Lobsters Battlestations and Screenshots (2026)
58 points by quintus
58 points by quintus
It seems our usual annual poster of these threads has overlooked it this year, but it is this time again. Feel free to post your current setup/battlestation/screenshots! I really find these yearly threads inspiring and like to look for new ways to arrange my desktop (both the physical one and the virtual one).
Previous threads can be found at:
My Desktop and lab-garage.
Same here. I was expelled out of my office for a playroom conversion so I built an office space in the garage.
Never seen someone else with a floor desk in one of these. Mine is an Ikea Lisabo coffee table with the legs sawn off
Office is still pretty bare as I recently moved, and haven't got around to decorating it
I've just been to Japan and I didn't enjoy the times I went to restaurants and izakayas with floor tables, I was uncomfortable or in pain most of the time. Maybe I need to stretch more and work on my joints :P
I like the keyboard and mouse! What's the square clock thing on the desk?
Sitting on the floor if you don't have decent hip flexibility is not easy, it's definitely a thing you need to start slowly with if you haven't maintained that flexibility from childhood. Regaining that flexibility can have a lot of health advantages beyond just a cool desk setup though!
I like the keyboard and mouse! What's the square clock thing on the desk?
Thanks! It's a carbon dioxide monitor
I think it has to do with limb proportions as well, not just how supple you are. Japanese people have relatively shorter legs compared to overall height. Easier to fit your legs under those tables. Couple with a shorter total height it makes sense that this kind of furniture isn't ergonomic for people outside that norm.
Japanese people also sit on their ankles a lot, a kneeling position, something which I can't do at all. Maybe that's a more comfortable position for low furniture.
Like normal desks, floor desks are also quite sensitive to the height of the user. Mine is an Ikea coffee table that I sawed the legs off, so it's really made for me. It's 36cm tall, and I'm pretty tall by global standards, so I imagine the ones in Japan are shorter, though I've never been there.
I have also seen there are some standing desks on the market now that go all the way down to floor height, but they're well out of my budget
What's the square clock thing on the desk?
Looks to be specifically a https://aranet.com/en/home/products/aranet4-home .
I've been told that it also has to do with literally how you grow up. Japanese people are sitting zazen on the floor from the time they can sit up at all, and that apparently influences how their joints develop at least a little. I wonder if sitting cross-legged is uncomfortable for them?
What's that keyboard? :O
Apricot by Lazydesigners. I think it was only made as a one-off (I got mine secondhand). If you're interested in similar keyboards I recommend checking out the 40s discord. Unfortunately they're not on any other platforms...
My setup at work (I just use the laptop at home): https://pasteboard.co/9yndVE5HmL7P.jpg
It's wild to me how many screens some people use -- the desk behind yours seems to have 4?
It is just an attention/focus thing for me I guess. I have tried multiple monitors at various points, but I always end up reverting to my vastly preferred setup -- laptop screen when standalone and laptop-in-clamshell-mode with single external (big) monitor when at desk.
Yeah, I don’t quite understand how my neighbour manages to focus. It seems to work for him, while I don’t even use the laptop monitor.
Home office (I work fully remotely)
I want an ultra-ultrawide, but I don't want to reduce my vertical screen resolution :(.
It's not ultra-wide but you might like the BenQ RD280UA, a hidpi screen with a 3:2 aspect ratio (and backlight). I bought it some months ago and still love the additional vertical space.
Seconded, I liked mine so much I bought two and run them side by side on my desk now. I had a Huawei MateView previously which was same aspect ratio and I really struggle with standard 16:10 or 16:9 screens now. The extra height is so useful for programming; more code, more browser, more documentation, more terminal scroll back visible.
I have had it on my wishlist for some time now, and reading your comment makes me want to order it right away. Do you use KVM by any chance, any problems with it? How is the halo performing in darker room?
I have one of them connected to the gaming PC as a second display and it works well enough. It can do switchable USB hubs but I’ve not made use of that between the two machines. Second machine uses USB-B cable for it I think, main machine it’s all over the USB-C cable.
Halo works well enough, good for that interim light level before I turn the office lights on properly.
Wow. That's the first thing I've seen that has me seriously tempted to replace the Dell U3014 (2560x1600, so 16:10 and 100-ish DPI) that I picked up as a cheap refurb about 10 years ago. (The U3014 is still going strong, and I still like it, but it's that age where I've started to keep my eyes open for what I'd replace it with, in case the backlight fails... this is the first replacement I've considered that seems like it'd be a big upgrade without a serious reconfiguration of my workspace. To the point that I might do so before this one actually fails.)
How much do you have vertically then? On my Dell U4025QW it's 5120x2160.
