Firstly, what is Minimalism? Minimalism is a value system that at its root is a focus on things we value most and cutting out everything else that does not and that only serves to distract us. In so doing we create freedom, more time for family and experiences. We take away debt, stress and jealousy. It is simply a way of living where we are invited to be more intentional about how we spend our time.
Minimalism is supported by a few common ideals: simplicity, quality and multi function for the possessions we do keep; fiscal responsibility; rejection of consumerism and a high consumer literacy (knowing and recognizing sales tactics that contribute to mindless consumerism). Minimalism is more than decluttering and re-organizing. It is purposeful living. Keeping things that only add value and bring joy to your life. That makes things rather broad. The way people live a life of minimalism can run a large spectrum. Some folks have tiny houses, others a backpack of 51 items, others have 2 cars, essential possessions, and a simple house in the suburbs.
Nicodemus and Fields Milburn
In the summer of 2017, my wife and I both stumbled upon minimalism separately. She read Joshua Becker’s The More of Less: Finding the Life You Want Under Everything You Own and I heard Joshua Fields Millburn on Tom Woods’ Show (episode 775). We watched Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus’ documentary, Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things on Netflix (currently still available). After watching the documentary together we both agreed to try minimalism. To be honest, we did not find it too drastic as we already subscribed to some of the tenets. We were always financially responsible. A few years prior, we we began to me more intentional in our buying decisions and in our giving as we felt a need to live a little closer to Jesus’ teaching of simplicity and generosity. We felt like minimalism was a good tool to help us reduce our materialism and align ourselves more fully with Jesus’ teachings on possessions. Having said that we began the process of going through our possessions to determine what to keep, give away, and throw out. How did we decide what to keep and what to give away? In general, most minimalists will say that an item that you keep must contain value, serve a purpose, and bring joy.
We chose to minimize room by room. We started with our bedroom. The easiest things to minimize are duplicates and things you don’t use. Despite thinking we were already living simply, and despite four moves in the previous 5 years in which we donated unused items each time, we still filled 3 or 4 trash bags with clothes and 2 more trash bags with stuff we threw away. And that was just our bedroom. We were in shock. In one way we were shamed by the waste and accumulation, but we were also pleased with what we were able to cut out of our lives. Surprisingly, this past summer we went through our closets again and gave away an additional 2 more trash bags of clothes! How? Well, the other major stumbling block to minimalism is “Just in Case Items”. I found it really hard to let go of just in case items. I didn’t want to waste money replacing something I got rid of it. But the truth is, if an item is “just in case,” it is already unused. It won’t be missed.
The next room we tackled was the kitchen. I largely stayed out of that, but be warned minimizing common areas/possessions without your family or living partners can result in mistakes and anger. Anecdotally, minimalist Joshua Becker relays an episode of minimizing his kitchen without his wife and throwing away a football Jell-O mold only to discover later that his wife was searching all over for the mold because it was for his young son’s sports themed birthday party. In our kitchen, once again, duplicates were an easy item to toss. Why we went through four moves with two rolling pins is beyond me. We focused on keeping items that we actually used. We also looked at replacing some of the things we had with multifunction items. For example, my wife ditched our white and red wine glasses and replaced them with glassware that works for both.
Technology is a great benefit for us on our minimalism journey. I love to read, but rather than have a ton of books around the house, I have a ton on my Kindle. Rather than having boxes and boxes of photos like my parents, I have digital photos and I scanned in my parents’ boxes of photos many, many years ago long before I became a minimalist. It is also much easier to tag and organize digital media. Our kids are not at the point that they are churning out artwork, but when they do Becker suggests takings pictures of any special crafts our kids make that will be thrown out or replaced by their newer artwork. That is a huge space saver.
This Christmas we adopted the need, want, wear, read approach to gift-giving. It helped restrain us and my in-laws from buying things we do not want or buying the kids too much. It’s nice knowing that when gift giving time comes around each of us will be getting only 4 gifts. I think it will help the kids as they get older and make their own lists to be very selective and thoughtful about their requests.
So nearly two years in and minimalism is a keeper for me and my family. We are still working at it as evidenced by the paring down we did again this past summer. It did take some will power to overcome some of our old ways of thinking, but embracing minimalism certainly makes us happier and less stressed. Our house is easier to clean and more organized despite a 3 year old that loves to make messes. The age appropriate toys that we have for our toddler are minimal but treasured by him. None of his toys are gathering dust. And that really helps reduce the clutter.
A Random Note:
-Minimalism also makes it easier when you find a snake in the house to go room by room moving stuff and checking to make sure there are no more motherfucking snakes in the motherfucking house.
Further Reading:
The Minimalist.com Podcast
Minimalism: A Documentary about What is Important Netflix, Amazon Prime, Google Play
The More of Less: Finding the Life You Want Under Everything You Own by Joshua Becker
For example, my wife ditched our white and red wine glasses and replaced them with glassware that works for both.
Heathen!
I didn’t even know there was such a thing.
Yeah, who uses a glass for wine. You use a measuing cup and then pour it into the cookpot.
“You use a measuing cup”
Feh.
Okay, you could just eyeball how much you pour in the pot. Depends on how much flavor variability you’re willing to accept.
+1 Justin Wilson
Already comes in a glass. Or a juice box type of thing.
*hic*
Agree with you kinnath. The different shapes for wine glasses are to get the wine to the proper part of your tongue and enhance the smell and hence the taste. I didn’t believe it made a difference until I tried the same wine from different glasses. If a philistine like me can note the differences, then a person with a working nose will easily notice,
Still except for the wine glasses part it was an interesting article. I much agree that decluttering with your spouse/partner can save many hard feelings.
