8 ms·

Minimalism: It Works

129 points by tnm 16y ago

treblig 16y ago
This Museo thing has to stop. It's cute, it looks real friendly in titles, but dear god, do not typeset an article in it.
- KirinDave 16y ago
  It looks fine on Mac and Linux. If you are using Windows, keep in mind that entire site is subtly tuned to irritate IE users.
  - beoba 16y ago
    It's awful in Linux.
    - KirinDave 16y ago
      I've had Museo 500 as my body font since the day it was licensed for webfont use. This is my first complaint about it.
      - locopati 16y ago
        Chrome 9 beta running on Win 7 - the text is readable, but the font doesn't make for easy scanning of paragraphs of text (compared to a serif'd font like Times New Roman).
      - pavs 16y ago
        I don't think its a bad font. I just don't think its a good font if you are interested in readers enjoying the experience of reading. The article was good, the font was a bit of distraction. Thankfully readability is there to rescue. FWIW I am on a mac too.
        KirinDave 16y ago
        Since you were polite, I'll actually explain. Museo 500's tendency to block up is something I deliberately exploit. My tumblr is not often a venue for long-form blog posts; it is almost exclusively for link sharing and my photography. Small blocks of Museo "flow" very well along with those sorts of media posts. Long blocks blend together and stream past, providing only a slight interruption to the flow of media and links. I admit it's sub-optimal for long form posts like this, but it's a tradeoff I've decided to make for the sake of the majority of my tumblr's content. I could make a script to detect when the tumblr is showing a single post, changing the font. I just haven't yet, and I don't get that many complaints. Most people are happy to see any sort of original design and deliberate typography on a blog, even if it isn't perfect. I still think it's fairly readable. Compare it to the readability-required status of even big-name content pushers like the Chicago-Sun Times. My site is an order of magnitude easier to read, even if their body font is a bit easier in block form.
        pavs 16y ago
        > I still think it's fairly readable. Compare it to the readability-required status of even big-name content pushers like the Chicago-Sun Times. My site is an order of magnitude easier to read, even if their body font is a bit easier in block form. I agree. But I don't think comparing your site to a horribly formatted, but established, site is a good argument. IMO the font is not good for reading even if your site is the most accessible site in the whole world. At the end of the day I think it boils down to whether I have to squint and get distracted by the flow in order to read the content. Also when there are more than one person complaining about the font (and others who have not complained but upvoted the complaining comments) its something to think about. They might not be necessarily right just because its a relatively popular opinion, but they might be in to something. Such a well written post deserves a better font. IMO.
        KirinDave 16y ago
        If I cared how much goodwill my site design engendered, I probably wouldn't put a trick splash title that immediately bounces 2/3 of my traffic.
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
      - aperiodic 16y ago
        Well, let me throw my voice in, too. If I didn't have Readability, I would not have read your article. Out of curiosity, I reloaded the page and tried reading it as was originally presented, but it felt taxing, and I switched back quickly. The problem, I think, is that the spaces between letters are much smaller than the internal negative spaces of the letters. The little horizontal flairs on the sides of many letters in Museo exacerbate this issue. This ends up making it really hard for me to recognize the letters which have no internal negative space, most notably i, t, and r, since they tend to bleed into their neighboring letters at this small size.
  - Deadsunrise 16y ago
    yes, it renders and looks fine but museo it's not the best choice for big blocks of text. Comics sans also renders great and you wouldn't use it here, right?
    - KirinDave 16y ago
      Ok. I'll change it to comic sans. Thanks for the advice!
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - andrewljohnson 16y ago
    Looks like crap on my iMac.
  - ugh 16y ago
    It’s not a technical problem. Safari on OS X renders the font great, it’s crisp and it looks just like Museo should look at the size you picked for the body text. It’s a design problem. Museo is a fine font, great when compared to other free fonts. It’s also a quirky font with a lot of detail, detail that does not degrade nicely when the size of the font is reduced. Museo is a good choice for headlines or any type that’s a bit larger but a highly questionable choice for body text. “For better or for worse, picking a typeface is more like getting dressed in the morning. Just as with clothing, there’s a distinction between typefaces that are expressive and stylish versus those that are useful and appropriate to many situations, and our job is to try to find the right balance for the occasion. While appropriateness isn’t a sexy concept, it’s the acid test that should guide our choice of font.” – Dan Mayer, http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/12/14/what-font-should-i-use-five-principles-for-choosing-and-using-typefaces/ http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/12/14/what-font-should-...
