[HN Gopher] Hacker Stations - Tech workspace setups to get inspi...
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Hacker Stations - Tech workspace setups to get inspiration from
I really like the "workspace porn" and been frequenting various
blogs and communities with workspace setups. It's inspiring and
interesting to see how other people organize their workspaces and
achieve focus and comfort. And while it's also interesting to see
random setups from people with different backgrounds, I especially
like to see setups from developers and tech professionals like
myself. That's why I decided to start the blog dedicated solely to
such setups. I hope some HN visitors will appreciate it, too.
Author : poushkar
Score : 59 points
Date : 2022-09-02 18:14 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (hackerstations.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (hackerstations.com)
| MDWolinski wrote:
| I don't know...someone needs to do Real Tech Workstations of
| Orange County or something because all of these setups seem very
| clean and perfect. My desk is a mess which I'll clean up when I
| have a moment or something like that.
| noir_lord wrote:
| Mine is clean and perfect at the start of the day, then it gets
| destroyed over a day or two then I clean up and and clean it
| and start over.
|
| It's a good way to work tbh, resetting the environment is an
| effective way of getting into a productive headspace easily.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| I know what you mean but these setups are complete messes
| compared to the ones at https://www.workspaces.xyz/ that
| someone else mentioned below (typical example:
| https://www.workspaces.xyz/p/177-carl-barenbrug).
|
| I mean in most of these you can even see cables!
|
| Although workspaces seems to be designer heavy so maybe that
| explains it.
|
| I get what you are saying though. It would be fun to see if
| they look this clean when they don't know a photographer is
| coming over or if you and I are just slobs.
| criddell wrote:
| My desk gets pretty messy, but I at least try to do some cable
| management. Those photos have some pretty messy tangles of
| cables.
| xwdv wrote:
| At least you have a desk. My workstation these days is just a
| laptop set on whatever surface I happen to find.
| jesse__ wrote:
| Haha, same. Sometimes it's literally on my lap.
|
| I don't like the term 'digital nomad', but I'm embracing the
| lifestyle to the fullest.
| alexyim wrote:
| I travel with a portable monitor (Dell 14" usb-c) -- it's
| lightweight but so helpful for what I do
| ctf1er wrote:
| Desk? My workspace is a bed, with a 50in tv for a monitor at
| the foot and two big monitors stacked to the side. Has anyone
| else gone the completely lazy route? I can work or game
| longer and in complete comfort, but also swivel them if I
| ever wanted to sit. A fourth monitor is at my desk collecting
| dust. This type of setup requires you to be celibate and
| living on the fringes of society. But I type this wrapped in
| a blanket, head nested in pillows.
| mosen wrote:
| This sounds great. Do you just put your keyboard on your
| lap? I try a similar setup but always end up with a sore
| neck (I use a laptop though, not a TV, which would be
| higher up).
| ctf1er wrote:
| Yeah, bt keyboard on my lap and I've raised the tv to a
| suitable position. Right now I'm laying flat with my back
| at like 45 degrees and keyboard over crotch area. Once I
| started connecting my laptop to the tv there was no going
| back, decided I'd usually rather watch media on a smaller
| screen and use the tv for mainly computing. Now I have a
| new desktop that can support it all and also run a usb
| extension and hub to my side. Most OS's are pretty good
| with different scaling/accessibility options these days.
| neilv wrote:
| I keep going back to a laptop with a large high-res screen, so I
| can use it from wherever is comfortable.
|
| I also have a "lectern" laptop-sized standing desk on casters,
| which I use for every WFH meeting, and can roll around to
| whatever view/lighting/backdrop/noise I want.
|
| I sometimes miss having a desktop large landscape/portrait
| monitor with lots of info I can refer to spatially, with my
| laptop in a dock to the side for comms/dashboard monitoring. I
| should set up a larger desk for that again.
|
| But a comfortable tiling window manager mitigates not having huge
| monitors (e.g., instantly bringing info I need into view, and
| managing lots of info on a small screen, without fiddling with
| the window management). Xmonad is still better for this for me,
| even though I've spent a couple years trying to get an i3wm
| config/practices that work as well.
| bengale wrote:
| I find when I start worrying about what my desk looks like that
| I'm just procrastinating. I have noticed no correlation between
| my desk being messy or stylish with actual focus and
| productivity.
| qzw wrote:
| Yeah, I remember seeing a picture of Einstein sitting at his
| rather messy desk years ago. Haven't tidied up my desk since.
| intelVISA wrote:
| My desk used to be covered in notes and whatnot but honestly
| it was a pain to find the 1% of useful info buried in the
| detritus. I cleared it and now keep my desk 100% empty and
| use a notebook instead... not sure if it's better but I can
| defo keep it free from dust more easily.
| don-code wrote:
| There are a couple of tricks I've figured out.
