May we ask guidance in more surely learning the ancient truth that greed and selfishness and striving for undue riches can never bring lasting happiness or good to the individual or to his neighbors.
Franklin D. Roosevelt (via azspot)
The Season of Stuff is About to Begin
In a few days, the Season of Stuff will officially begin. During this season, we are actively encouraged to get more stuff, buy more stuff, give stuff to those we “love”, and be thankful for the stuff we have.
This Friday, for instance, sellers of stuff will drop prices to all time lows in order to make it easier for you to give and receive this stuff. Of course, this is in the hopes that the money saved on this stuff will encourage you to buy other non-discounted stuff. You know this, of course, right? You cherry pick the cheap stuff and leave the other stuff for the suckers, right? Of course you do…
All of this stuff will generate a bunch of stuff to be thrown away or recycled. Wrapping, packaging, spent gift cards – they all have to end up somewhere. Not to mention all of the stuff we had to build and machines we run in order to make the stuff we give and receive.Then once the season is over, in fact the very next day, comes the inevitable stuff we have to return (for cash to buy stuff if you have the receipt, exchange for different stuff if not).
Just try to remember that there are plenty of ways to deal with this stuff. You can pledge to get rid of an amount of stuff equal to the amount you receive. You can let those who love you know that you do not want more stuff but want something less tangible instead (breakfast in bed, money for a favorite charity, etc.). Ask for specific stuff you really truly need that will add years of value to your life on a daily basis… and stuff. The point is, control the stuff. Don’t let the stuff control you.
Tim Ferriss on Vibram Shoes on Vimeo (via Vimeo)
Ok, I’ll probably do a write-up on these shoes later, for now I wanted to give you a quick video to watch. I got a pair of these shoes today, and I must say, THEY ROCK! Absolutely the most comfortable, natural shoes I’ve ever worn. If you’ve ever wished you could just waltz around in your socks or bare feet when out & about, these will make that dream come true. They feel that good.
A great video interview with Ben Huh, who runs icanhazcheezburger, failblog, and several other huge humor blogs, and makes millions of dollars at it.
jad:
Meet Ben Huh I can Has Cheezburger CEO
I had to love this rant from mnmal, and I absolutely agree. If you are still using Windows, you are doing yourself a tremendous disservice. Your productivity is being crippled, your opinion of technology in general is being tainted by the generally cheap, classless qualities of Windows and PCs. Your stress levels are higher than necessary. Macs changed my life, reduced my stress, and astronomically improved my productivity and digital creativity. I have very good reason to wholeheartedly recommend them to anyone and everyone. Ditch Windows, now, and for your own good.
There. That’s my rant for the day. I hope it helps someone find their way into a better world.
(Qualifiers: 10yrs. Experience as a professional web designer/developer, 8 as a Tech Consultant, 7 yrs. making websites on Windows, fixed many, many screwed up PCs with bad Windows installations.)
This pictures (from this article) was taken at a M$ sponsored presentation of WIndows Mobile. Now, take a look at the laptops…
I’m in a bad mood today. This is due to the idiocy of M$.
I know, this is not the place, but I need people to understand that the current state of PC’s is pathetic. If the PC industry continues this way it will have a slow and painful death. A big part of this is because of Windows. It’s a vicious circle: people buy PC’s and they get Windows, they are stuck with it so it’s all they know. So M$ believes that they are great, so they push the PC’s manufacturers to sign contracts with M$ and the whole thing begins again.
I believe that each PC manufacturer should make their own OS. I’ve been writing about it for some time and other people as well.
Anyway, my personal opinion as a professional (yes, over 20 years of software developing and computer security makes me a professional so shut up!) ditch Windows.
Omit needless words… Sorry, not today.
Available in higher resolution.
This is a great talk by Merlin Mann at WordCamp Phoenix 2009 last week on social media. He talks very bluntly about how people are abusing the openness of social media to cram information down people’s throats, without communicating, without building relationships, and without caring. If you have 50,000+ followers on Twitter, chances are, you’re abusing that service. You aren’t communicating with them. You couldn’t care less what they have to say, and you won’t even answer direct questions they ask you. Why do you waste your time? Oh, your own ego…
My talk at WordCamp last week.
Litl WebBook - the Ultimate Minimalist Machine
Well, I wast just talking yesterday about the lack of innovation in the tech industry, and how it’d be great to see some companies doing some really outside-the-box thinking.
Litl is a tech startup that is approaching the idea of computers differently. They have done what other companies have been sitting on their butts talking about for years, and built a true ‘cloud computer,’ in the Litl WebBook. The device features outstanding industrial design. Every component has been thoughtfully considered, from the hinge, to the keyboard, to the power adapter and everything else. This machine has been thought through.