- kingsidharth 16y ago
  It was almost unreadable!
- BrandonM 16y ago
  It looks beautiful to me, and I'm reading it on a thin client VNC session to an old Debian-stable login server that makes half the web look broken.
- mikeklaas 16y ago
  It's perfectly fine with the font-size bumped up to 14px or so. Fonts don't kill designs. Designers kill designs.
- docgnome 16y ago
  That's why we love Arc90's Readability http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/ http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/ No longer do we have to care what ugly fonts or color schemes people use when posting blog articles.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
ksowocki 16y ago
I was wondering when an article like this was going to show up on the HN front page. The follow-up article gets it right. Minimalism is at its core a "process of prioritizing your life and working towards concrete goals without giving in to distraction", NOT just blindly getting rid of stuff. It is immersion, but only in one thing at a time. It is about reducing your tendancy to over-extend yourself, and focusing on the things you really need, both intellectually and physically. Can we all just admit that the original article, http://vivekhaldar.tumblr.com/post/2525332092/minimalism-is-not-a-viable-intellectual-strategy http://vivekhaldar.tumblr.com/post/2525332092/minimalism-is-... , was just link-bait intended to elicit a response and/or rise from the HN community? The original article contains so little method to it's analysis and represents such a fundamental misunderstanding of minimalism that it bears little water intellectually. Not to be rude, but I'm surprised it made it to the front page.
- _delirium 16y ago
  > "process of prioritizing your life and working towards concrete goals without giving in to distraction" This in itself has tradeoffs I think; sometimes "distractions" are what lead to unexpected connections and pursuits, which wouldn't have happened if you were working towards concrete, prioritized goals all the time. I know some of the stuff I'm most happy I did started out as stuff I was doing to procrastinate. (It may depend on a given person's personality and intellectual style.)
- billswift 16y ago
  "Minimalism" as it is described here is just a personal version of technocracy - the arrogant belief that you actually know enough to produce explicit, precise long-term plans. Kept under control, and used for shorter terms (say a year detailed, and two more sort of general and subject to change as you learn more) it can be useful; otherwise it often is just a personalized version of the old Soviet "Five-Year Plans". ADDED: Rereading this, I think I missed my point slightly; the problem with minimalism as described here is that it locks you in too much to your current plan; it reduces your flexibility to adjust your plans as you learn more about your problem space.
  - 16y ago
beoba 16y ago
Read a few of these to know everything you need to know about minimalism: http://www.google.com/search?q=minimalist+site%3Abikesnobnyc.blogspot.com http://www.google.com/search?q=minimalist+site%3Abikesnobnyc...
trotsky 16y ago
No big surprise that a disciple of neo-modernism would present their arguments with a title straight out of an apple marketing campaign.
- KirinDave 16y ago
  Sorry if you feel this way. I have no control over what title someone will submit my story as. My title was the counter-claim of the article I was rebutting.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
sitmack 16y ago
I think the author misses the point of Vivek's post. His claim is that minimalism as an over arching aesthetic for a creative mode of operation is not tenable. It is good in cycles, but not all the time. Minimalism as a popular meme as spawned a cottage industry of "concentration apps," that allow people to purchase their minimalism which is ironic. The over-minimalists hamper their own progress by focusing on the aesthetic over the results. He is revolting at things like http://www.everydayminimalist.com/?p=678 http://www.everydayminimalist.com/?p=678
crux 16y ago