Does it matter if it’s coming out of a bag in a box?
I much agree that decluttering with your spouse/partner can save many hard feelings.
Or: here’s what I don’t use, go through and pick out anything you use.
Use and need have got nothing to do with it.
^^ My gun shopping mantra.
If I waited on my wife to go through the pile of things of hers she only thinks about every time I say, “Hey, seriously, find a place for this or I’m throwing it out” my shed would still be a solid block of crap. This is why savvy husbands do purges the night before bulk pickup day.
Fair enough.
The case for minimalism for me has been several miserable afternoons clearing out rentals the tenants bailed on. Nothing makes me hate materialism more than wading through someone else’s materialism.
I can’t even imagine. Every time I think about moving I think about the ten years of shit we’ve got crammed into the nooks and crannies of our house and it fills me with dread. When I went out to Cali when I was 19 everything I owned fit into a VW Scirocco. Now, that might account for the kitchen. Maybe.
There’s a local taco place that has a great beer selection, but they serve all of their beers in mason jars. It hurts my soul (what little is left) sometimes.
Aside from all the other things wrong with that, it’s uncomfortable to drink out of a mason jar.
I vehemently disagree. Mason jars are excellent tumblers, and the squarish shape means you can hold them such that less hand is in contact with the glass, keeping it cooler longer. Also, the threading along the top means that if it starts to slip out of your hand your grip will naturally follow the glass towards the top, where said threading will act as a brake, keeping your floor from getting covered in shattered glass and bloody Mary. Further also, assuming you kept the lid, they double as travel containers. And let’s not forget that they often arrive with something inside, such as pasta sauce, jam, or pickles, while their glassware cousins show up empty, which is extremely poor form.
Nope. These are round ones, and they serve all beers (and margaritas) in them.
Are they still threaded? Is the neck still thinner than the body so you have to completely upend the jar to get the last swig out?
Yeah, they’re still threaded, with the thinner top (not really a neck, since it’s a cylinder).
A place nearby serves Lagunitas in branded Lagunitas Mason jars that are round like that. So bougie. Mason jars are square so that you can stick them against each other without wasted space.
Agreed, I wear retainers (nerd!) and mason jars clink-clank against them uncomfortably.
Ugh, I bet all the seating is high-chairs too.
No. But they do only offer happy hour prices ($1 off tacos and draft beer, 1/2 priced margaritas) in the bar area. The bar seating is (as in most places) first come, first served. They also have high tops in the bar area that are part of a secondary wait list at the hostess stand (which seems grossly inefficient to me). If the food wasn’t so damned good, I’d have to stop going there.
Like my grandfather was I’m slightly gorilla-shaped, with a long torso and (relatively) short legs. I hate those and I’m not a fan of stools, either. My feet either dangle or I perch up like a gargoyle, and I have to either hunch over like Mr. Burns to reach the bar or I look like I’m sitting at attention.
“For example, my wife ditched our white and red wine glasses and replaced them with glassware that works for both.”
I knew that would illict some cries of horror. $3 Chuck doesn’t care what glass its in ?
Well, it’s not like we have different shape glasses to serve different styles of red wine. But there are fundamental differences in red and white wine even at the low end of the price range.
Well yeah, they’re different colors.
Go pour a couple of fingers of vodka from your freezer and stay out of the wine discussions.
The wine glasses are an excellent test case for minimalism.
a focus on things we value most and cutting out everything else that does not and that only serves to distract us
If you really appreciate wine and the difference that purpose-made glasses for different varietals can make, then keep them, as they are something you value and does not distract you, but enhances part of your life. If you really don’t care that much about the nuances of various wines, then go for an all-purpose glass.
I’d be curious about how minimalism and being a collector might intersect. Most serious collectors put a lot of personal value on their collections, even though their collection serves no real utilitarian purpose How does minimalism address things of aesthetic or other non-utilitarian value?
I figured collections would be covered by the “bring you joy” part.
Same here, but walls full of art or cabinets full of collectible stuff just don’t seem minimalist to me. Hell, a lot of women seem to enjoy having closets full of clothes they never wear *checks nervously over shoulder*. In my case, I have a fair amount of “just in case” stuff – being prepared for remote contingencies brings me joy. I mean, the likelihood I will need a go-bag with spare outdoors clothes, a gun, ammo, and some other items of value is really vanishingly low, but I sure like knowing that, if I need to, I can be gone in minutes.
I like the 4 gift idea.
“No one needs a drawer full of silverware. You’ll get a spork & a knife and like it.”
All you need.
No, no, no, no, no. That’s not a proper spork. The spoon and the fork are supposed to be combined on the same end of the handle. that just looks uncomfortable to operate.
It is a little, I’ll admit, but being able to spear a mouth full of brisket is better than trying to do it with more-spoon-than-fork.
I have enough silverware that it takes me weeks before I need to wash them again.
I curse the quantity while I’m washing it, but the long delay between stints at the sink is worth it.
You leave weeks worth of dirty dishes lying around? Man, I’ve been lifehacking all wrong.
Who leaves them lying around? They’re all stacked up and ready to wash. Sure they’re lying there, but not around. Around implies there are some scattered about the house.
I hate washing dishes,I try to use disposables. Incidentally my age cohort is sometimes put in the category of millennial.
CPRM: The girlfriend’s mother (when she was still around) was scandalized the first year she came over to Thanksgiving dinner (I was hosting). I provided real silverware and glassware to everyone, but just had a pile of heavy duty paper plates there to eat off of. She changed her mind after the fact when she saw the full dishwasher with just the silverware and serving vessels.
