Tangible Life
Voicemail Experiment
A year or two ago, I had this thought… What if I changed my placeholder Google Voice phone number to something cooler? The one I had was a 213 area code, but it ended in 5359. I realized that there was a slim chance that 788-5359 might be available in a random area code. When I typed in 788-5359, the one that popped up as available just so happened to be in the 786 area code. Now while I’m a born and raised Miami, FL kid, 786 is the lesser area code, because the original that everyone knows is 305. That said, having 786-788-5359 as a number to do something cool with was too good to pass up. For those not understanding why it’s a cool number, here’s the breakdown:
Number meaning breakdown
I finally decided to use the number for a new experiment. The Tangible Life hotline of sorts. When you dial that number, you’ll go straight to a voicemail greeting that will offer a prompt for you to respond to. I plan to change the prompt every month or so, and I can’t wait to hear the messages that random people of the internet decide to leave me. There was someone else that did a similar experiment on their blog, but I can’t find the reference to it. I’ll come back and edit this post to cite them when I do, because minus having a really cool and unique to me number, I’m doing basically the same thing they did and that’s where I got the idea.
I think this is such a cool experiment that I even added a dedicated icon to the site nav for this, and it takes visitors to a dedicated page explaining the process (without all the background included in this post).
A Love Letter
This post is my entry for May’s IndieWeb Carnival being hosted by Juhis.
Dear Typesetting,
While this love letter is to you, many folks reading this may not know you as well as I do, so I’ll start with a bit of explanation…
Typesetting is the traditional craft of manually assembling individual metal or wood letters, punctuation marks, and spacing blocks to form words, paragraphs, and pages for letterpress printing.
I remember meeting you when I was likely around 6 years old. Watching my grandfather spend hours sifting through wooden trays of lead letter slugs and spacers to assemble words that would press into the foil of the hot stamp ribbon machine. Sometimes after a job was done, and the slugs had cooled, I’d get to remove the tape and put each item back in the trays.
For common words, there were slugs already made in Times New Roman, but that didn’t mean you weren’t there. The slugs still had to be put into the hot stamp chassis, lifted to the perfect angle to hold the slugs steady while spacers were placed and the whole design came together. Sometimes a logo or icon slug would be at the top. Other times there would be flourishes, rows of stars or other horizontal separators that would provide structure to the design. You and your beautiful process at work.
Once it looked good to the eye, the crank case would get tightened, unlocked and rotated into position. The hot stamp machine ready to hydraulic piston press its way to a soon-to-be perfectly crinkle-cut on both ends award ribbon. Only then could we see if we’d executed you to the precision and perfection we demanded of ourselves.
You infused in me so many characteristics that I see so plainly in behaviors today. Attention to the most minute of detail. The ability to evaluate, by eye, alignment and spacing and letterforms. Today, most of these skills are applied to pixels vs. physical outputs of your beauty, but I know the origins of my love for you.
The appreciation I have for typefaces and typography is all because of you. You were my gateway drug to design. My muse for meticulousness. I have you to thank for so much of how I evaluate the things I encounter in this world. My measure of quality. My uncompromising demand for well-designed user interfaces. My firm belief that good design should be an expectation of the products we bring into our lives and the interfaces we use to consume.
Thank you for all that you’ve done for the world. Thank you even more for all that you’ve done for me. Humankind wouldn’t be what it is today if it weren’t for you. I know you’re often taken for granted. My hope is that anyone that reads this love letter and doesn’t know you as well as I do will get curious and learn more about you. I’d be happy to point them to some great sources, if they reach out to me.
With love,
Steve
Phone Experiments - Week 3 & 4
This is an update post based on my 4-week experiment to reduce or shift my smartphone usage patterns.
Week 3 was a bit frustrating. Not because I used my phone more; I was back to normal working from home and commutes, etc. usage. I just have struggled to use the pocket notebook. I’m not sure if my brain is just not wired to pull it out and start writing or if it’s that my ideas happen when I’m not in a position to write by hand (like while driving). I am not using the phone in those moments, I just don’t document the thought. It may make its way into a journaling session or another writing exercise later, but sometimes it just evaporates. I suppose that’s fine too.