I don't understand what people like KirinDave are referring to when they discuss Minimalism. Anything beyond drill-down UX exercises like eliminating information clutter in visual design seems to immediately break down. Assuming we're talking about something more general than eliminating the widgets from our blog sidebars... What ARE we talking about? I guess I could imagine it going one step higher, into a campaign to stop ourselves from reading blogs and Hacker News when we should be working, ie., the logical evolution of our collective obsession with GTD and similar systems from a couple years ago: a slightly doctrinaire insistence on techniques for productivity. Which is great, especially if you're a 'knowledge worker' (I'm not). But I still lose the plot when we start actually using the word big-M 'Minimalism', or when we start invoking Zen. Zen is many things: spiritual practice, proto-psycho-exploration, a system of psychology, a system of ethics and epistemology—but I'm not sure it has anything to do with anything that the leading Neo-Minimalists have deemed worthy of inclusion into their morning workflows. Keeping a blog, for one, is not a very Zen thing to do. In fact, the practice of Zen is in part anathema to nearly every technique of thought that a knowledge worker employs in his job. It's a refutation of the construction of narrative, of pattern-recognition, of comprehension, and finally of cognition. It's an attempt to obliterate our own understandings of the world, to destroy our conceptions of objects, uses, signs, signifiers, others and ourselves, to be replaced with pure being and hopefully compassion. And it's DEFINITELY at odds with the all-inclusive rapid-fire content-association that is at the heart of tumblr culture. But I don't see how the practice of Zen has anything to do with the way one orders one's workspace, if one never considers what one is doing with one's mind, or one's content. I don't see what possible use, that is, it would be to invoke Zen and minimalism when describing how we choose our text editors if we allow what we're writing to remain entirely unconsidered. Which is not to say that I think these Neo-Minimalists are a sort of religious hypocrite for not practicing Zen in all walks of life. The people whose blogs I see reflecting the practices of Neo-Minimalism seem like interesting, intelligent people, writing about the same sort of thing we have been writing for years: technology, culture, memes, funny videos, food, beer. I just don't understand what they could possibly think all the fuss is about in any realm beyond what window manager they've decided to use. I've heard a couple people talk about getting rid of all the things they don't use, which seems nice, too. But it's a housekeeping exercise. You can't possibly expect me to believe that only having five shirts in your closet will make you a different person, or even a different worker. What is the _there_ here? I haven't heard anyone discuss eating the same thing every day. Or listening to the same music. Or paring down their vocabulary. What does one do? What is there besides being able to create uninterrupted expanses of negative space (which I concede are very nice) and then appreciating their aesthetics?
bayareaguy 16y ago
Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans - John Lennon
anigbrowl 16y ago
tl;dr
- anigbrowl 16y ago
  But seriously, this is why I don't especially care for minimalism: '[a]t its core, Minimalism is about being aware that every decision you make is a value proposition, and that you need to judge how the consequences fit with your goals.' Focus is good, but an excess of it results in tunnel vision. It also leaves little room for whimsy or humor.
  - pavs 16y ago
    Another way to think about it is when you do something all the time it becomes a second nature. You don't always have to ponder hard on every decision you make, some decision becomes default choice. I don't know about minimalists not having a sense of humor (actually first time I heard this) but I agree you are less likely to do things just for shitz and giggles; but I don't know if thats such a bad thing. Some people just don't enjoy doing things for shitz and giggles. I guess it boils down to personal taste and preference?
closure 16y ago
I agree that the article by Vivek is totally misinformed. I've taken a couple stabs at minimalism (of possessions) in my life, staring when I moved from Austin to Seattle in 1995. I'm doing so again after relocating from Seattle to San Francisco a year ago. There is absolutely no doubt that I've been happiest during those periods when I've had the fewest 'things'. I look back at the time when I downsized from a 1000 sq. ft. apartment in Seattle to 500 sq. ft. studio as the most productive and enjoyable time of my life. Since moving here to SF, my wife and I have almost halved the space we occupy from a 1600 sq ft townhouse in Seattle to a very comfortable 850 sq ft. in San Francisco. I continue to get rid of the stuff and replace it with either 'virtual stuff' (e.g. electronic books) or just happily do without (e.g. espresso machine). The main reason I 'upsized' from the small apartment to the large townhouse was that I felt like at my age at the time (30) I was 'supposed to'. I was the only one of my friends/work-mates that hadn't gotten married and/or had children, and bought a house. Oh, what a mistake! Now, ten years later, I'm so glad I'm back to shrinking the possessions in favor of a leaner, simpler life. For the first time since I was 16 I do not own a car. I have no debt (and with the exception of the townhouse and a couple years of credit card debt, I haven't since 1998). I'm totally sold on continuing down this path, as she is as well. We don't plan on having children. We are both 40+ and enjoy the idea of moving around some more, perhaps even relocating overseas in time.
