What’s on your desk, Cameron Faulkner?

It’s hard enough to be a writer, reviewer and technology enthusiast to The Verge under normal circumstances. It is even more difficult when you are working in a shared apartment during a pandemic. Cameron Faulkner, who not only deals with our business pages, but also writes on a wide variety of topics, has somehow succeeded.

We asked him to explain how.

Tell me a bit about yourself. What is your background and what do you do in The Verge?

Hi! Technology has always been my passion, and I’ve been happily writing about technology professionally for about seven years, almost three of them in The Verge. Before getting a job in the field, I worked at KFC, at a school supplies distribution center, as a pharmacy technician and as a cashier. I am always strangely proud to share my strange mix of work experience with anyone who wants to listen. I grew up in the midwest of Mansfield, Ohio, but have lived in Brooklyn, New York, since 2013.

My main focus on The Verge is on Verge Deals, including daily summaries of offers that my colleague Taylor Lyles and I choose every day. This also includes helping to write content for Verge Deals’ Twitter account, as well as publishing a weekly newsletter. (You can sign up here!) In addition, I write about gaming peripherals, write comments and instructions, and help the news team cover urgent stories.

How did you decide where and how to set up your workspace?

Organizing different zones in an apartment is a challenge that I have not yet overcome. All of these zones kind of blend together, and without having real rooms with walls to get space from, say, pots hitting the kitchen or other distractions, it can be incredibly difficult to stay focused. Although our last arrangement is possibly the best we can achieve in this space.

My wife and I have our wallets facing opposite directions. Outside the table, behind where I am sitting, is your table. We were forced to be very efficient with these space restrictions, and it’s miles ahead of where we used to be. In fact, we used to share this table that is pictured here, with my monitor, keyboard and mouse on the right and its configuration on the left. The pandemic made us rethink this strategy. Suffice to say that my current configuration is a big improvement.

Tell me a little about the table itself.

First, I would advise people to resist the temptation to buy a glass table, as good as it may seem. It will show dust after a few days – even faster if you have cats that like to climb on it and pet the monitors’ corners. That said, I have had this since 2008, so clearly, it is a good product (or I am just a good enough owner).

Second, my table is never as clean as the picture above indicates. I usually have another mug or two on it and some wrong review products scattered around. That said, I really prefer a minimalist look (difficult to maintain). Without disrespect to my colleagues who appeared in this series, but I don’t have many tchotchkes that I want to show all the time.

How about your office chair?

The office chair I use is Herman Miller Sayl, which usually costs around $ 600 – the low price of this company’s line, believe it or not. I almost bought this chair in mid-2020, when the chair I had was really causing me physical anguish, but Vox Media allowed me to borrow it from our New York office. So I immediately drove over there, put him in the car and brought him home. My cats and I really like it.

Okay, now it’s time to talk about your technology. Let’s start with your computer.

I built that PC, and it is full of parts ranging from 2014 to recently. The case is the SilverStone Temjin, built to accommodate small microATX motherboards. You can see in the photos that it is a little scratched and worn. I love that this case size is small enough to fit on a monitor stand, so I can fit my vacuum cleaner’s head underneath.

Inside the case, I have an Intel Core i5-9600K processor, EVGA GeForce RTX 2070 graphics card, 16 GB of RAM and a 1 GB NVMe SSD. My cable management is not good, but the case closes and the wires are out of harm’s way, so I’m happy with that. My goal is to keep the system fast enough to run any game close to the highest graphics settings, but I generally don’t buy the latest components right after launch.

I see that you have two monitors. How do you use them?

I like to keep my static batch of Google Chrome tabs open on the left screen (apps like Gmail, Google Drive, Asana task management, etc.), along with any article I’m currently writing. On the right side is where I keep Slack, as well as the guides that are more temporary.

Out of work, I play on the left monitor (a 27-inch Acer Nitro XV272U) because it is an IPS QHD panel with a fast refresh rate and compatibility with Nvidia G-Sync. Having two monitors set up was something I used to have in our office, so I bought a second one (a 27 inch LG 27GL650F-B) for me after a few months of the pandemic.

What about your other technology (headphones, speakers, etc.)?

Some devices that always have space on my desk are a mouse (which I’m currently testing) and a Microsoft Sculpt keyboard, along with my JBL Pebble desktop speakers. JBL no longer makes these USB powered speakers, so they cost more than they originally sold (and are worth), but I really like their simplicity and sound.

I keep my company MacBook Pro laptop and Sony WH-1000XM3 headset (hanging from a Master & Dynamic stand) on top of my desk when I need to join a meeting at any time. There is also my phone, a Google Pixel 3, on a Lamicall metal stand. Under my desk, I have a Brainwavz BigT headset holder to keep an extra pair handy. I also like to hang a long USB-C cable on it, which is used to connect my Oculus Quest 2 headset.

Almost hidden on my desk is our Ethernet switch, a Google Nest Wifi wireless router and a Philips Hue bridge.

It is a very interesting keyboard. I’ve seen keyboards split like that, but I’ve never met anyone who used one.

I didn’t think it would be someone who would use one of these, but about a month after the pandemic, I was ending each day with sore wrists and forearms. There were many more expensive ergonomic keyboards out there, especially those with mechanical keys, but Microsoft Sculpt seemed like a good fit because it is wireless and relatively affordable. It helps to orient my wrists more naturally when typing and makes a big difference for me. The material used in the wrist rest actually gets a little dirty after a few weeks of use, but moistening it with soap and water works well enough to restore its original appearance.

I see that, like others here, you sometimes depend on an old-fashioned notebook.

Yes! I used one in the office and I like to keep one here with me at my desk. It is very easy for an important task to get buried in the Chrome tabs or forget an expiration date that is coming. It is simply the best way I know to stay focused on work.

Is there anything significant about your Dreamcast cup?

I’m a big fan of the Sega Dreamcast console, but the cup itself is significant because I bought it at Super Potato, a popular video game store in Tokyo’s Akihabara section. I’m not a big fan of buying souvenirs from other places, but I knew I had to bring this back to the United States. I don’t even drink. (I’m too afraid to break it.) I just keep little things in it, like pens, portable hard drives, etc.

Cameron Faulkner / The Verge photography