I have written out (in the pocket notebook, no less) a flow that I’m trying to build out with the pocket recording device (a Plaud Notepin). I’ll write more about that soon.
Week 4 was mostly focused on trying to determine what items from the experiment I’ll keep longer-term. Grayscale mode will stay. Hiding apps I don’t need to use or want to see regularly will stick. Blank Spaces app locking will stay. Trying not to read RSS on my phone will likely relax. Social apps were already nonexistent. I’m still evaluating if the lack of lock screen widgets really matters. The black lockscreen and homescreen wallpapers will most likely stay.
I think this was a cool experiment and I do feel that my phone usage has become much more intentional during this time. Thanks to Manu and Kevin for sparking this one.
A Random List of Silly Things I Love
Thanks to Carl for this balance after the previous random list challenge.
- The sound of birds chirping.
- A great local diner.
- Seeing children play with one another effortlessly.
- Classic 90s hip-hop.
- A well-designed workspace.
- An unanticipated hug from my wife.
- New white sneakers.
- Crispy bacon.
- Reading a book in nature.
- The sound of waves hitting the shore and nothing else.
Phone Experiments - Week 2
This is an update post based on my 4-week experiment to reduce or shift my smartphone usage patterns.
Week 2 of this experiement was way less in the way of change. I traveled for work for a few days in the middle of last week. That offset one type of normal usage (Apple Maps for navigation) for another (watching Slow Horses on the plane and in the hotel room). Not being at home throws off my routines in an obvious way, but even though I did use the phone more for consumption than I normally would for passive navigation, I don’t feel like my phone usage was unintentional. Being in meetings with people in-person actually makes putting the phone to the side easier.
So, the short verdict is that Week 2 went well under the circumstances. I’m going to lean into the pocket notebook and another idea even more in Week 3, so we’ll see how that goes with the next update.
Phone Experiments - Week 1
This is an update post based on my 4-week experiment to reduce or shift my smartphone usage patterns.
During week one, I made tons of small adjustments. They all have contributed to less overall usage, but also shifts in how I use the phone and what pulls at my attention when I do.
Blocking Apps
Using Blank Spaces app, but not for the minimal list homescreen launcher feature. I’ve used this in the past because it looks so focused and minimal. I’ve gone with only using the app locking feature for things like my RSS reader (Unread), YouTube watch later app (Unwatched), and many more. If I attempt to open these apps, I’m presented with the option to do a 30-second breathing exercise. Do that, and I’m asked again if I actually want to use the app. If yes, for how long out of 2, 5, and 10-minute options. This is a great point of mental and physical friction.
Reading articles and newsletters via RSS is great. Unread is a great app experience to do it. I recognized that while it is definitely not an algorithmic feed, it is a pull-to-refresh mental slot machine to see if there’s a new item to read. By locking it, I mentally prepare for it to be a short time period of use. In fact, I haven’t been using Unread on my phone much this week. Instead, I have been processing RSS and email once a day during a dedicated morning session.
Visual Tweaks
- Removing lockscreen and homescreen wallpapers. The cool depth effect and beautiful blur and gradients are pleasing to the eye. My phone is not a piece in an art museum deserving of my gaze for the sake of visual appreciation of its parlor tricks.
- Removing lockscreen widgets other than one that reads “Be intentional” above the clock. Tap that and it prompts me for text via a shortcut input window. That text gets written to the Apple Journal app without it opening. Phone back away from my eyes, thought logged without any distraction opportunity. For those interested, I’m using Any Text to accomplish this.