- _delirium 16y ago
  I'm also sold on the minimalism of possessions, but somehow I'm not as sold on the aesthetic and cultural/work-habits stuff that articles like this tie in, which I don't think necessarily have to go together. I don't want to own tons of stuff that I have to spend money on, haul around when I move, etc., but I actually like clutter, distractions, etc. The way I combine those preferences is by outsourcing the clutter: for example, instead of owning a huge library of books, I spend my time in libraries that other people own (universities, public libraries, the occasional book-heavy coffee shop). I couldn't imagine working in a minimalist environment! I haven't made much use of it myself yet, but hacker spaces do that with offices to some extent as well. You can have a minimalist apartment, but still work in a hectic, filled-with-stuff place like Noisebridge.
sdghrtrt 16y ago
====== ( http://is.gd/iMmpn http://is.gd/iMmpn )==== ====== ( http://is.gd/iMmpn http://is.gd/iMmpn )==== ====== ( http://is.gd/iMmpn http://is.gd/iMmpn )==== ====== ( http://is.gd/iMmpn http://is.gd/iMmpn )==== Gold autumn, personality Mes clothing + Shoes, Travel bag that grabs an eye coat + Chao packet Free transport ====== ( http://is.gd/iMmpn http://is.gd/iMmpn )==== ====== ( http://is.gd/iMmpn http://is.gd/iMmpn )==== ====== ( http://is.gd/iMmpn http://is.gd/iMmpn )==== ====== ( http://is.gd/iMmpn http://is.gd/iMmpn )====
sagerhreh 16y ago
=== http://ta.gg/4wt http://ta.gg/4wt ==== === http://ta.gg/4wt http://ta.gg/4wt ==== === http://ta.gg/4wt http://ta.gg/4wt ==== === http://ta.gg/4wt http://ta.gg/4wt ==== === http://ta.gg/4wt http://ta.gg/4wt ==== === http://ta.gg/4wt http://ta.gg/4wt ==== New era cap $12; Air jordan(1-24)shoes $30; jordan air max oakland raiders $34a€“39; Ed Hardy AF JUICY POLO Bikini $25; Christan Audigier BIKINI JACKET $25; Tshirts (Polo ,ed hardy,lacoste) $15 coogi DG edhardy gucci t-shirts $18; gstar coogi evisu true jeans $35; coach chanel gucci LV handbags $36; === http://ta.gg/4wt http://ta.gg/4wt ==== === http://ta.gg/4wt http://ta.gg/4wt ==== === http://ta.gg/4wt http://ta.gg/4wt ==== === http://ta.gg/4wt http://ta.gg/4wt ==== === http://ta.gg/4wt http://ta.gg/4wt ==== === http://ta.gg/4wt http://ta.gg/4wt ====
astrofinch 16y ago
Each author is using their own definition of minimalism. There's no point in arguing over whose definition is better.
- KirinDave 16y ago
  The argument isn't "What is minimalism." The argument is, "What are these people doing that they call minimalism?" Vivek's criticisms are mostly valid for his perception of the movement, and I think he's a reasonable guy, so I tried to update and correct his perception. This is not a sisyphean task unless Vivek has a very strong motivation to ignore my explanation.
yason 16y ago
I think there are basically two reasons why one maintains a minimal set of possessions. One is dumping out most of your stuff because while part of you would still like to have them you think you'll be happier that way. (And because others are doing it also so there must be something on to that.) The other one is having learned to not need that stuff any longer.
ghrtjtykyu 16y ago
●---------------------------------------● Happy New Year◎,◎appy shopping ●---------------------------------------● ●------ http://goo.gl/l5v0b http://goo.gl/l5v0b ------● ●------ http://goo.gl/l5v0b http://goo.gl/l5v0b ------● ●------ http://goo.gl/l5v0b http://goo.gl/l5v0b ------● ●------ http://goo.gl/l5v0b http://goo.gl/l5v0b ------● ●------ http://goo.gl/l5v0b http://goo.gl/l5v0b ------● ●------ http://goo.gl/l5v0b http://goo.gl/l5v0b ------● ●------ http://goo.gl/l5v0b http://goo.gl/l5v0b ------● ●------ http://goo.gl/l5v0b http://goo.gl/l5v0b ------● ●------ http://goo.gl/l5v0b http://goo.gl/l5v0b ------● ●------ http://goo.gl/l5v0b http://goo.gl/l5v0b ------● ●------ http://goo.gl/l5v0b http://goo.gl/l5v0b ------● ●------ http://goo.gl/l5v0b http://goo.gl/l5v0b ------● ●------ http://goo.gl/l5v0b http://goo.gl/l5v0b ------● ●------ http://goo.gl/l5v0b http://goo.gl/l5v0b ------● ●---------------------------------------● Happy New Year◎,◎appy shopping ●---------------------------------------●
noonespecial 16y ago
Minimalism is not necessarily about doing without, its about maximizing utility in the things you do have. Minimalism is having one very good screwdriver instead of a whole drawer of lousy ones that you're "meaning to go through one of these days".
ljordan 16y ago
To me applied minimalism in whatever endeavor just means finding the simplest possible thing that works. I think most of us can see the value in that.
johndcook 16y ago
The original article criticizing minimalism was written with more depth and more sense of humor than this article written in response. My take on the two articles: http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2011/01/01/periodic-minimalism/ http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2011/01/01/periodic-minimalism...

