
Ask HN: What is your desk / room / general working environment like? - uptownfunk
Looking for a few general parameters here, feel free to answer any or all:<p>+Desk<p>+Chair<p>+Monitor<p>+Keyboard<p>+Music (Y&#x2F;N? if so, what? links?)<p>+Hours (standard 9a-5p? or 10p-5a vampire hours?)
======
yolesaber
Firstly, I don't use any desk. I find them distracting. My 2015 Macbook Retina
Pro and two Dell U2913WM 29" monitors are suspended from the ceiling using a
pulley system. This way I can perfectly adjust the pitch and yaw of the screen
as well as its vertical and horizontal distance to find the optimal point.

For a while I also was suspending myself in order to relieve tension on my
back but I found it was a bit of hassle getting in and out of the harness so
instead I use a stair-stepping machine as my "chair." It keeps me active and
gets the blood flowing.

My "keyboard": I use two ergonomic chorded keyers as these give me amazing
wrist flexibility. It took me a while to adjust but now I'm averaging around
150 WPM with them. I custom built my own sensor rig so I could do gesturing
with them as well - was a pain, but worth it. And since the use case is
limited to me, I was able to make things easier but just having it detect a
certain color blob (in this case, bright hot pink) which is the color of the
coding gloves I wear. Insane accuracy with that setup. I got emacs to play
nice with the gesture control too so running a macro is literally as easy as a
handwave.

I do enjoy listening to music while I work. I have a wireless headphone setup
which syncs with my EKG readout to automatically determine the kind of mood I
am and what music would work best for my mental space. I don't use spotify,
I've built my own streaming service which pulls from my arch media server at
home so I can listen to everything in FLAC. Mostly a mix of live Grateful Dead
shows from 70-74 but also remixes of bird songs, free jazz, and intelligence-
boosting drone tapes.

I work 20 hours a day, usually from 6:30pm to 2pm. I use melanin and mugwort
to regulate my sleeping cycles so although I only get around 4 hours of sleep,
it's always deep REM so I wake up feeling refreshed and ready to crush code.

~~~
noobie
I've sadly read way too many 4chan posts to believe this is real.

If it is I apologize and do tell us more.

~~~
yolesaber
I can assure it's quite real. What else would you like to know?

~~~
akulbe
I'd love to see pictures. Not because I have any doubts, but just because this
sounds amazing!!

------
SyneRyder
\+ Music: my Music For Coding To playlist on Spotify. 68 hours, no vocals &
mostly upbeat electronica. Critical for getting into the zone. It had over 100
subscribers on Rdio before they shut down. More important than music is my
Bose QC25s, which I wear even when I'm the only person in the house:

[https://open.spotify.com/user/syneryder/playlist/5YpeoHyEHG7...](https://open.spotify.com/user/syneryder/playlist/5YpeoHyEHG7ttNgvzAkW72)

spotify://user:syneryder:playlist:5YpeoHyEHG7ttNgvzAkW72

\+ Chair: Herman Miller Aeron, one of the best purchases I've ever made. Had
it for over a decade & still love it.

\+ Monitor: I use my MacBook Pro 13" on a stand, but I also have two MacBook
2007 Black 13" to make a pseudo triple screen setup, keyboard / mouse sharing
via Synergy.

\+ Keyboard: Apple Magic Keyboard 1 & Magic Trackpad 1. I have an old IBM
Model M here, but I prefer the wireless keyboard & media keys & Apple key
layout. (I really love how you replace the AA batteries on the Apple keyboards
as well.)

\+ Hours: Vampire. Anywhere between 4pm - 7am. I track my productive hours
using Vitamin-R for Mac, and in over a year I've _never_ had a productive hour
between 8am & 2pm.

~~~
noobie
It's very thoughtful of you to include the link with the Spotify URI. I've had
a crappy day and this genuinely made me smile. Thank you.

------
theGREENsuit
Corporate drone checking in.

Desk: standard issue cubicle. L-shaped desk. Soul-sucking light grey in
color.3' of space to the left of the monitors. 5' of space to the right.
Storage is not an issue. Walls colored in very similar soul-sucking light
grey.

Chair: Whatever was used by the last guy that was here. It's pretty comfy. Has
a breathable back and is on casters.

