Minimal Universe

Minimal Universe collect posts from our favorite minimal-related blogs listed on the right.
  • Twitter / helvetireader: Looks like Helvetireader2 is ready enough to be official

    Twitter / helvetireader: Looks like Helvetireader2 is ready enough to be official:

    Twitter soft launch for now but, oh so good.

  • Permute – The slickest video converter for the Mac

    Permute – The slickest video converter for the Mac:

    Permute is a great example of how less user interface makes technology more approachable. Less doesn’t have to mean less functional. If I need to recommend a video converter to a new Mac user, it’s most definitely going to be Permute.

    Ooh, this looks like it’s going to be good. Thanks Milind for bringing the linkage to the sexy.

  • Cable organization for a few pence.

    Cable organization for a few pence.:

    This works like a treat. My desk looks much less like a spidersweb now. (Submitted by mattyoak)

    Did I see this before anyone else submitted it? Yes.

    Did several people submit this? Yes.

    Did I use this one because he used the word “pence” in his title and I am an unabashed Anglophile? You bet your arse!

  • Marco.org - More ideas than time: Logarithmic calendar view

    Marco.org - More ideas than time: Logarithmic calendar view
    :

    The ideal view would contain today’s events in great detail, then events from the next few days in less detail, then an overview of events in the next 3-5 weeks.

    Marco has some interesting and, I dare say, “what we believe in” ways to make the standard calendar metaphor even better. I like it. I want it. I’m going to fire off a few emails to see if someone I know can build it.

  • Horizontals

    During its almost 100 years of existence, Dutch manufacture Pastoe has made some great furniture design. These minimal cabinets named Horizontals are obtainable in two height sizes and are suitable for storing such items as CDs and DVDs.

    In Horizontals, coloured metal sliding doors are mounted on a warm wooden or aluminium base. The elegantly extended cabinets may be joined to create a clear geometric object invisibly attached to the wall, functioning much like a painting. The sliding doors, which may be opened on both sides, can be used to highlight the horizontal play of lines. The bodies are divided in the middle by a partition.

    Horizontals are designed by Japanese Shigeru Uchida who has cooperated with several leading clients, including Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto. Uchida and Pastoe began working together in 1988. Japanese and Dutch design both distinguished themselves through modesty and an eye for detail.








  • Homephone

    Marc Schömann brings us his homephone concept—a sleek, almost totemic piece of telephony porn.

    The calling method is simple: just rotate each numbered vertebrae to the corresponding digit of the number you’re calling, then when you are done, twist the top to connect.

    Here’s hoping for the daruma otoshi version. Or the Tower of Pisa model.




  • Rainbow Church by Tokuyin Yoshioka

    Here at Minimalissimo, we are fascinated with Japanese designer Tokuyin Yoshioka’s simplicity and poetry. He lets white or transparent materials appear as airy forms closely resembling coincidences.

    “In my opinion art is more about grabbing someone’s heart than design,” he claims. As if emotions could be designed, the rainbow church installation encourages transparent thinking.

    An 80 foot wall of crystal prisms that captures a moment of sunlight and sparkles. Tokuyin Yoshioka’s experimentation with transparency, using crystal prisms reminds me of an imaginary world – almost invisible.

    Growing up, I always thought that invisible = way cool. I mean appreciation for nearly unnoticeable spaces. We are obsessed observers. Maximalists or minimalists? But it’s ultimately not about the label, is it?




  • 5000

    Well, there it is folks. At some point in the time I closed my computer to fix dinner and the time I opened it just now, we hit follower number 5000 in Tumblr. That means some Sweet Schwag™ to send to a couple of lucky Tumblrs. Why a couple? Well, the person who is number 5000 will get some of course but I also wanted to pick a random other Tumblr and send them something too just for following and making this who little blog a little bit brighter.

    Without further adieu, will Tumblr users…

    katloveslifeandhannah

    -and-

    gorgeoustakethecity

    Please send email to me at patrickrhone@gmail.com with your mailing address and I will send that Sweet Schwag™ right along.

  • My New “Standing Desk” – kung fu grippe

    My New
    “Standing Desk” – kung fu grippe    :

    So, maybe, at least in some small way, this stupid thing will help remind me that finishing shit means first getting off your ass and then working really hard until you know you’ve earned your keep.

    Classic.

  • mnmal: via this There is no way the hipster who lives here is...



    mnmal:

    via this

    There is no way the hipster who lives here is unhappy.



  • Is It April 3rd Yet?

