hackerstations-com-osre5p.txt (12782B)
1 [1][logo]Hacker Stations 2 3 • | 4 5 • [3]Newsletter 6 • [4]Search 7 • [5]Tags 8 • [6]Archives 9 • [7]About 10 11 Kasia's cozy crafting den in Berlin 12 13 Nov 2022 14 [8][main] 15 16 Hi! Tell us about who you are and what you do.[9]# 17 18 Hi! I’m [10]Kasia and I’m a tech lead living in Berlin, Germany. I like 19 tinkering with stuff, be it code, space and objects around me or various art 20 mediums. Other than for programming, I use my work space for sewing, drawing, 21 knitting and other kinds of craft. 22 23 It was quite a challenge to design such a multi purpose workspace which allows 24 for easy switching between different activities. While designing it, it was my 25 goal to have a setup which is functional and minimizes the effort to start on 26 any activity I want to do. But in the same time, I strive to create an 27 esthetically pleasing, cozy space with a vintage touch and to be able to 28 showcase various trinkets and art pieces that I accumulated over the years of 29 travelling and visiting fleamarkets. 30 31 What is your hardware setup?[11]# 32 33 For work, I use Macbooks provided by the company, models vary. After hours, I 34 use an old, 13in MacBook Pro, early 2015 edition which is still going strong! I 35 also use an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, mostly for drawing and taking notes. 36 37 [speaker] 38 39 I usually keep the laptop aside, and work on an external, 27in Dell monitor. I 40 got rid of the basic leg attachment and mounted it using ICY BOX monitor mount 41 which is super convenient - it saves quite a lot of space on my desk. I also 42 have a small, but feisty speaker - Klipsch The One in walnut finish. 43 44 When it comes to ergonomics, I really like my standing desk with custom walnut 45 top from Standidesk. I only use a vertical, wireless mouse - touchpads or 46 traditional mouse are triggering my wrist pain. For personal use I have a mini 47 wireless Apple keyboard (without numeric panel on the right) as I need to move 48 it around a lot when I’m crafting. For daily work I prefer using split 49 keyboard. My all time favorite is Kinesis Freestyle 2, along with padded palm 50 support and tilt accessories. I love the low profile, low force keys - I find 51 that both factors contribute to much less tension in my wrists and hands. 52 53 I tested different ergonomic chairs, but surprisingly a game changer for me was 54 a simple, rotating chair from Ikea. Hard surface encourages me to maintain a 55 neutral, ergonomic position with my back straight and not to be completely 56 still. One good advice I got was to make sure you can breath using your 57 diaphragm fully while sitting and I found that crucial thing here was lowering 58 the desk - it was too high and created the tension in my arms. Using soft, 59 ergonomic chairs was often leaving me with tension in unexpected muscles, so I 60 just switched. 61 62 [sewing] 63 64 For sewing I use two different sewing machines: for basic usage I have Juki XZL 65 DX3 and for finishing I use overlock/coverlock machine Juki MO-735. Juki is a 66 japanese brand that I found quite reliable, and they provide excellent 67 technical drawings of all the components and configuration. Especially in case 68 of overlock sewing machine, which deals with up to 5 spools of thread, having 69 clear, visual instructions is crucial. The second machine is quite unique - 70 less than 5 minutes of reconfiguring and it transforms into a coverlock, which 71 usually is a different kind of a sewing machine. So it’s very versatile. 72 73 [drawing] 74 75 I also have a bunch of different art & craft supplies - I love my huge cutting 76 mat and rotary cutter, inks and nibs, Polychromos colored pencils, watercolors 77 and ceramic palettes. I also have a hobby Daylight LED lamp which is super 78 useful for working with details. 79 80 And what are the favorite items in your workspace?[12]# 81 82 In general, I really appreciate that all of my passions come together here. I 83 used to feel bad for having that many creative outlets - I thought it makes it 84 harder for me to be a good engineer, but the truth is - it does the opposite. 85 And now I embrace all sides of my craftsmanship. 