My wife’s family at Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, anyone’s birthday, pretty much any reason to get together winds up being a party of about sixty people once you factor in cousins, friends of the family, their kids, etc. Actually, come to think of it, Christmas is usually a grand total of around a hundred people throughout the day. It’s disposable everything. For one thing, they just don’t have enough plates.
Growing up the one side of the family (dad’s) would get together for thanksgiving. He had seven siblings, and all but one of his siblings had children. So, a rough estimate (based on my hazy memory of my extended family) would have us at close to 50 people. For the ones I’m hosting, it’s only about a dozen. They would rent out the community center (which had its own kitchen with plates, glasses, and silverware) in the subdivision they lived in to hold all of us.
Ugh, wash as you go.
Another petty squabble I have with the spousal unit. Wash the pots and pans during the cooking process so there’s not a huge pile to deal with after dinner or at the end of the day.
During cooking causes more problems than it solves, you get dish soap in the food, burn your hands, alienate your guests.
This right here. It’s not hard. I’ve been trying to at least instill the rule that anything that’s been used with dairy needs to be washed when she’s done. This was after finding cups and silverware in the sink the next morning with a lovely patina of dried milk all over them.
And the good kitchen knives…
Watch dad fly into a spittle-flecked rage over the kitchen knives he just sharpened being dumped into a pile of dirty pots and pans in the sink.
My dad and subsequent work in restaurants taught me that. Clean as you go so you have room to work, avoid cross-contamination, and don’t have to spend an hour cleaning your kitchen when you’ve finished.
Why spend an hour cleaning when you’re done when you could push it and do three hours of cleaning in a year? You suck at procrastinating.
You can always play the chicken of filth tolerance with whoever you live with, if you live with anyone else. I generally lose at that game every time, which is why I do most of the house work.
You also often get the person ‘stuck’ doing the cleaning bitching about the other people never helping.
I never go to bed with dirty dishes in the sink, unless its a cookpot that needs to soak.
Mrs. Dean does the cooking, and yes, I wash as she goes. After nearly amputating a finger on a freshly sharpened kitchen knife that was in the sink, she has learned not to put the damn knives in the damn sink. Not for the right reason, but I’ll take what I can get.
Dude, when I’m out and about and I’ve got BBQ on the go, I don’t have a pile of silverware lying about. That is my go-spork.
I just have to smile at the thought of a go-spork.
“No time to wait. Grab the spork and GO!”
My favorite stripper has given me both a titanium spork AND a titanium hip flask.
Truth is, most of my silverware is clean, and sits in the drawer. I have one active set of utensils that rotates between plate, sink, and dish drain. I do own an absurd amount of silverware, and after Rhywun’s response I realized the joke didn’t really work.
A spork, like many things that try to do two things at once, merely fails twice.
I hate those sporks that melt at only 1,000 degrees C, such a nuisance.
I feel like I’m being preached at.
I’ll just keep my fancy Podstakannik and crystal teacups and pine for an earlier style of decor. Victorian, Art Deco, Baroque, I don’t care, but I want it to have plenty of shelves filled with my collections of things.
Take a picture of your little action figures, then throw ’em out.
It’s the woodchipper for you.
This is why we can’t have nice stuff…
Commodius was “nice stuff”?
The OCD declutterer in me adores this article. The just-in-caser in me sighs at the futility of it all.
You can have my unnecessary tools in my garage over my dead body.
Although I’d happily donate the three sets of fine china my wife has accumulated.
Yeah…I like nice china in that I can appreciate it, but you can’t use it all the time so it just sits there, and then when you do use it you’re worried about chipping it. Too much trouble. And I say that as someone who spends an hour per pair polishing shoes.
Nothing like the tool you only rarely need, but when you need it – you need it!
For example this weekend I was wiring an electrical outlet with 6/3 Romex – nothing in my standard electric bag will cut that. But I do happen to own a pair of bolt cutters. Worked like a champ! Absent the cutters I guess I’d have been using a hack saw…
The garage doesn’t count.
My wife has a tendency towards hoarding and I was raised by Depression-era grandparents for much of my early childhood, so there’s a pretty wide swath of grey area between our current conditions and minimalism. I try to do a test:
1. Have I used this in the past year and do I see myself using it again?
2. Is the cost to replace this less than the value gained from having the space back?
3. Is this something of genuine sentimental value?
4. Does keeping this represent an opportunity cost?
If the answer to those questions is “no”, I toss it. The fourth one is kind of the tie-breaker. There’s stuff that I’m on the fence about, so if it’s not really bothering anything where it is and I don’t need the space, I’ll keep it. This process hasn’t gotten us to a total absence of clutter, but it’s kept the place from turning into a reality TV show.
That’s a good set of questions
I mean, I’ve definitely been bitten by throwing something away, usually a tool or a cord, thinking, “When am I ever gonna use this again?” only to find that the answer was the following week, but largely I find I don’t wind up replacing stuff as often as I fear. Also, I’ve tried to get into the mindset of valuing my own time, as in putting a price on it, and viewed that way if a “perfectly good” old chair that I’ll fix one day when I get around to it is making me spend twenty minutes every time I have to find something in my shed, it’s costing me money.
“3. Is this something of genuine sentimental value?”
This is one of at least 3 pathologies that can lead to hoarding. A hoarder will attach sentimental value to anything and everything.
Another one, believe it or not, is a form of perfectionism. A hoarder is afraid of making an imperfect decision, so they keep everything. This most common in people with an austere upbringing.
The third: some people are just disorganized slobs, and aren’t bothered by living in their own filth.
I only like to collect useless things.
Great write up Trials.
The wife and I have threatened this a few times. We do make a effort to go through our stuff and get rid of things that haven’t been touched in a long time. I wouldn’t call ourselves minimalist though. We still have way to much stuff to be in that category.
