6 ms·

An interview with Derek Sivers

76 points by tortilla 15y ago

wyclif 15y ago
I'm always happy to read a new The Setup that isn't a variation on "I use a MBP/MBA." +1 for the Arch Linux advocacy.
- mark_h 15y ago
  I couldn't agree more! My all-time favourite in that regard: http://russ.cox.usesthis.com/ http://russ.cox.usesthis.com/
- waferbaby 15y ago
  Believe it or not, so am I. :)
siavosh 15y ago
I like the fact that he doesn't use almost any apps on his smart phone. I'm close to the conclusion that smart phones are becoming a curse. Not only did I see this at my family Thanksgiving (were most everyone was in the family room heads down on their smart phones), but also myself. Where brief moments of quiet were reserved for self-reflection are now substituted with OCD email checking and tiny wings high score getting. Sigh.
- hello_moto 15y ago
  Smartphones and tablets are largely for entertainment, which in turn are designed to grab your attention to the fullest. They're kind of bad (there's always that other excuse: limit yourself) seeing how the majority users are hooked like a drug addict lately (crackberry is an example)
  - gbog 15y ago
    > Smartphones and tablets are largely for entertainment I don't know for tablets, I don't own one yet (Kindle e-ink doesn't count, does it?), but for smartphones I do not agree. They are tools. Powerful tools, like a Swiss army knife on crack. They can be overused, and there is a full "phone politeness" to build, but it is not a reason to luditely dismiss them as useless toys. Things my smartphone allow me to do: - Get GPS turn-by-turn navigation from a link received in chat or direct search, including traffic info. (In China it is GPS is a near necessity) - Find a nice mountain path when hiking around. - Get an answer immediately when some wikipediable question arise in a discussion. - Get translations from and to Chinese, English, French. - Quickly prefill some new contact info and expand it on my computer later. Take a pic of the contact so I remember better how that is. (Helps with this Chinese names). - Best: Build my own tailored Fuzzy Pinyin to English dictionary and push it to my phone, so I get a faster search. No dictionaries I know are that fast. Needed for catching up during meetings. I won't say I never use it for games or news checking. It happens, mostly on the toilets, but it is not the main use.
    - hello_moto 15y ago
      You're a rare breed sir. Most people are using it for entertainment.
- runevault 15y ago
  This is part of why my phone doesn't have much on it. Twitter and g+ can be a distraction but when things are going on (say, Thanksgiving) unless it really IS a down moment I just ignore them. Plenty of time for such things later. Pity I don't have the same restraint when at a computer.
- nikcub 15y ago
  I threw my smartphone out 2 years ago. I got another one only a week ago and don't use it, it is sitting in my drawer. Best decision I ever made.
hello_moto 15y ago
I think I'd love to have such environment. Simple and distraction free. I feel that as I'm getting older and priority changes, I'm no longer enamored that much by technology.
achompas 15y ago
I'm ready to take the full-time plunge into Linux. Spend too much time goofing off on my Mac, so I'd like to set it up as a pure development machine and use an iPad for leisure. Would you guys recommend Arch Linux as a good starting point? I've used Ubuntu before, and I agree with Sivers's take ("too hand-holdy").
- jvoorhis 15y ago
  It's great if you want the opposite of hand-holdy. The Arch docs boldly ask you to solve your own problems before asking for help. That said, I loved Slackware and FreeBSD when I ran them. Arch has more in common with those OSes than the Debian or Red Hat derived Linux distros. If you have the patience to learn, you will likely break it in just like Derek describes.
- thaumaturgy 15y ago
  As a nice alternative to Ubuntu or Arch, I'd like to recommend a little-known distribution called Chakra Linux (http://chakra-linux.org/ http://chakra-linux.org/). It started out as an Arch distribution, and gradually has moved to focus on being a KDE4 distribution. Upsides: a beautiful, modern, easy-to-use, not-glitchy graphical environment for everything. A decent built-in package manager with rolling updates. Support for most of the basics. Downsides: No easy rollbacks (yet) on the package manager, so if an update breaks something, you'll have a hassle. Hardware support still lacking (my laptop's trackpad isn't detected; I haven't had time yet to see about porting drivers for it). I set mine up with Chrome and the built-in terminal and a few other basics in Linux, and then installed the VirtualBox package and (after massaging it a little bit) got it running a Windows 7 environment where I have my preferred text editor of choice and a few other goodies. A shared drive is set up between the two that allows me to, for example, run a local web server on the Linux side and edit the files in the current project in the Windows VM. I really really like this setup. I love OpenBSD too, and have used Debian a lot, and we use Ubuntu (and other Linuxes) in the shop for various things, but this is the first distribution I've been happy with for regular desktop use. If you want to give it a serious try and have any questions, drop me an email and I'll see if I can help.
- zalew 15y ago
agranig 15y ago
As for the command-line VoIP app, you can use "linphonec" included in http://www.linphone.org/ http://www.linphone.org/.
- sivers 15y ago
  Cool! Hadn't heard of that. Thanks much for the recommendation.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
mise 15y ago
Derek's more hard-core geek than I suspected. I could only dream of being that hard core :) Jumping from Ubuntu to Linux Mint was already a leap of faith for me.
gbog 15y ago
Nice to see the Wenlin Chinese-English dictionary cited in this article. It has indeed a very useful content with many etymologies and good translations. I bought the CD long time ago and I just checked their website, they apparently did not publish a phone app. Sad, because using a computer to check for words is the least practical solution.

