Add James' interview and portrait

posts/james.turk.markdown

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+---
+title: James Turk
+summary: Assistant Clinical Professor (University of Chicago)
+date: 2024-08-10
+categories:
+- developer
+- linux
+- mac
+- teacher
+---
+
+### Who are you, and what do you do?
+
+[James Turk](https://jamesturk.net/ "James' website."). I am an Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of Chicago. I teach in the Masters of Science in Computer Science & Masters of Science in Computational Analysis & Public Policy programs.
+
+Teaching is new to me. I spent the prior 15 years as as software developer and manager in civic tech. For over a decade I was the lead of the [Open States](https://github.com/openstates/ "An organisation collecting US state legistation for open sharing.") project, an open source effort to make all state legislative information available via a common interface. It is used by major media organizations, advocacy groups, and researchers across the country. I also helped found the Open Civic Data project, which is a standard used by election officials, as well as tech companies like Google and Microsoft to enable interoperability between election data systems.
+
+Now my focus is on teaching and helping train more civic technologists. I am also very interested in various ways that we can push back against the corporate internet and all the negatives that come with it.
+
+I like making things, which usually means I am working on something artistic and a technical side project for fun. Lately I've been spending more time hiking and camping, weather permitting.
+
+### What hardware do you use?
+
+I used to be a pretty puritanical Linux/Android user, but after a series of bad hardware issues with both I switched to Apple gear.
+
+These days, I mostly use a [14" M1 Macbook Pro][macbook-pro]. I use that for daily work, development, presentations, etc. Despite my reluctance, this is the happiest I've been with a laptop since my [ThinkPad T420][thinkpad-t420] ten years ago.
+
+I have a pair of USB-C monitors at home, and usually use a [Keychron V1][v1-qmk].
+
+I mostly think of phones as a necessary evil, and replace my phone with the phone that has the most reliable hardware, best battery life, and least spyware every 3-4 years. That's currently an iPhone.
+
+After using a pretty cheap pair of Bluetooth headphones until they broke, I decided to upgrade to a pair of [Sony WH-1000XM5][wh-1000xm5] and I'm incredibly impressed with them.
+
+I also wear a modded Casio F-91W watch with a [Sensor Watch][sensor-watch] board. It was a fun project and I have a watch with a thermometer, moon phase calculation, and a few other fun features with a battery that lasts a year.
+
+I also use a dotted A5 notebook for meeting notes and TODO lists.
+
+Finally, my house is held together by a handful of [Raspberry Pis][raspberry-pi]: [Home Assistant][home-assistant], a home audio server, and an e-ink picture frame that mostly shows me the latest absurd [Heathcliff](https://www.gocomics.com/heathcliff "The Healthcliff comic.").
+
+### And what software?
+
+I try to avoid OS-specific software, spending most of my time in the browser and terminal. Wherever possible I use an open source & cross platform app. avoiding lock-in is important to me.
+
+I use [fish][] as my shell, always running inside a [tmux][] session so I can split windows/restore layouts, and [neovim][] as my editor for quick scripts, config files, and notes if I'm already in the terminal.
+
+When I started teaching, I decided to start using [VSCode][visual-studio-code] for my main development environment, since 90% of my students will be and it feels right to be familiar with the same tools they are using. I'm pretty comfortable in it, and find it nice for larger projects with a passable vim-mode.
+
+I still write a lot of [Python][]: I'm partial to using [pyenv][], [poetry][], and [pipx][] to manage my Python environment and packages. [ruff][] has become an incredibly useful tool as well.
+
+I also use [ag][the-silver-searcher] and [chezmoi][] for searching code/notes and managing my dotfiles, respectively.
+
+I use [Firefox][] as my browser, in equal parts to support an open web, and because it allows a level of customization that works well for my idiosyncratic browsing needs.
+
+One thing I really miss on [macOS][] is the ability to use a true tiling window manager. I get by with [Magnet][] for now, but this is likely what will push me off macOS for my next machine.
+
+I take a lot of notes and have probably tried twenty note-taking apps over the last ten years. I've mostly settled on [Obsidian][] for now, largely for its high-quality sync which allows me to edit a note in neovim, VSCode, or Obsidian, and reference it from my phone, or take a quick note from my phone and expand upon it later when I have a full keyboard. Programs that use real files will always win for me, since they afford this kind of flexibility.
+
+Honorable mentions:
+
+* [Pocket Casts][pocket-casts] -  I've used it almost every day for nearly a decade and remain completely happy with it.
+* [FastMail][] - Secure, private, and so much nicer than GMail.
+* [Fantastical][] - A piece of macOS software I happily paid for so I could reliably have all of my calendars in one place.
+
+### What would be your dream setup?
+
+I wish I could plug my phone into a keyboard, mouse, and monitor and have a full desktop environment with me everywhere I go. I would prefer this to the everything-in-the-cloud model, since I could use this in the woods, and my data would be local to me by default. (Of course, if that were the case, I'd need a real OS on my phone too.)
+
+This has been my dream since I got my first [ADP1][android-dev-phone] and since then I have backed more than one unsuccessful attempt at this.
+
+Setting the bar a bit lower, a Framework laptop with the component quality of a 2024 MBP. I'm really impressed with what they're doing already, and imagine my next machine could be one of theirs in a couple of years.
+
+My office would be a small room with a window overlooking some nature, with a few plants and a comfortable chair. I'm actually not that far off on that last part, which is pretty lucky.
+
+[android-dev-phone]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_Dev_Phone "A development Android phone."
+[chezmoi]: https://www.chezmoi.io/ "A tool for managing your dotfiles."
+[fantastical]: https://flexibits.com/fantastical "A calendaring app for the Mac."
+[fastmail]: https://www.fastmail.com/ "An email hosting service."
+[firefox]: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/ "A cross-platform open-source web browser."
+[fish]: https://fishshell.com/ "A command-line shell."
+[home-assistant]: https://www.home-assistant.io/ "Home automation software."
+[macbook-pro]: https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/ "A laptop."
+[macos]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS "An operating system for Mac hardware."
+[magnet]: https://magnet.crowdcafe.com/ "Mac software for organising windows."
+[neovim]: https://neovim.io/ "A refactored vim."
+[obsidian]: https://obsidian.md/ "Note-taking software."
+[pipx]: https://github.com/pypa/pipx "Software for creating isolated Python environments"
+[pocket-casts]: http://web.archive.org/web/20230513180147/https://play.pocketcasts.com/ "A web-based podcast player."
+[poetry]: https://python-poetry.org/ "A package manager for Python."
+[pyenv]: https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv "Python version management software."
+[python]: https://www.python.org/ "An interpreted scripting language."
+[raspberry-pi]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi "A single-board hackable computer."
+[ruff]: https://github.com/astral-sh/ruff "A linter and code formatter for Python."
+[sensor-watch]: https://www.sensorwatch.net/ "A replacement motherboard for the Casio F‑91W."
+[the-silver-searcher]: https://geoff.greer.fm/ag/ "A command-line search tool."
+[thinkpad-t420]: http://web.archive.org/web/20210506094630/https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/pd015734 "A 14 inch PC laptop."
+[tmux]: https://sourceforge.net/projects/tmux.mirror/ "A terminal multiplexer, similar to screen."
+[v1-qmk]: https://www.keychron.com/products/keychron-v1-qmk-via-custom-mechanical-keyboard "A customisable mechanical keyboard."
+[visual-studio-code]: https://code.visualstudio.com/ "A development IDE."
+[wh-1000xm5]: https://www.sony.com/electronics/headband-headphones/wh-1000xm5 "On-ear headphones."