Right now

January 14, 2013
by Riccardo Mori
Tech Life

Right now I’m writing this in TextWrangler 2.1.3. When the post is finished, I’ll copy & paste it in WordPress’ Web interface and publish it here.

I’m writing this on a clamshell blueberry iBook G3/300. It has both Mac OS 9.2.2 and Mac OS X 10.3.9 installed on it. It has 288 MB RAM. It has what now can be considered a tiny hard drive: 3 GB. Of those 3 GB, the OS X partition only has 803.4 MB of free disk space. But everything works fine. The screen is bright: brighter than, say, my other clamshell iBook G3/466 SE, which is a newer model. 

Across the table there is a PowerBook G4 12” burning a CD-RW of stuff to archive (mostly documentation and manuals in PDF format), and a PowerBook 5300ce performing a backup on a few ZIP disks. 

I’m writing this with three other apps opened: Preview, NetNewsWire 2.1.5 (which is very snappy and configured with some essential feeds I want to be able to read even from this machine), and Opera 10.10, which is the last version of this fine browser that is compatible with Mac OS X 10.3.9. It has six tabs open at the moment, two of which let me keep an eye on Twitter and App.net.

I’m writing from this old iBook because 20 minutes ago I decided to boot it with the intention of downgrading it to just a Mac OS 9 machine. Once this Mac had a very long-lasting battery (more than 5 hours) and an AirPort card. But I neglected it for a long time with the battery drained, and last time I tried reviving it was all in vain. The AirPort card was removed and given to a Titanium PowerBook G4, which needed it more than this iBook.

I’m writing this while connected to the Internet via Ethernet cable. It feels quaint, but I still smiled at how quickly the iBook connected to the Internet just four seconds after plugging in the cable.

I’m writing this while the battery — oh so magically, oh so surprisingly — is recharging after refusing to do so for so long. It’s at 11% now, and in 3 hours and 35 minutes the battery indicator says it will be fully charged. 

As I’m writing this, I feel my writing flowing out rather effortlessly: is this vintage, minimalistic setup? Perhaps it is. Perhaps it’s just how I roll, no matter where I am, or which device I’m writing on. But now I’m having second thoughts and maybe I won’t wipe Mac OS X. Maybe with a full battery, I’ll still find some use for this iBook. Its design may look dated, but boy is it comfortable to write on. My wrists just rest in the right position. My fingers reach every corner of the keyboard without effort. I even like the feel of this keyboard more than when I type on my MacBook Pro’s keyboard.

When you browse the Web, you realise how cramped and slightly impractical a screen resolution of 800×600 is today. But in some sites it somehow helps you focus more on the articles, while ads, banners and other visual interferences remain hidden outside the browser window’s width and height. There’s more scrolling, there’s just a bit more effort, but it’s not as annoying as you’d expect. Not for me, at least.

I’m writing this and I’m thinking about all the obsession about workflows and frictionless setups and I’m thinking “Screw it, sometimes the best workflow is what you have with you” or something like that. Maybe a bit of friction is necessary to make you go just a wee bit slower, enough to make you think about what you’re doing and not simply do stuff in auto-pilot.

I’m writing this and I’m thinking about all the obsession about when to write, and how often, and that inspiration is a myth, and that you just have to sit and write everyday, and so on. I still think that inspiration is what makes you write a bit more meaningfully. But everything works. Why does a method have to be better than another? Perhaps something starts in the most unassuming, trivial circumstances, and ends up being more meaningful than something else you’ve been mulling over for days, while consuming dozens of cups of coffee.

I’m writing this on this iBook because I love vintage technology and thankfully when it comes to working with text, I’m lucky enough to be able to use any of my Macs or devices, no matter how old, in a productive way. And that feels good.

Why I keep Google Maps in my homescreen

January 10, 2013
by Riccardo Mori
Software

To celebrate the New Year, my wife had a great last-minute idea: going back to Altea — a beautiful town by the sea a hundred kilometres south of Valencia. We had a peaceful time there back in 2007, and it would have been nice to repeat the experience for a couple of days, especially after all the negativity accumulated during 2012, a really forgettable year overall.

