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Ben Brooks on Readability & Instapaper

Ben made some great points in this article that got my attention. I’ve long been an user of Instapaper, but have also kept an account open with Readability and a keen eye on the directions they’ve been taking. And when the Readability iOS apps recently became available, I moved my remaining Instapaper items to Readability.

Hear me on this though: Instapaper is a fantastic app and platform, and Marco is a smart guy who makes good decisions (you only have to read his recent post on learning from competition to see that he’ll make a smart move in response to Readability’s offerings).

I moved to Readability for one reason — I greatly prefer the reading experience. Not just the superstar fonts from the superstar foundry, which has gotten the lion’s share of the attention. It’s also the thoughtful UI decisions, on the iOS apps as well as the web interface.

But Ben made me think my decision over again. The key point:

With Readability, who is the customer? Is the free user the customer? The VC helping fund it? Or is Readability itself the customer and the Publishers the ones paying Readability to do something they never asked Readability to do? (After all they take 30% before paying out to publishers.)

Having recently moved from Google’s products to Apple’s, how could I forget that I am loathe to use a free service where I am the commodity? I worry that the same things that bother me about Google, and Twitter as well, will become an issue with Readability. Ben links to an article that gives a little glimpse that the folks behind Readability may be in the same boat that the majority of the startup, web world has embraced:

Your support documents state that “premium supports the costs to run the service, continued development” and paying publishers. If all of your customers go with a free account, how does Readability intend to make money?

We’re still navigating towards a plan in that respect. Right now, we just want to build a big and engaged community.

When a founder says the want to build a platform, then figure out how to monetize it, my neck hairs shoot up.

In this area, Marco has them beat. He’s self-funded, he’s in complete control, and most importantly, he’s a likeable guy. It all adds up to people like me preferring to support the little guy who’s willing to charge for his hard work from day one.

All that to say the jury is still out for me. I’m sticking with Readability for now, but I’m still watching both services. The reality is that we, the users, are in better shape because there is competition in this space.

March 9, 2012 Lovingly filed under: Opinion

Notifications Are Evil

Speaking of consuming, the Information Diet covers some of the basics of the new Attention World Order. These are already common practice for yours truly, but it’s always good to review the reasons behind why I try my best to be distraction-free.

March 8, 2012 Lovingly filed under: Opinion

Content Curation Is a New Kind of Authorship

This piece is over half a year old, but feels only more relevant today than it did 9 months ago. Maria Popova examines the relationship Twitter has with the way we now discover and consume information. It’s a fascinating read, one I recommend you take in during a few moments of low input, in quiet and solitude.

March 8, 2012 Lovingly filed under: Opinion

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A big thank you to Denso for sponsoring the feed this week.

March 7, 2012 Lovingly filed under: Discourse

Support Details

You know when your relative calls and asks for help with a computer problem? You know how you can spend 30 minutes simply trying to translate their words into a browser version? This handy little site can be a huge help.

I love the idea.

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March 6, 2012 Lovingly filed under: Resource

What’s Your CSS Style?

I really enjoyed this article. It has a good mix of technical knowledge and practical application. There were a handful of ways to target an element I had not considered using before, described with helpful language and examples.
March 5, 2012 Lovingly filed under: Resource

Deploy

Mandy Brown shares a lovely collection of thoughts on writing and, more importantly, the process of writing and how it’s changing. I love the idea of taking an approach to writing that is similar to software development.

March 5, 2012 Lovingly filed under: Opinion

A Precious Hour

Good idea from Rands: ensure that you block off time to create. So, so necessary.

February 29, 2012 Lovingly filed under: Opinion

TinyLetter - Weekly Sponsor

TinyLetter is the simplest way to send email newsletters. Creating signup forms is a breeze, and TinyLetter even makes it easy to reply to your readers individually. It’s also free.

TinyLetter doesn’t have all the features most email services offer. It’s built for people, not business. Just compose your message, send it to your readers, and find out what they think. That’s all there is to it. spacer

A big thank you to TinyLetter for sponsoring the feed this week.

February 29, 2012 Lovingly filed under: Discourse

Why French Parents Are Superior

In a piece titled Why French Parents are Superior, Pamela Druckerman surmises that the French have some inside knowledge that results in better behaved children and happier, more relaxed parents. I read the posts weeks ago and wanted to share it, but overall, found it too troublesome and frustrating.

It’s not link bait, but the title itself is misleading. I’d suggest that the author has some good observations, but her conclusions are a bit off. It’s not that French parents are better than their American (or Canadian — I’ll lump the US and Canada together here, as our cultures are so similar) counterparts. Not all anyways. France probably has some great parents. So does Germany, South Africa, and Papa New Guinea. As does the US.