|
| There's room in your setup for asymmetric screens. I currently
| have three 24" monitors set up side by side, with a much smaller
| 7" screen underneath, showing Grafana dashboards. At one point, I
| actually had two of the 7" screens. I also briefly had a "horse
| blinder" style 17" monitor at the side of my setup, because I
| worked adjacent to the hallway and didn't like seeing people
| coming towards me.
|
| Bread tabs make great cable holders. PCI slot covers make great
| headphone rests.
|
| Throwing a single switch to shut the whole desk off when you're
| done is immensely satisfying.
|
| In the olden days, I didn't let the two big, boxy CRT monitors on
| my desk run me out of space. CRTs make great tables. At one
| point, I strapped an FM radio, TV tuner, and a small digital
| clock on top of one.
| reustle wrote:
| Here's a twitter account that highlights a lot of similar
| workstations
|
| https://twitter.com/workspacesxyz
| sah2ed wrote:
| Yes, and they even had a showing on HN recently [0].
|
| https://www.workspaces.xyz/
|
| [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32265223
| yowayb wrote:
| One of the finest engineers I've worked with has macular
| degeneration. His entire setup was designed to allow him to focus
| on the same part of his laptop screen (with a very large font),
| which is basically eye-level screen.
|
| I have only ever used a monitor the first day I got to my desk
| because it happened to be there.
|
| These setups strike me a bit like AWS/GCP. Just another place for
| devs to spend money.
|
| And yet another excellent engineer I know uses VIM without syntax
| highlighting.
| jrockway wrote:
| I think the money is well spent. Like, I wouldn't buy a color
| monitor just to get syntax highlighting, but there are no non-
| color monitors, so sure, I'll use syntax highlighting. (I use
| Emacs over an SSH session. Got italic text working a few months
| ago and I love it!) The rest of the things people have seem
| important to me; bad input devices will make your hands
| unusable, and you probably can't do your job after that
| happens, so if you sink $400 on a keyboard to be able to do
| your job in 10 years, that's not really a waste. Spending money
| on microphones and cameras means less or no money spent on
| commuting, because people can actually get work done over Zoom.
| A desk is mandatory for overcoming the force of gravity as it
| applies to your keyboard or laptop.
|
| I will say, a laptop is the least important computing device I
| own. I have one to test builds on arm64; it's on a shelf
| somewhere and I SSH to it. If I'm "out and about", not at my
| desk, then I don't want to do any computing. Meanwhile,
| desktops are cheaper and more upgradeable. Need more RAM? Pop a
| stick in. ML training too slow? Pop another GPU in. I don't
| know why anyone would do it any differently. (I also have 3
| monitors, 2 of which are for IMs because there are so many IM
| apps these days. I miss the days of having IRC inside Emacs.
| But bought some hardware to compensate for my friends and
| coworkers desire to use Discord and Slack. So it goes.)
| poushkar wrote:
| Thanks for sharing this! It's been only a few posts so far
| since I started the blog, but I am actually looking for
| _persons_ first, and the "coolness" of a setup doesn't really
| matter to me. In fact, I find a laptop that moves between sofa
| and a kitchen table as inspiring as some intricate setups.
| There is something about doing more with less. And I am sure
| there will be people with such setups featured on the blog, as
| well.
| justinlloyd wrote:
| These desks are very nice, but they are not for me. I don't so
| much have a computer, as the computer has me, I just happen to
| occupy the same room as the computer at times. Once, my
| workstation sat in a different room from me, but I have since put
| it inside a custom built arcade cabinet that sits on the other
| side of the room from where I sit. I have a long desk, with many
| monitors of varying sizes and orientations elevated on
| suspsension arms along wiht multiple laptops sat on dedicated
| holders. I have a second desk for guests/visitors/different work,
| and a desk for electronics work that is currently in the process
| of being rebuilt. Lots of storage in the form of cabinets with
| thousands of carefully labelled drawers of varying dimensions -
| generally the dimensions of an individual drawer remains the
| same, but the dimensions between drawers varies, though these
| rules don't always apply as I subscribe to the idea of D Space
| which is a lower, more fundamental level of existence than L
| Space that the Librarian occupies. Cable management is more of a
| suggestion. The amount of cabling all together is thicker than
| two obsolete Java technical books and wrapped up in velcro straps
| tighter than your bum knee after leg day. I go on tidying up
| sprees when I need to step away from the code, unfortunately that
| can sometimes mean my room looks like a hyperactive six year old
| brought his pet tornado into the electronics supply closet for a
| day.
| citboin wrote:
| Photos, please.
| qzw wrote:
| I think he just described the workstation of the Operator on
| the Nebuchadnezzar from the Matrix.
| _virtu wrote:
| Biggest desktop organization hacks
|
| - Asymmetric desk - Shift your workspace to your
| non dominant hand side. This frees up space for reference
| material, and for writing on your dominant hand. When I
| previously worked on site, it was also a great place for having
| other engineers bring their laptop to sit next to me while we
| were working together.
