Sawyer Paul's Blog, page 28
January 28, 2019
a widescreen ipod, a phone, an internet communicator
Cal Newport, writing for the New York Times:
Practically speaking, to be a minimalist smartphone user means that you deploy this device for a small number of features that do things you value (and that the phone does particularly well), and then outside of these activities, put it away. This approach dethrones this gadget from a position of constant companion down to a luxury object, like a fancy bike or a high-end blender, that gives you great pleasure when you use it but doesn’t dominate your entire day.
Nick Statt, writing for the Verge:
I want the phone to function mostly as a phone, instead of as the always half-open window into a digital life I’d rather leave behind when I shut my laptop down every evening.
Thinking about buying an Apple Watch yielded something surprising, but obvious. I was trying to do too many things with my phone. I already have what Statt calls the best minimalist phone, so why not make the best of it? I’ve whittled the apps on the SE down to the essentials, and wouldn’t you know it, the thing resembles the original iPhone’s purpose: an iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator.
I got there by looking at the table I made in the Apple Watch post, going app by app, and deciding if the app was better off on my phone, or on my Surface. If the app worked better or was more fun to use on the Surface, I uninstalled it from the phone. Instagram was the biggest surprise.
This might change if I ever get one of those fancy iPhones with a laptop-amount of screen and tons of battery and a great camera. But for now, the simplicity of not allowing every app to run on the thing has made my commute, work, and nightlife much less distracting.
January 26, 2019
More Things, January 27, 2019
With the help of an IFTTT recipe that turns what I save to Pocket into a Markdown link, I can easily make a linked list blog post again. Hence, the return of More Things.
Articles are ordered from oldest to newest.
Why screen time studies can’t measure the effect of smartphones on our well-being
In Which I Rank Grocery Store Apples
Living up to your potential is BS
Why Gen Z Loves Closed Captioning
How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation
3 Reasons We Need To Stop Saying Being An Adult Is “Hard”
How Romance Novels Could Save Straight Sex
Micromobility, An Introduction
Advocating The 4PM — 5PM Work Day
‘Tidying Up with Marie Kondo’ Is Inadvertently About Women’s Invisible Labor
January 25, 2019
New Bujo, who dis
For Christmas, I received a Leuchtturm 1917 notebook, the boilerplate bujo notebook you see in almost every YouTube video. I’ve been bullet journaling for the past year, but always with smaller A6 pocketable notebooks. I didn’t really see the big deal of the big ones. The whole point is to jot down your life and having a smaller notebook made it easier for me to make sure it was always on me.
But after using it for a few weeks, I really see the difference. The extra room might weigh more and take up more space in your bag, but while it’s on your desk underneath your pen, it helps you think through. Each line is the right length for one of my sentences. I’m still not, and likely will never be a bujo writer who makes pretty outlines, but it definitely allows for that more than an A6.
January 24, 2019
Cura, January 25, 2019
Note: The playlist embedded above will always be the most recent playlist and might not match the list below.
Cura is my Spotify mixtape. You can listen to it and subscribe here. I keep it as one playlist so it’s easy to subscribe to. I update it fairly frequently, but I also keep an archive playlist so you don’t have to miss a thing.
I hope you like it. I made it for you.
Here’s the track listing for this week:
hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have - but I have it By Lana Del Rey
Don’t Feel Like Crying By Sigrid
Heavyweight Champion of the Year By Nilüfer Yanya
January 20, 2019
Getting better sleep
I took several sick days last year, but I hadn’t been all that sick. When I looked back on why, it became obvious: I was sleep-deprived. I would have trouble sleeping, and then wake up late, feel exhausted, and call in. I would then sleep for another few hours and be okay. The cycle repeated on average every six weeks.
I’ve always had trouble getting to sleep. My solution has always been to just stay up until something exhausted me, and then try to sleep. It didn’t always work. Maybe this was something I could get away with in my 20s, but I can’t anymore. I love that Warren Zevon line, “that shit that used to work, well it won’t work now,” and it definitely applies with how I took care of my sleep.
I did a bunch of research last week and came up with a few things that I’m going to try:
Yoga and meditation before bed. I’d been practicing yoga but not all the time and not every night.
Going to bed earlier. This seems like incredibly simple common sense but so many things make it hard to just go to bed even a few minutes earlier than you’re used to.
Not drinking alcohol before bed.
Eat earlier in the night.
Stay off phones/computers/TVs an hour or so before bed.
