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Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

blog.zdsmith.com

31–40 of 107 posts

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#32
To me, true minimalism on my desktop came from stopping messing around with different window managers, IDEs, whatever to try to maximize my experience.

Specifically, command line interfaces to Slack and GPM just add more headache and frustration.

My setup: a terminal with tmux; Firefox; Spotify. (Recently switched from GPM, would recommend). Stock everything except dark themes on some stuff and caps lock->ctrl.

I don’t have some super-enlightened workflow where everything is in terminal or has keybinds or something. But more importantly, I’m not continually wasting time on changing my env and adding complexity.

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#33
post #32

To me, true minimalism on my desktop came from stopping messing around with different window managers, IDEs, whatever to try to maximize my experience. Specifically, command line interfaces to Slack and GPM just add more headache and frustration. My setup: a terminal with tmux; Firefox; Spotify. (Recently switched from GPM, would recommend). Stock everything except dark themes on some stuff and caps lock->ctrl. I don…

Try Spotify in Firefox. Even simpler.

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#34
I've been fantasizing recently about using a Bluetooth keyboard (Twiddler3) connected to an eInk reader to do most of my work both locally and on remote machines/instances. The eInk reader would have just enough power to run spacemacs. I can currently do this on an Android smartphone, but the experience is lacking because of the screen-size.

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#35

I've been fantasizing recently about using a Bluetooth keyboard (Twiddler3) connected to an eInk reader to do most of my work both locally and on remote machines/instances. The eInk reader would have just enough power to run spacemacs. I can currently do this on an Android smartphone, but the experience is lacking because of the screen-size.

I already have enough frustration using an eink screen for reading books around the refresh rate of updating that page that I couldn't even imagine the pain of trying to use one interactively.

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#36
It seems I'm heading in similar direction as author of the post. I switched from Gnome to i3 (I don't even have display manager installed), from Nautilius to ranger and then to [lf](https://github.com/gokcehan/lf). I use a lot of CLI tools like weechat. I'v been using Emacs for few months but now I prefer Kakoune - it's easier to customize. My [website](https://www.teddydd.me/) is pure html+css brutalism without single line of JavaScript...

I just feel tired of huge, complicated software that requires big time investment to customize. I want things to be simple and modular. My setup is not beautiful, might have fewer features than full DE, but it's ergonomic and I understand what all my configs do.

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#37

"There’s a way in which you could say that Emacs is a place whereas vi is a tool." As an Emacs user, I agree with this. The author's preference for more tools and fewer immersive applications still resonates with me because I see Emacs as a place for all the tools I need for development and writing.

Indeed; Emacs is a place that I take with me wherever I go, because it adapts to wherever I put it with little to no configuration on my part. My tools come with me wherever I go, not unlike a travelling caravan.

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#38
post #5

I think the author echos some things I've been feeling about my work environment (the desktop). There is a lot of friction that comes when each of my applications wants to be its own immersive experience. My take-away from his post is that he seems to be iterating away from those rich, colorful, and distracting interfaces to something that is kind of interface-less. This, too, is my dream (or sorts). - Spotify withou…

You mean a MUA (Mail User Agent) like outlook ?

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#39
Does anyone else remember the WinAmp era of music software? There was a time when basically every app for playing music on your computer lived inside a little floating window that you carried with you to all of the other apps you were using at the time.

That really did help me think of my music player as a tool and not a place. Though the little scrolling text could be distracting sometimes, I do occasionally find myself missing that style of interface.

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#40
post #32

To me, true minimalism on my desktop came from stopping messing around with different window managers, IDEs, whatever to try to maximize my experience. Specifically, command line interfaces to Slack and GPM just add more headache and frustration. My setup: a terminal with tmux; Firefox; Spotify. (Recently switched from GPM, would recommend). Stock everything except dark themes on some stuff and caps lock->ctrl. I don…

Which is it CLI or GUI is better for you its not clear and for an experienced developer often CLI is better than GUI a shell to MySQL is better that the abomination that is PHPMYSQL.
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