She identifies the problem well: parents do not enjoy spending time with their own children. Druckerman points to research to indicate that this is indeed the case for American parents. And while it’s obviously not true en masse, it does show a trend. And if your children are very poorly behaved, then spending time with them is a chore. And not an enjoyable one at that.

My frustration with the post is that there is no depth as to what the cause of the problem is. From my observations in life, it’s simply because so many now treat “having kids” as a hobby. This aspect of life is another notch in the belt. A career, various material items like the right house or car, retirement … kids. These all get lumped into the category of “successful life”.

The analogy makes some sense. If I pick up a hobby like building model planes, even without any prior experience, I can hone skills over time and become successful at creating miniature airplanes. The issue here is that a model airplane doesn’t bite the other model airplanes in the workshop. It won’t throw its food on the floor or raise its voice to get its way.

There are two issues I see with modern parenting that, if addressed, would bring us all a lot closer to the more relaxed, holistic atmosphere that Druckerman observed amongst the French.

One is that we have become a generation of parents who react to the child, rather than having a premeditated, proactive goal in mind. I see so many parents who (like Druckerman, I’m generalizing — there are plenty of good parents, but the overall trend is as described here) have children, put minimal effort into raising them thoughtfully, then simply hope they will turn out in the end. There is no end goal in mind, no vision.

Think of any area of your life where you have no plan, you simply take what comes. In some areas, that’s a fine way to live. But with children, you need a vision that defines your success and spend time thinking how you can achieve that success. That sounds business-y, I know. But it’s simply a way of thinking that applies to child rearing.

Here’s an example. I want to have children who are mindful of how their choices affect other human beings and the creation around them. Children who are thoughtful and considerate. Gentle, and at the same time, childishly enthusiastic. Curious and creative. Loving and compassionate. I cannot encourage all those characteristics if I do not take time to consider my children and their needs.

That’s not to say that your child(ren) won’t choose to ignore your teachings. It also doesn’t mean you plan every step of their day, every activity they’ll partake in. Rather, it means waking up every day with that end goal in mind, looking for opportunities to teach, and being proactive.

The second issue is that we focus on behaviour, rather than character. You can promote, encourage or force good behaviour, but still have impure motives stemming from a poor character. Assisting your child in building character will automatically result in good behaviour. Sadly, too many parents focus on correcting behaviour without getting to the root of the problem.

Understandably so. Digging to the root of the issue is hard, time consuming work. You have to be willing to drop what you’re doing in order to address the issue, to help your child see within themselves where their fault lies. Many parents, in our world of daycare, pre-school, and all day kindergarten, are simply not willing to take the time.

And of course, that is the real issue with poor parenting. The selfishness of the adult.


Raising children is a lifelong commitment. Thankfully, it’s also an extremely rewarding blessing as well. But it takes work to ensure that the (overall) experience is pleasant for everyone, both the parents and the children.

The answer is not in one country as opposed to another, or one culture over another. The answer lies in the parent being willing to make the shaping of the child more important that all their other endeavours. This has to be a daily activity.

If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.

Luke 9:23

February 28, 2012 Lovingly filed under: Discourse

Please Put Down That Device & Let’s Just Talk

Dave DeRuchie makes some great points about time, respect, and intentional attention. Let’s change the culture around meetings, one meeting at a time.

February 27, 2012 Lovingly filed under: Opinion

Pray with Your Books Closed

A great reminder from Jonathan Parnell on the Desiring God site.

The aim of our study is to know God, not merely things about him.

Wise words, ones I need to remember from time to time.

February 23, 2012 Lovingly filed under: Opinion

Siri on the Mac

I would love to see Siri come to the Mac. It was one of the major reasons I upgraded to the 4S.

The problem is, I, like others, rarely use it. It’s a combination of layers of friction: it requires forming new habits, the service is often down, and Siri often doesn’t understand what I say (my wife knows how Siri feels). Those three items on their own might be easy to overcome, but when you put them together, it’s been frustrating enough that I never think to use the service.

Having Siri available on the Mac would help me to force myself to make changes, simply due to the amount of time I spend on OS X.

February 21, 2012 Lovingly filed under: Opinion

Iconic with Jack Cheng

Episode 30 of Creatiplicity is out today, with guest Jack Cheng. Jack has written two of my favourite online pieces in recent years: In Praise of Lo-fi and Habit Fields, so it was fantastic to be able to talk with him one-on-one and see where he’s at in these areas.

Give it a listen.

February 20, 2012 Lovingly filed under: News

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A big thank you to InVision for sponsoring the feed this week.

February 17, 2012 Lovingly filed under: Discourse

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