@benmercerdev

Q: who are you?

My name is Ben. Professionally, I work as a Software Engineer. The first few jobs I had were at early stage startups. Then a Series A startup. I’ve been flirting with web3 for years.

Outside of work, I’ve travelled and lived in slash worked from a fair amount of countries. I spend a lot of time in conversations with friends puzzling through the riddle of life and writing down notes from those conversations.

Q: what hardware do you use?

My setup is embarrassingly normie. I have a 2020 M1 MacBook Pro with a magic mouse and a magic keyboard, Airpod Pro 2, A plastic Nextstand I bought on Amazon. I also have an iPhone 12 Pro which was top of the line when I bought it but apparently now it’s not. I put it on black and white mode as often as I can.

I prefer to stand and work and that has required a bit of creativity while I travel to get my computer and keyboard at standing level. I’ve worked off of stacks of egg cartons, pizza boxes, text books, my girlfriend’s father’s deep freezer and other strange objects that has me oscillating between modes of “get yourself settled and a decent workspace” and “you should be able to code anywhere”. For many hours I’ve worked out of my Tesla Model Y which I called my “mobile office” and often would use one or two neck pillows stacked on my lap. I’ve bought a few second monitors from Costco in various places I’ve lived, whatever brand was the cheapest. The jury is out on whether they make me more productive.

Q: what software do you use?

• For Rails development RubyMine (Jetbrains) and VScode for everything else.
• RoamResearch extensively for thoughts and notes
• Google Sheets. I love Sheets and I have one “Big Sheet” for my personal life that has a bunch of tabs instead of these things spread across dozens of different files.
• A number of custom GPTs in their webapp
• WhatsApp, Messenger, Notes, Spotify, X, Google Maps

Q: what’s your Arcadia?

Would I be destroying Arcadia by bringing my work to a cabin in the woods? I’m worried about that. The cabin is my sacred place. Honestly, I was really close to the dream living in a double-wide in Florida, where I was a few steps from the sun at any given moment. In the dream, I wouldn’t have the phone probably. Also a keyboard that feels more serious, something like knob.technology – but I’m a bit far from investing in a $450 keyboard. Maybe that’s the wrong type of thinking though.