You're right, I'm on 3480x2160 at 32" right now, so that Dell wouldn't be a downgrade anymore.
Man, I would love for there to be a year-by-year comparison that observes trends ands developments :)
(Anyone remember the linux 3d compiz workspace switcher that everyone needed to have in ~2005?)
(Anyone remember the linux 3d compiz workspace switcher that everyone needed to have in ~2005?)
Apparently it's a thing for wayland.
https://pasteboard.co/lrgknVfSoVe6.jpg
Still running my desktop PC from 2013 with an Intel Core i7-2600S and 8 GB RAM. Also still have my first TFT Monitor on the right. (LG W226WTQ-SF from 2007)
Cherry Stream Keyboard TKL for silent typing.
These stands for monitors seem to be quite popular, but they always make me wonder: Is this not highly uncomfortable for your neck, because you have to look upwards rather than straight? I for my part always need the monitor to sit as close to the table surface as possible to feel comfortable. Or do you work while standing rather than sitting?
It forces me to sit straight more often. When i lean back in my chair, my eyes are right in the center of the monitor.
It reminds me a previous company I worked for where we had the same problem, but we didn’t had nice stands like yours (we were on a budget…) so we ended up using random objects to lift monitors: cardboard boxes, stacked books, duct tape rolls, etc. The office looked wonderful.
https://share.matejkafka.com/37TlJQuvmes814nbpSMR2DEgWZLtYK6z-IMG_20260115_153205_456.jpg
Definitely not beating the stereotypes. :)
Home setup: https://pasteboard.co/yyFTm4DZxZLx.jpg
My favorite screen so far is this ultrawide 49 (OLED G9). I went from a triple 2k setup to one monitor without MBP screen on. Great speakers + sub is awesome. Sold my Aeron to a Secret Labs Titan last year as well, feels like an upgrade. I use my desktop PC for gaming.
My home setup: https://brehaut.net/media/files/tmp/desk-2026.png It’s barely controlled chaos. I opted for the “cheaper” studio display without the adjustable stand, and instead built a simple riser that also acts as a cable conduit / mess container. I still need to make something to get the speakers up to a suitable height. (The keyboard is labelled for my kid just btw)
I have my guitar pedalboard to the right of my office chair, always plugged in to my amp ready to get a few minutes in.
I guess you usually play ambiant/shoegaze music.
I like the idea of your little riser because with a similar amount of gear I usually end up with two miles of tangled cables…
I do do ambient from time to time mostly in the box though (Bitwig, if you care). If you are guessing by the pedals, the Empress Tape Delay is set as a chorus/flanger rather than being used as a delay, Volante is mostly delay (i find its spring simulation a bit much most of the time), although im not using it for the most extreme things its capable of most of the time
Oh interesting. But yeah I don’t often see a pedalboard with half of the space taken by reverbs and delays!
Ha yeah, fair call. I've found over time that if i have more than two overdrives and maybe a fuzz on my board, i'm going to make a mess with the way the levels interact. It's left more room for the wet effects as a result
what are the specs on that thinkpad?
P14s Gen 5, 64 GB RAM, Intel® Core™ Ultra 7 165H × 22, Intel Arc Graphics.
It's not my personal laptop, it's the development environment work that has certain requirements.
My personal laptop is an X250 with 8GB RAM Intel graphics and 1366x768 display.
https://pasteboard.co/NZZ0wOzGajcA.jpg
Getting a split keyboard was a huge upgrade. Unfortunately, the adhesive on my cheap under-table cable clips wore out...
Work office for part of the week; the good keyboard's at home. I'm using the Windows of Siracusa County method. Let em breathe.
The main thing I'd change is to have a somewhat bigger screen than this 27", but still just the one.
https://kallus.org/img/battlestation.jpeg
That layout in a model F is top notch. I thought long and hard about getting one of the recent reproductions. The XT's model F was my first keyboard and they are treasures.
Honestly, I wouldn't recommend getting one. Every so often keys become inconsistent and the whole thing needs to be dissasembled and cleaned.
The Unicomp New Model M was much more reliable, until I hit the enter key too excitedly and broke the plastic under the spring. To fix it requires doing a bolt mod, so it's shelved for now.
My desk that I had to clean just for you guys
This looks like a huge e-ink monitor that displays the NYT. What is this? Do you actually read the newspaper on that one or is it just for decoration?
It's just for decoration. It's an Inky Impression 13.3" color e-ink screen with a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W on the back in a 3D-printed frame. It fetches the front page from one of various newspapers in PDF form in the morning, crops it, converts it to an image, and then displays it. I got the idea from this years ago but I'm not going to spend $2500 on a screen big enough to read all of the fine print.