Monitor: 2 x ViewSonic VX2450 that I grabbed from someone's desk after our
last round of layoffs. Before then, a couple of 17" Lenovos. My docked T440
acts as a third monitor.

Keyboard: Logitech MK700. Wireless. Picked out of the pile that was set up
after the round of layoffs just prior to my arrival. Seeing a trend here?

Music: Occasionally. I have a bunch of 90's alt I brought in on a USB stick.

Hours: 7:30 - 4-ish.

------
manyxcxi
Rented Office Space

Desk is L-shaped turned to face the windows.

Aeron office chair with ergo seat cushion.

15" 2015 MBP 16GB of RAM

30" IPS Asus and 27" Apple Thunderbolt Display on dual monitor arm to keep
them off the desk/free up a lot of space.

Mac Model S Pro Das Keyboard [0], Logitech Performance Mouse MX [2] on a Steel
Series 4HD Gaming [3] mouse pad.

Music goes between speakers and headphones depending on how loud I want it to
go. I listen to Pandora most of the day with pianobar [1] in the terminal.

My office is less than 10 minutes from my house- I get in anywhere between
05:00-06:30 (depending on when I wake up and how motivated I am to get stuff
done) and I'm home by 16:00-17:00.

[0] [http://www.daskeyboard.com/model-s-professional-for-
mac](http://www.daskeyboard.com/model-s-professional-for-mac)

[1] [https://6xq.net/pianobar](https://6xq.net/pianobar)

[2] [http://www.logitech.com/en-us/product/performance-mouse-
mx](http://www.logitech.com/en-us/product/performance-mouse-mx)

