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Not what we believe in.

Update: I’m not trying to knock this just because it is not the iPhone. I’m actually glad to see some decent competition in this space. I am sure it is a fine phone, with great features, on a far better network, that really does have more bars in more places. Congrats to the GTeam. Seriously. That said, look at that UI – it’s a mess. Like the Native Chief in that 70’s pollution commercial – My eyes tear up a little just looking at it.

marco:

Soulver for iPhone, the iPhone port of my favorite calculation scratchpad, was just released. I’ve been beta-testing it for months (and may have bugged them into making it in the first place), and its beta version (“Sums”) was even in my First & 20 profile.

Soulver for Mac is always open on all of my computers — home, work, and laptop. It’s a calculator, a numeric scratchpad, and a simple spreadsheet all in one simple, fast, inexpensive program with almost no interface.

Nobody ever knows what it is, but everyone who sees me use it always asks, “Hey, what’s that?” And when they see what it does, they instantly download their own demo copy.

If you frequently perform calculations throughout the day, you need to try Soulver. If you like it, buy it. And strongly consider the iPhone version as a Calculator replacement.

Not sure why I have not heard of this app (or it’s lovely Mac counterpart) before but this looks like a fantastically simple way to get one’s math on. Especially for the math adverse like myself.

In celebration of the Copenhagen conference on climate change, I thought I’d share some ideas in minimalism that can help you reduce your personal carbon footprint.

As I’ve said before, minimalism is a great way to step more lightly upon this earth. Consuming less is more important than buying green — though I’d encourage you to do both.

So let’s get straight to the tips:

1. Eat less. Wrote about this recently. Less food consumed means less resources used up and pollution used to create the food and get it to you.
2. Eat less meat. Worldwide, beef production contributes more to climate change than the entire transportation sector. Pork and chicken are also big contributors to pollution and carbon emissions, compared to plants.
3. Eat locally. Transporting food from where it’s grown or raised to where it’s processed and packaged, to your supermarket, has a high environmental cost. Eating locally not only greatly reduces that transportation cost but it supports local farmers instead of corporations. Look for local foods, in season, at farmer’s markets near you, or at your supermarket or local health food store, or get involved with a CSA.
4. Drive less. Work from home or telecommute as much as possible. Combine errands to make fewer trips. Move to a place near work and all the things you need. Walk or bike more, or use public transit. It takes time to reduce your driving, but if you’re conscious about it, you can make changes a little at a time. Also, you’ll get healthier by walking or biking instead of driving.
5. Travel less. Airplane flights are a huge contributor to climate change. Travel less by doing teleconferences, taking vacations close to home, and rethinking your travel needs. I’ve traveled a couple times in the last couple of years, but before that it had been about 7 years without a flight.
6. Buy less. Buying a lot of things is wasteful. Each item requires a lot of resources and contributes hugely to climate change (see the True Cost of Stuff). So cut back on how much you buy. See if you can borrow an item, check out a book from a library, make what you have last longer, find innovative ways to repurpose what you already have or make an item yourself, or just do without. Many times you’ll realize an item wasn’t a necessary purchase and you don’t miss it in your life.
7. Buy used. This avoids buying a new item and all the resources that go into creating and transporting it. It extends the life of something already bought. Look in thrift shops, consignment shops, used bookstores, eBay and Freecycle. Often you’ll find some really cool used stuff.
8. Have a smaller home. Obviously not a change you’re going to make this week, but something you can think about for the long term. A smaller home takes fewer resources to create, and requires less power, water, heat, and thus fewer emissions. If you get rid of a lot of your stuff, and rethink your needs, you’ll realize you need less space.
9. Use less power. Even without a smaller home, there are tons of ways to reduce power. Cool and heat your home less. Turn off lights, unplug appliances, hang dry clothes more often.
10. Use less water. Don’t take long showers – get wet, turn off water, soap up, turn on water and rinse. Don’t water your lawn, and wash your car less (or get rid of the car). Wash clothes less (wear them longer). Conserve water when you wash your hands or dishes.
11. Go paperless. Many offices and even homes use tons of paper, but most of it is unnecessary. Don’t print stuff out if you can read it on the computer. File things digitally rather than in folders. Get bills and other documents sent electronically or online rather than via mail. Stop catalogs from being mailed to you. Read newspapers and magazines online rather than buying them. Stop sending faxes for goodness sake.
12. Go vegan. Not a completely necessary step, but one I recommend. Vegan food, contrary to what most people think, can be delicious and satisfying, and it’s often healthier (less saturated fats, fewer calories, for example). Most especially, eating no meat or dairy or eggs means withdrawal from industries that are horrible for the environment, and horribly cruel to animals.