- Two columns of apps down the center of my single homescreen. The apps on the left stay the same. The apps on the right change based on if I’m in my default Focus mode or my Work Focus mode. I realized two things about the visually pleasant list of app names or functions widget homescreen-style: 1. I rarely used the list to launch the app. I’d either pull down and search in Spotlight or I’d swipe left to open it from the App Library. 2. It was minimalism visual porn. For me, so are minimalist Shortcuts icons to launch apps that have better info or actions from the icon or long-press of the icon. A perfect example is Apple’s Calendar app. Having it on the homescreen shows me the current date from the icon alone, then a long-press allows me to go directly to the add event UI. I found that many apps have useful long-press icon actions that get me to a UI without having to open the app, then open those UIs and maybe get caught up in between.
- Grayscale mode all the time (other than when I need to see color to view a photo or other info where color is a necessity). Triple-click of the side button is set to toggle this mode. Super easy flow and while iOS 18 made it easy to have glassy clear icons, I’ve actually gone back to the color versions because grayscale mode solves for the same. Function over fantastic aesthetics fanfare.
Screenshots ignore the grayscale being on, but here’s what my lock and homescreens look like during the first week.
Current lockscreen and homescreen.
Hiding Apps
I’m saving the best for last… Long-pressing on an app’s icon and choosing Require Face ID. That brings you to a menu where you have two options. One is to require Face ID to open the app, the other is to require Face ID and hide the app. If you choose that, you have to press another button to confirm that’s what you want. While some may be using this feature to hide dating apps or things they’re embarrassed to have installed on their phone, I’m using it to remove every app from my view that I don’t want to or need to use regularly, but benefit from not having to reinstall and re-login every time I do need it. What have I hidden, you ask? All finance apps. All food ordering apps. All the apps that do a certain utility that I need every once in a while, but don’t need it cluttering up my App Library all the time. Apps that are hidden appear in a folder in App Library all the way at the bottom, and it doesn’t even show you the icons in the folder preview. It’s like they don’t exist until you tap that folder to go to them. They don’t show in Spotlight searches. They don’t have a presence in the Share Sheet. They don’t even show up in the swipe up or over app-switcher. It’s glorious.
Physical Replacement
I started carrying a small pocket notebook (Field Notes-style), and a Fisher Space Pen I’ve had for well over a decade. I even found a way to keep the pen from sliding out of my pocket using heat-shrink tubing. I wouldn’t say this new alternative has stuck yet. I still dictate reminders to Siri (mostly while using CarPlay), but my hope is that ideas that hit me that aren’t reminders will start going here to process digitally later. I have some other ideas here, but we’ll save those for future weeks.
A Random List of Silly Things I Hate
How can I turn down a great blogger challenge!? Andrea, Manu and Carl have inspried me.
- Emails after I’ve decided not to buy something because I “forgot something” in my cart.
- Soul-sucking complainers.
- Entitlement.
- 2 minute and 30 seconds music tracks being the norm.
- Hallmark holidays.
- Email addresses in email signatures.
- Drivers that turn hazards on when it starts to rain.
- All modern cars looking the same, down to color options.
- The only exception to #8 being electric cars that have to look techie.
- Small talk about mundane bullshit.
Minimal Kobo Reader
I enjoy reading on my Kobo Sage a lot. Before the Sage, I had the Libra H2O. That device went to my wife when she gifted me the Sage. The ability to carry around a huge stack of books on one thin device is so convenient. I still enjoy physical books, but outside of books I read in my home office, my reading occurs on the Kobo.
Make it minimal
The only thing I didn’t enjoy about the Kobo device was the Kobo service side of things. I don’t buy my books through Kobo, and am not interested in “discovering” anything. I just want my books that I sideload to the device, and occasionally the ability to look at a long-form article that I’ve saved to Instapaper. I don’t use Instapaper as my primary read-later app, but I sometimes save an especially long article I’d prefer to read on the Kobo or listen to from CarPlay. My method of sideloading kepub/epub/pdf files is with the integrated Dropbox experience.
So here was my list of features, to work into the most minimal experience I could by tweaking things with tools like nickelmenu and Kobopatch.
- Access to Dropbox
- Toggle for dark/light mode
- Access to Instapaper
- My Books (and nothing else)
- No auto-updating firmware when on WiFi for syncing Instapaper or downloading books from Dropbox (because it breaks the tweaks from time to time; WiFi).