[3] [http://www.amazon.com/SteelSeries-Professional-Gaming-
Mouse-...](http://www.amazon.com/SteelSeries-Professional-Gaming-Mouse-
Black/dp/B002J9G5AE)

~~~
manyxcxi
I forgot to add something the a lot of people don't really think about in
their office: plants. I've got a couple tall ones I can see behind my monitors
and a smaller one behind me. Supposedly they can help with air quality,
frankly I just like having them around.

Wanted to add for my Pandora/Spotify listening it's pretty much wordless
'EDM'.

[0] My favorite Spotify list (merged in a lot of the songs from syneryder's
playlist down below this morning)

[1] My coding background Pandora playlist gets listened to the most because I
like that it will occasionally sneak in a new song and I didn't have to spend
a lot of time curating the specific songs- it seems to mostly serve me up
wordless music. Also, pianobar in the terminal is _really_ nice for listening
to Pandora.

[0]
[https://open.spotify.com/user/ashurexm/playlist/4FNPMSXHrt9s...](https://open.spotify.com/user/ashurexm/playlist/4FNPMSXHrt9sd1IJvP9ccV)

[1]
[http://www.pandora.com/station/play/304168574587214305](http://www.pandora.com/station/play/304168574587214305)

------
mindcrime
Home:

Desk - Cheap, generic L-shaped desk from Office Depot / Office Max / etc.

Monitor - ancient 17" CRT that's never actually used, but is still powered up
for indeterminate reasons. I do all my actual work on my laptop exclusively.

Chair - broken down, cheap, generic office chair from Office Depot / Office
Max / etc.

Keyboard - laptop keyboard

Music - Mostly "Y". What? Usually just my personal music collection, which is
mostly heavy metal and hard rock, on shuffle. Sometimes I'll go to Youtube if
I want to hear a specific song I don't have in my collection, or maybe pull up
a shoutcast stream for some trance/house/whatever, or classical music.

Hours: Definitely vampire hours. If I didn't work a "day job" and never had to
do anything that involved being on someone else's schedule (eg, meetings,
phone calls, etc.) I'd pretty much always work from about 8pm to 7am or so.

Looking at this, I realize I need to spend some money on upgrading my home
office setup. Hmmm...

------
LarryMade2
+Desk

Bought an adjustable standing desk - liking it, sometimes its down sometimes
its up, when I am tired of sitting/standing I change - a permanent standing
disk with a stool chair would be my next choice.

+Chair

Couldnt afford an aeron so its a nice memory foam seat, mesh back with a few
adjustments (height, tilt, back hight/tilt, etc.) Quite comfortable.

+Monitor

I got two older 4:3 19" displays (I do DTP stuff, taller displays are nicer
for that). Double head display I think is a great productivity thing (code on
one test/data on other), also have secondary display set with a KMV switch
with the keyboard and mouse so I can pull up reference materials on primary
and then work on secondary on other screen with reference in display.

+Keyboard

Was using a Dell Quiettouch keyboard (nice), used a PS/2 Adapter, but the
adapter intermittently freakes out so I’m back to a generic Kbd. Need to try
another adapter,

+Music (Y/N? if so, what? links?)

Varies depending on what I'm working on, sometimes it's even playing old
movies or TV shows (ones I know too well so I'm not really distracted) mainly
its about what sets the mood I need, music doesn't always do it.

+Hours (standard 9a-5p? or 10p-5a vampire hours?)

Varies. Usually not late often.

------
k__
I'm working remote for just a year now, so I didn't improve my working env at
home much.

I have a desk from Ikea, but I don't like it much, because it already bends in
the middle. I'll have to replace it with a real office desk in the future
(more place, more stability when leaning on it)

I'm using a Ikea chair, I bought for about 45€ back in the day. It's really
nice. After 8 years the cushion is still like on the first day and I can lean
back in it really nice. Real good investment.

My monitor is a Hanns G HZ281. I got two of it, but 2x28" was too much for me.
I rushed to get one of the last cheap 1980x1200 monitors back then, because I
didn't wanted these 16:9 thingys. It's a bit wiggly and with 75W rather
hungry, but I really like working with it. If I had to buy a new one today, I
probably would go for one of those 21:9 things with 4k resolution.

My keyboard is a Cherry easyhub corded. I'm more into these flat keyboards,
don't know why. Somehow these mechanical things many devs vow feel to clunky
for me.

I don't listen to music at work. But since I'm not working in an office I
don't have to blend out other people, so it's not an issue.

Normally I work from 10:00 to 18:00, but this varies. Sometimes I work from
9:00 to 17:00, sometimes I work from 12:00 to 20:00

------
akulbe
I am self-employed, and work from home 99% of the time. One of the bedrooms is
my office, and is used exclusively for that purpose.

+Desk: I have a desk that I bought from Green Furniture Solutions in Portland.
72"W x 36"D, that has raising and lowering controls.

+Treadmill: LifeSpan Fitness TR5000-DT3 (for walking while I work)

+Chair: Some non-descript (but comfy) chair from Office Depot

+Monitor: 2015 Retina 5K iMac 27" 64GB of RAM, mounted on a Humanscale M8 VESA
arm.

I used this to switch between sitting and walking modes (see picture)

+Input devices:

Apple Magic Keyboard

Apple Magic Trackpad 2

Apple Magic Mouse 2

Music: Back and forth between Pandora and a playlist of techno on YouTube.

Hours: I _try_ to keep something like 7a - 4p, but I'm self-employed. If often
goes like this: 7a - whenever I finish the work I need to do for the day

+Server room: Dell PowerEdge T430 tower. 2x quad-core Xeons, 384GB of RAM, 8TB
of storage.