129 points by tnm 16y ago

This Museo thing has to stop. It's cute, it looks real friendly in titles, but dear god, do not typeset an article in it.

KirinDave 16y ago
It looks fine on Mac and Linux. If you are using Windows, keep in mind that entire site is subtly tuned to irritate IE users.
- beoba 16y ago
  It's awful in Linux.
  - KirinDave 16y ago
    I've had Museo 500 as my body font since the day it was licensed for webfont use. This is my first complaint about it.
    - locopati 16y ago
      Chrome 9 beta running on Win 7 - the text is readable, but the font doesn't make for easy scanning of paragraphs of text (compared to a serif'd font like Times New Roman).
    - pavs 16y ago
      I don't think its a bad font. I just don't think its a good font if you are interested in readers enjoying the experience of reading. The article was good, the font was a bit of distraction. Thankfully readability is there to rescue. FWIW I am on a mac too.
      - KirinDave 16y ago
        Since you were polite, I'll actually explain. Museo 500's tendency to block up is something I deliberately exploit. My tumblr is not often a venue for long-form blog posts; it is almost exclusively for link sharing and my photography. Small blocks of Museo "flow" very well along with those sorts of media posts. Long blocks blend together and stream past, providing only a slight interruption to the flow of media and links. I admit it's sub-optimal for long form posts like this, but it's a tradeoff I've decided to make for the sake of the majority of my tumblr's content. I could make a script to detect when the tumblr is showing a single post, changing the font. I just haven't yet, and I don't get that many complaints. Most people are happy to see any sort of original design and deliberate typography on a blog, even if it isn't perfect. I still think it's fairly readable. Compare it to the readability-required status of even big-name content pushers like the Chicago-Sun Times. My site is an order of magnitude easier to read, even if their body font is a bit easier in block form.
        pavs 16y ago
        > I still think it's fairly readable. Compare it to the readability-required status of even big-name content pushers like the Chicago-Sun Times. My site is an order of magnitude easier to read, even if their body font is a bit easier in block form. I agree. But I don't think comparing your site to a horribly formatted, but established, site is a good argument. IMO the font is not good for reading even if your site is the most accessible site in the whole world. At the end of the day I think it boils down to whether I have to squint and get distracted by the flow in order to read the content. Also when there are more than one person complaining about the font (and others who have not complained but upvoted the complaining comments) its something to think about. They might not be necessarily right just because its a relatively popular opinion, but they might be in to something. Such a well written post deserves a better font. IMO.
        KirinDave 16y ago
        If I cared how much goodwill my site design engendered, I probably wouldn't put a trick splash title that immediately bounces 2/3 of my traffic.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - aperiodic 16y ago
      Well, let me throw my voice in, too. If I didn't have Readability, I would not have read your article. Out of curiosity, I reloaded the page and tried reading it as was originally presented, but it felt taxing, and I switched back quickly. The problem, I think, is that the spaces between letters are much smaller than the internal negative spaces of the letters. The little horizontal flairs on the sides of many letters in Museo exacerbate this issue. This ends up making it really hard for me to recognize the letters which have no internal negative space, most notably i, t, and r, since they tend to bleed into their neighboring letters at this small size.
- Deadsunrise 16y ago
  yes, it renders and looks fine but museo it's not the best choice for big blocks of text. Comics sans also renders great and you wouldn't use it here, right?
  - KirinDave 16y ago
    Ok. I'll change it to comic sans. Thanks for the advice!
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- andrewljohnson 16y ago
  Looks like crap on my iMac.
- ugh 16y ago
  It’s not a technical problem. Safari on OS X renders the font great, it’s crisp and it looks just like Museo should look at the size you picked for the body text. It’s a design problem. Museo is a fine font, great when compared to other free fonts. It’s also a quirky font with a lot of detail, detail that does not degrade nicely when the size of the font is reduced. Museo is a good choice for headlines or any type that’s a bit larger but a highly questionable choice for body text. “For better or for worse, picking a typeface is more like getting dressed in the morning. Just as with clothing, there’s a distinction between typefaces that are expressive and stylish versus those that are useful and appropriate to many situations, and our job is to try to find the right balance for the occasion. While appropriateness isn’t a sexy concept, it’s the acid test that should guide our choice of font.” – Dan Mayer, http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/12/14/what-font-should-i-use-five-principles-for-choosing-and-using-typefaces/ http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/12/14/what-font-should-...
kingsidharth 16y ago
It was almost unreadable!
BrandonM 16y ago
It looks beautiful to me, and I'm reading it on a thin client VNC session to an old Debian-stable login server that makes half the web look broken.
mikeklaas 16y ago
It's perfectly fine with the font-size bumped up to 14px or so. Fonts don't kill designs. Designers kill designs.
docgnome 16y ago
That's why we love Arc90's Readability http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/ http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/ No longer do we have to care what ugly fonts or color schemes people use when posting blog articles.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