- Eliminate as much unnecessary UI as possible.
Mission Accomplished
With a crafty combo of the two tools mentioned above, I’ve achieved exactly what I wanted. I’ve been using it since late November last year, and it’s glorious and stable. Here’s a sample of how it looks and the menus that get me to all of the above functions where/when needed:
Books View
Menu View
Reading Menu
I’m happy to share examples of my nickelmenu files, etc. Just reach out if you need them along with some links to some great Reddit posts that guided me to my solution (if your needs slightly differ).
Sure, why not?
Inspired by Kevin’s and Manu’s joint experiment, I’m going to run my own for the same timeframe. I won’t post Screen Time weekly reports, because well, they suck and I don’t feel like manually backing out the time spent in Maps during my commuting to schools for drop-offs, pickups, etc. I’ll review them to see if they offer anything insightful.
I will share weekly updates on how I feel the tactics I’m choosing to put in place are affecting my phone usage. I’ve done some of these before, and others are new twists on previous experiments. While I’ve been focused on reading at night vs. mindless YouTube consumption, these changes should avoid the phone being a draw during those small moments of boredom when I should be letting my mind wander without a screen’s siren song.
Combined, the tweaks all focus on making my phone and watch merely tools:
- Grayscale mode on: I have the triple-click side button set to turn this mode on and off for when I need to see something in color, but otherwise, the phone and watch both stay in boring grayscale mode.
- Lockscreen and homescreen in Personal Focus Mode are set to plain black wallpaper. Lockscreen widgets are reduced to just one above the clock that shows me the message “Be intentional”. When tapped, this widget captures text and writes it directly to the Apple Journal app.
- Watchface is set to Simple with no complications.
Since I stumbled into this derivative personal challenge just today, I’m considering a few more restrictions that I’ll make within the first week. I’ll share more on those next week on my first update post.
Intersecting Interests
This post is my entry for February’s IndieWeb Carnival being hosted by Zachary Kai.
I had to think about this one more than most IndieWeb Carnival topics. Most of my interests have almost default assumptions of intersection. The person that likes writing in Markdown, drinking pour-over coffee, and is into design and typography is almost an archetype in the world of IndieWeb. Stereotypical interests aside, I realized there may be one more unique for the topic.
I’m simultaneously interested in how these modern technological advances (LLMs, for example) can be used for real value in our world and in how we as a human species can regain ground when it comes to our fragmented focus and battered attention spans. These interests are almost always in conflict because I recognize how much the first is being used against the second. Algorithmic feeds of all sorts continue to dominate and compete for our attention. Attention finds itself lacking intention. AI and large language models (LLMs) are everywhere, and the pace of change is a hockey stick upward curve. There’s no denying that these new platforms and tools are going to change so much for current and future generations, just as the internet did for generations before it.
I’m trying to keep the intersection of these interests strong. That’s the only way to ensure that I’m directing my attention vs. allowing it to be engaged by the same tech working against me. I’m both a technologist and an intentional thinker. These intersecting interests are part of why I write this blog, so it certainly isn’t impossible to keep the intersection rooting in adding value to your life.
The End of Thinking
Derek Thompson, writing on his blog:
Thinking benefits from a similar principle of “time under tension.” It is the ability to sit patiently with a group of barely connected or disconnected ideas that allows a thinker to braid them together into something that is combinatorially new.
This entire expanded essay is excellent. It covers several topics that often get covered separately (decline of reading, decline of writing, AI coming for us all, etc.) and stitches them together the unfortunate narrative that seems in many ways unavoidable.
I’ve been saying it to my family for a long time now, but wall-e dystopia is rather quickly approaching us.
Read more. Write more. AI for mundane tasks and what was previously out of reach for reduction of mundane digital tasks. Touch grass. We must force ourselves to avoid the comfort of convenience. It will be our undoing as our brains unravel into a loose and disintegrating ball of yarn that used to be our novelty.
