What’s on your desk, Jay Peters?

What’s on your desk, Jay Peters?

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The Verge lives off the news, and Jay Peters is one of the editors who keep it up – researching the latest information on what’s happening in technology, entertainment and culture and writing for the site. As with the rest of us, Jay has been doing most of his work at home for the past year – here’s how he manages it.

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

I’m a news writer here at The Verge, and I’m lucky to cover all kinds of things in technology, games, entertainment and more. On any given day, I can write about things like the iPhone 13, Pokémon gadgets, Marvel movie titles, Fifteen days skins, or even the Monopoly Longest Game Ever edition.

I had a tortuous path to this job. After college, I worked in technology PR, I started writing about technology in Techmeme, and joined The Verge in August 2019.

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

Taking the configuration to where it is now took years. I tried different tables, mice, keyboards, laptop stands, monitor arms and even at one point I connected the Nintendo Switch dock to one of the legs of the table using velcro. And I’m always tweaking my configuration, so anything I’ve set up now can change in the future.

As for Where the table is, it was a happy coincidence that my current apartment has a corner the perfect size for this table and the dresser (which contains things like game controls and my notebook).

What adjustments did you have to make to work from home and how do you deal with distractions?

My wife and I have worked at home since 2017, so our physical work environments have not changed much due to the pandemic. However, as we live in a studio, we have to communicate every day about our schedules and meetings, to avoid the two of them staying at the same time at the same time.

To avoid distractions, I usually put on my AirPods Pro, without sound. This is usually enough to block things out so I can stay focused. But if I need a little white noise, I turn on this extended YouTube video that consists entirely of ambient noise from the USS Enterprise’s engine Star Trek: the next generation. It has been my preference for years. And when I feel like working on some music, I’ve been using lo-fi video game music remixes lately.

Tell me a little about the table itself, which I see is a sitting / standing table. How did you choose that?

It is a Jarvis table that is totally upright. I used a seated / standing table in my PR work and got used to being able to switch back and forth, and standing up makes me feel less lazy from being parked in front of a computer all day. I also found that alternating between sitting and standing relieves back pain and helps with a repetitive strain injury (RSI) in my wrists, which first appeared a few years ago.

One of the best accessories I bought for the table was the programmable memory unit, which allows me to touch a button to adjust the table to my preferred sitting and standing positions. I also bought the casters (wheels) so that I could push it onto my seats and my wife, which are right behind the table. I can bring the table, adjust the monitor down a little bit and use it to watch movies and play video games.

It looks like you have less space on your desktop than most desks we’ve seen from your colleagues.

Space is scarce in my studio, so a smaller table works better for me now. I’m also lucky to be able to technically do all my work with just one laptop, so don’t need a bigger table – although a keyboard, mouse and monitor make it that much easier!

It is a really interesting table chair.

It is the Capisco chair from HÅG, and I thought so too when I first saw it in the Fully online store. I had no plans to buy it because of the price, which starts at $ 829. But I tried it at the Fully showroom in Portland and it was my favorite chair there, so I ran into it. Every day I am happy to have done this, as I can sit comfortably on it for hours and it helps a lot in my posture.

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

I have a new 13-inch MacBook Air with Apple’s custom M1 chip inside. It is a fantastic machine. The only update I added was 16 GB of RAM. I didn’t add any storage on board because most of my digital life is stored online.

The monitor is an Asus VS228H-P with a 21.5 inch screen. My Amazon account tells me that I bought this in 2015, but although it is old, I am still very happy with it. (I admit I thought it was a 24-inch screen for, uh, years.)

It is attached to a Huanuo monitor stand, and I bought it because it was the tallest I could find.

It’s a really interesting display setup. How did you decide that? Does it work well for you?

I use a single monitor because I’m easily distracted if I have more than one. I would like to upgrade to something bigger or maybe even an ultra-wide someday, though (especially now that I know I have a 21.5 inch monitor instead of a 24 inch one).

The extremely tall monitor stand serves two purposes: it helps a lot with my posture and is highly adjustable, which means that I can lower it to a lower height when I am sitting on the chairs behind the table.

Tell us a little bit about the mouse you have on the right side of the keyboard.

It’s Contour Unimouse. My wrists can hurt if I use a “boring” mouse for two longs, so I spent a lot of time and money testing different vertical mice to see which one fit me best. I like Unimouse very much because of its height – the company’s website says it is 70 degrees.

The mouse pad is the VictSing ergonomic mouse pad. I don’t remember why I chose it over others, but it works very well for me and is cheap.

You are the second person I see who uses a split keyboard. Do you think it is better than a traditional keyboard?

I make! It is the Kinesis Freestyle Pro with additional accessories for tents and wrist pads. I have happily used the Microsoft Sculpt ergonomic keyboard for years and have also tried other ergonomic keyboards like Kinesis Advantage2 QD and ErgoDox EZ. But Freestyle Pro looks the best to me.

I also like being able to program specific keys for macros. On the left side of my keyboard, you can see that I roughly stuck pieces of Post-It notes over some of the keys – those pieces are reminders of what I programmed the keys to do, like Command + L to quickly highlight the link in the bar. My browser’s URL.

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

During the workday, my AirPods Pro almost never leave my ears – they are comfortable, sound good and work great with my Mac and iPhone. I have only one criticism: unlike the original AirPods, AirPods Pro tend to fall when I’m talking about calls or eating. I hope Apple will tweak AirPods Pro a little bit for the next model.

My webcam is the Logitech C920 HD Pro. It’s great and much better than my MacBook Air’s webcam.

My USB-C hub is the Totu 13-in-1. Honestly, it’s overkill for my needs, but it works well. Sometimes, however, he emits a high-pitched dog squeak that is really annoying. And the load pad is a Choetech load pad. It works well enough, although it charges my iPhone very slowly and sometimes requires me to change my devices a bit until the charge indicators light up.

To the left of my desk are my PlayStation 5 Digital Edition, Xbox Series X and Nintendo Switch. Most of the time, I only own Nintendo consoles until recently, so I’ve spent a lot of my pandemic free time updating myself with old PlayStation and Xbox games on the PS5 and X Series. (At the moment, I’m tearing my way 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim.) They are all sitting on a two-drawer IKEA Malm dresser.

And throughout the day, I drink water from my faithful Hydro Flask water bottle. I replaced the cap with a Klean Kanteen sport cap, though, which I think leaks less than the Hydro Flask sport cap.

When you sent the photos, you apologized for the cat hair on some of your devices. Tell us about the cat!

Meet Gouda! He is an exotic eight year old shorthair and his tongue never goes completely into his mouth. But don’t be fooled by his cuteness, he is full of problems. He likes to drop small objects off the counter and wake my wife and me thirty minutes before the alarm goes off. But we love him very much anyway.

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