ksowocki 16y ago

I was wondering when an article like this was going to show up on the HN front page. The follow-up article gets it right. Minimalism is at its core a "process of prioritizing your life and working towards concrete goals without giving in to distraction", NOT just blindly getting rid of stuff. It is immersion, but only in one thing at a time. It is about reducing your tendancy to over-extend yourself, and focusing on the things you really need, both intellectually and physically. Can we all just admit that the original article, http://vivekhaldar.tumblr.com/post/2525332092/minimalism-is-not-a-viable-intellectual-strategy http://vivekhaldar.tumblr.com/post/2525332092/minimalism-is-... , was just link-bait intended to elicit a response and/or rise from the HN community? The original article contains so little method to it's analysis and represents such a fundamental misunderstanding of minimalism that it bears little water intellectually. Not to be rude, but I'm surprised it made it to the front page.

_delirium 16y ago
> "process of prioritizing your life and working towards concrete goals without giving in to distraction" This in itself has tradeoffs I think; sometimes "distractions" are what lead to unexpected connections and pursuits, which wouldn't have happened if you were working towards concrete, prioritized goals all the time. I know some of the stuff I'm most happy I did started out as stuff I was doing to procrastinate. (It may depend on a given person's personality and intellectual style.)
billswift 16y ago
"Minimalism" as it is described here is just a personal version of technocracy - the arrogant belief that you actually know enough to produce explicit, precise long-term plans. Kept under control, and used for shorter terms (say a year detailed, and two more sort of general and subject to change as you learn more) it can be useful; otherwise it often is just a personalized version of the old Soviet "Five-Year Plans". ADDED: Rereading this, I think I missed my point slightly; the problem with minimalism as described here is that it locks you in too much to your current plan; it reduces your flexibility to adjust your plans as you learn more about your problem space.
- 16y ago

beoba 16y ago

Read a few of these to know everything you need to know about minimalism: http://www.google.com/search?q=minimalist+site%3Abikesnobnyc.blogspot.com http://www.google.com/search?q=minimalist+site%3Abikesnobnyc...

trotsky 16y ago

No big surprise that a disciple of neo-modernism would present their arguments with a title straight out of an apple marketing campaign.

KirinDave 16y ago
Sorry if you feel this way. I have no control over what title someone will submit my story as. My title was the counter-claim of the article I was rebutting.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

sitmack 16y ago

I think the author misses the point of Vivek's post. His claim is that minimalism as an over arching aesthetic for a creative mode of operation is not tenable. It is good in cycles, but not all the time. Minimalism as a popular meme as spawned a cottage industry of "concentration apps," that allow people to purchase their minimalism which is ironic. The over-minimalists hamper their own progress by focusing on the aesthetic over the results. He is revolting at things like http://www.everydayminimalist.com/?p=678 http://www.everydayminimalist.com/?p=678

