What’s on your desk, Nathan Edwards? -Gudstory

Nathan Edwards has been the verge As Senior Reviews Editor for about a year and a half, editing reviews and managing the review team. He also works on our buying guide program. He adds, “Apart from a few short freelancing stints, I spent most of my career here before max pc (RIP), a print magazine, and then wire cutter, where I worked for seven years. So it’s been reviews, buying guides and writing about consumer technology the whole time.”

He took some time to tell us about his work.

It’s a comfortable looking place. Where is it in your house?

Thank you! This is a study room at the front of the house. It gets some good natural light, partially shaded by some oak trees outside. They are currently paving the garden with acorns. Really going crazy this year.

I see two desks. Are both yours? They look like they are used for different purposes.

They both are mine. My wife also works from home most of the day, but she’s on calls all day, and I prefer a mechanical keyboard and not listening to conference calls, so we like to work in different places. The big, nice desk is my work desk, and the other one is for everything else. Aspirationally, it’s meant to be tampered with. Right now, I am fixing my sister-in-law’s laptop on it; Usually, it’s just covered in piles of papers. My PC used to be on that desk, and if I ever start playing PC games again, I’ll probably move it back.

Tell us about your desks and why you chose them.

The big one is an Xdesk (formerly known as NextDesk) Terra. this was it wire cutter Standing desk pick when I bought it over a decade ago. It has been kept well. There is a white hand-crafted Ikea bench that we bought when we lived in the Netherlands because we left our desks in the US and needed a desk. It is fine. Neither of them have any drawers, so I have a rolling cart next to one and an Ikea Alex next to the other.

The green one is Steelcase Leap. this was also wire cutter Pick the one when I got it a decade ago. This is a great chair. No regrets of any kind. The other chair is some OfficeMax thing my wife bought sometime in the last two decades. It is a chair.

There’s also an Ikea Frosta stool with an eye-catching orange seat. He just makes me happy.

Here comes the big deal: tell us about the technology you’re using. There’s a lot here!

At my work desk, I have my work-released 2020 M1 MacBook Air on a Rain Design stand and my self-built Windows 11 PC in a Sliger SM550 mini-ITX case. I love small form factor computers, but I made a strategic error with this one. When I built this in 2019, I reused my graphics card, an Nvidia GTX 1070. I assumed that midrange graphics cards would continue to get smaller and more power-efficient. Reader, they didn’t do it! To upgrade my GPU, I will need to get a more powerful power supply and a larger case. Luckily, I don’t need To Upgrade.

The PC has a ninth-generation i5 and 32GB of RAM; It’s fast enough for what I actually do with it, and the 1070 still works fine with the little bit of PC gaming I can indulge in.

Both computers connect to a 32-inch BenQ 4K monitor with a built-in KVM switch and no extremely Ample USB ports. It has three USB-A ports on the back, and I plugged a three-port USB hub into one of them. This gives me enough ports to avoid using a Thunderbolt dock, but it’s close enough. Here’s what the monitor plugs into:

• There are lots of Insta360 link webcams the verge Employees use.
• A set of B&W MM-1 speakers I have owned since max pc Day.
• Some USB-A-to-C cables for keyboards and peripherals.
• Stream Deck Mini, which I purchased from Dan Seifert and use mostly to control Elgato’s lights.

A light you can only control via 2.4GHz Wi-Fi? Whose idea was that? The Elgato light mostly keeps my ZZ plants happy. Most of the other lights in the office are Hue bulbs, which I control from a RunlessWire switch on the wall.

The headphones are Sony’s WH-1000XM4.

The mouse is the first generation Logitech MX Master. I have to open it to fix the scroll wheel, but it just hangs there. It’s on a mousepad one of my kids made at preschool.

On the other desk is an eight-year-old Dell UltraSharp monitor, a blue Yeti mic, and a 10-year-old Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro laptop that I’m going to install Linux on. i bought a lot wire cutter Chooses, comes out. It also has a ploopy trackball, which I like but it doesn’t have the MX Master’s scroll wheel. My iFixit toolkit is in there – another thing I’ve had for a long time because it’s fit for purpose.

I have a ton of field notes notebooks hanging around.

I assume you’re a keyboard aficionado – at least, I see a lot of keyboards, including a very cool old typewriter!

I had a mechanical keyboard for a long time and was happy with it. Then, in 2016, I bought a little one with different switches and some pretty keycaps along with it, and I fell down the rabbit hole. I have three or four that I use regularly and several more that I should probably sell.

In the pictures is the Leopold FC660C with the keyboard topper switch on my desk. Over the past six years, I’ve replaced the controller board with one with USB-C and VIA compatibility, added silencing rings, re-smoothed the stabilizers, replaced the keycaps, and put some MX sliders on it. Have given. And because someone will ask: domes are stock.

The number pad is a murfpad I built with a nice nano so it has bluetooth. I also added Milmax sockets to the PCB so I can swap out switches. The keycaps are mostly SA Dasher.

Besides the Leopold, the one I use most is the Grid 650 with the Array module. Right now, it has Cal Deep Sea Islet Silent Linear switches – which are thoroughly Close up of the excellent switches in the HHKB Studio – and CRP tulip keycaps.

The brown one near the typewriter is the modified and cut-down keyboard of my brother’s 1993 IBM Model M. It has a Yacobo controller designed by him.

The typewriter is a 1950s Azeri-layout Hermes 3000 that my wife inherited from her grandparents. It needs a new ribbon and a good cleaning, but it is functional.

The art on the table with the typewriter is also great.

Thank you! The painting is by my sister Naomi, and the postcard is by my friend Steve Schaberg. He will send you a screenprinted postcard every month for five rupees.

There are a large number of other charms in your office. Is there anyone else you would like to call out? (For example, timer?)

The timer is for pomodoros when I remember to do them. I have a Flipper Zero and a BP because my self-perception is of a person who has more time and computer engineering knowledge than I actually have. The exact same Raspberry Pi is hidden somewhere. And an “Introduction to Electronics” kit in a drawer.

I have a Home Assistant Green here that I need to set up. I keep running into things I want my smart home to be able to do, and Home Assistant always seems to be the way to do it. Or just go back to a silly house, which is just as charming.

You know you’re the reason I spent 20 minutes at the company looking for author John Joseph Matthews, right?

that was one Attractive And complicated dude, and he was my great grandfather. I grew up hearing stories about him from my mother and her sisters, although I didn’t read many of his books until relatively recently. Still working on the bigger one. I also have some language and cultural resources on that shelf; I’m taking a (very) beginning Osage language class and am learning a lot. There is also a Strandbeest on that shelf, which is unrelated.

My enemy, the HP OfficeJet printer, is hiding around the corner. Plus, I moved a lot of boxes and stacks of papers into the hallway to take these photos, and the cabinets and drawers are completely filled with cables and dongles and old hard drives and miscellaneous items. Please don’t imagine that my office usually looks this neat. However now this Is Clean, I’m trying to keep it that way.

Photography by Nathan Edwards/The Verge