So what i get from this is skip making expensive home bar furniture and just keep the scotch bottle on the floor or a cheap table.
I just threw out an old TV that was sitting in my bedroom for six years without my ever having plugged it in. The stand was a cheap piece-of-crap 2-shelf bookcase I got at Home Depot a decade ago, and I couldn’t figure out what to do with it (it was also holding a bunch of clothes I never wear). Now it’s in my dining room and supporting a bunch of liquor.
It’s paper that drives me berserk.
My wife has a near fatal obsession with retaining useless paper. Every holiday card, every post-it, every marked up calendar, every homeschool aid, etc…
My parents kept telling me to print every utility invoice i get by mail just in case
Yeah, what to keep for records and what to toss leads to a lot of clutter for me.
I take the approach of scanning it into a searchable cloud account and shredding it.
But how long is the appropriate amount of time to keep holiday cards?
Long enough to make sure there are no cash or checks inside, then you can shred them.
“Long enough to make sure there are no cash or checks inside, then you can shred them.“
Haha that’s how I feel
I have a hard time throwing gifts away, including cards, unless they’re obviously bullshit. Like a really hard time. It feels like I’m somehow performing some kind of sympathetic black magic against the person, or I picture them seeing me throw their gift away and being hurt by it. It’s up in the top three of my most irrational traits.
Make a ritual sacrifice out of it to honor them. Takes the sting away.
Dude, no lie, I honestly say a couple of words first, and then I burn them in the fireplace or something, anything other than just dumping them in the garbage. My wife makes fun of me for it, because it’s the only instance where I keep stuff she’d happily throw away.
I have a hard time throwing gifts away, including cards, unless they’re obviously bullshit.
Same here. They have instant sentimental value. I very, very rarely get rid of a gift regardless of whether I even like it, much less use it.
Good. All this message string means I’m not the only one.
This x 1000.
And stuffed animals. I cannot tell you how hard it was to throw away a teddy bear that an ex-gf had given me, even though I didn’t like the ex and it wasn’t a very nice bear.
I managed to do it after six years of breaking up with her.
Although it is so very easy to accumulate crap and i am not particularly consumerist. But i have some old stuff that i never use but keep thinking maybe one day. I heard of the tactic put some stuff in boxes in the attic and if ypu don’t open for 3 years throw away without looking inside
If I have a box I haven’t opened in three years, the typical result of me opening it is the exclaimation, “Oh, that’s where that is! I’ve been looking for that.”
+1 first edition Monster Manual
Oh, I think I know where that is. It’s in the bottom box just to the side of the door in the front room.
I do that when I move. I have probably 8 boxes of stuff I haven’t touched in years. Unfortunately the containers are plastic moving bins so I’ll have to open them up and see what’s inside before tossing the contents.
Second, only I have about 14. Gotta check my storage locker.
Throw them away without looking inside. It will set you free.
But I want to keep the bins.
Is it okay to slip a monty python reference into a noncomedic fantasy story? The conversation as drafted:
It feels too modern, though maybe not because of the Monty Python reference. You didn’t even use ‘Thou’ once!
I always have some questions when I get a response like that.
What is the correct amount of modernity? If being too modern is a problem, why is it thus?
That’s a great question. I think it just sounds like modern casual. The parlance feels of our time, and not some other time / place / world. It could also be that I was primed to say that since you tipped your hand about the MP reference.
What’s the correct amount? That’s really your decision. I’m not trying to dodge. You’ve presumably got a whole world / setting in mind, so it’s whatever you’re comfortable with in that context.
From my point of view, I guess lately it feels like it’s hard to find a story that answers ‘what do they eat?’ and even harder to find one that answers ‘How do the factors of their culture & history influence their thought process / language / relationships?’
Is being to modern a problem? I think it depends. Sometimes it’s just easier to not worry about it if your story is about something else, but for my two cents, reading a fantasy novel about a made up world should create a feeling of exploration through the cultures and locales. Furthermore, a modern, casual tone can create a feeling of displacement. For good examples of this, read anything written by a millenial hack, particularly video games (ME Andromeda comes to mind from what I’ve seen).
“What do they eat?” is a question that does get answered a number of times in these books. Usually, though, since the narrator is first-person, it’s when the meal is out of the ordinary. Culture and history are addressed, but in the book, the narrator’s own language (which would be closer to some quasi-medieval german) is represented by modern English.
I have a sneaking suspicion your feelings of displacement are not from the language, but because the writer is a hack. Though I can’t prove it without shoving the whole book in your face.
It could also be because it’s a snippet of a conversation between two characters I have no knowledge of or attachment to.
Or season 6 of Game of Thrones.
I still haven’t finished the fourth season. I’ve made peace with never seeing the end of those books, and consequently, have given up on anything to do with them.
Same goes for Rothfuss. I won’t buy it even if he writes it.
Yep, Rothfuss is why I no longer begin a series* if it isn’t completed first. Luckily I made this rule before I got to GOT so I never started those.
*Fantasy stuff, lotsa cop/detective series can be read out of order so not as big an issue.
I was happy to read that Jim Butcher has apparently gotten his mojo back and is deep into Peace Talks (up to chapter 50)
Yep, Rothfuss is why I no longer begin a series* if it isn’t completed first.
Same here. Plus, I didn’t seem to use to have a problem picking up a story a year later, but now I’m all “Who the fuck is that?” and “Where’s so-and-so? Oh, I guess in a totally different universe.”
Harry Turtledove’s World War series is why I have that rule. Then violated it for GOT.
I know the situation on the ground change, but that asshole basically promised, when the first book came out, that the whole series was already written. Surprisingly, he was full of shit.