These all seem easy, but I’m 35 and I’ve never really gotten the hang of any of them. But, you know, new year new me and all that.
Thoughts on buying an Apple Watch
TL:DR: I thought about buying an Apple Watch and did some research. I ultimately decided it’s not for me.
Now, for the longer version.
I had a wonderful epiphany. I hate my phone.
I don’t mean the iPhone SE specifically. Even in 2019, it’s still a great phone. It might be the most beloved iPhone of all time. But I hate I have to always have it on me. Or at least, I hate that I’ve succumbed to societal pressures to have it, to feel like I have to be good at it, to always have it near me. I hate what it’s done to my attention, to my habits. I like myself less when I’m on it.
As part of a 2019 resolution, I looked for a solution. Can you live in the modern world, with its many conveniences, without a smartphone?
If you still want to be in touch with people, you can dumb down. You can get a “worse” phone you’ll hate using. But you know what? I used Windows Phones. I already know what it’s like to handicap myself with a phone that doesn’t work.
So what about one of those watches?
Apple Watch has always been kinda interesting but only faintly, and never enough to buy one (or even an old used one, which is my standard approach). So many articles talk about it not being able to replace your phone. But what if I could? What if it worked just fine for me?
Cost
So, I’m in the market for a phone. The iPhone SE, as great as it is, is a 2015 computer in a 2012 design. It’s out-gunned in every direction.
But the apple watch will work fine with the iPhone SE, a phone I already own and have to spend no more money on. In Canada, a new iPhone begins at $1000. So if my plan were to be watch-first, and then only have my iPhone around when I actually need it, maybe the SE can last me another year. I’ve done this before with other devices, and it’d surprise you how much life you can get from a thing once you demote it out of that “daily carry” position.
The Apple Watch is squarely a first-world, top-tier, 1% solution, and it’s priced like one. In Canada, with the tax, the low-end Apple Watch with cellular will cost $778.57.
Here’s my first snag. I’m on Freedom Mobile, on a $45 plan. Freedom doesn’t support Apple Watch.
On Rogers, Telus, and Bell, it’s $30 a month, with $10 a month for services. But, you need a plan. This is the quote from a Rogers rep:
“For the province of Ontario, the least expensive Share Everything plan includes 4 GB of data with unlimited local calling in the No Tab (no contract) pricing category for $80 per month. Therefore, with an Apple watch plan, it would cost $90 ($80 + $10) + tax each month.” (that’s $101.7 a month total)
So the price difference looks like this:
Apple Watch 4 $631.67 Apple Watch 4 with Cellular $778.57
I’m sure there’re ways around this, but still. But the real cost is the monthly change I’d have to make to my phone bill. I pay $45 a month for my current plan. So if I got the regular Apple Watch, I’d be paying $631.67, but would have no extra monthly fee. If I got the cellular Apple Watch, I’d be paying $146.9 extra, plus an extra $55 a month to move to a plan that supports it. If I plan to use the Apple Watch for three years, this is the cost difference (with my phone plan for Apple Watch 4 vs Rogers’ Apple Watch Plan with Apple Watch 4 with cellular):
Apple Watch 4 $2251.67 Apple Watch 4 with Cellular $4439.77
That’s a lot of money to (sometimes) leave your phone at home.
Apple Watch without an iPhone
Apple itself has a little support page that says, with great hope: How to use your Apple Watch without your iPhone nearby. Apple (Apple!) is telling you, sure, leave the hand computer at home. Be free:
If your iPhone and Apple Watch Series 4 (GPS + Cellular) or Apple Watch Series 3 (GPS + Cellular) are both connected to a cellular network, your watch can do everything that it normally does, even if your iPhone isn’t with you.
There’s apparently lots of stuff you can do without a phone. However, most places won’t really recommend this workflow:
It’s not an iPhone replacement. If you’re expecting to leave your phone for extended periods of time and use the watch to handle all your tasks, you will be disappointed.
Mental Health and iPhone Addiction
I’m not the first person to think Apple Watch might be a great solution to phone addiction:
I’m starting my work days earlier because I’m less concerned with unnecessary notifications. Since I’m less distracted throughout the day, I find myself forgetting less and triaging more. That leaves my nights truly free to do what I’d like without feeling like I should be doing something else. Whether that’s enjoying a long visit with my mom, playing a game of cards with my partner, or crushing candies on my iPad, I finally feel like it’s my time, and that’s a feeling I haven’t experienced in a while — and that makes the Apple Watch worth it for me.