crux 16y ago

I don't understand what people like KirinDave are referring to when they discuss Minimalism. Anything beyond drill-down UX exercises like eliminating information clutter in visual design seems to immediately break down. Assuming we're talking about something more general than eliminating the widgets from our blog sidebars... What ARE we talking about? I guess I could imagine it going one step higher, into a campaign to stop ourselves from reading blogs and Hacker News when we should be working, ie., the logical evolution of our collective obsession with GTD and similar systems from a couple years ago: a slightly doctrinaire insistence on techniques for productivity. Which is great, especially if you're a 'knowledge worker' (I'm not). But I still lose the plot when we start actually using the word big-M 'Minimalism', or when we start invoking Zen. Zen is many things: spiritual practice, proto-psycho-exploration, a system of psychology, a system of ethics and epistemology—but I'm not sure it has anything to do with anything that the leading Neo-Minimalists have deemed worthy of inclusion into their morning workflows. Keeping a blog, for one, is not a very Zen thing to do. In fact, the practice of Zen is in part anathema to nearly every technique of thought that a knowledge worker employs in his job. It's a refutation of the construction of narrative, of pattern-recognition, of comprehension, and finally of cognition. It's an attempt to obliterate our own understandings of the world, to destroy our conceptions of objects, uses, signs, signifiers, others and ourselves, to be replaced with pure being and hopefully compassion. And it's DEFINITELY at odds with the all-inclusive rapid-fire content-association that is at the heart of tumblr culture. But I don't see how the practice of Zen has anything to do with the way one orders one's workspace, if one never considers what one is doing with one's mind, or one's content. I don't see what possible use, that is, it would be to invoke Zen and minimalism when describing how we choose our text editors if we allow what we're writing to remain entirely unconsidered. Which is not to say that I think these Neo-Minimalists are a sort of religious hypocrite for not practicing Zen in all walks of life. The people whose blogs I see reflecting the practices of Neo-Minimalism seem like interesting, intelligent people, writing about the same sort of thing we have been writing for years: technology, culture, memes, funny videos, food, beer. I just don't understand what they could possibly think all the fuss is about in any realm beyond what window manager they've decided to use. I've heard a couple people talk about getting rid of all the things they don't use, which seems nice, too. But it's a housekeeping exercise. You can't possibly expect me to believe that only having five shirts in your closet will make you a different person, or even a different worker. What is the _there_ here? I haven't heard anyone discuss eating the same thing every day. Or listening to the same music. Or paring down their vocabulary. What does one do? What is there besides being able to create uninterrupted expanses of negative space (which I concede are very nice) and then appreciating their aesthetics?

bayareaguy 16y ago

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans - John Lennon

anigbrowl 16y ago

tl;dr

anigbrowl 16y ago
But seriously, this is why I don't especially care for minimalism: '[a]t its core, Minimalism is about being aware that every decision you make is a value proposition, and that you need to judge how the consequences fit with your goals.' Focus is good, but an excess of it results in tunnel vision. It also leaves little room for whimsy or humor.
- pavs 16y ago
  Another way to think about it is when you do something all the time it becomes a second nature. You don't always have to ponder hard on every decision you make, some decision becomes default choice. I don't know about minimalists not having a sense of humor (actually first time I heard this) but I agree you are less likely to do things just for shitz and giggles; but I don't know if thats such a bad thing. Some people just don't enjoy doing things for shitz and giggles. I guess it boils down to personal taste and preference?

closure 16y ago

I agree that the article by Vivek is totally misinformed. I've taken a couple stabs at minimalism (of possessions) in my life, staring when I moved from Austin to Seattle in 1995. I'm doing so again after relocating from Seattle to San Francisco a year ago. There is absolutely no doubt that I've been happiest during those periods when I've had the fewest 'things'. I look back at the time when I downsized from a 1000 sq. ft. apartment in Seattle to 500 sq. ft. studio as the most productive and enjoyable time of my life. Since moving here to SF, my wife and I have almost halved the space we occupy from a 1600 sq ft townhouse in Seattle to a very comfortable 850 sq ft. in San Francisco. I continue to get rid of the stuff and replace it with either 'virtual stuff' (e.g. electronic books) or just happily do without (e.g. espresso machine). The main reason I 'upsized' from the small apartment to the large townhouse was that I felt like at my age at the time (30) I was 'supposed to'. I was the only one of my friends/work-mates that hadn't gotten married and/or had children, and bought a house. Oh, what a mistake! Now, ten years later, I'm so glad I'm back to shrinking the possessions in favor of a leaner, simpler life. For the first time since I was 16 I do not own a car. I have no debt (and with the exception of the townhouse and a couple years of credit card debt, I haven't since 1998). I'm totally sold on continuing down this path, as she is as well. We don't plan on having children. We are both 40+ and enjoy the idea of moving around some more, perhaps even relocating overseas in time.

_delirium 16y ago
I'm also sold on the minimalism of possessions, but somehow I'm not as sold on the aesthetic and cultural/work-habits stuff that articles like this tie in, which I don't think necessarily have to go together. I don't want to own tons of stuff that I have to spend money on, haul around when I move, etc., but I actually like clutter, distractions, etc. The way I combine those preferences is by outsourcing the clutter: for example, instead of owning a huge library of books, I spend my time in libraries that other people own (universities, public libraries, the occasional book-heavy coffee shop). I couldn't imagine working in a minimalist environment! I haven't made much use of it myself yet, but hacker spaces do that with offices to some extent as well. You can have a minimalist apartment, but still work in a hectic, filled-with-stuff place like Noisebridge.

