Gear

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It's 2022 and I am a wannabe minimalist that owns way too much stuff. A small part of my belongings are the things that I really value and/or use every day. This post is about that kind of gear. If anything on this list gets lost or breaks down, I will instantly buy it again.

My three thoughts about "stuff".

  • Material goods do not matter, so try not to think or worry about them any more than absolutely necessary. (Am I doing that by writing this post? Maybe...) A corollary: I never get insurance for anything that I can pay out of pocket without breaking a sweat.
  • We are destroying the planet, let's try to limit our footprint. Reduce, reuse, recycle, in that order.
  • Good tools are delightful and indispensable.

Clothing.

I like to wear the same clothes on most days so I don't have to think about what I wear. I own about 2 to 6 of each item below and cycle them throughout the week.

  • Jeans, no brand. € 40. (update: Switched to classic Levi's 501 after discovering that stretchy jeans don't last long as pure cotton)
  • Brown leather belt. € 20.
  • New Balance shoes, typically type 997. I exclusively buy New Balance simply because it limits my search space for shoes and I have to think less. Why NB? I don't really know, but lucky them, a customer for life. € 100.
  • Black t-shirt, no brand. € 10.
  • Black hoodie, no brand. I only wear this sometimes when it's cold. € 40.
  • Socks, my startup company branded. Free.
  • Underwear, bought at supermarket. € 10.
Total value: € 180 . (220 in winter because of the hoodie)

Carrying around.

  • Mini knife / multi-tool. Love this thing and bought a lot at AliExpress. € 5.
  • The North Face Vault backpack. Got it for free at work 8 years ago.
  • Keys, handkerchief, drivers license and debit card. "Free".
  • Glasses from Charlie Temple. Fleur from work recommended this style, and it's expressive, I like it. € 60. (Pro-tip: always buy coated lenses, being too cheap-ass here hurts).
  • Simple gold wedding band. Inherited from my great grandmother, so free, but high sentimental value.
Total value: € 65.

Portable electronics.

  • iPhone SE 1st gen from 2016. Love this phone, was on budget Android phones until this year but they are getting way too big. I picked up my wife's old iPhone for free. The only problem is the battery life. It was free, but I paid € 40 for a replacement battery (which still sucks, or maybe I'm just on my phone too much).
  • Tempered glass protector for the phone. € 5.
  • Xiaomi Mi earbuds. I listen to way too many podcasts on this. € 25.
  • My homemade e-bike remote control key. € 30.
  • Kindle Paperwhite. € 100.
  • Casio F-91w wristwatch. The classic and emblematic of my "stuff" philosophy. € 15.
  • Anker 10000 mAh PowerCore powerbank. Because of the crappy iPhone battery. € 40.
  • I also carry one or two books, a writing pad, and a whole kindle library, but will not count this.
Total value: € 255.

Home-office setup.

  • ThinkPad T495s. Every +/- 6 years I buy a second hand T series in mint condition two years behind the latest gen, that's most cost-effective. Should have gone with Intel this round, battery sucks on Linux. € 600 euro. ( update: upgraded to a T14s Gen2 )
  • Das Keyboard 4 Ultimate. Clicky keys without print. Love it. € 150.
  • Logitech Mx Master 3. Best mouse I've ever used. Super comfortable. € 100.
  • RODE NT USB Microphone. Someone on HN said you sounded smarter with a good microphone so I bought it. € 150.
  • Kyocera M5526cdw all-in-one laser printer. This type is apparently extremely cost-effective when printing a lot, which I don't do. It's always useful and my kids like to use it for school stuff. € 600. 
  • Philips 34" wide-screen display with USB-PD. € 550.
  • Logitech B525 HD Webcam. It was the only available webcam when covid lockdown started. Now I'm working in the office a lot more where I have a C930(?), so the B525 will do. € 100.
  • A lamp that shines in my face so it looks less dark. € 20.
  • Ikea standing desk. € 180.
  • Always-on Intel NUC from 2014 with 6TB BTRFS storage on USB disks. € 800.
  • Desktop computer with Ryzen 3600, 24GB, GeForce GTX 1060 6GB, 2x 1TB NVME storage. € 1000.
Total value: € 4250.

Transportation.

  • A Cowboy C3 e-bike. It goes _fast_ and is very sporty. Ride it every day, sometimes 2x 45km to work in Amsterdam. Amazing! € 2500.
  • We recently sent it to a garage to sell, but still worth an honorary mention. A 2008 Dacia Logan MCV 7-seater, Ambiance (cheapest) edition. Dacia originally brought it onto the market for an incredible 10k euro. It had no electric windows, the AC was broken for years, it smelled funny and something made a funny / scary sound near the engine. My daughter Suzanne found a rock and scratched a drawing on the side when she was 3 and I wast very proud of her and the picture, I always showed it to people. The car had two different size side mirrors because I bought the wrong type when one broke. The Dacia fits so many people and so many things! It's incredibly practical. I see cars as a necessary evil, and  necessary evils should be ugly, spartan & cheap. At the same time I loved this car deeply because of its character and all the great things we did with it. We are now trying to live without a car for a couple of years. € 3500.
Total value: € 6000 2500.

Mandatory picture of my ex-car. 



Software.

My software stack is super stable, and basically unchanged since 2015. Am I stagnating and missing out or did I reach peak performance? I use these programs almost every day:
  • Debian testing.
  • i3.
  • Chrome.
  • VIM (Neovim but I couldn't care less).
  • zsh / oh-my-zsh.
  • git (I'm a bit in love with the git data structure so I have to mention it)
  • tig
  • nmon
  • Spotify.
  • Syncthing (started using it in 2022).
  • Silversurfer / ag.

(added in March 2024):

Electronics:

I set up a bit of an electronics lab recently and wanted to recommend the following products:
  • Soldering station: Aixun T3a - T245 handle. After upgrading from an old entry level soldering station I did research and landed here. Amazing! It heats up in 3 seconds. € 150. 
  • Oscilloscope: Siglent SDS1104X-E. I wanted an Oscilloscope for the last 20 years but never needed one. Bought this and it changed my understanding and skills in electronics a lot. Super happy with it. € 550.
  • Power Supply: Korad KD3305D. Great stuff. € 200.
  • Function generator: UNI-T UTG962E. Surprisingly useful and fun! € 150.

Comments

  1. RichardMarch 3, 2024 at 4:00 PM

    I have a leather couch with a similar drawing by my daughter who was a similar age. If memory serves, she didn't accept credit for the work, she said her 1 year old sister did it.

    Came across a link to your side about the i3 window manager earlier today, enjoyed your writing - Cheers!

    ReplyDelete

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