Where does the term "battlestation" come from? Is there a less military term we could use instead? It just seems so not-hacker-like to me…
https://hawski.com/noindex/desk-b.jpg
There is my private desktop and a work laptop visible.
I aim to do 10k steps and then I move the treadmill away and sit on the bar stool (visible on the right).
Can you spot a bird? :)
is it a great tit or a blue tit?
Did it take much getting used to using the treadmill while working? I'm not sure I could multitask enough to walk and type :~)
https://tomsmeding.com/f/desk-20260115-e80a0fa4b.jpg
2 Philips 27.5 inch monitors, logi mx mechanical keyboard, logi mx vertical mouse. Self-built PC from 2021 with an Intel i9-10900K inside, 32 GB RAM. Runs i3. The worst cable mess is hidden below the desk :)
Timely article from the NYT : "How to Arrange Your Desk" https://www.nytimes.com/article/desk-organization-home-design.html
Nothing very earth shattering, but typical NYT well written article. "a desk is a refuge, a haven, a place where we can be productive surrounded by the objects we need and love"
The picture includes a painting with exposed breasts, potentially NSFW
https://immich.lsc.cloud/share/RwmQO7qxYfKLJ9Z_pVDuRMKzTL8pcSsW4psbEkPat_PEVfNVE7JbS6JwZTMqHr7QqU4
I spend way to much time here, working from home, having gaming as a hobby and I've started dabbling with music production (very early, still just playing around with it). Macbook Pro for work, a desktop running Arch on the floor for personal use, a couple of mechanical keyboards, a condenser mic from Rode, a pair of Audioengine A2+ speakers, a small midi controller from Akai for previously mentioned music production experimentatio, i also got a scarlett solo audio interface for the microphone and also to drive the Sundara headphones to the right.
In the end do I spend most of my time in a terminal or browser.
Here we go, here's mine: https://pasteboard.co/9WobxGZ3Z1Kr.jpg :)
It's a standing desk with an oak top from the hardware store that I sanded and oiled myself. Haven't had a desktop computer in quite a while; the Thinkpad is connected to a dockingstation attached underneath the table. Most of my electronics stuff is tucked away in the sideboard under the TV to the right. I throw a silicone mat in the middle and use the same desk for soldering etc.
Here's the mess I spend most of my life day in: https://pasteboard.co/4rRHv81mi2b4.png
I work remotely so this my game and work PC.
PC Specs:
There's also my remarkable 2 tablet, that I use bit less these days, but still like it a lot. And yes that's a Steam Deck on the right. :D
The two screens underneath the desktop monitor are Tufty2040 that I made my system information monitor, messy code for it is here: https://codeberg.org/akselmo/TuftySysMon
Then the TRMNL display I have runs my own Queerminal server thing that's also a mess: https://codeberg.org/Queerminal/queerminal_server The raspberry pi 4 in the small black box behind the microphone is running the show for it.
The smartwatch is some LG Urbane something, which is my moms. I installed AsteroidOS on it because she said the original OS was acting up weird, it's just waiting for pickup/delivery. I personally use Pinetime.
Mine hasn't changed in over a decade with the exception of a standing desk unit on top of the desk and a bigger monitor. And the DIY cable management system I describe in the post is still in place, managing cables.
My home setup: https://www.deviantart.com/fcbsd/ with 25 years of running on an OpenBSD desktop!
Now that I'm working from home, my main machine is a laptop (MacBook Pro). At Microsoft, I spent a while finding a keyboard for my desktop that had the exact same layout as the Surface Book 2, because switching the positions of modifier keys is a huge productivity hit. Now I keep my laptop in front of my display. I use the laptop screen for things I'll occasionally glance at and the big (43") screen for things I'm working on. I had a similar-sized screen on my desk at MS and it was great for making me sit back in my chair and not squint.
Most of the things on my desk are a bit ad-hoc. I have an HP dock that I originally bought because I needed a USB-C to Micro-USB adaptor and no local shops sold such a thing, but the doc had USB-A ports. It's a nice little blob that has two DisplayPort ports, GigE, 3.5mm audio, and a bunch of USB A and C ports and can deliver 100W of power over USB-C, so it's the one wire I need to connect to my laptop. The sound is connected to a NAD 3020A amplifier, which I've owned for decades and some big Panasonic speakers that I was given when a friend moved house and didn't want to take them.
The display is an Iiyama thing that I bought for about £100 a couple of years ago when I saw it in a second-hand shop (setting up a startup and having no spare equipment budget). I expected to replace it after six months, but it's actually pretty decent. I'll probably upgrade to an 8K display once they're cheap, at the distance I sit this panel is almost high enough resolution that I can't see pixels.
