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I love Maciej's writing. His recent post on idlewords.com about his trip to Yemen was great, and his annual reports on Pinboard are up there with Buffett in ter

I love Maciej's writing. His recent post on idlewords.com about his trip to Yemen was great, and his annual reports on Pinboard are up there with Buffett in terms of eloquence and wry humor that just skirts the edges of being laconic. I also love Pinboard, as well as joshu's original del.icio.us, and all services that find that completely narrow utility that I like to call "stripped and liberated". Stripped in the sense that they seek to do one thing well, on the face of humanity, forever. Liberated in the sense that they are liberated from the need to be beholden to investors or broader corporate strategies which shred their utility and focus in service of some other imperative. Has the day of the "stripped and liberated" service come and gone? Or are there still opportunities waiting to be discovered?

initself 12y ago
I don't know but I thank you for coming up with just the right phrase to describe this aesthetic! May stripped and liberated computing never die!
- e12e 12y ago
  I don't know, "liberated" associates strongly with "liberty" for me -- as in the software freedoms, and the users right/opportunity to self-host, like email. I think "stripped and independent" better conveys what op means. I suppose in the tradition of "indy" that should be shortened to "strindy" or something. Or perhaps just "an indy service" (stripped aesthetic implied by virtue of being "indy").
walterbell 12y ago
Stardock (one of the few indie desktop ISVs) also writes an independent annual report. Their 2014 report talks about the Windows 8 start button and the economics of mobile apps. http://www.stardock.com/press/CustomerReports/ http://www.stardock.com/press/CustomerReports/
- quickpost 12y ago
  Really cool, thanks for sharing!
gadders 12y ago
The writing was excellent, and hilarious. Seconded.
rossk 12y ago
I was just thinking about his anti-"audioblogging" manifesto the other day: http://www.idlewords.com/2004/08/an_audioblogging_manifesto.htm http://www.idlewords.com/2004/08/an_audioblogging_manifesto....
- minimax 12y ago
  In case you are at the office or just want to get through it in less that four minutes: http://idlewords.com/audio-manifesto.txt http://idlewords.com/audio-manifesto.txt
  - apag 12y ago
    It’s simply not the full experience without sitting through it running on while the choir swells.
shreeshga 12y ago
Highly recommend following his twitter feed: https://twitter.com/Pinboard https://twitter.com/Pinboard Full of awesome sarcasm. /plug Also, I love Pinboard so much that I wrote an Android app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=in.shreesh.pin https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=in.shreesh.pin) which I plan to improve/fix.

initself 12y ago

I don't know but I thank you for coming up with just the right phrase to describe this aesthetic! May stripped and liberated computing never die!

e12e 12y ago
I don't know, "liberated" associates strongly with "liberty" for me -- as in the software freedoms, and the users right/opportunity to self-host, like email. I think "stripped and independent" better conveys what op means. I suppose in the tradition of "indy" that should be shortened to "strindy" or something. Or perhaps just "an indy service" (stripped aesthetic implied by virtue of being "indy").

walterbell 12y ago

Stardock (one of the few indie desktop ISVs) also writes an independent annual report. Their 2014 report talks about the Windows 8 start button and the economics of mobile apps. http://www.stardock.com/press/CustomerReports/ http://www.stardock.com/press/CustomerReports/

quickpost 12y ago
Really cool, thanks for sharing!

gadders 12y ago

The writing was excellent, and hilarious. Seconded.

rossk 12y ago

I was just thinking about his anti-"audioblogging" manifesto the other day: http://www.idlewords.com/2004/08/an_audioblogging_manifesto.htm http://www.idlewords.com/2004/08/an_audioblogging_manifesto....

minimax 12y ago
In case you are at the office or just want to get through it in less that four minutes: http://idlewords.com/audio-manifesto.txt http://idlewords.com/audio-manifesto.txt
- apag 12y ago
  It’s simply not the full experience without sitting through it running on while the choir swells.

shreeshga 12y ago

Highly recommend following his twitter feed: https://twitter.com/Pinboard https://twitter.com/Pinboard Full of awesome sarcasm. /plug Also, I love Pinboard so much that I wrote an Android app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=in.shreesh.pin https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=in.shreesh.pin) which I plan to improve/fix.