Sawyer Paul's Blog, page 46

You Chose Poorly – thoughts on the first season

The first season of You Chose Poorly has wrapped up, and I wanted to write a little bit about it.

You Chose Poorly is a 14-episode podcast about tech products and self reflection. It’s selfish and self-serving, but it asks questions everyone should ask from time to time: am I doing right by the people around me, and am I spending my time and money in ways that push me forward?

Because of that, You Chose Poorly is maybe the most inward-facing project I’ve done. I don’t talk about myself much on International Object or Fran’s Not Here. I don’t use my own life as inspiration in my novels. I usually try to get out of my head for creative work. But You Chose Poorly felt like a very specific form of (very first world) therapy.

I had a great co-host. Mikey Llorin is funny, observant, and was willing to push me with insights I hadn’t considered. If I had done this podcast with anyone else, it wouldn’t have been as good. He and his wife just had their first baby, and I’m really happy for them.

We did 14 episodes, which makes it short enough for me to actually run down everything we talked about in a blog post. It makes for a cool snapshot of technologies that have been on my mind most of my adult life (and some of my childhood).

In the first episode, we discussed a small handful of iPods, what they meant in their lives, why certain models were chosen over others, and what the iPod meant in the 2000s before ubiquitous internet music streaming.

Then, we hit on iPads, which became a running device to touch on throughout the show. This was definitely Mikey’s linchpin product, and we talked about how it’s almost impossible to pick the “right” one, even if they’re all pretty great.

Third, The Palm Pre, Palm’s last phone before going under. I still blame myself for this product dying, so we broke open the beautiful and troubled little pebble that effectively killed Palm. Also discussed: Palm Pilots, Apple lifting features from the Prē, and if there’s anything to learn from Palm’s demise.

Returning to apple for episode 4, we discussed their services, quarterly results, my iPhone 6, Apple Music, iTunes Match, Zune Pass, and whether or not it is a poor choice to put all your stuff into iCloud (spoiler: probably).

In episode 5 we talked video games, namely, my first video game system: The TurboGrafx-16. We talk about other systems as well, the idea of a “system,” and how choosing well in gaming is still tough.

Episode 6 is the Rdio episode, and streaming music. Topics: What happens when you fall in love with a failing music service? What do you tell the people who signed up due to your evangelism? What happens when the boat sinks?

Episode 7 and episode 8 were dedicated to talking about the incredible mess (and the incredible mess I keep myself in) of messaging apps. It’s a problem that still frustrates me. Full disclosure: Skype is back on the home screen. Frick.

In episode 9 we talked about Keynotes. While not a “product,” they’ve still become something to consume and enjoy in their own right. We ask: Is it a waste of time for a regular consumer? What is it about nerdy drama that keeps us coming back? And is it about the products, the people, or the (once again) weird feeling of unearned superiority from knowing stuff faster than other people?

Episode 10: Workflows. Is trying to get everyone on board with new workflows always a mistake? Do you just drive yourself nuts knowing the future is right there, just out of reach, while everyone else around you is fine just faxing stuff? We tried to unpack an issue that plagues early adopters and automation enthusiasts.

It took us a while but we finally got around to talking about Photos in episode 11. In it, I tell a story about recommending a service that recently shut down, and this opens the lens for a larger discussion: Photos. What do you do with them? How do you trust they’ll still be there if you want to see them later? How much money do you have to throw at this problem? And can there just be one place where they live (tldr: no).

In what I consider a sister episode to the Photos episode, episode 12 is about reading digitally. In this day and age, what’s the best way to read a book? Mikey and I try to figure out why “use an ebook reader” isn’t automatically the answer. We also talk about the ebook readers we’ve owned, and if any of them were wrong.

Episode 13 returns us to gaming with the big craze of summer 2016: Pokemon Go. Discussed: the wisdom of avoiding never-ending video games, and how good the game might be for society. Also, a little bit of iOS 10 Beta chat.

Finally, our season finale episode. Mikey and I cap off the first season of You Chose Poorly by talking about what comes first (hint: it’s people, not products), the impossibility of buying the right camera, and when you have to turn off the “product hunt” and just deal with what you’ve got.

Somehow, through all of that, we didn’t get to the Zune. Well, we have to leave something for season 2.

You Chose Poorly - thoughts on the first season

The first season of You Chose Poorly has wrapped up, and I wanted to write a little bit about it.

You Chose Poorly is a 14-episode podcast about tech products and self reflection. It’s selfish and self-serving, but it asks questions everyone should ask from time to time: am I doing right by the people around me, and am I spending my time and money in ways that push me forward?