He’s also the reason I don’t do that. There are so many good series I haven’t read yet, that are done, that I don’t see a reason to waste money gambling on Rothfuss, Martin, etc.
Brandon Sanderson is the exception. That dude writes in his sleep. Mark Lawrence too I’d say.
I finally remembered book 3 of Sanderson’s Way of Kings is out (for awhile now), and realized I barely remember the previous two entries. So I’ve been rereading the first one. I might have to give it up though, those books are huge. Maybe I’ll just wait until he finishes them all then read them in one fell swoop.
I enjoyed the first two (and only) books, but goddamn that character is such a Marty Stu. “I totes fucked a sex goddess into submission lol”
Not to mention that whole “a connection goes both way” eureka moment.
Agreed! The only thing that really saves the character is that he tells you in the beginning he’s just a dirty, lying gypsy, and you shouldn’t believe his stories are particularly accurate. It’s the whole unreliable narrator thing.
He’s not necessarily factually correct, but you can bet he’s morally correct.
large tracts of land
I laughed. And for a noncomedic fantasy story, that exchange is pretty amusing.
Thank you. The whole purpose of the scene this conversation was put in was for pacing. There needed to be filler between the narrator buying up debts of another character and the scene where he informs the debtor. It also sets up the fact that the narrator is working with toxic plants so he can be accused of poisoning someone later and have it be harder to disprove.
But since I didn’t know anything about Annika beyond “she’s the younger sister of the narrator” I had to start building her character.
The plunger in my bathroom does not bring me joy and I only keep it around “just in case” doesn’t mean I am about to get rid of it.
In fact there are pretty much no material possessions I can think of outside of my computer and television that bring me joy and even in those cases it is not the object itself that brings the joy but the media they facilitate access to. The bed I sleep in the sofa I sit on, the pots and pans I cook with do not bring me joy, they range between necessary and really helpful tools to facilitate the necessities of life.
I am sure a longer and more indepth examination of minimalism will go into more detail about things which are useful and borderline necessary but do not bring joy in and of themselves still being worth keeping but the whole “I only keep things which bring me joy” line has always bothered me because it reeks of head in the clouds brainless Utopian progressive anti materialism.
I don’t know, that plunger brings me a literal shit-ton of joy when I need it in an emergency.
I understand that the joy thing can hit you the wrong way. Minimalism does attract this broad spectrum of people from preppers to progs to apolitical people that just need a system to keep their spending in check. Liberals, conservatives, libertarians, and socialists can all pull stuff from minimalism that they really like. Ditto various religious folks see messaging they want to see.
I did add later that possessions need utility as well
Yeah, I’ve been poor. Actually if you removed all of my books and magazines our house would look pretty empty.
Magazines? Go on…
So it’s still ok for me to buy this even if my gf objects?
Get two just to be safe
Cause she’ll want to use yours all the time if you don’t.
-1 order of fries
seeing as how it’s the “EX-series” i’m guessing you have to wait to breakup before you can afford it.
And only then if you’re the party recieving alimony.
No. It’s my preference over the other models for a variety of reasons.
(But it would be WAY more affordable without her around…)
We have two old tower pcs that haven’t been plugged in since we moved almost 7 years ago. I suppose we could do something about those…
They’re both really nice towers though.
E-bay
Media centers, MAME cabinet, or gut the contents (especially at 7 years or so old) and rebuild new PC’s in them.
^This. If they’re full towers you could fit pretty much anything you can imagine in them, component-wise.
The one is a full size Chieftec. It’s almost an end table.
Wow, that sucker’s a monster. A buddy of mine runs IT support for the state courts and he got a couple of ancient server cases. He hooked the radiator from his old Saturn up to one and ran cooling through it. He used the CD-ROM drive as a drink holder as a gag.
#metoo
A different perspective from Brett McKay of Art of Manliness.
https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/the-problem-with-minimalism/
I agree somewhat with that. I noticed in Romania after comunism people hoarded stuff because they were so used to not finding things they needed that when they did they would overbuy
My parents are children of the Great Depression. They would almost never get rid of things. Basically the same sort of mentality. Of course now that my mom is gone and my dad is on his way out now I and my sister have to clear everything out. Not looking forward to that.
Basically I think the idea is the concept of enough. You need to figure out how much you need which may not be a complete minimalist but probably less than you think.
My parents are children of the Clutch Plague.
That had me confused for a minute.
+1 Strange Cousins from the West
+10000 unstoppable Watts
I’m a big proponent of everything having a purpose, even if the purpose is that you think it looks nice. I think that tends to put you in a “moderate minimalism” kind of space. There are things I own that only bring me joy in the sense that I feel more secure having them on hand for emergencies, and things I have in duplicate because having a backup is important.
We do a pretty good job of keeping the clutter to a minimum, but I don’t think we could be called minimalists. My hardest exercise was gutting the garage and getting rid of a ton of stuff, including extra tools, Scruffy!
I think that I will become increasing minimalist as I get older. Too much stuff to take care of is starting to get on my nerves.
Thought-provoking article, T&T. Thanks!
including extra tools, Scruffy
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
*clutches chest, gasps for air*
Dude. I had five miter saws.
Okay, that might be a bit excessive.
Well if you ran a haberdashery for clerics…
+1 Sticks to Snakes
Makes sense. Otherwise, you’d have to change the blade for different jobs.
Sadly, I only have 2.
I’m down to one. But it’s a Festool!
*drool*
I’ve never been willing to pop for that one. Tracksaw, sanders, even the routers, but not the miter saw.
It’s nice. I got a special industry deal years ago. It’s wonderfully light and accurate.
It never gets loaned out, though.
