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Meet the minimalists living out of a hard drive

bbc.co.uk

21–30 of 110 posts

Re: Meet the minimalists living out of a hard drive

#21
post #19

Slightly off topic...anyone know what kind of keyboard that is he had? Looks super useful being so small. Is it a Korg? This on: http://www.korg.com/nanoseries ? Confirmation?

looks like an akai LPK25. The nanoSERIES keyboard is really hard to play - not very sensitive, keys are more like buttons. Used LPK25's are going for about $40 USD on ebay. Hoping to get one soon.

Thanks! Same here, would be awesome to have around since it's so portable. Appreciate the help.

Re: Meet the minimalists living out of a hard drive

#23
post #6

An illusion. You're as attached to your digital possessions as you were to your physical ones. You just have different preferences.

besides which, two digital reading devices in addition to a laptop (and presumably a smartphone) isn't exactly minimalism...

It is compared to the bookshelves, CD stacks, filing cabinets, and shoeboxes full of photographs that it replaces.

And that's not to mention the number of single-purpose devices each of these replaces: the smartphone is an alarm clock, watch, point-and-shoot camera, GPS, and MP3 player. The reading devices replace a printer (if you have access to a Kinkos when you really need a hard copy). The laptop replaces a TV, DVD player, and desktop computer.

Re: Meet the minimalists living out of a hard drive

#24
post #6

An illusion. You're as attached to your digital possessions as you were to your physical ones. You just have different preferences.

I definitely agree with this and think it's fascinating. I feel the same attachment to my digital possessions as I do my few physical ones. The difference, however, is how much physical space each option consumes.

I should also point out that I needed the iPad for my job, as I develop apps from time to time.

Re: Meet the minimalists living out of a hard drive

#26
post #5

The DJ has now substituted his bed for friends' couches How does this scale when no-one has free crash space to give...? It's like those TV shows where a family give up the corporate rat race and go and run a B&B or a vineyard in the country, who are their customers apart from corporate workers? It's not a revolution if only a small percentage of the population can ever do it.

It doesn't scale, it's not intended to scale. If millions of people were vagabonding, we could look at an array of possible options, the most obvious being an AirBnB-style approach to renting rooms for days or weeks at a time. If you're happy to share a house, it's already cheaper to spend a month each in Paris, Amsterdam, London, Berlin, Edinburgh and Barcelona than it would be to stay in Paris, including airfare. H…

I presumed no such thing. The people they left behind are doing service work remember: they're accountants, lawyers, bankers, and so on. But how many corporate workers drinking does it take to make a vineyard a viable business? Or vacationing, a boutique B&B?

Because if you have two B&B owners who simply swap to go on holiday, or two vineyards who simply drink each other's wine, then you've invented a perpetual motion machine.

Re: Meet the minimalists living out of a hard drive

#27
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine, you just don't need to pay for space for stuff. Space is very, very expensive monetarily and psychologically.

So is the psychological cost of never knowing where you will sleep.

I'm a touring musician and it's not that bad. I like waking up and not knowing where I am. I find that when I get comfortable I become stagnant.

Re: Meet the minimalists living out of a hard drive

#28
post #15

Since almost 4 years now I do not have any other possession than what fits into my two suitcases. Wherever my 30 inch monitor is, I call home. I am very comfortable with the fact that I don't need to manage my possessions. And Dropbox, Google Apps and alike even made my fears of data loss a thing of the past. I enjoy moving to a different country almost every year, thanks to being a digital vagabond. I am taking a wi…

Are you self-employed or do you work freelance or who do you work for and what do you do? I only ask because this is something I'm very much interested in doing myself, but I'm very apprehensive about making a big change like this due to job/money concerns.

Same thing for me. I just got my CS master degree and now I want to discover the world with only my bike, my laptop and my reflex camera, a few month to a couple of years at the same place...

But I'm worried by the first move. Where I live I got a lot of job opportunity but I don't know if I will be able to find a job in another country quickly enough and it doesn't work very well remotely.

Re: Meet the minimalists living out of a hard drive

#30
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't scale, it's not intended to scale. If millions of people were vagabonding, we could look at an array of possible options, the most obvious being an AirBnB-style approach to renting rooms for days or weeks at a time. If you're happy to share a house, it's already cheaper to spend a month each in Paris, Amsterdam, London, Berlin, Edinburgh and Barcelona than it would be to stay in Paris, including airfare. H…

I presumed no such thing. The people they left behind are doing service work remember: they're accountants, lawyers, bankers, and so on. But how many corporate workers drinking does it take to make a vineyard a viable business? Or vacationing, a boutique B&B? Because if you have two B&B owners who simply swap to go on holiday, or two vineyards who simply drink each other's wine, then you've invented a perpetual motio…

It's called "The Economy". I have something that you want, you have something that I want. We swap, usually using a token of exchange, and we're both better off for the exchange. That basic exchange, multiplied by technology, is why nearly everyone in the world will be much richer than their parents and why their children will be richer still.

Accountants, lawyers and bankers all perform services. Not fun services, but services nonetheless. They're no different from a musician or a masseuse or a bicycle mechanic.

Corporations generate lots of wealth and engage in lots of transactions, but so do the aggregate of small businesses and sole traders. There's nothing magical about a big company versus a small one.

The big change in the economy is that a) stuff has got very cheap and b) lots of people can do useful work from anywhere with WiFi. The basic rules are exactly the same, but the economy of 2030 will be barely recognisable, just as the economy of 2010 would be barely recognisable in 1990. As we generate more and more intangible wealth, tangible wealth becomes less and less important to the economy.

If you think that a service-based economy is a "perpetual motion machine", you really need to do a bit of reading up on economics. Wealth is wealth, it doesn't matter how you generate it as long as you do.

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