App-etizing

I remember, years ago, reading (possibly in the excellent Design of Everyday Things?) about an architect who designed a college campus without any paved paths between the buildings. Instead, he simply planted grass everywhere, then came back a year later, and paved over the grassless paths worn down where people had actually walked.

I was thinking of that story this morning, as I looked at my phone. As I wrote about recently, I tend to work best when I can sit down and focus. But, sadly, my schedule is too fractured, and (even with my best attempts at streamlining and focusing) my to-do list too long to make everything fit. So, this year, I’ve been trying to do more on my phone, wedging tasks into the interstitial chunks of my day. I journaled on the subway ride to work this morning, for example, and I’m banging out this post on the small screen while on a quick afternoon coffee break.

As a result, I’m suddenly using a bunch of apps that I hadn’t regularly before. Which meant it was probably time to rearrange my home screen.

But rather than my normal approach – trying to plan the theoretically perfect layout – I’m instead taking a page from that college architect: each time I use an app, I drag it to the top left of my home screen. I’m planning to keep it up for the balance of the week. After which, I should have my apps organized by actual priority, sorted into the paths of my real-world daily use.

Photo coming once that’s done. I’m curious to see how it ends up.

New Year, Old Diet?

M: Too many free radicals, that’s your problem.

BOND: Free radicals, sir?

M: Yes. They’re toxins that destroy the body and the brain. Caused by eating too much red meat and white bread, and too many dry martinis!

BOND: Then I shall cut out the white bread, sir.

– Never Say Never Again

January 6, 2020

The Daily Grind

A few years back, mid-apartment-move, I unloaded my kitchen cabinets, and discovered I owned no fewer than a dozen different devices for making coffee. From Nespresso to Aeropress, Chemex to Bialetti, with French Press, vacuum brewer, SoftBrew, and even more obscure options between.

But what I didn’t own was a coffee grinder. Which, as a reluctant coffee snob, was sort of sacrilege. Sure, I knew that coffee ground moments before brewing was far better than a bag ground in-store left to oxidize on the shelf throughout its days of use. But I was also (perhaps penny-wise and pound-foolishly) cheap.

At one point, I purchased an inexpensive blade grinder, but the results were a bit of an abortion. Insert whole beans, pour out an inconsistent mess, a potpourri that ran from large unground chunks to fine silt. A consistent grind required a burr grinder, and I couldn’t quite bring myself to spring the $200 for a Baratza or any of its competitors. So, for years I subsisted on in-store-ground beans.

Until, that is, a few weeks ago, when I stumbled across a fairly excellent review for the Secura 903B. A bit of Googling confirmed: while not anything unusual, it was perfectly capable – an automatic ceramic burr grinder that reliably makes uniform grounds. And at just $40, cheap enough that I almost couldn’t justify not buying it.

The grinder arrived on Friday. Jess and I picked up freshly-roasted beans yesterday afternoon. This morning, I (Chemex) brewed a first test run batch.

The result: why the hell did I wait so long to buy a burr grinder?

If you make coffee daily, there’s no way in the world this sucker isn’t worth the ten cents a day it will cost you to make far better cups through the rest of 2020.

January 5, 2020

Streaking

For years and years, I managed my to-do list in a collection of text files. And, as a dyed-in-the-wool nerd, that worked excellently for me. I leaned on my text editor and a series of scripts to slice and dice with ease.

But as my daily schedule changed, my device usage did, too; I found myself away from my laptop, working solely from my iPad and phone, for even whole days at a time. I auditioned a slew of text editor apps, but could never find a way to make things work even a fraction as well as I had before.

So, about five years back, I switched over to Todoist. Its handling of recurring tasks, and its powerful Boolean filters, got me quickly back to where I’d been in my text-file days.

Still, my to-do list tends to be looooong. So, when I decided to make 2020 a year of focus, I knew I needed to bring in reinforcements. Based on a slew of positive reviews, I downloaded Streaks, and set it up with a handful of my most important habits (including counting Pomodoros spent on my big project for the day).

Obviously, four days into the year, it’s a bit early to tell. But, thus far, it seems like it just might be the boost I need to make my 2020 consistent, and consistently good.

January 4, 2020

Animal Style

Here’s an interesting thought experiment I kick around a bunch:

When we look back 100 years, we’re inevitably shocked by some of the moral positions that much of society at the time took for granted. (Cf., regarding women, Blacks, Jews, etc.)

And, at the same time, we’re certain to have just as many blind spots ourselves. So, a hundred years from now, why will people of the future be appalled about us?

Though I have a slew of contenders (our handling of global warming, the ways we blithely give up our privacy for scarce little in return), high on my list is the way that we raise animals industrially for food.

And, at the same time, I also strongly believe the healthiest human diet involves eating animals (or, at least, animal-derived foods, like dairy and eggs).

So, as we push into 2020, I’m trying to figure out how to square that circle. I’m thinking carefully about where and how I’m willing to eat animal products, about how I can do so while still feeling good about the food systems I’m supporting in the process.

It’s definitely still a work in progress, and I suspect whatever I come up with will add some amount of inconvenience and expense to my life. But, as I’d really like to be on the right side of history here, I’m not sure I have much choice.