My biggest form of useless crap are props I collect for films I plan to make and never get around to. But that plastic bin full of severed arms and legs makes a great conversation piece.
Second, minus plastic bin of limbs.
Thirded, minus the part where I let anyone see my plastic bin full of severed arms and legs or the movies I make with them.
the risk of digitizing all those precious photos is a hard drive failure. and the ports on external drives can break. and by the time your grandkids get around to checking out your cherished memories, the tech is obsolete and they have no way of accessing the files (i’m looking at you, Firewire).
+1 digital dark age
+1 bit rot
Not to worry, by then Amazon will have vacuumed it all up into their no-longer-voluntary cloud-based service for you. They’ll monetize your loved ones’ pictures on mugs and prayer candles for you.
Have 2 backups, one off-site.
My dad and I have a reciprocal storage agreement.
You can still find PCIe Firewire adapters. Also, the actual hard disks inside those cases will use a different interface with a bridge to the plug’n’play connection in the case. Crack the case open, retrieve the disk, plug it into a SATA port (unless it’s really ancient, in which case you might need an IDE adapter), copy the files to another device.
+1 fool in 1997 “I’m moving all my precious memories and important documents to Zip Drive!”
+1 thread fail
One of the more appropriate thread fails, though.
My wife has a latent tendency of adopting minimalism. It most commonly reveals itself moments before we’re expecting company over and typically tends to focus on things belonging to me. It drives me nuts. Once she actually donated two shirts and a pair of pants that still had the tags on them because I wasn’t quick enough in getting them hung up in the closet. Despite all of this, her own clutter is completely invisible to her.
I don’t have kids of my own and thus probably shouldn’t have an opinion, but I’m still not sure how I feel about this. When I was young my mother and I had the exact opposite relationship. She insisted on keeping every single piece of my work, and I tended to periodically disown it out of embarrassment. I basically would hit an epoch where I found my past self to be dreadful and would try to destroy any evidence of it. In hindsight I wish I would have been smarter about it, because being able to revisit my early periods of artistic development would be priceless to me right now. This was before things could have easily been photographed or scanned as they are now, but even that wouldn’t quite compare to the tactile feedback you get from holding something you created decades ago. I don’t think it is remotely feasible to save every bit of art, especially from a kid with prodigious output, but after a certain age you should definitely hang onto at least some of the things.
I have a laminated Valentine’s Day card on my fridge. It’s a picture of my daughter, plus some fingerpaint hearts and a poem her teacher wrote for her. If someone even suggested throwing it away I’d commit a felony.
Yeah, my mom and my aunt are in the ‘giving back all the drawings and art’ they kept stage, makes for some good reminiscing.
CPRM – OT, but what camera do you have? You also use Sony Vegas Pro, correct?
I use Canon Hv40 cameras, old tape technology but still look good. And yeah Vegas, though I haven’t spent the money on the pro, I am poor after all.
Sorry, hit Rply too soon. Do you know if Catalyst is a good photo editor.
Also does Vegas do green screen?
Yes Vegas does chroma key. I don’t know nuffin bout no catalyst
CPRM – thx
OT:
https://www.businessinsider.com/ups-first-revenue-generating-drone-delivery-with-matternet-2019-3
Moving medical samples around WakeMed Raleigh’s sprawling medical campus can sometimes take up to 30 minutes in traffic. That can be challenging when the material being moved is life-saving specimen like blood or organ samples.
But today, that commute has been cut to three minutes and 15 seconds — thanks to drone delivery.
UPS, in collaboration with drone technology company Matternet, made its first revenue-generating delivery of medical samples at WakeMed Raleigh on Tuesday. The Federal Aviation Administration and North Carolina Department of Transportation provided oversight.
Hey, good NC news!
Regarding Smollet — what an opportune moment for a pair of white dudes to smash the actor into the ground. Then he can cry wolf again.
Zucker on the defensive:
Of course, they do have these people they call investigative journalists. Pretty sure CNN put together an entire group of supposedly prestigious investigative journalists and had to fire a couple of them for their Trumputin reporting.
“We are not investigators. We are journalists,
So they just reprint press releases?
Funny, I’ve always been led to believe the two were the same, most often by CNN and the New York Times. Some other outlet, too, something about “Democracy Dies in Darkness”, I think. My fault, I should’ve realized that they were all pretty much just human RSS feeds.
the facts as we know them
hi-fucking-larious. Well this is all I know so I’m gonna throw it out there as the truth.
that’s a costly practice in publishing.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/mar/24/cnn-defends-covington-catholic-coverage-after-nick/
about $275M costly.
Not to worry, Zuck, in another couple years Trump will be out of office again and your staff can go back to being DNC mouthpieces.
the word he’s looking for is “stenographer”.
We are not investigators. We are journalists, and our role is to report the facts as we know them
Wow. Without doing one bit of investigation, how do you acquire your knowledge of the facts you report?
A sitting president’s own Justice Department
Actually, that “investigation” started with the previous President, and the continuation of it was placed beyond Trump’s oversight.
it’s unprecedented
So true. You might want to think about that just a little more.
Pk back to bed for me.
Thanks to everyone for reading. My wife did her best to help with editing, but I am still a terrible, dry writer.
Not sure how I messed up the links within the essay, but the Tom woods episode is the only link not covered in the Further Reading Section
https://tomwoods.com/ep-775-minimalism-liberate-yourself-and-live-a-more-meaningful-life-with-less-stuff/
No way, I thought it was a good read. Straightforward and to the point.
One might even say, minimalist.
I live in a mid-century bi-level with almost zero storage space and no basement. It forces one to be a non-hoarder and to be very careful about buying furniture. Even my beloved record collection has to be pared down every once in a while so I can continue to buy new albums. And my exercise gear is in the garage since there is no other place to put it. Looking forward to adding an extension so I can finally have a tv room and/or warmer location to lift weights in.