self-built box: 8-core Atom, 64GB of RAM, 4TB storage

Mac Mini 2011 model

Synology 1815+: with 20TB of storage

Ubiquiti Networks plumbing: 24-port EdgeSwitch, 2 Unifi routers, 1 Unifi UAC-
AP-Pro

2 Internet connections. Frontier. Comcast.

lvb dot io slash 1RYCQG9 for a picture of desk/treadmill/chair setup

lvb dot io slash 1RYNLQ9 for a picture of the "server room"

------
csixty4
Desk - Cheap IKEA white laminate over honeycombed cardboard. I want something
bigger and keeping hinting it might make a nice Father's Day/birthday present.

Chair - padded drafting chair with webbing back I got off Craigslist. I like
being up high and hooking my feet on the bar. Otherwise I tend to slouch and
put my feet up all the time and end up with a sore back.

Monitor - one of those 27" Korean IPS displays that we're all the rage a
couple years ago. It started going black every couple seconds, so I threw it
in the basement. Found a blog post about replacement power bricks and now it's
good as new again. I also have the 23" LCD I bought to replace it.

Keyboard - the one built into the Surface Pro 3 cover.

Music - I'm in meetings most of the time. When I'm not meeting or listening to
podcasts/NPR it's Celtic punk (The Real McKenzies mostly), industrial (KMFDM),
or one of the SomaFM stations (Suburbs of Goa, Illinois St. Lounge, or Secret
Agent).

Hours - 9:30 to 5:30. Sometimes earlier. Sometimes later. I have a distributed
team spread around the world, so things happen at different hours.

------
cdvonstinkpot
My desk & chair are old wooden structures given to my late father by Syracuse
University in the 60's when he was earning dual master's degrees in
forestry/environmental science & entomology.

My computer is an HP SFF box.

My monitor is a 33" Polaroid flatscreen which I bought years ago with bitcoin.

My mouse is a wireless MS with bluetrack.

My keyboard is the cheapest one sold by Wal-Mart, with a grossly undersized
backspace key that I keep missing with my finger.

I listen to streaming web radio stations, mostly electronic- detailed in my
profile.

I work whenever I'm awake, which doesn't follow regular hours. Sometimes I go
for 30 hours at a time getting whatever project to a stopping point before
turning in. I'll be days for a week or so until I do an all-nighter, then
vampire hours until another all-nighter switches my sleep schedule back to
days- on & on back & forth usually monthly.

------
mlwarren
My home office setup (where I try to spend most of my working time):

Desk: StandDesk adjustable standing desk with bamboo top

Chair: Standard leather office chair from BigBox store

Monitor: Dual 1080p 5 year old Acers. This is next on my upgrade list

Keyboard: CODE Keyboard with Cherry MX Clear switches

Hours: 9/10am -> Until ~8+ Hours worked

Bonus: Box full of baby chickens and heat lamp. They moved in a few weeks back
and I'm waiting for them to grow big enough to be moved outside. Them being
around has prompted me to go into my work-office and/or work from another room
these past 2 weeks. They're cute but it'll be good when they move out! The
cheeping isn't so bad but the heat lamp and the temperatures they require do
not align with my preferences.

------
jordansmith
Desk: Cheap tempered glass L-shaped desk. Think I got it at staples or
walmart.

Chair: Standard leather office chair from Staples

Monitor: 13" Macbook Air & 22" Asus 1080p monitor

Keyboard: Apple magic keyboard. I have a WASD mechanical but have fallen in
love with the magic keyboard

Mouse: latest magic mouse

Music: Sometimes. I put on a pandora "chill out" playlist which is mostly
ambient type music. Other times I Just use noizio to get general ambient
sound.

Hours: Work for myself at home, so whenever. usually on and off throughout the
day.

------
lewisgodowski
My work setup:

\+ Desk: Workrite Sierra HX Electric standing desk (not sure where the top is
from, but it's ~6' long with a 120° angle--we sit in triplets)

\+ Chair: Steelcase Think

\+ Monitor: Two Apple Thunderbolt Displays to go with 15" rMBP

\+ Keyboard: Standard Apple wireless keyboard

\+ Music: Not too often, usually have twitch.tv on in the background

\+ Hours: ~9:30 to ~5:30

My home setup:

\+ Desk: Standard Ikea glass desk

\+ Chair: Exercise ball

\+ Monitor: Two 23" Apple Cinema Displays to go with 27" iMac 5K

\+ Keyboard: CODE 104-key with Cherry MX Clear switches

\+ Music: Random stuff on SoundCloud

\+ Hours: When I'm not at work

------
iamtrying
+Desk: 5 desk. +Chair: 2 +Monitor: 44" samsung, Medion 23". 3 Laptop (OSX,
Surface pro 3 with windows 8.1 pro and linux, Alienware with windows 10,
linux)

+Keyboard: no keyboard, only in my laptop bag i have one external keyboard.
always use laptop

+Music: Never play music to concentrate on complex programming. Play music
after official working hours which is from 8AM till 7PM

+Hours: 7AM till 03AM, round the clock. Eyes hurts, ass hurts.

------
a3n
Work: cubical, desk across two sides, Thinkpad W520 and two monitors. Bought
my own wireless Logitech keyboard/mouse. Share cube space with a loud medical
device that I test. Water. Sort of 9-5.

Home: Ikea couch, coffee table for feet, refurbished HP laptop, Logitech mouse
on the couch cushion next to me. Face the window. Wine. Hours: however long I
can stay awake.

No music in either place, because then I listen to music rather than produce.

------
mgberlin
Desk: The Ikea one that came with the coworking space. Chair: Bigbox
ergonomic, on best sale when I visited. Monitor: 23" that was my TV in my
first Redwood City Apartment 5 years ago. Keyboard: Kinesis Advantage. I love
this thing. Music: Always. Have a personal 'focus' playlist that's 118 hours
of coding bliss, nothing but fat beats, no vocals. Hours: 8 to 5 every day of
the week.