We knew how to reach Altea by car, but we didn’t know the exact directions for the hotel she booked, which we discovered is a couple of kilometres outside the town. I wanted to give Apple Maps a try out of fairness, although I wasn’t expecting much giving how poorly they work where I live. (See this old post on The Quillink annotated — meanwhile the situation has improved a bit, but not much).

I opened Apple Maps on my iPad and entered the name of the hotel: no results. I entered the name of another hotel that is located near the one we booked. No results. So I just entered “Altea, Spain” to see the kind of detail Maps would offer. This was the result:

Altea Apple Maps

To be fair, a lot of small roads remain unnamed even in Google Maps, but at least Google Maps found every name and direction of hotels and businesses nearby. It found our hotel even before I could complete the name. And gave us precise directions, from our home to there. Even though we know how to take the motorway to exit Valencia, I said: “What the hell, let’s try the new turn-by-turn feature in Google Maps and see what happens”. 

It worked perfectly. A bit of a drain for the iPhone’s battery, for sure, but it worked really well. The blue dot on the map followed our movements in real time, and directions were prompt and accurate. We arrived at the hotel without a problem. And Google Maps’ turn-by-turn navigation system saved us on our way back. There is a tricky point after you change motorways when entering the Valencia area, where it’s easy to miss the right exit because there’s always a lot of traffic and you can’t change lane at the last moment. That’s what happened, and we were a bit scared because we were low on fuel and we didn’t know where the next useful exit would be (we don’t travel outside Valencia by car that often). Google Maps immediately recalculated the route and sorted things out for us. We really felt relieved, we felt that the situation was again under control. This is how a Maps application is supposed to work, I thought.

Bottom line: I’m sure Apple Maps will get better with time, but considering how flawless the whole experience with the new Google Maps app for iOS has been, I really think Apple should start moving fast in that ‘getting better’ direction.

Some interesting resources I discovered in 2012

January 4, 2013
by Riccardo Mori
Handpicked

Preamble: rearranging the feeds

Regarding what I read online, 2012 was a year of substantial RSS rearrangement. Not that I subscribe to any particular Inbox Zero or RSS feeds Zero mindset, but I was tired of both the accumulation of unread articles and the amount of general redundancy of the RSS material. I can’t say I’m a constant reader; I don’t have a daily schedule where, say, I devote two hours in the morning to reading my feeds. There are days in which I can spend even five hours reading other people’s articles, and days in which all I have time to do is marking some photos in Flickr or Instagram as favourites and adding a few things to read later to Pinboard or to my Safari’s Reading List (but just a few, since I typically don’t ‘Read Later’).

Over time, I’ve let my feed readers (an older version of NetNewsWire not synced with Google Reader, on my G4 Cube; Reeder on my MacBook Pro) get more and more crowded. Too often I’d end up with 250+ unread items only to Mark them All Read. So, last year I started to get more self-conscious about my RSS reading patterns. On the older NetNewsWire version I use on my Cube, there’s a setting where you can Sort Subscriptions by Attention: that has helped me keep a check on which sites I was reading more often and which I tended to neglect. So I started removing all the sites I was actually ignoring but that were keeping the Unread Items count high. 

Then I took a good look at the other factor I mentioned above: redundancy. In other words: if Blog A and Blog B are made of ‘curated content’ (grumble) by people who evidently follow the same sources I follow, why subscribe to their feeds? The majority of links they post point to stuff I already have on my feeds, so there isn’t much to miss (and I can always check their sites directly every now and then). Thus, unsubscribing from these sites has improved my reading focus by mitigating the general redundancy. 

During 2012 I also unsubscribed from many tech news feeds, mostly because Flipboard on the iPad has changed the way I read them. Once I used to have dozens of feeds in my ‘Tech News’ folder. Now it’s basically Macworld, Ars Technica and The Loop.

What I added

After this progressive rearrangement and de-cluttering, after cutting all those sites and weblogs that have stopped mattering to me in a way or another (by the way, if your site is little more than a link blog, you’ve certainly been removed), my interest turned to that kind of geek sites edited by authors who are more interested in the quality of what they deliver rather than the quantity or frequency — i.e., people after my own heart.