Because of that, You Chose Poorly is maybe the most inward-facing project I’ve done. I don’t talk about myself much on International Object or Fran’s Not Here. I don’t use my own life as inspiration in my novels. I usually try to get out of my head for creative work. But You Chose Poorly felt like a very specific form of (very first world) therapy.

I had a great co-host. Mikey Llorin is funny, observant, and was willing to push me with insights I hadn’t considered. If I had done this podcast with anyone else, it wouldn’t have been as good. He and his wife just had their first baby, and I’m really happy for them.

We did 14 episodes, which makes it short enough for me to actually run down everything we talked about in a blog post. It makes for a cool snapshot of technologies that have been on my mind most of my adult life (and some of my childhood).

In the first episode, we discussed a small handful of iPods, what they meant in their lives, why certain models were chosen over others, and what the iPod meant in the 2000s before ubiquitous internet music streaming.

Then, we hit on iPads, which became a running device to touch on throughout the show. This was definitely Mikey’s linchpin product, and we talked about how it’s almost impossible to pick the “right” one, even if they’re all pretty great.

Third, The Palm Pre, Palm’s last phone before going under. I still blame myself for this product dying, so we broke open the beautiful and troubled little pebble that effectively killed Palm. Also discussed: Palm Pilots, Apple lifting features from the Prē, and if there’s anything to learn from Palm’s demise.

Returning to apple for episode 4, we discussed their services, quarterly results, my iPhone 6, Apple Music, iTunes Match, Zune Pass, and whether or not it is a poor choice to put all your stuff into iCloud (spoiler: probably).

In episode 5 we talked video games, namely, my first video game system: The TurboGrafx-16. We talk about other systems as well, the idea of a “system,” and how choosing well in gaming is still tough.

Episode 6 is the Rdio episode, and streaming music. Topics: What happens when you fall in love with a failing music service? What do you tell the people who signed up due to your evangelism? What happens when the boat sinks?

Episode 7 and episode 8 were dedicated to talking about the incredible mess (and the incredible mess I keep myself in) of messaging apps. It’s a problem that still frustrates me. Full disclosure: Skype is back on the home screen. Frick.

In episode 9 we talked about Keynotes. While not a “product,” they’ve still become something to consume and enjoy in their own right. We ask: Is it a waste of time for a regular consumer? What is it about nerdy drama that keeps us coming back? And is it about the products, the people, or the (once again) weird feeling of unearned superiority from knowing stuff faster than other people?

Episode 10: Workflows. Is trying to get everyone on board with new workflows always a mistake? Do you just drive yourself nuts knowing the future is right there, just out of reach, while everyone else around you is fine just faxing stuff? We tried to unpack an issue that plagues early adopters and automation enthusiasts.

It took us a while but we finally got around to talking about Photos in episode 11. In it, I tell a story about recommending a service that recently shut down, and this opens the lens for a larger discussion: Photos. What do you do with them? How do you trust they’ll still be there if you want to see them later? How much money do you have to throw at this problem? And can there just be one place where they live (tldr: no).

In what I consider a sister episode to the Photos episode, episode 12 is about reading digitally. In this day and age, what’s the best way to read a book? Mikey and I try to figure out why “use an ebook reader” isn’t automatically the answer. We also talk about the ebook readers we’ve owned, and if any of them were wrong.

Episode 13 returns us to gaming with the big craze of summer 2016: Pokemon Go. Discussed: the wisdom of avoiding never-ending video games, and how good the game might be for society. Also, a little bit of iOS 10 Beta chat.

Finally, our season finale episode. Mikey and I cap off the first season of You Chose Poorly by talking about what comes first (hint: it’s people, not products), the impossibility of buying the right camera, and when you have to turn off the “product hunt” and just deal with what you’ve got.

Somehow, through all of that, we didn’t get to the Zune. Well, we have to leave something for season 2.

Skypunch – thoughts on the first draft

Skypunch, a novel I’ve been working on since 2012, has finally reached its 1.0 first draft state. At 67,512 words, it’s the longest work I’ve ever made. It’s also the messiest first draft I’ve made, too.

I’ve written two other novels. No Chinook, whose first draft I finished in the fall of 2006(!) was a small and intimate story, and there wasn’t a huge amount of change between its first draft and its final version, which was published in 2008. A Record Year for Rainfall, which today still exists in a sort of “beta” form, since I never got it professionally edited, is also still pretty close to its first draft. But Skypunch, I have a feeling, will change a lot between now and when it’s finished.