sdghrtrt 16y ago

====== ( http://is.gd/iMmpn http://is.gd/iMmpn )==== ====== ( http://is.gd/iMmpn http://is.gd/iMmpn )==== ====== ( http://is.gd/iMmpn http://is.gd/iMmpn )==== ====== ( http://is.gd/iMmpn http://is.gd/iMmpn )==== Gold autumn, personality Mes clothing + Shoes, Travel bag that grabs an eye coat + Chao packet Free transport ====== ( http://is.gd/iMmpn http://is.gd/iMmpn )==== ====== ( http://is.gd/iMmpn http://is.gd/iMmpn )==== ====== ( http://is.gd/iMmpn http://is.gd/iMmpn )==== ====== ( http://is.gd/iMmpn http://is.gd/iMmpn )====

sagerhreh 16y ago

=== http://ta.gg/4wt http://ta.gg/4wt ==== === http://ta.gg/4wt http://ta.gg/4wt ==== === http://ta.gg/4wt http://ta.gg/4wt ==== === http://ta.gg/4wt http://ta.gg/4wt ==== === http://ta.gg/4wt http://ta.gg/4wt ==== === http://ta.gg/4wt http://ta.gg/4wt ==== New era cap $12; Air jordan(1-24)shoes $30; jordan air max oakland raiders $34a€“39; Ed Hardy AF JUICY POLO Bikini $25; Christan Audigier BIKINI JACKET $25; Tshirts (Polo ,ed hardy,lacoste) $15 coogi DG edhardy gucci t-shirts $18; gstar coogi evisu true jeans $35; coach chanel gucci LV handbags $36; === http://ta.gg/4wt http://ta.gg/4wt ==== === http://ta.gg/4wt http://ta.gg/4wt ==== === http://ta.gg/4wt http://ta.gg/4wt ==== === http://ta.gg/4wt http://ta.gg/4wt ==== === http://ta.gg/4wt http://ta.gg/4wt ==== === http://ta.gg/4wt http://ta.gg/4wt ====

astrofinch 16y ago

Each author is using their own definition of minimalism. There's no point in arguing over whose definition is better.

KirinDave 16y ago
The argument isn't "What is minimalism." The argument is, "What are these people doing that they call minimalism?" Vivek's criticisms are mostly valid for his perception of the movement, and I think he's a reasonable guy, so I tried to update and correct his perception. This is not a sisyphean task unless Vivek has a very strong motivation to ignore my explanation.

yason 16y ago

I think there are basically two reasons why one maintains a minimal set of possessions. One is dumping out most of your stuff because while part of you would still like to have them you think you'll be happier that way. (And because others are doing it also so there must be something on to that.) The other one is having learned to not need that stuff any longer.

ghrtjtykyu 16y ago

●---------------------------------------● Happy New Year◎,◎appy shopping ●---------------------------------------● ●------ http://goo.gl/l5v0b http://goo.gl/l5v0b ------● ●------ http://goo.gl/l5v0b http://goo.gl/l5v0b ------● ●------ http://goo.gl/l5v0b http://goo.gl/l5v0b ------● ●------ http://goo.gl/l5v0b http://goo.gl/l5v0b ------● ●------ http://goo.gl/l5v0b http://goo.gl/l5v0b ------● ●------ http://goo.gl/l5v0b http://goo.gl/l5v0b ------● ●------ http://goo.gl/l5v0b http://goo.gl/l5v0b ------● ●------ http://goo.gl/l5v0b http://goo.gl/l5v0b ------● ●------ http://goo.gl/l5v0b http://goo.gl/l5v0b ------● ●------ http://goo.gl/l5v0b http://goo.gl/l5v0b ------● ●------ http://goo.gl/l5v0b http://goo.gl/l5v0b ------● ●------ http://goo.gl/l5v0b http://goo.gl/l5v0b ------● ●------ http://goo.gl/l5v0b http://goo.gl/l5v0b ------● ●------ http://goo.gl/l5v0b http://goo.gl/l5v0b ------● ●---------------------------------------● Happy New Year◎,◎appy shopping ●---------------------------------------●

noonespecial 16y ago

Minimalism is not necessarily about doing without, its about maximizing utility in the things you do have. Minimalism is having one very good screwdriver instead of a whole drawer of lousy ones that you're "meaning to go through one of these days".

ljordan 16y ago

To me applied minimalism in whatever endeavor just means finding the simplest possible thing that works. I think most of us can see the value in that.

johndcook 16y ago

The original article criticizing minimalism was written with more depth and more sense of humor than this article written in response. My take on the two articles: http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2011/01/01/periodic-minimalism/ http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2011/01/01/periodic-minimalism...