76 points by tortilla 15y ago

wyclif 15y ago

I'm always happy to read a new The Setup that isn't a variation on "I use a MBP/MBA." +1 for the Arch Linux advocacy.

mark_h 15y ago
I couldn't agree more! My all-time favourite in that regard: http://russ.cox.usesthis.com/ http://russ.cox.usesthis.com/
waferbaby 15y ago
Believe it or not, so am I. :)

siavosh 15y ago

I like the fact that he doesn't use almost any apps on his smart phone. I'm close to the conclusion that smart phones are becoming a curse. Not only did I see this at my family Thanksgiving (were most everyone was in the family room heads down on their smart phones), but also myself. Where brief moments of quiet were reserved for self-reflection are now substituted with OCD email checking and tiny wings high score getting. Sigh.

hello_moto 15y ago
Smartphones and tablets are largely for entertainment, which in turn are designed to grab your attention to the fullest. They're kind of bad (there's always that other excuse: limit yourself) seeing how the majority users are hooked like a drug addict lately (crackberry is an example)
- gbog 15y ago
  > Smartphones and tablets are largely for entertainment I don't know for tablets, I don't own one yet (Kindle e-ink doesn't count, does it?), but for smartphones I do not agree. They are tools. Powerful tools, like a Swiss army knife on crack. They can be overused, and there is a full "phone politeness" to build, but it is not a reason to luditely dismiss them as useless toys. Things my smartphone allow me to do: - Get GPS turn-by-turn navigation from a link received in chat or direct search, including traffic info. (In China it is GPS is a near necessity) - Find a nice mountain path when hiking around. - Get an answer immediately when some wikipediable question arise in a discussion. - Get translations from and to Chinese, English, French. - Quickly prefill some new contact info and expand it on my computer later. Take a pic of the contact so I remember better how that is. (Helps with this Chinese names). - Best: Build my own tailored Fuzzy Pinyin to English dictionary and push it to my phone, so I get a faster search. No dictionaries I know are that fast. Needed for catching up during meetings. I won't say I never use it for games or news checking. It happens, mostly on the toilets, but it is not the main use.
  - hello_moto 15y ago
    You're a rare breed sir. Most people are using it for entertainment.
runevault 15y ago
This is part of why my phone doesn't have much on it. Twitter and g+ can be a distraction but when things are going on (say, Thanksgiving) unless it really IS a down moment I just ignore them. Plenty of time for such things later. Pity I don't have the same restraint when at a computer.
nikcub 15y ago
I threw my smartphone out 2 years ago. I got another one only a week ago and don't use it, it is sitting in my drawer. Best decision I ever made.

hello_moto 15y ago

I think I'd love to have such environment. Simple and distraction free. I feel that as I'm getting older and priority changes, I'm no longer enamored that much by technology.

achompas 15y ago

I'm ready to take the full-time plunge into Linux. Spend too much time goofing off on my Mac, so I'd like to set it up as a pure development machine and use an iPad for leisure. Would you guys recommend Arch Linux as a good starting point? I've used Ubuntu before, and I agree with Sivers's take ("too hand-holdy").

jvoorhis 15y ago
It's great if you want the opposite of hand-holdy. The Arch docs boldly ask you to solve your own problems before asking for help. That said, I loved Slackware and FreeBSD when I ran them. Arch has more in common with those OSes than the Debian or Red Hat derived Linux distros. If you have the patience to learn, you will likely break it in just like Derek describes.
thaumaturgy 15y ago
As a nice alternative to Ubuntu or Arch, I'd like to recommend a little-known distribution called Chakra Linux (http://chakra-linux.org/ http://chakra-linux.org/). It started out as an Arch distribution, and gradually has moved to focus on being a KDE4 distribution. Upsides: a beautiful, modern, easy-to-use, not-glitchy graphical environment for everything. A decent built-in package manager with rolling updates. Support for most of the basics. Downsides: No easy rollbacks (yet) on the package manager, so if an update breaks something, you'll have a hassle. Hardware support still lacking (my laptop's trackpad isn't detected; I haven't had time yet to see about porting drivers for it). I set mine up with Chrome and the built-in terminal and a few other basics in Linux, and then installed the VirtualBox package and (after massaging it a little bit) got it running a Windows 7 environment where I have my preferred text editor of choice and a few other goodies. A shared drive is set up between the two that allows me to, for example, run a local web server on the Linux side and edit the files in the current project in the Windows VM. I really really like this setup. I love OpenBSD too, and have used Debian a lot, and we use Ubuntu (and other Linuxes) in the shop for various things, but this is the first distribution I've been happy with for regular desktop use. If you want to give it a serious try and have any questions, drop me an email and I'll see if I can help.
zalew 15y ago

agranig 15y ago

As for the command-line VoIP app, you can use "linphonec" included in http://www.linphone.org/ http://www.linphone.org/.

sivers 15y ago
Cool! Hadn't heard of that. Thanks much for the recommendation.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

mise 15y ago

Derek's more hard-core geek than I suspected. I could only dream of being that hard core :) Jumping from Ubuntu to Linux Mint was already a leap of faith for me.

gbog 15y ago

Nice to see the Wenlin Chinese-English dictionary cited in this article. It has indeed a very useful content with many etymologies and good translations. I bought the CD long time ago and I just checked their website, they apparently did not publish a phone app. Sad, because using a computer to check for words is the least practical solution.