So, in no particular order, here are the few new voices that were added to my RSS feeds, sometime during 2012:

 

Other interesting additions include:

  • Fathom Information Design’s website
  • Ace Jet 170, by Richard Weston
  • Teleskopos — History of science / Museums — by Rebekah Higgitt
  • Iconic Photos, by A. A. S. Holmes
  • Writers No One Reads, curated by Will Schofield (50 Watts), “S. S.” (Invisible Stories), and “J. S.” ((un)justly (un)read), three people whose sites you should add to your list, if you’re fascinated by such content as I am, of course.
  • The Svbtle Network global feed — I honestly don’t think all the contributing authors adhere to the high standards Dustin Curtis envisaged when he launched the project; not consistently, at least. I follow the global Svbtle feed anyway: it’s like skimming through a thick magazine where I can find some really inspiring, thought-provoking articles amidst the weak tea.
  • I’m very interested in The Witness, the new game Jonathan Blow is working on, so I started following The Witness development blog.

 

All these authors and resources are, in my opinion, worthy of your attention. They all provide interesting insights, good writing, and lots of food for the brain. I’m glad I’ve got rid of a lot of ‘filler’ stuff in my RSS feeds and improved my daily dose of reading thanks to all these additions.

Un anno difficile

December 31, 2012
by Riccardo Mori
Mele e appunti

Da tempo, ormai, ho smesso di prendere seriamente gli elenchi di propositi per l’anno nuovo che di solito si stendono in questo periodo. Gli ultimi scritti di questo genere risalgono al dicembre 2008, e se vogliamo, due tra i ‘grandi propositi’ che mi ero prefisso per il 2009 — pulizia virtuale e più scrittura creativa — potrei benissimo rinnovarli per il 2013; gli intenti sono sempre quelli.

Voglio invece pensare ad alta voce e tirare le somme per questo difficile 2012, che mi ha dato senz’altro qualcosa di positivo, ma la sensazione è purtroppo quella di aver chiuso in perdita.

Fra gli elementi positivi c’è senza dubbio il forte ritorno alla scrittura creativa, nel formato che in fondo mi è più congeniale: il racconto breve. Dopo anni di ‘secca’ e di ispirazione che girava a vuoto, mi sono finalmente rimboccato le maniche e ho lanciato un progetto (in lingua inglese) chiamato Minigrooves che mi ha spinto a scrivere in condizioni di rigorosa autodisciplina. Il progetto, partito a metà marzo 2012, è infatti congegnato in questo modo: pubblicazione di due racconti alla settimana, fino ad arrivare a 42 racconti, che compongono un ciclo. Il sistema è paragonabile a una serie televisiva a episodi: due ‘episodi’ a settimana, una ‘stagione’ composta da 42 episodi. Concluso il ciclo, i racconti vengono riuniti in un ebook, da pubblicarsi per esempio sull’iBookstore e sul Kindle Store (e non solo). Pubblicato il primo volume, via con il secondo ciclo, altri 42 racconti, eccetera. Sempre seguendo la similitudine con le serie televisive, l’ebook è l’analogo del DVD/Blu-Ray, che ha senso acquistare anche se si è già seguito il progetto online perché oltre ai racconti già ’emessi’ contiene qualche extra. E poi è un modo pratico per portarsi con sé qualcosa da leggere anche quando non si è davanti al computer. Al momento in cui scrivo, il primo ciclo è concluso e sto preparando l’ebook, che spero di pubblicare presto.

Un altro dettaglio indiscutibilmente positivo sono state le ‘comunicazioni sociali’, da un lato perché mi sembra di aver trovato un ottimo equilibrio fra online e offline, dall’altro molto semplicemente perché ho avuto il piacere di incontrare nuovi interlocutori coi quali ho avuto spesso e volentieri intelligenti scambi di vedute via email o via Twitter. Tutte persone che ringrazio per la loro gentilezza, disponibilità, e volontà di affrontare una discussione in maniera seria e costruttiva.