In college I also learned about the futility of owning “things” when my apartment was burned down because of the idiot neighbor living below. It was sparse “zen” living after that.
That’s going to make the audio hobby a bit challenging. That’s why I opted to explore headphones and related audio recently. No room!
I already sold my ~130 pounds ea UREI 813A speakers with the two 15″ drivers each – too damn big. And tube monoblocks are out of the question since I don’t have any place to put them. So yeah… I don’t have any room for a second system either or much room to store back up gear or parts.
Too bad.
Unsurprisingly, Jonathan Chait doesn’t really get how this all works
Jonathan Chait
✔
@jonathanchait
If you refuse to cooperate with the investigation, you can’t claim you were cleared. That’s how obstruction of justice works. http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/03/if-trump-obstructed-justice-he-cant-be-exonerated.html …
1,011
6:23 PM – Mar 24, 2019
Twitter Ads info and privacy
If Trump Obstructed Justice, He Can’t Be Exonerated
Trump’s criminal collusion and his obstruction are linked – but in the opposite of the way William Barr says.
nymag.com
Nevermind the stupidity of the claim… how, specifically, did Trump refuse to cooperate?
I didn’t bother reading it because, well, Chait, but I’m sure it’s because he wouldn’t do an interview with Mueller.
Told Mueller to submit any questions in writing to his lawyer. Which proves he’s more intelligent than all those morons who got obstruction charges.
People who do that without immunity are fools of the first order. Just ask Mike Flynn.
Mr. Chait. May I introduce you to Prof. James Duane who will explain to you why you have your head up your ass.
Made my son watch that video over the weekend.
Just keep your trap shut.
They are basically saying that Trump could only get away without being indicted by obstructing justice. And he obstructed it so bigly they couldn’t even prove he obstructed it! Its obstruction all the way down!
See, also, the logical fallacy of assuming the conclusion.
That’s how obstruction of justice works.
Err, no. That’s how the Bill of Rights and due process works.
how, specifically, did Trump refuse to cooperate?
He didn’t sign, unread, a confession written by Mueller.
Oh, and Rahm’s fired up now
“White wash”?? RACIST
I guess Jussie is white now. End white privilege now.
1. Got to keep the police union happy.
2. Is Smollett really influential politically, or is he just a gay black dude who staged a hoax crime that fit the preferred narrative of people who actually have political influence? You don’t even need it yourself – you just need to please those that do.
He got a lawyer with political influence, is my guess.
He apparently has some kind of ties to Tina Tschen, Michelle O’s former chief of staff, who lobbied Foxx on his behalf.
Yup.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-kim-foxx-texts-emails-jussie-smollett-20190313-htmlstory.html
In fairness, this isn’t the first time the CDP has been completely fucked over during the Emanuel administration. This case achieved notoriety simply because of how utterly preposterous the allegations were. The cops had a choice of dedicating tons of resources to investigating (see: WHY ARE THEY WASTING TIME ON THIS WHILE KIDS ARE BEING GUNNED DOWN EVERY DAY) or quietly filing it away (see: A BLACK MAN WAS VIOLENTLY ASSAULTED IN DOWNTOWN CHICAGO AND THE POLICE ARE DOING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING). In the wake of Rahm conveniently withholding the McDonald / Van Dyke video until after a hotly contested election I can’t see what they possibly could have done to come out looking good in this situation either. I’m no cop apologist, but I kind of feel bad for them.
*CPD
A friend of Rahm’s wife (who served as Michelle Obama’s chief of staff) was texting Foxx early in the investigation to get the CPD to stop the investigation, which led the brass to start leaking to the media (according to the Chicago Tribune which filed a FOIA to access those text exchanges).
Rahm is pretending like he’s upset, when he already knew how this was going to go down. Eddie Johnson is the guy who is really fucked. He’s going to lose complete support from the beat cops.
Let the leaking begin
Johnson got screwed… royally.
Rafer Weigel
Verified account
@RaferWeigel
The State’s attorney’s office is saying the decision to drop the charges against #JussieSmollett did not come from Kim Foxx as she recused herself. No one that’s close to the case that I’ve talked to outside of #Smollett’s legal team believes that.
So now it becomes a question of whether Foxx can get some flunky prosecutor to fall on a sword to protect her.
Prediction: We all forget about this in a week. They know this will go away and if the feds press it then the headlines in the national media will read “Trump Administration Goes After Chicago States Attorney and Jussie Smollett” and “Experts Say President Is Being Vindictive”
“Adding it sends the clear message that for those who have political influence a different code of justice exists for them.”
The message was sent loud and clear from 2009-2016, Rahm.
The message has always been there. Rahm is a dumb shit playing coy. Are we to pretend like this doesn’t happen every single day in the City? How else can anyone excuse the cop not originally being charged in the Laquan McDonald shooting?
I didn’t hear any bitching from the cops I know after they guy got sent up. I didn’t ask either. But I could sense their relief that they no longer had to cover for a shitbird that made their jobs harder.
Kim Foxx really shit the bed here. The cops are simply never going to cooperate with her office as long as she’s there. Get ready for Fallujah on the lake.
it sends the clear message that for those who have political influence a different code of justice exists for them
For a Dem crony and Chicago pol to say this is an outrage is, well, amusing.
Holy Shit (TW TOS)
Methinks there might be some tarring and feathering coming.
Curious to see the amount of money spent on this entire investigation. I have this crazy suspicion that $10k isn’t going to cover it.
