The Brooks Review

Month: August 2016

  • Is Calendar Based Productivity a Fad?

    Some really good thoughts from Chris.

  • New Bullet Ruck

    Nice comparison between the two models (version 1 and 2). The changes honestly make the bag less desirable for me, so I’m glad I still have the first version.

  • NVSBL

    Editor’s note: these shirts were sent to me at no cost for the purposes of reviewing.

    It’s been a while since I reviewed undershirts — the regular ones, not fancy merino undershirts — but I received some NVSBL undershirts to test and then I took my damn sweet time testing them. There’s two types of people who wear undershirts: those who want their undershirt to be seen and those who don’t want it to be seen. I don’t understand the former group — but the latter group is doing it right.

    (more…)

  • Vesper to Ulysses

    Clever tool for importing, but too bad it requires a Mac.

  • Vesper No More

    John Gruber on the shut down of Vesper:

    It’s also entirely possible that a notes app was never going to work, financially. That it was a bad idea from the get-go, and no matter how nicely designed the app was, no matter how lovingly well-crafted, no matter what price point we had picked (higher or lower), it wasn’t going to work financially.

    That quoted bit should be framed and looked at daily by anyone making apps. Whether it was the consulting I did on Begin and Horizon, or the work I do daily with apps at MartianCraft — that rings true in all cases.

    If you have the money or time, or ideally both, you can make an amazing app relatively easily. The problem isn’t lack of ideas, or lack of talent, the problem is: no matter what, you cannot guarantee you will make your money/time back.

    I’m not arguing sustainable pricing is the issue, or that you can’t make money with apps. I’m saying two things:

    1. You can never be assured of money.
    2. You can never be assured of money.

    Oh, that’s one thing, my bad.

  • Why do pull quotes exist on the web?

    Jeremey Keith:

    I’m genuinely curious to hear the design justification for pull quotes on the web (particularly on mobile), because as a reader, I can give plenty of reasons for their removal.

    I mentioned this on Twitter, but pull quotes don’t serve readers, they serve skimmers. What I mean by this is that it is all too common to come to an article and scroll through it before reading — to look at images, to see if the story looks interesting, if it is long. Pull quotes, do two things to help convince a skimmer to read the article:

    1. They break up the monotony of the text so that things don’t look as dull or long as they otherwise would.
    2. They try to hook a skimmer with some interesting sentence they might want to know more about.

    Either way: I hate them. I have a method to do them on this site, but each time I have done them I shake my head and try to remember to never do them again.

  • What Exactly Fits in a GORUCK GR1

    Holy crap.

  • Failing

    Fail early, fail often?

    No.

    Don’t let the fear of failure hold you back from doing something you think you can do?

    Yes.

    Though.

    Not as catchy.

    (more…)

  • Ultimate Merino T-Shirt List

    Great resource. Remember, when thinking about price: you really only need one to two.

  • Canvas #17: 2Do with Ben Brooks

    I had a lot of fun filling in for Federico. A huge thanks to Federico and Fraser for having me as a guest. We dive into 2Do but also talk about my iPad only journey.

  • Autonomous SmartDesk

    When I last wrote about sit-stand electric desks, I took a look at the Jarvis desk — at the time one of the cheapest desks you could get, while still getting a very quality product. I left that desk behind when I changed careers, and went without an electric desk for quite some time.

    In the intervening time period there has been no shortage of new options that came to the market — all of which seem to be competing on one thing: price.

    (more…)

  • To-Do Lists Don’t Work

    This article encapsulates what is becoming a common refrain: no more todo lists, instead just plan every moment of your life on your calendar. It’s bullshit if you ask me.

    Time boxing — setting aside chunks of your day for a specific category of work — is one thing, and while it doesn’t work for me, the purpose is noble. But planning each task on your calendar only works for the few people who have complete control over their schedules — otherwise life (kids, bosses, spouses, coworkers, pooping, etc.) gets in your way.

    I think this trend is stupid, and your time is far better spent learning how to stop procrastinating than it is planning out every waking minute of your day.

  • Unnecessary Adjustments

    I love his approach to improving as a photographer. I don’t know that I could stay that disciplined, but many of the same struggles are why I gave up on shooting RAW. Spending more time editing photos than taking them, that’s not why I love photography. Now I shoot with a film simulation preselected and only ever crop if I need it.

    I can’t wait to hear how this method works out.

  • Castro 2 is Now Available

    I listen to two podcasts and have always used the Apple app (blasphemy, I know), but Castro 2 has converted me. It’s such a well thought out app. Really worth it for everyone to check out just to see a fresh take on app design.

  • This Should Be A Lot Easier Than it is

    My wife and I wanted to buy a new couch — the problem we ran into though was the new couch is huge. I typically can see how and where things fit very easily in my head, but this one needed some more planning because even I wasn’t sure.

    This seemed like the most natural use for an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil if I had ever heard of one. In the past I used various CAD programs on my Mac, or often Adobe Illustrator to help me figure it out. This time I downloaded a ton of apps to try and see what I could do to plan out this room.

    (more…)

  • The writing class I’d like to teach

    Jason Fried:

    It would be a writing course. Every assignment would be delivered in five versions: A three page version, a one page version, a three paragraph version, a one paragraph version, and a one sentence version.

    I’d pay to take that writing class.

  • In 2007, Trump was forced to face his own falsehoods

    David Fahrenthold:

    That deposition — 170 transcribed pages — offers extraordinary insights into Trump’s relationship with the truth. Trump’s falsehoods were unstrategic — needless, highly specific, easy to disprove. When caught, Trump sometimes blamed others for the error or explained that the untrue thing really was true, in his mind, because he saw the situation more positively than others did.

  • Microsoft Secure Boot key debacle causes security panic

    Microsoft has accidentally leaked the keys to the kingdom, permitting attackers to unlock devices protected by Secure Boot — and it may not be possible to fully resolve the leak.

    “Oops” seems like an understatement.

  • Frequent Password Changes is Bad Advice

    Not so much the fact you change your password, but that it leads people to pick less secure passwords because they have to remember so many changes. Fairly obvious, but nice this is coming about now. We are creatures of habit and patters, get yourself 1Password (despite their overly complex and overbearing new pricing models, it’s still the best).

  • Fuck Yeah, Profanity

    Noah Berlatsky:

    If you’re teaching your kids profanity, you need to teach them that profanity isn’t something they’re supposed to use. Otherwise, how will they fucking learn to use it correctly?

    Every time my kids swear, I can barely contain my laughter. It’s fucking hilarious.