    Is It April 3rd Yet?:

    Just in case you were wondering. (thx to Michael Armstrong)

  • Delete, Recycling Bins, and Backups on the iPad | Pat Dryburgh

    Delete, Recycling Bins, and Backups on the iPad | Pat Dryburgh:

    I worry that this is one area where hiding the filesystem on the iPad could have detrimental effects on a user’s experience. If I am an average user, my experience has taught me that deleting a file from a folder doesn’t really mean the file is deleted; it’s in file-purgatory. If I bring this mentality to the iPad, though, it could result in devastating losses of data.

    With any shifting of the paradigm, some things are forgotten and other things are left behind. It will be interesting to see what happens to this real world metaphor in the new future.

    Just a side note that is not specifically pointed out here and may not be obvious to some. The Trash UI metaphor is one of my favorites because it is directly mapped to how it works in the real world as well. Just because you throw something in the trash does not mean it is gone for good. You can retrieve it at any time before the trash collectors come and take it away to a landfill. Even then, it is not really “gone”, it is simply beyond your capability to retrieve. Same is true of deleting things on your hard drive. Even after you empty the trash, the files remain on your hard drive. They are simply hidden from the file view and marked to be overwritten at some future time.

  • the joy of walking

    Today I set out from my house and walked. And walked.

    I didn’t have a specific destination in mind, but wanted to walk a bit before finding a quiet place to write. So I walked, out of the town where I live and along the tropical, white-sand coastline, to the next town over.

    As others drove cocooned in their cars, I walked, and emitted nothing but my breath.

    As others spent their lunch hour pounding down fat-laden burgers and greasy fries or some other cheesy fried piled-high dish, I walked, and burned calories.

    As others rushed and stressed, I walked, and took my time.

    As others sat at their computers, I walked, and got my blood flowing.

    As others held power business meetings and made deals, I walked, and had time to think.

    As others were productive and got tasks done, I walked and got nothing done, and cleared my head.

    As others had the comfort of shelter and air-conditioning, I walked and worked up a light sweat and was buffeted by the wind.

    As a white gull floated serenely above a calm bay, I walked, and watched, and loved it.

    I walked for an hour, then wrote and read, and then walked for another hour to get back home, tired but happy.

    I can’t walk this much every day, but I walk as much as I can, because you need nothing to walk, you spend nothing, you consume nothing, you emit nothing.

    And yet you have everything.

  • Faith in The Future

    Both my wife and I are freelance consultants. I’m a technical consultant and she’s a non-profit and arts management consultant. Because of this, our “office” is usually wherever we are. We spend many days shuffling between various locations. Our computing needs have to be highly portable and durable. We always buy the most machine for our long term needs and always purchase the piece of mind that Applecare provides. We even keep a spare machine on deck should one of our machines need to go in for service. Generally, we replace our laptops when the Applecare runs out (i.e. every three years), which just happens to be this month.

    For my beautiful wife, we decided to get the new Macbook (2.26 GHz, 250GB, 2GB RAM) to replace her previous three year old model (1.83 Ghz, 120GB, 2GB RAM). Her needs are basic – web, email, office apps. For that, this is more than enough machine and should last her very well for the next three years. It’s an amazing machine for the price and we recommend it highly.

    For me, I decided to “replace” my self upgraded black Macbook (2.0 Ghz, 320GB 7200 RPM, 4GB RAM) with an… iPad (WiFi only, 64GB). I know. Crazy right? Well, here’s the thing – the Macbook I have is more than enough machine for me capability wise. The upgrades I have given it mean that it will be enough machine for several more years to come in this respect. I did not need “more machine”. What I needed was “greater flexibility and portability”. The iPad will serve me well in almost every situation I can think of. It will allow me to do everything I need to 99% of the time. My Macbook will become a desktop machine, an adjunct to the iPad, with the added bonus of being able to be portable for those rare times I need more machine when out and about at a client. But, for all intents and purposes, the iPad will be my main daily machine.

    Still think I’m insane? Well, wait until I tell you that I used a Newton MessagePad as my main “daily worker” for years. Every model from the introduction of the MessagePad 120 all the way until the 2100. I used it for web browsing (as it was at the time), reading, email, notes, calendar, address book, word processor, and much more. In other words, exactly as one would use any portable computer. During that time, I saw the sort of computing I was able to do with a handheld device, and the way I was doing it, as the future of computing. With the introduction of the iPad, my faith in that future is regained.

    I am sure the time will come when I have to replace my current Macbook. But that is at least a couple of more years off as I see it. The iPad really is a return to the future for me. Call me crazy.

  • Submitted by Laurian Gridinoc



    Submitted by Laurian Gridinoc



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