Access to Tools: Worm Emoji

Worm Emoji (sometimes known as Luke Miles outside of Crypto Twitter) creates tools that turn onchain activity into participatory culture. Alongside cofounder Adam Ludwin at Context, he’s built interfaces and protocols that allow users to mint a project, build an allowlist, and watch what’s going on in other people’s wallets. He’s also a chief collaborator on David Rudnick’s Tombs Series, and a noted advocate of the screenshot form.

In a new serialized feature for Zora Zine, Worm talks us through the tools (in the broadest possible sense of the word) that shape his practice.

1. The Magic Trackpad

I’m firmly in trackpad camp. While I am a power user when it comes to the keyboard, I think the trackpad is the best way to use a computer. I switched a few years ago after getting wrist pain from using a mouse. Now I can’t go back.

2. Koss Porta Pro Headphones

These are the best headphones. I use them daily. The cord is the perfect length. Music sounds great. I recommend finding replacement earpads to increase comfort but I’m using these constantly. I also have way too many 3.5mm-to-lightning adapters to use them with my phone.

3. Mimestream

Written by a former Apple Mail engineer, Mimestream makes email beautiful to use. Plus, it blocks tracking pixels that the other popular email apps send so I can feel slightly better at being slow to respond to emails.

4. Things

I’ve tried a bunch of to-do list options, from writing a to-do list in a text file to writing my own software to keep track of what I need to do. Things has a number of features, but at its core, it’s a to-do list that syncs between your devices with an ability to schedule stuff for later. Perfect.

5. Mixcloud

When I’m working, I’m usually listening to a DJ set. I love NTS (I’m a paid supporter) but Mixcloud is the simplest way to have music always going. To name a few DJs, I get really excited whenever ONY, Lung Dart, Sigourney, Yu Su put out new mixes. I'm definitely missing a lot of people.

6. Yabai

This is definitely a power-user tool. I’m not sure if I even recommend installing it. yabai keeps all of my windows tiled and adds a couple of features to macOS that I can’t live without, such as making window focus follow my mouse cursor and the ability to set hotkeys to change window spaces without a delay.

7. Postico

For developer tools, I’m pretty locked in to the CLI. Old habits die hard though—I’ve been using Postico for almost a decade now and it’s my favorite way to interact with Postgres databases.

8. Blot

I’ve run a screenshot blog for a couple of years at luke.cat. That blog is powered by blot.im which is the easiest way to turn a folder into a blog. I just drop images into my blog and my screenshots are magically published. It feels great. Earlier this year, I used their API to power my screenshot-minting site at mint.luke.cat, which means I can publish new NFTs by just dropping a file into my Dropbox. Composability in action.

9. Screenotate

As you can probably tell by my screenshot blog, I love screenshots. Screenotate is a drop-in replacement for the built-in macOS screenshot tool that extracts texts and metadata like the webpage you were on when you took the screenshot in a searchable format. It’s simple and magical and has helped me find things in a pinch more than once.

10. Weber Workshops KEY Grinder

I love making coffee at home. I drink about one coffee a day and the KEY is the most beautiful coffee grinder I’ve ever owned. It was a bit of a splurge but I backed it in the presale and got a tiny bit of a discount. Most of the pieces attach and remove magnetically— it’s such a joy to use.

11. The Tiny SSD That I Keep Ethereum On

Running your own Ethereum node is pretty easy and magical. The most important thing you need is storage space. I keep this Samsung SSD with me everywhere I go—it’s the size of three credit cards stacked on top of each other and I keep all of Ethereum on it. The novelty of it hasn’t yet worn off for me.