RE: Offmini and Offline Computing

ploum's Offmini post

I read ploum's post about imagining an offline version of gemini while being offline myself. Lately I have been doing most of my gemini reading on my Palm PDA. Once or twice a day I run a little script that grabs all the posts from the current and previous day from my comitium feed and converts them to a format compatible with Palm OS and I sync them to the PDA. Then whenever I have the time and inclination I pull my little PDA out and read. Totally offline and often outside.

I'm writing this post offline as well on the PDA. Something I've found works much better for me than writing on a network connected computer. I think there was something about that time period in the late 90s and early 00s where being offline was the default and you deliberately went online that just fit better with my brain. My PDAs at the time were great and I loved them. I don't know why actually gave them up other than the lure of new technology. When I really think about it I haven't felt the same zen with any of the mobile devices I've had since then.

Lately I find myself drawn to a more offline by default way of computing. Or at least compartmentalizing being online to certain devices and reducing how much I use those online devices throughout the day. This has had a number of knock-on effects for me that are positive I think. I'm writing more and reading more. What I consider quality reading too rather than just endlessly searching for new interesting things online. My phone's battery is lasting me 2 days and sometimes more because of how much less I'm using it. The PDA I'm using in place of a lot of that smartphone usage gets excellent battery life so overall I'm just charging things a lot less. It is nice to be less tied to the constant charging ritual.

What I'm saying is this sounds like a pretty neat idea. The internet has a lot of very valuable aspects that I don't want to abandon but finding that good and healthy combination of utilizing it without overindulging is a worthwhile endeavor.

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