In fact, it’s already changed a ton during the four years I’ve been writing it. Skypunch began its life as two separate projects. In 2013, I launched an app in the iOS Newstand store called Lattice. It contained new chapters every month of a story I was calling “The Moonbow Easy,” which was about a girl who got kidnapped and broke free, discovered a conspiracy, and found new hope in a group of people looking to bring the truth to the people. I wrote six chapters before the app developers told me they were going out of business and my app was going to disappear.

In the fall of 2013, feeling a little dejected, I tried my hand at National Novel Writing Month. It’s always been a good place to begin, since it demands a lot of writing in a very short amount of time, and writing 50,000 words in 30 days is a tremendous way to get everything down. I wrote a story called “Corona Gale,” about a woman who stopped a madman from changing time inside an ocean storm. In the course of finishing Nanowrimo, I had half of a pretty decent action thriller.

So, I had about a third of “Moonbow Easy” and half of “Corona Gale,” but what was I going to do? With “Moonbow,” I felt uninspired, feeling the story existed because of an app project I wanted to work on, and was not sure if it would work on its own. With “Gale,” I had an action story. Did I really want my next book to be a James Bond-style caper? I kind of didn’t.

In early 2014, I took a hard look at both stories and realized there were parallels where I could thread them together. Thematically, both main characters were going through tumultuous adventures, and I realized that each character had complimentary strengths and weaknesses. I thought about having each woman help the other. It was a fantastic feeling, knowing I had the bones almost all laid out to make one solid novel. I gave it a new title: Skypunch. All I had to do was make sense of it.

Making sense of it took nearly two years.

This is the wrong way to write a novel. With my first two books, I made an outline, and I wrote it. Some things changed, but in general what existed in my head eventually existed on the page. With Skypunch, I threw 30,000 words away and wrote 40,000 new ones. It was a massive effort to make it make sense, to put two universes together and keep everything from falling apart.

So, for one thing, I could not have done it without Scrivener. That thing is a lifesafer, and I’m treating its new iOS app as a reward for getting through this. It will be invaluable for editing. I don’t know how anyone writes with anything else.

For two, I would not recommend this approach. In general, you really do want to know what you’re writing, why, and stick with it. It’s way harder to fix major things later. Get the bones right away, then flesh things out. Because of this, there are definitely places where it feels like two books stitched together. The tone isn’t right everywhere. In one scene, a character has a mom, and in the next, she doesn’t. I’ll fix all these things. But these are version 2 things.

Like my other two books, Skypunch has silly characters. It has a lot of jokes, and a little bit of disbelief. It has just a hint of magic. And it’s also really sad, because I think I write sad books. I write books about people who have been kicked to the curb. I have my characters do awful things to one another, because they’re afraid of it happening to them. My characters have sex, break up, punch one another, break their cars, avoid their loved ones, and sometimes put it all back together. All that’s here. I hope you love it. And I hope you get to read it soon.

Skypunch - thoughts on the first draft

Skypunch, a novel I’ve been working on since 2012, has finally reached its 1.0 first draft state. At 67,512 words, it’s the longest work I’ve ever made. It’s also the messiest first draft I’ve made, too.

I’ve written two other novels. No Chinook, whose first draft I finished in the fall of 2006(!) was a small and intimate story, and there wasn’t a huge amount of change between its first draft and its final version, which was published in 2008. A Record Year for Rainfall, which today still exists in a sort of “beta” form, since I never got it professionally edited, is also still pretty close to its first draft. But Skypunch, I have a feeling, will change a lot between now and when it’s finished.

In fact, it’s already changed a ton during the four years I’ve been writing it. Skypunch began its life as two separate projects. In 2013, I launched an app in the iOS Newstand store called Lattice. It contained new chapters every month of a story I was calling “The Moonbow Easy,” which was about a girl who got kidnapped and broke free, discovered a conspiracy, and found new hope in a group of people looking to bring the truth to the people. I wrote six chapters before the app developers told me they were going out of business and my app was going to disappear.

In the fall of 2013, feeling a little dejected, I tried my hand at National Novel Writing Month. It’s always been a good place to begin, since it demands a lot of writing in a very short amount of time, and writing 50,000 words in 30 days is a tremendous way to get everything down. I wrote a story called “Corona Gale,” about a woman who stopped a madman from changing time inside an ocean storm. In the course of finishing Nanowrimo, I had half of a pretty decent action thriller.

