High-res
Minimalism: Live a meaningful life on Flickr.
Change
You can fight not to change, but no one said your life would wait for you.
High-res
Alexander Graham Bell on innovation, creativity, and success
In a nutshell.
Data Science & Geographic Forecasting on Flickr.
Sketchnotes from tonight’s DataPhilly talk on geographic forecasting by Robert Cheetham of Azavea are on Flickr.
Meditations on Aaron Swartz
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking and considering since Aaron Swartz died. Should I say anything? Would anyone care? Would it serve a purpose?
I did not know Aaron Swartz. I followed his exploits, both before and after the JSTOR/MIT case, but I can claim no special knowledge of the man he was or the man we now make him out to be. Others have offered their personal memories and experiences of him, and I am grateful that they have done so. I have always found that sharing is the only way to make meaning after loss.
I want to offer some meditations that have come to me over the past weeks.
First, we must neither martyr nor pathologize Aaron Swartz. In the end, he was a man with faults and virtues, and though his body is gone from the world his influence remains. To borrow and adopt a worn-out phrase, he is not gone from our hearts and minds. The ripples he made in our world persist. I have struggled to learn how to view those ripples without making him more or less than he was, and this is where I have ended up:
One person can make a difference.
For all his genius and influence, Aaron Swartz was just one man. Even so, he stood up, took action, galvanized the masses, demanded progress. That is quite a legacy, and, I think, no more or less than he deserves.
I will honor that legacy, in my own way. When it seems like there is no hope for individuals, when the system is too powerful, when it spins out of control, I will remember Aaron Swartz. I will remember to make a difference.
Mailbox and finding the right tool
Matt Alexander:
Delaying items by several hours or days is intuitive, the animations are delightful, and Inbox Zero is incentivized in a wonderfully productive manner. Perhaps you disagree with the notion of delaying items, but I actually tend to think it’s a remarkably positive piece of functionality.
I do disagree with delaying emails like that (but I’m still in the queue with about 250,000 people ahead of me). I delay tasks all the time, but I delay them inside my chosen task system. But.
I already have a task system, and emails generate todos but are not themselves todos. If you don’t have a chosen task system or email is your chosen task system, Mailbox will probably work great for you.
Another example of the right tool for the right job.
The Minimalists 2012 recap
The Minimalists were kind enough to put my Lessons sketchnote on their favorites from 2012. Be sure to swing by, check out the site, and read at least one of their books. It will be worth your time.
A grab bag of tutorials
I decided to make a grab bag tag bundle of my favorite tutorials, how-tos, and tips on Pinboard, ranging from learning Git to making a watermelon keg.
Why? Because I can.
Custom Pinboard search in Alfred & Launch Center Pro
A few weeks ago now, I had an inspiration. Someone on the Internet (I forget who) reminded me that Alfred allows you to create custom searches, and that you can use them as a fallback if Alfred doesn’t find what you’re looking for. Having increased my usage of Pinboard, due in no small part to my computer programming class and ever-increasing need for easy-to-find documentation, I thought I’d whip one up to combine two of my favorite tools.
alfredapp://customsearch/Pinboard/pnb/ascii/url=https://pinboard.in/search/?query={query}&mine=Search+Mine
The search is really quite simple, and is easy to add to Alfred via preferences. More on Alfred’s custom searches can be found here.
I was kind of surprised that this got as much attention as it did (4,000 views on Droplr and counting), so I thought it would be worth posting here as well. You can take it even farther, though.
Another of my favorite computing tools is Launch Center Pro. I use it all the time on my iPhone, for situations exactly like this (my most-used shortcut is definitely DuckDuckGo Search). If you don’t already use an app like Pinboard, or just want a quick way to search for something on your mind, you can use a similar search link in LCP. Make sure to use the link below, since LCP uses square brackets instead of curly braces for the prompt.
https://pinboard.in/search/?query=[query]&mine=Search+Mine
Happy searching!
Evernote Moleskine review at Office Supply Geek
Brian at the OSG was kind enough to send me an Evernote Moleskine notebook to review. It was a great deal of fun (both using the notebook and reviewing it), and I anticipate using it well into the future. Thanks, Brian!