Not only have they put a tremendous amount of thought into the hardware, but they’ve made the machine to last, and they are banking on it. Litl has a 2 year 100% satisfaction guarantee for crying out loud. That’s unheard of, and to my mind means they really believe in their product!
The Litl’s most amazing component however, isn’t in the hardware. It’s the software. Litl has done something that no other company besides Apple has done. They built their own operating system to go with their hardware, thus creating the ultimate level of hardware-software integration. The device takes a similar approach to the iPhone and the Palm Pre in that it utilizes a very simple, minimalist, content-is-king approach. No matter what you’re doing with the computer, you can return to the home screen with the push of the blue “Litl” button on the keyboard. This feature may have been inspired by the same feature on the iPhone and the Palm Pre, and is in my opinion a great idea. Everything about the Litl has been designed for ease of use, from the ground up. The company has taken a tremendous amount of effort to ensure that your content remains king, and that your computer is as reliable as possible. The device has no hard drive, and no optical drive.
This may sound insane to some, but isn’t all that far fetched. I use a MacBook Air as my only computer, and I beat the snot out of my Macs, doing intense web, graphics, and video work. I chose the Air because of it’s lightweight, compact, minimalist design, and I love it. Therefore, I’ve been living without an optical drive for some time now, and my hard drive is smaller than that of most people. I’m not only doing just fine, but better than ever. I have just the things I need with me all the time, and use online storage to keep all my vital documents safe. I use DropBox for most of my work, and it gives me 2GB of storage for my client projects (website code and graphics files mostly). This is fine, and it has been more than sufficient. I many months worth of crap piled into my DropBox, and it still isn’t full. I could delete my old projects and free up more space if I needed it.
This brings me to my next point, which is that the Litl has 2GB of Flash based storage built in. If I can fit all of my client projects in 2GB of space, and I’m doing more electronic work than 95% of people out there, I think 2GB is more than sufficient for most people. I repair computers for people fairly often, usually due to hard drive, optical drive, or Windows OS failures, all of which are eliminated in the Litl. Most of the people ask me to back up or restore their data. Guess what! They almost never have more than 2GB of files for me to back up. The people who have more than 2GB of files are either video or audio junkies. If you are into music, services like Pandora, Slacker, Last.fm, and Spotify are all services that allow you listen to music online, without paying for it, and legally at that. I don’t store music on my computer. I actually use these services exclusively. If I want to listen to a CD, I put the CD in a real CD player and listen. Imagine that. Services like YouTube and Viddler allow you to record video directly onto the web, without video editing software, and let you store and watch hundreds of videos online, so the demand for local video on your hard drive is shrinking.
I’m not saying the Litl can replace your Mac or PC and become your one-and-only just yet (though it very well may for some), but if you’re looking for a lightweight, sturdy machine that gets out of your way and lets you get your work and play done, the Litl may be just what the doctor prescribed.
litl.com Check it out.
Video: The Thrilling Potential of Sixth Sense Advancements, by Inventor Pranav Mistry
This is the kind of development I love seeing. I get so, so, so sick of seeing more and more ways to use 30+ year old interfaces such as the mouse and keyboard. It’s truly refreshing to see someone like Pranav thinking outside the box. It’s even more refreshing to see him making his core technology open source and affordable to everyone. The world absolutely needs more people like Pranav Mistry, people who put the rest of the world before their personal profits, people who believe technology advancements shouldn’t cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and only be available to the rich and famous. Well done, awesome work and presentation.
I’m reblogging this because I think this wins the award for best Tumblr (maybe best blog) post of all time. It’s one of those ideas you so badly wish you had come up with yourself, all the more so because it was executed so perfectly. Congratulations, guys!
Watch this in case you’re not sure …
Speaking of standards… Stop Using Internet Explorer!
This is so typical… in order to watch Microsoft’s video on how “standards compliant” IE9 is supposedly going to be, you have to install a buggy, proprietary, Microsoft owned plugin for your browser. This is somewhere between hilariously ironic and downright insane. I cannot say enough bad things about Microsoft and the way they ‘handle’ the internet. If you are using Internet Explorer right now, for your own good and that of the rest of the world, please discontinue it’s use immediately.
I recommend Safari, Firefox, or Opera. Internet Explorer is quite literally the worst piece of internet software ever conceived by humanity.
To watch this video from Microsoft regarding the upcoming IE 9’s support for standards and interoperability, you are prompted to install Silverlight.
So much for standards….
As always, they suck. All of you people: STOP. USING. IE