On top of that, it might actually make you happier to wear one of these things.
Apps
I’ve been known to use some apps. I was thinking of doing this for another post, but it really works here to show how well an Apple Watch might work for my use-case.
iPhone
Watch
Surface
Calls
Yes
Yes
No
Texts
Yes
Yes
No
Whatsapp/Messenger
Yes
No
Yes
iOS Shortcuts
Yes
Yes
No
Camera
Yes
No
No
Yes
No
Yes
Wallet
Yes
Yes
No
Scrivener
Yes
No
Yes
Video Podcasts
Yes
No
Yes
Audio Podcasts
Yes
Yes
Yes
Spotify
Yes
No
Yes
Apple Music
Yes
Yes
Yes
Stoop Newsletters
Yes
No
No
Pokemon Go
Yes
No
No
IFTTT
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Toggle
Yes
Yes
Yes
Video playing
Yes
No
Yes
Letterboxd
Yes
No
Yes
Duolingo
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
HQ Trivia
Yes
No
No
Amazon
Yes
No
No
TV Time
Yes
Yes
No
Wallet
Yes
Yes
No
Google Maps
Yes
No
Yes
Calendar
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Just Press Record
Yes
Yes
No
Uber
Yes
Yes
Yes
MapMyRide
Yes
Yes
No
Nike Training
Yes
Yes
No
Outlook
Yes
Yes
Yes
Onenote
Yes
Yes
Yes
Carrot Weather
Yes
Yes
No
Sleep Cycle
Yes
Yes
No
Drafts
Yes
Yes
No
Habitica
Yes
No
Yes
I would be losing things. But not as much as I thought before I began this list.
And think what I could be gaining. But first, let’s talk about what I’d be losing.
Music
You can save music offline with Apple Music. Unfortunately, I mostly use Spotify, and unfortunately there’s no native app yet. I’m not sure an Apple Watch would be enough to get me to switch over.
Pokemon
https://www.imore.com/pokemon-go-apple-watch-tips-tricks
And yeah, you can’t catch on your Apple Watch. Pull out your iPhone and open the Pokémon Go app there to catch anything.
Welp.
Photos
Nope.
Unraveling objects away from the phone
So photos are the big problem. I mean, sure, I could just go out and buy a real camera. But that leads me to the central problem here. The phone does everything. It may do nothing at the level of a dedicated device, but it does most things good enough that the value is there.
This is over-thinking, sure, but it comes from a place of wanting to be healthier.
I feel trapped by the phone in a way I never felt trapped by any other object.
And I’d like the Apple Watch to be a solution. One day, it might be. But the cost, and limited app support, means that right now it just can’t be.
But that doesn’t mean I won’t keep looking.
January 16, 2019
More Things, January 17, 2019
With the help of an IFTTT recipe that turns what I save to Pocket into a Markdown link, I can easily make a linked list blog post again. Hence, the return of More Things.
Articles are ordered from oldest to newest.
The Best Skin-Care Trick Is Being Rich
The ‘Retweet Slaves’ Who Worship Their Dommes on Twitter
How Premium Mediocre Fashion Conquered the World
Why have humans never found aliens?
Why Marie Kondo’s KonMari Method Was The Only Thing That Got Me Through A Devastating Breakup
The New Spider-Man Movie Makes Live-Action Superheroes Look Boring
When you write a 1,200 word blog post helping yourself make a purchase decision, and you figured the answer would end up being yes, but through the research the answer ended up being no, do you still put up the post?
When you write a 1,200 word blog post helping yourself make a purchase decision, and you figured the answer would end up being yes, but through the research the answer ended up being no, do you still put up the post?
January 10, 2019
Frans Not Here 35 - Our Freak Flags Fly at Half Mast
Listen on Fran’s Not Here’s Website
as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced or whatever
January 6, 2019
Cura, January 7, 2019
Note: The playlist embedded above will always be the most recent playlist and might not match the list below.
Cura is my Spotify mixtape. You can listen to it and subscribe here. I keep it as one playlist so it’s easy to subscribe to. I update it fairly frequently, but I also keep an archive playlist so you don’t have to miss a thing.
I hope you like it. I made it for you.
Here’s the track listing for this week:
Future Me Hates Me By The Beths
You Will Fill My Head By wwoman
Wizard of Loneliness By Wild Pink
Passion Fruit Tea By Retirement Party
