Four writers. Four desks. 186 things they have actually lived with.

Every review is one item on one writer's numbered checklist. Pick a desk and walk in.

Desk 01

Nicholas Tong

Security & Systems Correspondent

Houston security engineer who reviews the gear his own network runs on, and what happens to it when the power goes out.

46items on the list

  1. 09Tailscale: the tool that deleted my port forwards
  2. 31the battery was dead the whole time
  3. 44the crypto was never the hard part
Enter the desk

Desk 02

Ava Nguyen

Lifestyle & Design Blogger

Ava Nguyen is a Midwest product designer, trained in print, who writes about cozy desks, money, rest and what things really cost.

48items on the list

  1. 17the ember mug 2, or the end of microwaved coffee as a lifestyle
  2. 20the instax mini 12, and the only photo of mochi that exists on paper
  3. 32a fake sun woke me up gently and i have feelings about it
Enter the desk

Desk 03

Ryan Cobbler

Practical Tech & Small Business Blogger

Former HVAC tech who learned to code at thirty-eight and now builds websites for a dentist, two plumbers and a bowling alley.

47items on the list

  1. 32Housecall Pro: how a one truck HVAC shop lost the paper tickets
  2. 21Netgear Orbi: what fixed the dead zone at the bowling alley
  3. 11Somebody quoted my plumber $500 a month for SEO
Enter the desk

Desk 04

Jason Lee

Work, Craft & Culture Essayist

Jason Lee writes essays, usually late, about work, judgement and how smart people talk themselves into bad decisions.

45items on the list

  1. 01Notion sells you a canvas, and the canvas becomes the work
  2. 07Slack sells presence, and presence is not the same as progress
  3. 35The chairs outlived the company
Enter the desk

Twelve to start with

Three from each desk, dealt into one pile. Every card keeps its writer's colors.

  1. The Tailscale wordmark

    Nicholas Tong

    09

    Tailscale

    Tailscale: the tool that deleted my port forwards

    For six years my jump box was a $4 a month VPS in a Dallas datacenter, hostname bayou-1, port 22 open to the entire internet and guarded by fail2ban, a 32-character password, and...

    4 minTunnels and privacy
  2. an ember smart mug sitting on its charging coaster

    Ava Nguyen

    17

    Ember Mug 2

    the ember mug 2, or the end of microwaved coffee as a lifestyle

    I used to drink my coffee in three sittings, and none of them were on purpose. One at 6am while I answered comments, one at 9am reheated in the microwave with a skin on top that I...

    4 minthe kitchen
  3. HVAC technicians working on an air conditioning unit outside a building

    Ryan Cobbler

    32

    Housecall Pro (field service software)

    Housecall Pro: how a one truck HVAC shop lost the paper tickets

    Denny Kowalski's dispatch system was the dash of his van. Paper tickets, carbon copies, one for every job, stuck to the dash with a clip. Denny runs Kowalski Heating and Air, one...

    4 minJobs and scheduling
  4. A person writing notes at a desk beside an open laptop

    Jason Lee

    01

    Notion

    Notion sells you a canvas, and the canvas becomes the work

    The last company I advised kept everything in Notion. I mean everything: the product roadmap, the interview loop, the comp bands, the onboarding checklist, a database of every...

    4 minNotes and memory
  5. an instax mini instant camera in pastel blue on a table

    Ava Nguyen

    20

    Fujifilm Instax Mini 12

    the instax mini 12, and the only photo of mochi that exists on paper

    There is a photo of Mochi taped to my mom's fridge, and it is the only photograph of that dog that exists on paper anywhere on earth. I took it on a thanksgiving morning two years...

    4 minthe tote bag
  6. Two white Netgear Orbi mesh wifi units standing on a wooden table

    Ryan Cobbler

    21

    Netgear Orbi mesh system

    Netgear Orbi: what fixed the dead zone at the bowling alley

    The card reader at Rustic Lanes died every night around lane 19. Deb, who owns the place, thought she had a bad tablet. She bought a replacement. Same problem. So she called me...

    4 minOffice hardware
  7. Slack headquarters at 500 Howard Street in San Francisco at dusk, with the lit Slack logo on the glass facade

    Jason Lee

    07

    Slack

    Slack sells presence, and presence is not the same as progress

    I was embedded with a nine-person product team on a short engagement the morning Slack went down for most of a working day in the summer of 2022. By nine fifteen the work had moved...

    5 minMeetings and messages
  8. An APC Back-UPS desktop unit showing its status lights, including the replace battery indicator

    Nicholas Tong

    31

    APC Back-UPS Pro BR1500MS2 UPS

    the battery was dead the whole time

    When Beryl came through Houston in July 2024, my block went dark at 4am and the UPS under my desk started beeping every thirty seconds, which is exactly what it is supposed to do...

    5 minDesk and power
  9. Plumber working on pipework under a sink

    Ryan Cobbler

    11

    Yoast SEO

    Somebody quoted my plumber $500 a month for SEO

    Somebody cold-called Vince, the other plumber I keep, and quoted him five hundred a month for SEO. A year, that's a used work van. Vince asked me, "What's it actually cost to show...

    3 minMarketing and design
  10. A Herman Miller Aeron chair in mesh and graphite, the chair that keeps its value after the company that bought it is gone

    Jason Lee

    35

    Herman Miller Aeron

    The chairs outlived the company

    Eight years ago I spent two weeks on the wind-down of a client, a consumer app company that had run out of runway in the usual order: employees, then morale, then the lease. The...

    5 minObjects
  11. WireGuard performance comparison chart published by the WireGuard project

    Nicholas Tong

    44

    WireGuard

    the crypto was never the hard part

    For two years at the MSP I carried a pager that was, functionally, a subscription to one IPsec tunnel. It linked a client's warehouse to their office across town, and every second...

    5 minTunnels and privacy
  12. A bedside digital alarm clock glowing softly in a dim room

    Ava Nguyen

    32

    Hatch Restore 2

    a fake sun woke me up gently and i have feelings about it

    At 6:12 this morning a small fake sun started rising on my nightstand, ten minutes ahead of my alarm, and I was awake before it finished. No shrieking. No hand slapping a phone...

    4 minrest and self care

How the lists work

Four rules, so the numbers and dates on every page mean the same thing.

  • One list per writer

    Every review is one item on its writer's checklist, numbered from 01. Each desk page runs in list order, top to bottom.

  • A number is a place, not a score

    Item 01 isn't better than item 30. It's just higher on the list. Nobody here hands out stars.

  • Two dates on every review

    The first is when the review went up here. "Source dated" is the publication date of the main outside source the writer checked, so you can see how fresh the facts underneath are.

  • Four feeds, or one

    Each desk has its own RSS feed. The site feed carries all four.