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 euro.
  • Brown leather belt. 20 euro.
  • 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 euro.
  • Black t-shirt, no brand. 10 euro.
  • Black hoodie, no brand. I only wear this sometimes when it's cold. 40 euro.
  • Socks, my startup company branded. Free.
  • Underwear, bought at supermarket. 10 euro.
Total value: 180 euro. (220 in winter because of the hoodie)

Carrying around.

  • Mini knife / multi-tool. Love this thing and bought a lot at AliExpress. 5 euro.
  • 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 euro. (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 euro.

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 euro for a replacement battery (which still sucks, or maybe I'm just on my phone too much).
  • Tempered glass protector for the phone. 5 euro.
  • Xiaomi Mi earbuds. I listen to way too many podcasts on this. 25 euro.
  • My homemade e-bike remote control key. 30 euro.
  • Kindle Paperwhite. 100 euro.
  • Casio F-91w wristwatch. The classic and emblematic of my "stuff" philosophy. 15 euro.
  • Anker 10000 mAh PowerCore powerbank. Because of the crappy iPhone battery. 40 euro.
  • I also carry one or two books, a writing pad, and a whole kindle library, but will not count this.
Total value: 255 euro.

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.
  • Das Keyboard 4 Ultimate. Clicky keys without print. Love it. 150 euro.
  • Logitech Mx Master 3. Best mouse I've ever used. Super comfortable. 100 euro.
  • RODE NT USB Microphone. Someone on HN said you sounded smarter with a good microphone so I bought it. 150 euro.
  • 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 euro. 
  • Philips 34" wide-screen display with USB-PD. 550 euro.
  • 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 euro.
  • A lamp that shines in my face so it looks less dark. 20 euro.
  • Ikea standing desk. 180 euro.
  • Always-on Intel NUC from 2014 with 6TB BTRFS storage on USB disks. 800 euro.
  • Desktop computer with Ryzen 3600, 24GB, GeForce GTX 1060 6GB, 2x 1TB NVME storage. 1000 euro.
Total value: 4250 euro.

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 euro.
  • 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 on 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 euro.
Total value: 6000 2500 euro.

Mandatory pictures 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.

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