So, I had about a third of “Moonbow Easy” and half of “Corona Gale,” but what was I going to do? With “Moonbow,” I felt uninspired, feeling the story existed because of an app project I wanted to work on, and was not sure if it would work on its own. With “Gale,” I had an action story. Did I really want my next book to be a James Bond-style caper? I kind of didn’t.

In early 2014, I took a hard look at both stories and realized there were parallels where I could thread them together. Thematically, both main characters were going through tumultuous adventures, and I realized that each character had complimentary strengths and weaknesses. I thought about having each woman help the other. It was a fantastic feeling, knowing I had the bones almost all laid out to make one solid novel. I gave it a new title: Skypunch. All I had to do was make sense of it.

Making sense of it took nearly two years.

This is the wrong way to write a novel. With my first two books, I made an outline, and I wrote it. Some things changed, but in general what existed in my head eventually existed on the page. With Skypunch, I threw 30,000 words away and wrote 40,000 new ones. It was a massive effort to make it make sense, to put two universes together and keep everything from falling apart.

So, for one thing, I could not have done it without Scrivener. That thing is a lifesafer, and I’m treating its new iOS app as a reward for getting through this. It will be invaluable for editing. I don’t know how anyone writes with anything else.

For two, I would not recommend this approach. In general, you really do want to know what you’re writing, why, and stick with it. It’s way harder to fix major things later. Get the bones right away, then flesh things out. Because of this, there are definitely places where it feels like two books stitched together. The tone isn’t right everywhere. In one scene, a character has a mom, and in the next, she doesn’t. I’ll fix all these things. But these are version 2 things.

Like my other two books, Skypunch has silly characters. It has a lot of jokes, and a little bit of disbelief. It has just a hint of magic. And it’s also really sad, because I think I write sad books. I write books about people who have been kicked to the curb. I have my characters do awful things to one another, because they’re afraid of it happening to them. My characters have sex, break up, punch one another, break their cars, avoid their loved ones, and sometimes put it all back together. All that’s here. I hope you love it. And I hope you get to read it soon.

Summer 2016 Podcast Update

Podcasting is one of the odder mediums out there, but it’s one that I hold dear. This probably has something to do with how quickly I became a podcaster after learning about it. I love movies, but have never made one. I love music, but I’ve never made an album. But the time between hearing my first podcast and making my first podcast was incredibly short. I wanted to be part of it.

It helped that there was a time when it seemed the Mac was purpose-built for podcasts. I downloaded my first ever podcast on my iPod Video in early 2006, and within a month I’d made a 20 minute show in Garageband (it was a music mixtape with some words in between the songs), and had uploaded it to iWeb. Within a few minutes, my show downloaded to my iTunes library, and was synced to my iPod (and, in theory, any iPod in the world). This was 2006! It was love at first workflow.

Eventually, it got to the point where I was running a small podcast network. Gredunza Podcasts had over a dozen shows running at one point, and while I would appear on some of them, I only produced one (International Object). When I turned off the switch in 2014, it was because I wanted to pare down the number of things I was doing. But just because I didn’t want to run a network anymore didn’t mean I didn’t still love podcasting.

Here are the two podcasts I do right now:

You Chose Poorly is a tech podcast about being wrong, co-hosted by Mikey Llorin. Subscribe via RSS, iTunes, Overcast, Pocketcasts, and Soundcloud. Listen to older episodes on Mixcloud.

Fran’s Not Here is a show about Toronto, co-hosted by Robert Pilgrim. Subscribe via RSS, iTunes, Overcast, Pocketcasts, and Soundcloud. Listen to older episodes on Mixcloud.

Both shows only have about a dozen episodes so far, and neither of them ever go over an hour.

I used to do a show called International Object. It was mostly about pro wrestling, but sometimes we’d talk about technology and other television shows. I’m really proud of how well the show has aged, as each episode was more about a concept or theory than anything topical.

I don’t have any episode of older shows I did before 2010, but they were plentiful. Lots of mixtapes, like Soundloading, the show I did with my wife. Lots of weird rants. Lots of my fiction in audio form. But a lot of that disappeared when the sites I hosted them on went away. Even if archive.org had a splash page, the audio link would be broken. I didn’t used to be as good at archiving my own stuff.