86 87 In the process of designing this workspace I had to ask myself - what is my 88 usual process for brainstorming the design for a new feature? What do I need to 89 be comfortable and focused during video meetings? What do I need to stay 90 focused and inspired when I’m sketching a new illustration? How do I use the 91 space best when I need to cut into 5 meters of fabric? It was super 92 enlightening to give so much thoughts to how I work and try out different 93 settings - I learned a ton about myself and my creative process. 94 95 [objects] 96 97 Aesthetically, I love my Rohrer&Klingner ink bootles, my apothecary drawer 98 shelves with all the trinkets and fencing chinchillas’ art print by Paweł 99 Ponichtera. I started epee fencing last year and love to have this little 100 reminder in my personal space. I also love the beetle plushie holding a piece 101 of cheese and a spool of thread commisioned by my husband from Little Hugsters. 102 103 I like having a couple of different sources of light - fairy lights and LED 104 candles, strong LED lamp for crafting and small lamps providing ambient light. 105 I’m not a fan of super bright light and need a couple of dim light sources to 106 be the most comfortable. The artificial white light is one of the reasons I’m 107 not coming back to the office on a permanent basis! 108 109 Any favourite programs/apps/tools?[13]# 110 111 My current editor of choice is VSCode with Vim bindings, I quite like its pair 112 programming feature (Live Share) too. And there’s so many other extensions that 113 make my life easier, like tabnine. 114 115 I use flux on max yellow setting all day so that my eyes don’t get tired. I 116 also use the lowest brightness on my monitor - if you have sensitive eyes I 117 strongly recommend doing that! 118 119 On my iPad I use Procreate - great for sketchnoting and drawing. For more 120 traditional text notes that I would need in digital form I use Nebo - an app 121 that transforms your handwriting with Apple Pencil to digital text. It’s also 122 useful for writing my German assignments as it supports a bunch of languages 123 and to me it’s easier that changing keyboard settings over and over. I also 124 tested Nomad - a 3D modelling app with an amazing UI, and I would love to come 125 back to it and explore the topic of 3D printing more. 126 127 Lat but not least - for brainstorming I really like using a physical notebook - 128 the bigger the better, along with colored pencils - they are great for 129 sketchnotes. I love Faber Castell Polychromos colored pencils, they have 130 amazing color range and feel super smooth on paper. They are expensive when you 131 are getting a big set, since those are artist grade pencils, but you can buy 132 single colors in art supply store - and for sketchnoting you won’t be needing 133 more that 3-5 colors anyway. 134 135 What are your favourite programming or scripting languages?[14]# 136 137 Definitely Ruby! I like that it’s verbose and concise. On top of that I 138 appreciate the Ruby community a lot - great at discussing conventions, good 139 design and adopting new concepts and practices. I was inspired by so many great 140 folks in the community - Sandi Metz, David H. Hansson or Eileen M. Uchitelle 141 just to name a few, as well as plenty of my colleagues with whom I had a 142 pleasure to work over the years. 143 144 I also find it quite a remarkable entry level technology for building web apps. 145 I was teaching Ruby in a couple of workshops (mostly, Rails Girls) and I love 146 how convenient Ruby is in showcasing basic programming concepts as well as 147 explaining how web apps work. In the same time, it really is a solid technology 148 with good tooling (not just for development, but also monitoring, benchmarking 149 etc.) that can be used to build great, scalable applications solving real world 150 problems. 151 152 Is there anything you are missing in your setup?[15]# 153 154 I would like to get a camera that I can mount on top of my screen - for now, in 155 order to have video calls, I need to get my laptop back in front of me. 156 157 I also want to 3D print [16]this ink and nib holder. And to hang all of my art, 158 prints and postcards that I’ve gathered so far, but haven’t gotten around yet. 159 160 What book comes to your mind that you would like others to read?[17]# 161 162 One book I can recommend to everyone working with web applications is “System 163 Design Interview” by Alex Xu - it’s technically meant to help in interviews, 164 but the title doesn’t give it justice. It’s such a good read - the author 165 basically takes different cases of scalability problems and takes us through 166 designing a system that meets the requirements and iterates on improving it. It 167 is very engaging and so interesting to read - you can finish it in one weekend. 