dash for a better dashboard.
  • GNU Stow — symlink farm manager for dotfiles. Simple, composable, no magic.
  • direnv — per-directory environment variables. Pairs with mise for project-specific toolchains.

Apps

  • Firefox — the last independent browser engine. Supporting it feels important.
  • Obsidian — notes, thinking, second brain. Plain Markdown, local-first, git-synced.
  • Spotify — for now. Increasingly tempted to go back to a self-hosted music collection.
  • Slack — at work, because there's no escaping it.
  • Discord — lurking in a few communities.
  • mpv — video player. No bloat, just playback.

Hardware

  • Laptop — ASUS Zenbook S 16 (UM5606WA) — AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, 16" 2.8K OLED 120Hz. Daily driver for personal projects.
  • Work — MacBook Pro. Does what it needs to.
  • Monitors — Two LG displays from a previous life as a desktop gaming setup. Currently docking the MacBook; the Zenbook runs solo for now — Niri works best on a single display. LG 32GK650F-B (31.5" 144Hz QHD FreeSync VA) and LG 27UL850 (27" 4K IPS HDR USB-C).
  • Keyboard — Razer DeathStalker V2 Pro TKL — daily driver. But I've gone deeper: two custom Tofu60 builds. The black one is a Ship of Theseus — I built it while waiting on the keycaps for the second (Group Buy, well over a year of waiting). It started with Zealios v2 67g switches and random keycaps from whatever was in stock; now runs Gateron Ink V2 Black switches with NP PBT Japanese caps on a brass plate. The purple one is the finished vision: Dark Purple Tofu60, brass plate, C³ × TKC Kiwi switches, GMK Mecha-01 keycaps. Both on KBDfans DZ60RGB ANSI v2 hot-swap PCBs. I've done a lot of mods to each — the black one has the bandaid mod. I regret not buying a different plate for one of them.
  • Mouse — Razer DeathAdder V3 Pro — current daily driver. Previously a Razer Viper V2 that I sacrificed to a ZeroMouse shell transplant — didn't like the feel, no side buttons, now sitting in a drawer. Lesson learned. Also own a WLMouse Beast X that's waiting for the next FPS phase.
  • Audio (desk) — FiiO K11 DAC/amp → Sennheiser HD 650. The HD 650s have outlived everything else on this desk. The K11 replaced an Atom Element that died.
  • Audio (portable) — Qudelix 5K Bluetooth DAC → Simgot SuperMix 4. Tried the Truthear Hexa first but they were thin on bass.

Gaming

  • PS5 — switched from PC gaming after a power surge fried the motherboard on my desktop. Given the current GPU and RAM market (thanks, LLMs), I can't see myself rebuilding any time soon.
  • Gran Turismo 7 — sim racing. Tuning, racecraft, engine swaps. Not casual about it. Controller for now, dreams of a proper sim rig someday.
  • Red Dead Redemption 2 — currently replaying. Still holds up.
  • Blue Prince — the room-generation puzzle game that directly inspired some ideas on this website.
  • Dave the Diver — will always have a place in my heart.
  • Final Fantasy VII Remake + Rebirth — a huge part of growing up. Recently played through both remakes with my partner — revisiting the lore in a new context while she experienced it fresh.
  • Metal Gear Solid — childhood classic that'll stay with me. The scanlines on this site's colophon owe something to those codec radio comms.

This Site

Built with Next.js, React, Tailwind, and Velite. The full stack and tooling breakdown lives on the colophon.