As for listening to podcasts, I’ve found 2016 to be a pruning year. I used to have more than 30 podcasts I would semi-regularly enjoy, but that’s gone way down. Here’s the list of podcasts I’m subscribed to as of July 2016, in rough order of preference:

Back to WorkYou Must Remember ThisNPR’s Code SwitchMouth Time with Reductress2 Dope Queens99% InvisibleAccidental Tech PodcastThe Next TrackOvertiredThe Talk Show with John Gruber

I’ve meant to write something like this every year since I began caring about podcasts. I wish I had. I thought it would be a fascinating time capsule to return to after a time, but I never got around to it. I’ll try to do this again next year, to see if anything has changed.

Summer 2016 Podcast Update

Podcasting is one of the odder mediums out there, but it’s one that I hold dear. This probably has something to do with how quickly I became a podcaster after learning about it. I love movies, but have never made one. I love music, but I’ve never made an album. But the time between hearing my first podcast and making my first podcast was incredibly short. I wanted to be part of it.

It helped that there was a time when it seemed the Mac was purpose-built for podcasts. I downloaded my first ever podcast on my iPod Video in early 2006, and within a month I’d made a 20 minute show in Garageband (it was a music mixtape with some words in between the songs), and had uploaded it to iWeb. Within a few minutes, my show downloaded to my iTunes library, and was synced to my iPod (and, in theory, any iPod in the world). This was 2006! It was love at first workflow.

Eventually, it got to the point where I was running a small podcast network. Gredunza Podcasts had over a dozen shows running at one point, and while I would appear on some of them, I only produced one (International Object). When I turned off the switch in 2014, it was because I wanted to pare down the number of things I was doing. But just because I didn’t want to run a network anymore didn’t mean I didn’t still love podcasting.

Here are the two podcasts I do right now:

You Chose Poorly is a tech podcast about being wrong, co-hosted by Mikey Llorin. Subscribe via RSS, iTunes, Overcast, Pocketcasts, and Soundcloud. Listen to older episodes on Mixcloud.

Fran’s Not Here is a show about Toronto, co-hosted by Robert Pilgrim. Subscribe via RSS, iTunes, Overcast, Pocketcasts, and Soundcloud. Listen to older episodes on Mixcloud.

Both shows only have about a dozen episodes so far, and neither of them ever go over an hour.

I used to do a show called International Object. It was mostly about pro wrestling, but sometimes we’d talk about technology and other television shows. I’m really proud of how well the show as aged, as each episode was more about a concept or theory than anything topical.

I don’t have any episode of older shows I did before 2010, but they were plentiful. Lots of mixtapes, like Soundloading, the show I did with my wife. Lots of weird rants. Lots of my fiction in audio form. But a lot of that disappeared when the sites I hosted them on went away. Even if archive.org had a splash page, the audio link would be broken. I didn’t used to be as good at archiving my own stuff.

As for listening to podcasts, I’ve found 2016 to be a pruning year. I used to have more than 30 podcasts I would semi-regularly enjoy, but that’s gone way down. Here’s the list of podcasts I’m subscribed to as of July 2016, in rough order of preference:

Back to Work
You Must Remember This
NPR’s Code Switch
Mouth Time with Reductress
2 Dope Queens
99% Invisible
Accidental Tech Podcast
The Next Track
Overtired
The Talk Show with John Gruber

I’ve meant to write something like this every year since I began caring about podcasts. I wish I had. I thought it would be a fascinating time capsule to return to after a time, but I never got around to it. I’ll try to do this again next year, to see if anything has changed.

Spring 2016 Update

Throughout this winter, I’ve been compiling a first draft to a novel I’m calling Skypunch. This novel has gone by a number of titles in the past few years, and has in fact been entirely other books/stories in that time. As of April 2016, my first draft is around 80% complete. It’s a tough thing to measure, so by that I mean I want it to be a 70,000 word story and I’ve got 56,000 words I’d like to include (the total word count with deleted content is around the 80,000 mark). I’m shooting loosely for a June first draft. At that point, I’ll be handing the draft off to an editor, and we’ll go from there.

Unlike with No Chinook (2008) and A Record Year for Rainfall (2011), I’m going to try to publish Skypunch with a separate publisher. It may not work, and if it doesn’t the book will eventually live here and be available to everyone. But I’d like to give traditional publishing a try. I want to go through the submission/rejection process. I want to speak to agents and editors and have help developing this story.

But I have another reason to try out traditional publishing. Over the years, I’ve amassed a good deal of stories and information from other authors, and I’d like to know how much of it is true. Hopefully, very little will check out. I’d like a lot of my misconceptions get refuted.