168 Maybe it’s just me, because I really enjoy those kinds of system design 169 challenges, but I think it is also super informative. It gives you a nice 170 framework to go about scalability problems and thus it’s not that intimidating 171 anymore. It’s a great basis for any further deep dives. 172 173 I also enjoy reading stories a lot. One that I read and appreciated not so long 174 ago would be “Revenge: Eleven dark tales” by Yoko Ogawa - it’s a book of short, 175 quirky stories, which are all interconnected. I love the atmosphere that gets 176 you immersed in the stories very quickly and lingers even after you read it. 177 There’s a strongly bizarre feeling to it, which you may know from the works of 178 Haruki Murakami - if you like it, you should enjoy those stories too! 179 180 • [18]Developer 181 • [19]Mac 182 • [20]Macbook 183 • [21]Ipad 184 • [22]Apple 185 • [23]Ergonomic 186 • [24]Kinesis 187 • [25]Artist 188 • [26]Drawing 189 • [27]Sewing 190 • [28]Ruby 191 192 [29]« Prev 193 James Stanier's effective remote work setup in Cumbria, UK [30]Next » 194 Denys' workspace in Berlin is a "hack with scotch tape and zip ties" 195 196 • [31] 197 • [32] 198 • [33] 199 • [34] 200 • [35] 201 • [36] 202 203 © [37]Hacker Stations 2024. Logo by [38]icons8. Powered by [39]Hugo & [40] 204 PaperMod[41] 205 206 References: 207 208 [1] https://hackerstations.com/ 209 [3] https://hackerstations.substack.com/ 210 [4] https://hackerstations.com/search 211 [5] https://hackerstations.com/tags 212 [6] https://hackerstations.com/archives 213 [7] https://hackerstations.com/about 214 [8] https://hackerstations.com/setups/kasia/images/main.jpeg 215 [9] https://hackerstations.com/setups/kasia/#hi-tell-us-about-who-you-are-and-what-you-do 216 [10] https://www.instagram.com/kszkszsz/ 217 [11] https://hackerstations.com/setups/kasia/#what-is-your-hardware-setup 218 [12] https://hackerstations.com/setups/kasia/#and-what-are-the-favorite-items-in-your-workspace 219 [13] https://hackerstations.com/setups/kasia/#any-favourite-programsappstools 220 [14] https://hackerstations.com/setups/kasia/#what-are-your-favourite-programming-or-scripting-languages 221 [15] https://hackerstations.com/setups/kasia/#is-there-anything-you-are-missing-in-your-setup 222 [16] https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-fountain-pen-and-calligraphy-desk-organiser-125541 223 [17] https://hackerstations.com/setups/kasia/#what-book-comes-to-your-mind-that-you-would-like-others-to-read 224 [18] https://hackerstations.com/tags/developer/ 225 [19] https://hackerstations.com/tags/mac/ 226 [20] https://hackerstations.com/tags/macbook/ 227 [21] https://hackerstations.com/tags/ipad/ 228 [22] https://hackerstations.com/tags/apple/ 229 [23] https://hackerstations.com/tags/ergonomic/ 230 [24] https://hackerstations.com/tags/kinesis/ 231 [25] https://hackerstations.com/tags/artist/ 232 [26] https://hackerstations.com/tags/drawing/ 233 [27] https://hackerstations.com/tags/sewing/ 234 [28] https://hackerstations.com/tags/ruby/ 235 [29] https://hackerstations.com/setups/james_stanier/ 236 [30] https://hackerstations.com/setups/denys/ 237 [31] https://x.com/intent/tweet/?text=Kasia%27s%20cozy%20crafting%20den%20in%20Berlin&url=https%3a%2f%2fhackerstations.com%2fsetups%2fkasia%2f&hashtags=developer%2cmac%2cmacbook%2cipad%2capple%2cergonomic%2ckinesis%2cartist%2cdrawing%2csewing%2cruby 238 [32] https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3a%2f%2fhackerstations.com%2fsetups%2fkasia%2f&title=Kasia%27s%20cozy%20crafting%20den%20in%20Berlin&summary=Kasia%27s%20cozy%20crafting%20den%20in%20Berlin&source=https%3a%2f%2fhackerstations.com%2fsetups%2fkasia%2f 239 [33] https://reddit.com/submit?url=https%3a%2f%2fhackerstations.com%2fsetups%2fkasia%2f&title=Kasia%27s%20cozy%20crafting%20den%20in%20Berlin 240 [34] https://facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3a%2f%2fhackerstations.com%2fsetups%2fkasia%2f 241 [35] https://api.whatsapp.com/send?text=Kasia%27s%20cozy%20crafting%20den%20in%20Berlin%20-%20https%3a%2f%2fhackerstations.com%2fsetups%2fkasia%2f 242 [36] https://telegram.me/share/url?text=Kasia%27s%20cozy%20crafting%20den%20in%20Berlin&url=https%3a%2f%2fhackerstations.com%2fsetups%2fkasia%2f 243 [37] https://hackerstations.com/ 244 [38] https://icons8.com/ 245 [39] https://gohugo.io/ 246 [40] https://github.com/adityatelange/hugo-PaperMod/ 247 [41] https://hackerstations.com/setups/kasia/#top