Things I Use

By Artyom Bologov

I am aiming to produce less e-waste, so I don't use much hardware. And I stick with whatever I have until it's unusable and I need to replace it. Software-wise, I'm constantly looking for more resilient and minimal platforms. Thus my interest in C, Lambda Calculus, ed(1), Lisp, and HTML. Here are skip links to my devices:

Laptop: Lenovo Thinkpad L13 Yoga #

Photo of a laptop lid with lots of stickers with text in Russian and English. A ginger cat is also visible in the photo.
The Stickers and The Cat

A gift from Atlas Engineer folks, so thanks to them!

OS
Arch Linux. (Used to be Guix System, but I was irritated with outdated package situation there.)
Shell/DE/WM
Heavily-configured StumpWM.
Browser
LibreWolf; Ungoogled Chromium for Chromium-reliant sites; Surf (segfaults right now, but I am working on it!)
Programming Languages/Environments
Common Lisp (SBCL, ECL) with Graven Ima... ahem, Trivial libs! then Clojure/Scheme, C+POSIX, HTML/CSS 3-5+, ed(1).
Writing/Website/PDF/Gemini Generator
A bunch of ed(1) scripts and a Makefile.
Games
Dead Cells, TIS-100 (and other Zachtronics titles), Hollow Knight (+ Silksong), Kandria and numerous games from Palestinian Relief Bundle, Queer Games Bundle 2025, and Play for Peace bundle.
Text editing
Heavily-customized ed. (No, just kidding, it’s Emacs!)
Everything else
Heavily-configured Emacs. I'm trying to get off this drug, but the thing is strong.

Macbook Air (previously The Work Machine) #

I asked for a new laptop at one of my contract jobs. They got me a recent-ish Macbook Air. When I left, I decided to buy it out to be safe from the Rammageddon. Specs:

Processor
M4
RAM
24G
OS
OSX 15 (because fuck Liquid Glass)
Keyboard
ISO Kazakh Russian (I don’t even know such a layout existed and whether it actually is Kazakh!)
Software used
I mainly use this machine for games that don’t run on Linux; to move audio to my iPods; and to do some Mac-specific projects (none as of yet.) So the software is minimal: Common Lisp (ECL, SBCL) and ed(1)

Smartphone: iPhone SE2 #

Yeah, I know, not a power user smartphone. But, to me, it's not a smartphone, it's a dumbphone. So hear me out.

So I got myself a (smallest and feature-less-est) iPhone and dumbed it down:

OS
iOS 18, because it has Lockdown Mode already but has no Liquid Glass yet.
Settings
Disabled Siri and ads, Lockdown Mode, Orbot on by default, JavaScript off.
Accessibility
Monochrome filter, contrast utils, zoom, text scaling, and almost all Accessibility options really. I'll write on it sometime later.
Socials
Mastodon (Metatext -> official app -> Ice Cubes,) Telegram (I miss P-Telegram on iOS...) and email, of course.

With this setup, my experience is extremely minimalist. No colors, slow internet, minimal notifications, maximal vision aids. Perfect to get away from smartphones to Hipster PDA and other dedicated things.

Watch: Casio AE-1000W #

Three Casio watches on the table. On the right, a fancy CA-53W, a calculator watch, lies—no signs of life, no digits on the screen. In the middle, Casio MV-240 watch, with actual arrows and a dial! On the right, Casio AE-1000W, a relatively ugly watch with world map, artificial dial, timer, stopwatch, alarm, and everything. It looks extremely ugly though, even with sanded-down markings and black strap (the watch itself is navy blue.)
CA-53W, MV-240, and my latest AE-1000W

I have a long story with trying to pick up watches. I was enamored by calculator watches at some point in 2024. So I ordered the legendary Casio CA-53. I decided to dissect it, and broke it in the process. It stopped showing digits. I’m bad at hardware, so I was unable to revive it. And the display was too small anyway.

Recently, I felt an urge to move my time management outside my phone. So I got Casio MV-240—the cheapest and simplest watch I could find. With decent size and discernible arrows.

But, after daily-driving MV-240, I realized that I need a day of the month and day of the week display. I kept checking my phone for these, which defeats the purpose of offloading things to the watch. So I got legendary Casio F91. It was too small and barely discernible for me, so I exchanged it for AE-1000W the next day.

AE-1000W is ugly as hell, but it has countdown timer (that I direly need!) and many other functions. I cannot imagine needing new watch (and phone clock apps) anytime soon. Except maybe going crazy about smart watch, but that is out of question. So AE it is. I’ve already sanded down all the markings on the outside and am thinking of sanding down the silver finish too.

Cyberdeck/Blindeck #

Photo of a mechanical keyboard with a circuitry and wires sticking out of the back, standing on a wooden table. The keyboard is beige with some light-red keys (one of them reads 'Vortex'.) the circuit in the back has several USB ports, Ethernet port, GPIO pins, HDMI and Type C ports. There are several cables plugged into USB ports. The place the circuit is plugged in looks janky and cut out by hand.
It looks slightly better now, but here is an older photo

I have this project: no-screen cyberdeck with audio interface only. Preferably with Lisp OS. And it's not even a project idea—I built it!

Hardware
Raspberry PI 400.
Case/keyboard
Vortex PC66 ANSI, 68 Cherry MX Clear keys.
OS
Debian/Raspbian/Raspberry PI OS.
Shell
Embeddable Common Lisp. Yes, I'm booting right into ECL REPL and using it as a way to interact with the system. And it is fully speech-enabled too!

And that's roughly it for the tech I use. Should I tell you about my Tarot deck? No, not today.