È l’aspetto strettamente lavorativo a rappresentare la grossa fetta di negatività e di difficoltà di questo 2012 tutto in salita. Non vale la pena, per ora, di entrare nei dettagli, ma diciamo sinteticamente che ho lavorato troppo e guadagnato poco rispetto al tempo e alle energie investite. È stato un anno di bassa marea, e un paio di errori di valutazione durante il cammino non hanno migliorato la situazione. E ci sono stati dei momenti in cui l’angoscia e la preoccupazione per una situazione finanziaria altalenante, precaria e imprevedibile mi hanno lasciato parecchio abbattuto e mi hanno fatto perdere anche quel minimo di entusiasmo necessario per poter affrontare nuovi lavori. Mi hanno anche portato a pensare che forse val la pena investire più risorse nella mia scrittura invece di vivere una situazione che si fa ogni volta più frustrante ed esasperante. È sempre più difficile fare il traduttore freelance con dignità e professionalità, e onestamente non ho l’età, non ho la voglia, e ho sufficiente esperienza per rifiutarmi di fare la macchinetta sottopagata per gente poco seria che ciarla tanto di ‘professionalità’ e poi non si degna nemmeno di pagare le fatture puntualmente.

Certe dinamiche mi hanno francamente stancato, così come mi ha stancato sentire giustificazioni come È così dappertutto, sai? o Purtroppo è una prassi diffusa in questo settore. Sapete una cosa? Non è vero. La cafoneria, il pressapochismo, l’accordo non formalizzato, il gioco al ribasso su tariffe e preventivi, i pagamenti alle calende greche… Tutte caratteristiche comuni alla maggior parte dei clienti dell’Europa ‘mediterranea’. Con contatti dei paesi del Nord d’Europa, così come Canada e Stati Uniti, ho potuto constatare una mentalità e un approccio molto molto diversi. Peccato che le occasioni di lavoro con queste persone siano state sporadiche: difficile che ad americani, canadesi, tedeschi e olandesi interessi avere una versione italiana del proprio sito o della documentazione del proprio prodotto (diverso, ma più circoscritto, il discorso localizzazione di applicazioni Mac/iOS).

Purtroppo a volte è in parte colpa del freelance stesso se si vengono a creare situazioni non proprio ideali; si è troppo tolleranti, troppo fiduciosi, troppo flessibili, e si finisce col cedere una parte non indifferente del controllo su un progetto o in una collaborazione. A questo proposito, in maniera indiretta, una lettura che mi ha fatto riflettere è stato un breve post di Steve Corona, dal titolo Electric Toothbrush, in cui ricorda il suo stato d’animo dopo essere stato licenziato dall’azienda dove lavorava prima di mettersi in proprio. E parlando del suo momento ‘eureka’ scrive:

Perché qualcun altro oltre a me dovrebbe avere il controllo totale sulla mia autostima e sulla mia felicità? È stupido. Ed è un errore che si commette per pigrizia, per comodità. È molto più facile dar via il proprio potere, legare il proprio valore a qualche entità esterna, invece di crearlo dall’interno. È tutta pigrizia. Sono stato troppo pigro per prendere il controllo della mia felicità, per crearmela da solo.

Smettete di dar via il vostro potere. È vostro, serve a voi. Non regalatelo al vostro lavoro. Né alla fidanzata. Non datelo a nessuno oltre che a voi stessi.

Il 2012 è stato un anno difficile, e continua a esserlo. Un anno in cui i pochi momenti memorabili sono stati oscurati da più di una batosta. Per il 2013 non ho propositi da scrivere su un pezzo di carta, ma voglio certamente affrontarlo partendo dal suggerimento citato qui sopra.

Felice anno nuovo a tutti.

Experiments in modern tech deprivation

December 28, 2012
by Riccardo Mori
Tech Life

When I commented on Paul Miller’s decision to spend a year without Internet, at the end of my article I wrote:

[…] [P]erhaps Miller’s idea to leave Internet for a year is utter nonsense, because in May 2013 he will just reconnect and within a week he’ll find himself living his online life and online habits exactly as before, and therefore he won’t have solved anything. But his experiment can also serve him to better understand which parts of the Internet are essential to him, which are not exactly so, and which can be entirely eliminated, as indeed he mentioned in his piece. (What’s more, such a period of self-imposed exile may be useful for getting rid of certain conditioned reflexes deriving from our daily interaction with the online world, especially through social networks and related services). Maybe others in Miller’s position would simply need a week or a month offline, but we are all different people and I believe we should respect Miller’s decision, instead of reacting with sarcasm, mockery, or thinking that our methods of experiencing Internet are the best or are applicable to anyone indiscriminately.

