Convenience factor

As technology marches onwards, we’re able to perform an ever increasing number of tasks from the comfort of our connected devices. A variety of apps are replacing everyday tasks with a more modern approach. Calling for pizza delivery, waiting until you arrive at a restaurant to order your food, and an increasing number of tasks can now have minutes or seconds shaved off when the corresponding app is used.

Creating space for original thought

How long do you spend on an average day without a screen, music, or other media input? If you’re like me, it’s usually not very long. I’m listening to an audiobook or podcast on my commute, listening to music at home, and occasionally watching movies or videos for entertainment. This cycle of media consumption has many benefits: new information, perspectives, and ideas passing through your mind for many hours a day. But with so much information streaming my way, could there be benefits to the avoidance of such inputs? When do I listen to my own thoughts and ideas?

Improving the obvious

A lot of efficiency hacks I see help improve short tasks that consume a minute portion of an average day. What these pieces of advice assume is that the bigger picture items are taken care of, and I increasingly find that I need to work on these obvious items before delving into the fine details. With that, I’d like to elaborate on three obvious areas for daily efficiency, and perhaps the three most crucial.

5 Coolest ongoing engineering projects

There are some engineering projects out there that are just so far fetched and absurd that I have to create a term to describe them, and I choose the word “cool”. Some technologies, like electric and autonomous vehicles, certainly have a cool factor right now, but there’s growing consensus that we’ll be seeing that technology in daily life before too long. Many of the cool projects below are one-offs that have minimal connection to a commercial product, but they are setting the bar for those that follow. I’m always interested in these half-crazy projects, so contact me if I missed others.

Information diet for 2017

Over the years, my collection of most-visited websites slowly shifts as my interests change over time. These are a few of my current favorites related to lifestyle choices. I think the main reason they’re interesting is because they offer unique edge-case perspectives that provide insight into exploring similar options.