~~~
uptownfunk
Can you hook it up with your focus playlist? And / or suggest the artists that
comprise most of the music?

~~~
mgberlin
[https://gist.github.com/brln/9c682b572ce84ed24ce07403ffe4bb1...](https://gist.github.com/brln/9c682b572ce84ed24ce07403ffe4bb14)

~~~
uptownfunk
Thanks mate!

------
horsecaptin
Desk: I got it off the local classifieds. It is nice, big, flat, quite light
Ikea top on sawhorse style legs that are at their highest setting. I use it as
a standup desk. When I feel like sitting, I use a Swiss ball.

I have an ASUS USB monitor that I use as a 2nd code monitor in addition to my
laptop.

soma.fm - music

Hours - 5am to 9pm. Crushin' it (tm). And if you believe that, then you're
more messed up than you thought.

------
drakonka
Desk: standing desk

Chair: Currently borrowing a Varier kneeling chair but normally a Malmstolen
ergonomic chair (don't know exact model name)

Monitor: 3x Dell monitors (again not sure of models off the top of my head, I
didn't buy them)

Keyboard: Tesoro Durandal with Cherry MX Brown switches

Mouse: SteelSeries Sensei Raw Rubberized

Music: Sometimes; usually something Outrun-ish or game soundtracks

Hours: Currently working shifts so 12-20

------
JeffreyKaine
Lol, I'm a designer and it's so predictable...

Desk: 5' by 3' white, in a row of other designers desks

Chair: Aeron by Herman Miller / exercise ball

Monitor: Apple Thunderbolt display 27"

Keyboard: Apple keyboard, Magic Mouse

Music: Spotify, retrowave/8-bit for design work, punk/ska/rock for emails

Hours: 12pm to ~11pm at the office, sometimes work at night at the house.

~~~
JeffreyKaine
I'll clarify that my wife works kitchen hours, so I tend to stick around the
city until she's off. By no means am I required to stay at the office until 11
;)

------
uptownfunk
My turn!

Desk: Some guy was moving out from the building next to me, so I bought his
plain brown desk for like $20

Chair: Whatever was the imitation aeron from staples or office depot, can't
remember which.

Monitor: Mostly on laptop, but have an LG plugged into my desktop, which I now
barely use

Computer: One desktop, ASUS, from newegg, bought almost four years ago, still
works well. Three laptops, (two thinkpads for work, and one personal MBP
Retina). It's too many to deal with.

Keyboard: For my desktop some POS $10 I bought from a student supply store,
otherwise laptop keyboards. Favorite keyboard is the MBP one, the typing flows
so easily on it.

Music: All sorts of shit, sometimes I'll have food network playing in the
background for hours.. dunno why, just helps me work, otherwise, my wife's
chillstep bullshit, otherwise, 50's-60's indian classical music.

Hours: Hybrid Vampire / Regular.

------
Joof
Not sure, I should probably clear up this mess and find out...

------
zym
Desk: From a local manufacturer. Not too fancy but very big.

Chair: Low-cost chair, around $30.

Monitor: iMac 27' (Mid 2011)

Keyboard: Apple Keyboard USB, I don't like to charge my mouse. But I do have a
new Magic Mouse for travel.

Music: Rock, R&B

Hours: 10AM - 10PM for the day, 0AM - 3AM for the night.

------
akcreek
I'll share my home setup - I like it better than the office:

\+ Desk: LAX series by Mash Studios

\+ Chair: Vintage Pollock Executive

\+ Computer: 15" Retina Macbook Pro

\+ Monitor: Apple 20" Cinema Display

\+ Keyboard: Apple USB with keypad

\+ Music: Spotify, eclectic mix - mostly indie

\+ Hours: All kinds - whenever it feels right when I can

------
oyebenny
I quad screen.