For many years, I wrestled with the idea of working with publishers. It could just be some leftover punk idealism, but I believe the literary world would be a little better off if authors controlled more steps in the chain of production. I think it’s better if the final product closely resembles what you wanted it to be. And maybe I’m wrong about this, but from what I’ve heard, a lot of things about your work gets altered on the way to a customer.

In the literary production line, the major steps are writing, editing, publishing, distribution, and marketing. The self-publishing market that’s been propped up by Amazon, Createspace, Lulu, and others, have allowed authors to try to do every step on their own. I’ve gone this route with every book I’ve published so far. It has had the benefit of the final product looking pretty close to the object I want, but that’s mostly about the specific layout of words in the book. I’ve never thought highly of their printed products. Cheap glue, thick bright white paper and glossy covers, and rigid size options can limit the potential of the product.

It’s not like there aren’t great printers out there, but they cost a lot and they won’t print your books one at a time. They’ll print it in the hundreds or thousands, which places a lot of pressure on your book to move units. It also places pressure on you to think of your book as a unit.

As for the distribution of self-publishing methods, it isn’t as rewarding as you might think at the beginning. Not to say anything of the almost invisible sales, it simply isn’t a rewarding artistic experience. If you’re looking to control every aspect of the publishing chain, going with these template services can make your process feel cookie cutter. You still have to write a pithy description and put a singular price point on your page. And it has to sit next to more professional and popular works, which can’t help but make your product seem sad in comparison. This method has never caught on past new authors and it’s easy to see why. It’s lousy.

Of course, trying to publish with a reputable house has its drawbacks as well. For one thing, they don’t have to publish you. There is a gate and you have to be let in. And this hurts the ego, because as you see it they’re rejecting this thing that you love. You spent years writing this story, and all you get is a polite no (if you’re lucky). Also, it’s not just a gate but gates. Your book will get painfully rejected by a team of very qualified list of editors and agents before it’ll ever get rejected by a publisher. And it will, because this is how the process is designed.

And if your book does somehow impress an editor enough for them to work on it, your book will change. Your editor will forever alter it. Your agent will get you to alter it. And your publisher will alter it further. They’ll put a cover on it you won’t like. They’ll write a byline that betrays all the themes. They’ll smooth out the rough parts. And this is if everything works out as designed. This is the best case scenario.

This is how the donuts are made, with collaboration and letting the people who know better and have earned a say have that say. Your editor or agent or publisher may not know or care about how you feel about all this, but it isn’t their job to care. You wrote a story that you love, but that doesn’t mean anyone else will give a damn. It’s the job of editors, agents, and publishers to help a total stranger across the world care about your book. And this is what makes them amazing. I can’t do that. I don’t even know where to start.

I wonder if the problem is that it has to become a team sport. It’s one thing if a project starts out as a team effort, but that’s almost never how a book starts out. Writing a book is a hugely personal and intimate experience and there’s a lot of trepidation handing it over to a team of people who will turn it into something that they believe they can sell.

If this is actually how things are, then I imagine I won’t spend a lot of time in that world. I’d love to be proven wrong. I’d love for it to work.

All you can hope for at the end of the process is that the essence of your story is strong enough to survive the transition. That’s the true test of a great story anyway. How well does it fare in someone else’s hands?

I know a lot of this isn’t right, or based on old ideas with poor context. I want to know better.

But if it does work, and I go through this process and it all works out, I’d still like to see a change in publishing for the sake of the author’s original intent. I’d like to see “author’s cuts” of novels where the story as published is 100% author intention, much like how there are directors cuts of certain films. Maybe it would be cleaned up in some copy edited sense, but just without any alterations to story or theme. I’d like to see that text live next to the finished version, the one built out of the original to cater to the widest possible audience.

Fewer Tamagotchis, update 1

During the first episode of Lady Dynamite, Maria Bamford suggests to her agent that the thing she’d like to do for her next project is…less. She doesn’t want to do movies or TV or even commercials. She’d like to, maybe, just sit on a park bench in her neighbourhood. That seems like less stress and pressure to her character.

This is how I feel about social media, chatting, apps, and connectivity lately.

For the last fifteen years or so, my online presence has taken up innumerable hours. Most of it is spent talking to other people. Sometimes it’s just me talking to the void. Both can be good things! Both can be productive uses of time. But in the last few years, I’ve noticed things splintering. I’ve seen segmentation, and it seems like everyone is just a little farther away than they used to be.

Maybe I’m just getting old. Maybe everyone is having fun without me. Maybe my patience for online time-wasting has reached a plateau and I need to spend some time away.