Miller hasn’t been the only one giving a shot at what I call ‘experiments in modern tech deprivation’. Other people I know personally did just that in the past. I myself performed a ‘survival experiment’ in 2006, using a PowerBook 5300ce as my only machine (then further updated in 2008). Of the tech writers I follow, two of the most recent examples are Peter Cohen (On the pleasure of using a ‘dumb’ phone) and Stephen Hackett (Hanging up on iPhone), who both decided to quit using their iPhone for a while and went back to using a normal mobile phone of the pre-iPhone era.

Again, people’s reaction towards their choices appears to have been of general criticism. At times with a good dose of accompanying sarcasm. People who don’t understand this kind of experiments simply apply their way of using that same piece of technology and think it has to be the same for everybody, so evidently spending some time without an iPhone (or, in Paul Miller’s case, without Internet) seems to be a crazy, unthinkable option. They view such experiments just as pointless acts of self-deprivation which only add unwanted complications to our otherwise tech-immersed life.

I, however, view them as interesting forays into self-exploration, as a way of challenging our increasing technology-enabled laziness and habits. More moderate critics point out that these experiments have little value (when they’re over, there is an inevitable regression to old habits) and/or they are needlessly drastic, suggesting a more nuanced approach, urging the experimenters to simply actively readjust their abuse of a certain technology or device. “You’re doing this because you can’t control your addiction, you’re poor at self-management, etc.” Perhaps it’s true. And I think Miller, Cohen and Hackett know that, too. Perhaps they are doing what they’re doing out of sheer curiosity. But I like to think that there’s more to it. That what drives these choices is the will of abandoning the ‘first-person’ point of view, so to speak, to take a good look at themselves from outside, out of dissatisfaction with how these technologies and devices are affecting their lives and their ways to be. And by the way, I don’t believe there’s necessarily a regression to old habits once the experiment is over, especially when the experiment does bring a beneficial change in some aspects.

About his experience with a ‘dumb’ phone, Cohen writes:

I don’t have my face stuck in my phone wherever I go, social network or playing games or checking e‑mail. I have better situational awareness. I’m more present. I don’t take pictures of my food before I eat it, or tweet about how delicious this skinny vanilla latte and pumpkin scone are.

I no longer blankly pull out my phone and start fiddling with it mid-conversation with friends. If you do that, by the way, stop. It’s really rude.

[…]

What I discovered is that I just don’t need the level of connectivity I used to assume was a now indispensable part of daily life. If people e‑mail me, they have to wait until I check e‑mail. If people need to get a hold of me, they can, but it better be damned important.

I just don’t want to be tethered to the giant, pulsating übermind of the Internet 24/7 anymore. It was making me dull and more than a bit stupid.

Stephen Hackett admits:

Unlike Paul [Miller]’s adventure, mine could be completed by imposing some will power when it comes to my iPhone. The problem is that five years of reaching in my front right pocket any time I’m free has created a strong habit, and I need to quit cold turkey.

These experiments may be drastic, but that’s exactly the point. As I previously commented, we are all different people and have different methods of dealing with today’s 24/7 connectivity. Some can effectively keep their online and offline activities in a constant, fine-tuned balance. Others are just fine with the information overload and its impact on their habits, and are not even aware of their rudeness when interacting with other people (for them it’s fine to keep the iPhone on at the cinema; to stare at it every 30 seconds while you’re trying to have a conversation with them; to constantly interact with it even when they’re walking around, mindlessly bumping into other people and generally losing awareness of their surroundings; and so on and so forth). Then there are people who know themselves enough to realise that only a drastic approach can have some effect and maybe lead to unexpected discoveries (Cohen: What I discovered is that I just don’t need the level of connectivity I used to assume was a now indispensable part of daily life) and new perspectives, something they may have never realised in the first place without such an experiment.

I’m not saying that these people are better than others or that their methods, while hardcore, are the best. But I defend their choice because it reflects their recognising the need to change something that’s perceived as wrong or excessive. There are people who willfully get rid of their car and shift to cycling or using public transportation as their way of moving around the city, or who sell/give away plenty of their stuff to change to a more responsible, less consumeristic lifestyle, and usually these types of experiments are met with great enthusiasm and encouragement. Why does it have to be any different when someone starts to see his/her iPhone as a symbol of a certain ‘technological pollution’ that’s intoxicating and negatively affecting their lives?