|
| - Under desk mount everything. This saves space and indirectly
| causes your compute hardware to collect less dust.
| - You can 3d print rails for a laptop so you can mount it under
| your desk - You can purchase under desk mounts for
| large desktops. I have two computers under my desk. One gaming pc
| and my work macbook. - You can also 3d print mounts
| for things like dacs, and amps to save even more space
|
| - USB C hub + usb switch or kvm - As above I
| switch between my work and gaming pc with a switch
|
| - You don't need multiple monitors, your switching technique is
| just wrong (if this doesn't mesh with you, that's okay, maybe I'm
| wrong :) ) - Keyboard maestro + activate
| application + 1 / 3 splits of windows is all you need on a
| decently sized monitor: 27 - 32. Being able to hit hyper key +
| letter to bring up or hide an application makes viewing things
| trivial. - Bonus points if you map your 1/3 splits to
| keyboard maestro.
|
| - Get a face light for calls. It makes a huge difference in image
| quality.
|
| - Drill a hole in your desk in front of your keyboard
| - You can put any wires directly into the hole vs running them
| uncomfortably to the edge of the desk.
|
| - You don't have to use your stand desk only for standing. You
| can also have settings for writing height so you're still sitting
| but you have a more comfortable setup for extended periods.
|
| - Use a split ortho linear keyboard. Push your chair in as close
| to the desk as possible so you don't have any breaks between your
| elbows and the board.
|
| - Once a week, on Friday, make time to clean your desk. Organize
| it for your future self, so Monday you feel good coming to
| execute on work.
|
| - Make it obvious. Put things that are habit based in front of
| you. You'll be surprised how much easier flossing becomes by
| doing this. - Put your medication on your desk in
| front of you - Put flossing material in front of you
| lacksconfidence wrote:
| > - Put flossing material in front of you
|
| This is no joke. After i put a bowl of floss picks (those u
| shaped things that are pre-strung) on my desk my dental
| hygenist made a surprised comment at the level of improvement
| in gum health.
| vulkan92 wrote:
| This is a rather nice website. Very interesting read!
|
| One observation I definitely can't help but make is that everyone
| seems to be leaning on to a rather large/high-res single monitor
| than juggle around 2 WQHD/FHD displays :) I definitely had more
| trouble focusing when I had 2 equi-resolution screens rather than
| 1 large and 1 small screen OR rather 1 large screen in clamshell
| mode.
| jonpurdy wrote:
| Makerstations* has been great for this sort of stuff, plus they
| also have an 80s/90s computing vibe with their fonts and choice
| of imagery.
|
| * - https://www.makerstations.io
| ataru wrote:
| The second one looks ergonomically terrible. The chair has no
| adjustments, the desk is a writing desk and not a computer desk,
| and there's no proper keyboard or mouse. Surely nobody can work
| like that for a long time without getting injured.
| gumby wrote:
| > Surely nobody can work like that for a long time without
| getting injured.
|
| Not at all _surely_. Some people need that stuff and some don
| 't. Just the luck of the draw.
|
| I have a macbook plugged into a monitor, wireless kbd,
| trackpad. I use that setup about 30% of the time. The rest of
| the time I just use my laptop on whatever surface is near: my
| lap (shocker!), train or plane table, lying on the couch with
| the laptop on my thighs. On a plane if I have the window seat I
| often jam myself in at an angle and use it while twisted.
|
| My gf thinks that is crazy: she needs an ergo mouse, special
| pillow on her chair, monitor at the right height etc. Her hight
| is a factor, also she's a parent so her carpal tunnels (and
| some other tendon guides) have narrowed. But she needs a neck
| pillow for the car as well, which I don't.
|
| In general the physical environment is designed for people
| around 180 cm +/- a few. Car seats, star risers, chairs and
| tables... Fair or not that's how it seems to be. And luckily,
| I'm just a smidgen over 180.
| klez wrote:
| Related: the battlestations subreddit
| https://www.reddit.com/r/battlestations/
|
| And its various spinoffs (look in the sidebar).
| luc_ wrote:
| ya beat me :P
| luc_ wrote:
| Fun, reminds me of https://reddit.com/r/battlestations
| capableweb wrote:
| Most of those seem gaming related (judging by the amount of RGB
| light and non-ergonomic chairs at least), while "Hacker
| Stations" seems focused on setups for work.
| runnerup wrote:
| How can I submit my own workstation? It's very messy but its mine
| :) Walking/standing/sitting desk with enormous $10,000 PC, the
| L-shaped desk had two matching white IKEA tabletops until one was
| damaged by the pressure of the multi-monitor clamps so now one
| tabletop is a brown MDF sheet that I got from Home Depot for $40.
| The walking treadmill I ripped out of a surplus deask/treadmill
| unit so the control panel doesn't have a complete enclosure, the
| circuit board is exposed --only low voltage though, gets power
| over a long serial cable.
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(page generated 2022-09-02 23:01 UTC)