This is not me turning into someone who doesn’t like computers or technology anymore. I don’t wish to go back to any sort of previous version of things. Online communication has always kind of sucked. If anything, I’d just like some streamlining. I think I just want one feed. I want one place to chat. I want one place to see new things.

Recently on You Chose Poorly, a podcast I do with Mikey Llorin, I talked about the proliferation of chat apps in my life. If you’d like to listen, here’s part 1 and here’s part 2 of the conversation. Here was the list of apps I have used to chat with people in the last month:

iMessage/SMSFacebook MessengerWhatsAppGoogle HangoutsSlackMiitomoSkypeTwitterInstagramTumblr

And that’s just not feasible. This is a crazytown way to live. So I’ve decided to do some pruning. I’d like to start by getting this down to 3. It’s not one, but one is the eventual higher-plane goal. Three will do as a first step.

Obviously iMessage isn’t something you can get rid of if you have an iPhone, but it’s also not something I check. If someone texts me, I’ll get a notification. I consider this swiped off with some tweaks to notification centre.

I only had Instagram for quick posts to Facebook and Twitter. That’s an easy one to cut out. So I’ve “temporarily disabled” my account, since Instagram is a Facebook joint and deleting things just isn’t their jam.

Miitomo and Slack were fun distractions, but are kind of tedious. Gone.

Google hangouts is pretty dead, at least among my friends. Logged out. Uninstalled.

And Skype is something I’ll have to keep around for podcasts, but can stop signing into at all times. I can take it off my phone.

So now there’s:

WhatsAppFacebook & MessengerTwitter

This was the goal, and for the most part I’ve kept to it. What I’ve learned by trying to go without certain apps for periods of time is how I used different ones for different reasons (this is very Marshall McLuhan). Instagram makes me feel a certain way that Tumblr does not, I have different kinds of conversations on Messenger than I do on Whatsapp, even with the same people.

I don’t have a solution for this. It’s obviously the kind of thing that doesn’t bother enough people to have anything happen, so I’m stuck with a handful of messaging apps. It’s not the worst thing in the world, but it’s been interesting taking a critical look at how I’m using these things to see if I can change my behaviour. But that’s just the thing with messaging apps. You can change your behaviour all you like, but you can’t change anyone else’s, and being with other people is the entire reason we have these things in the first place.

Fewer Tamagotchis, update 1

During the first episode of Lady Dynamite, Maria Bamford suggests to her agent that the thing she’d like to do for her next project is…less. She doesn’t want to do movies or TV or even commercials. She’d like to, maybe, just sit on a park bench in her neighbourhood. That seems like less stress and pressure to her character.

This is how I feel about social media, chatting, apps, and connectivity lately.

For the last fifteen years or so, my online presence has taken up innumerable hours. Most of it is spent talking to other people. Sometimes it’s just me talking to the void. Both can be good things! Both can be productive uses of time. But in the last few years, I’ve noticed things splintering. I’ve seen segmentation, and it seems like everyone is just a little farther away than they used to be.

Maybe I’m just getting old. Maybe everyone is having fun without me. Maybe my patience for online time-wasting has reached a plateau and I need to spend some time away.

This is not me turning into someone who doesn’t like computers or technology anymore. I don’t wish to go back to any sort of previous version of things. Online communication has always kind of sucked. If anything, I’d just like some streamlining. I think I just want one feed. I want one place to chat. I want one place to see new things.

Recently on You Chose Poorly, a podcast I do with Mikey Llorin, I talked about the proliferation of chat apps in my life. If you’d like to listen, here’s part 1 and here’s part 2 of the conversation. Here was the list of apps I have used to chat with people in the last month:

iMessage/SMS
Facebook Messenger
WhatsApp
Google Hangouts
Slack
Miitomo
Skype
Twitter
Instagram
Tumblr

And that’s just not feasible. This is a crazytown way to live. So I’ve decided to do some pruning. I’d like to start by getting this down to 3. It’s not one, but one is the eventual higher-plane goal. Three will do as a first step.

Obviously iMessage isn’t something you can get rid of if you have an iPhone, but it’s also not something I check. If someone texts me, I’ll get a notification. I consider this swiped off with some tweaks to notification centre.

I only had Instagram for quick posts to Facebook and Twitter. That’s an easy one to cut out. So I’ve “temporarily disabled” my account, since Instagram is a Facebook joint and deleting things just isn’t their jam.

Miitomo and Slack were fun distractions, but are kind of tedious. Gone.

Google hangouts is pretty dead, at least among my friends. Logged out. Uninstalled.

