After placing an offer on a home in mid-October we’re (finally!) set to close the sale this week. The home buying process is one of the few things I miss about the U.S. Everything moves slowly here, with both banks and lawyers; we’ve heard stories from people who spent 9-12 months moving through it and 3 months is considered “fast.” But, we’ll (very!) soon own a lovely home on a few acres with 16 chickens courtesy of the current owner.
For the first time in 15 years my day-to-day phone is not an iPhone. I bought a Mudita Kompakt a few weeks ago and my iPhone now gathers dust. The Kompakt is a quirky phone that feels like the right set of tradeoffs.
Apple’s increasingly poor software (combined with distinctly uncomfortable hardware) pushed me to switch. It shouldn’t be so hard to find a phone that lays flat on a table, that has multi-day battery life, and that is comfortable to hold in one hand.
Mudita’s built something neat and I plan to write a longer review once I’m a few months into the switch. For now, I’m an unabashed fan and I’m glad I made the leap. E-ink remains one of my favorite technologies.
Om’s on a blogging tear and I loved his recent posts about algorithmic blandness and the supremacy of velocity. There are two ideas in the posts that have stuck with me: that technology industrializes conformity and that networks compress time while they train us to live at their speed. Great posts from a great writer.
I had a couple people ask if there was a way to subscribe to the blog via email. So as a quick bit of housekeeping, I put a simple form on the home page.