Kris Madden had a thoughtful response to my last post on reading slower, and I posted a response in the comments that I’d like to repost here:

Hi Kris … thanks for your thoughtful response! It actually gives me a chance to clear up some misconceptions.

Namely, you misunderstood a couple of points:

1. I didn’t mention reading comprehension in my post and if that was implied, I apologize. Slowing down was to make the process of reading — and of working in general — more enjoyable. That’s the main point of slowing down, not to comprehend more.

When we slow down, we move at a more leisurely pace, we don’t feel so rushed, we’re not trying to cram too many things into our day. And most importantly, we have time to think about what’s important, rather than just doing things as fast as we can.

2. I didn’t say everything had to be read at the same rate. I just said to read slower. This can be a different rate of slowness for different types of materials, but the basic point — to slow down to enjoy life more — remains the same.

3. Productivity as you’ve defined it is definitely the traditional sense. I’m rejecting that traditional definition, and have for awhile now. Read some of my posts on Zen Habits for more on this. I basically believe the traditional definition of productivity — to increase our rate of output — is outdated and based on an industrial model, where workers were machines and management tried to increase their productivity and thereby increase profits. I reject this — workers are not machines, but creative, imaginative humans with hopes and goals and the desire for freedom and happiness.

And so, I believe productivity shouldn’t be to output at a faster rate, but to lead to achieving things, to freedom, to happiness, to doing what you love. That’s why effectiveness is more important than rate — if you focus on what’s important, then you can get great things done, and do them in less time because you’re not trying to do too much.

Thanks for the opportunity to clarify my thoughts!

Leo

Masakatsu Agatsu - True victory is victory over oneself.

An Aikido instructor once said:

Don’t spend time trying to move your opponent, just move yourself.

Rod Kobayashi Sensei said:

If you calmly maintain control over yourself, you will not only find a way to control the opponent but will also be able to control the situation before drastic action is necessary.
One must first learn to control oneself before attempting to harmonize and control others. Without a good balance and control of oneself, one can neither avoid an attack nor apply an effective technique on others. It is through self-control that one can learn to enjoy a harmonious way of life.

Nothing.

Twitter started with a brilliant idea of simplicity:

• Keep tweets to 140 characters or less, forcing people to be brief and to the point (unlike emails or blog posts).
• Have one stream to read, as opposed to multiple things to check on.
• Make it simple and easy to tweet or reply, from anywhere.

And people loved the simplicity, and 3rd-party developers used it well to make great apps. Twitter’s simplicity is one reason it’s a better user experience than Facebook or MySpace.

Now Twitter has added lists and the new Retweet feature, and it seems they might be looking to add more. Others are calling for them to remove the 140-character limit, allow more customizations to profile pages, and add a whole host of other features.

No. Please, Twitter, don’t give in to the feature requests, the tendency towards feature bloat. I will live with the lists and retweets, but please stop adding new features.

Instead, focus on making what you have better. Improve your infrastructure so you don’t have the Fail whale ever appear. Make your search better. Get rid of spam. Make it easier to unfollow people. Make the site even simpler.

Even better, move towards an open protocol — allow interconnectivity with Identi.ca and other services so we aren’t trapped into one service. People don’t like being trapped.

Keep it simple, Twitter.