And Skype is something I’ll have to keep around for podcasts, but can stop signing into at all times. I can take it off my phone.

So now there’s:

WhatsApp
Facebook & Messenger
Twitter

This was the goal, and for the most part I’ve kept to it. What I’ve learned by trying to go without certain apps for periods of time is how I used different ones for different reasons (this is very Marshall McLuhan). Instagram makes me feel a certain way that Tumblr does not, I have different kinds of conversations on Messenger than I do on Whatsapp, even with the same people.

I don’t have a solution for this. It’s obviously the kind of thing that doesn’t bother enough people to have anything happen, so I’m stuck with a handful of messaging apps. It’s not the worst thing in the world, but it’s been interesting taking a critical look at how I’m using these things to see if I can change my behaviour. But that’s just the thing with messaging apps. You can change your behaviour all you like, but you can’t change anyone else’s, and being with other people is the entire reason we have these things in the first place.

Fewer Tamagotchis

During the first episode of Lady Dynamite, Maria Bamford suggests to her agent that the thing she’d like to do for her next project is…less. She doesn’t want to do movies or TV or even commercials. She’d like to, maybe, just sit on a park bench in her neighbourhood. That seems like less stress and pressure to her character.

This is how I feel about social media, chatting, apps, and connectivity lately.

For the last fifteen years or so, my online presence has taken up innumerable hours. Most of it is spent talking to other people. Sometimes it’s just me talking to the void. Both can be good things! Both can be productive uses of time. But in the last few years, I’ve noticed things splintering. I’ve seen segmentation, and it seems like everyone is just a little farther away than they used to be.

Maybe I’m just getting old. Maybe everyone is having fun without me. Maybe my patience for online time-wasting has reached a plateau and I need to spend some time away.

This is not me turning into someone who doesn’t like computers or technology anymore. I don’t wish to go back to any sort of previous version of things. Online communication has always kind of sucked. If anything, I’d just like some streamlining. I think I just want one feed. I want one place to chat. I want one place to see new things.

Recently on You Chose Poorly, a podcast I do with Mikey Llorin, I talked about the proliferation of chat apps in my life. Here was the list of apps I have used to chat with people in the last month:

iMessage/SMS
Facebook Messenger
WhatsApp
Google Hangouts
Slack
Miitomo
Skype
Twitter
Instagram
Tumblr

And that’s just not feasible. This is a crazytown way to live. So I’ve decided to do some pruning. I’d like to start by getting this down to 3. It’s not one, but one is the eventual higher-plane goal. Three will do as a first step.

Obviously iMessage isn’t something you can get rid of if you have an iPhone, but it’s also not something I check. If someone texts me, I’ll get a notification. I consider this swiped off with some tweaks to notification centre.

I only had Instagram for quick posts to Facebook and Twitter. That’s an easy one to cut out. So I’ve “temporarily disabled” my account, since Instagram is a Facebook joint and deleting things just isn’t their jam.

Miitomo and Slack were fun distractions, but are kind of tedious. Gone.

Google hangouts is pretty dead, at least among my friends. Logged out. Uninstalled.

And Skype is something I’ll have to keep around for podcasts, but can stop signing into at all times. I can take it off my phone.

So now there’s:

WhatsApp
Facebook & Messenger
Twitter

It’s not perfect, but it’s progress.

There’s also one more thing I’m going to cut out for a little while: Fitbit.

For the last year, Fitbit has been my Tamogotchi. It’s a dingus I feed with health metadata. I’ve logged my food. I’ve slept with it on. I’ve taken care of my side of things. In return, I’ve gotten a great deal of data about myself. Some of it is helpful! But a lot of it is just confirming assumed knowledge. I sleep better when I exercise. I eat poorly on days when I walk less. I walk between 10,000 and 13,000 steps every day, and I more often than not hit Fitbit’s targets for daily activity. I’m not great about making sure I walk 250 steps every hour during the work day (it’s newest feature), but Fitbit is also lousy about reminding me.

What I’m trying to say is that this data is valuable, but it’s also predictable. I know when I’ve had a healthy and an unhealthy day. And to extend this, Fitbit has not motivated me to the point of any physical change. I’m the same weight and at the same approximate fitness level I was last summer.

I’m not getting rid of my Fitbit. I’ll still wear it every few days, and during isolated exercises (the whole reason I got the thing was to track bike rides with GPS). But it’s not going to be something I worry about every day. Fitbit’s numbers will say I’m doing less, but that’s okay. Less is kind of what I’m into right now.