There may be something to the argument that it wasn’t worth the city’s time and money to pursue given that Smollett would definitely put up a legal battle, but FFS, this should have been a slam dunk of a prosecution.
Time to build a wall around Chicago.
HEY
Get out while you can.
It’s to keep all of us outsider midwestern people out. Not to keep you in. Well, not you exactly…
BUILD THE WALL
BUILD THE WALL
BUILD THE WALL
(TW TOS)
The quality of troll over there has taken a big hit.
Aren’t federal charges likely to be pending?
For the mail stuff I mean.
One can only hope that Justice crucifies the fucker for sending extortion letters through the US Mail.
I thought the 16 felonies (or whatever it was) was a bit much but buying your way out with 100 grand goes too far in the opposite direction for me. Hopefully he gets something.
I could have lived with an Alford Plea, time served, and a fine. As long as the fucker has to stand in court when the guilty verdict is read.
He just has to give up the bond, not the whole bail amount – 16 felonies dropped for a mere $10,000
Someone tell Roger Stone.
Ah, R C Dean pointed out on the prior posting it’s the whole bond, so $100,000 – the bail bondsman isn’t going to quietly just eat it, so Smollet will have to pay him back.
And as I pointed out Illinois has no commercial (aka private) bail bonds.
What’s the implication of that?
He’s out 10K.
Just reading up:
https://stuckinjail.com/article-post-bail-illinois-5-things-know
I remain a bit confused – what’s the difference between 10% of 100k for a D-bond vs. just $10k for a C-bond?
Is it that you end up owing the state another $90k if you don’t appear in court?
Oh, and per that site: If a D-bond has been ordered, the defendant will pay 10 percent of the bail amount to the Circuit Court and that amount will be retained for administrative costs.
Sounds like they were going to keep that $10k regardless.
slum – its the amount of the total bail. With a C-bond, you have to post cash in the full amount. With a D-bond, you only post 10%, but if you forfeit the full 100% is owed.
Either way, I think Smollett owes the full amount of his bail, even if he only posted 10% under a D-bond.
If he “forfeited” a $100K bond, then he should be out $100K, even if he only posted 10% in a D-bond. Of course, given how rotten the whole deal is, its possible that they aren’t really going to collect the full amount.
Sounds like they were going to keep that $10k regardless.
Just like a commercial bail bond, only Chicago cuts out the middleman. With a commercial bail bond, you pay the bail bondsman 10%, and he’s on the hook for the full amount if you don’t show. He keeps the 10% even if you show.
He showed up to every court appearance so he’s not liable for the other 90%.
You have to realize the way it used to work in Illinois:
Judge O’Banion: I am setting your bail at $100,000. You are free to leave if you post a D-Bond.
Mrs. O’Leary: I don’t have $100,000 your honor.
Judge O’Banion: My cousin’s bail bond company has a representative seated ten feet from you. I’m sure he can work something out with you.
Mrs. O’Leary: Bless you, your honor!
Judge O’Banion: My pleasure. Nice doing business with you!
He showed up to every court appearance so he’s not liable for the other 90%.
I don’t know what she meant by “forfeited”. Since he showed up for every court appearance, he shouldn’t owe anything. It would be odd to say he forfeited the 10% posted for the D-bond, since there was no way he was ever going to get that back. Typically, you only forfeit something you still have a right to.
Has anybody actually said what he “forfeited”? I mean, even the $100K would be a hell of a deal, but the whole thing is so rotten, who knows?
This.
Thinking about it for a minute, this makes sense.
Foxx and Tchen could possibly be in deep legal shit for the texts during the investigation. Foxx’s only way out is to try and bury it by cutting a deal early, prior to a court battle.
Foxx is…. not smart.
The only thing that could have saved her was taking this to a jury.
Now, the feds have the texts and the sweetheart deal to work with.
Iowahawk said it best:
Anybody who had Jussie Smollet walking and his attorney going to prison, step forward to collect your prize
Hitler Reacts to the Mueller Report:
https://www.captiongenerator.com/1337712/Hitler-Reacts-to-the-Mueller-Report?fbclid=IwAR2CEojU9L2ONqSUyYFqM1qoyfbReSud0UEqdY95Q3NinzZf677RjgyHSbM%22
A fortune cookie has more damning information. lol
There are some real gems here.
There are some real gems here.
That’s why I posted it.
Not exactly what I expected.
I did like AOC making Dan Quayle look like the president of MENSA. Nice touch.
I liked “We have mass shootings on our side!”
“we can sue for his tax records. it’s not a law. more of a tradition like pardoning the turkey. that will get us through the next two years.” — roughly from memory.
“Don’t worry the future is female”
Pocahontas, whatever her name is
I laughed.
Good for some laughs, but they wimped out right in the beginning; “Sir”, instead of “My Fuhrer”, weak.
Still, Hitler being the voice of the democratic party was enjoyable.
Oh absolutely!
NatSoc, DemSoc, potayto, potahto.
Actually, I am going to start referring to the soi-disant “Democratic Socialists” as “National Socialists” from here on out, just for funsies.
So many strawmen, so little time.
https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2019/03/25/39717444/jordan-petersons-idea-of-cultural-marxism-is-totally-intellectually-empty
Come for the Person criticism, stay for the Marxist apologia.
Peterson argues, with little or no real intellectual force (but with the passion of a bulldog focused on the hopping and acrobatic happenings of a squirrel beyond its reach), that in a cultural mode, classical Marxism (poor man versus rich man) became the postmodernism (effete intellectual versus Joe Sixpack) disseminated by an exchange between elite US universities and French intellectuals in the 1970s. And so Marxism, which saw the subjects of history as labor and capitalists, morphed into a program that pushed Peterson’s bête noire: identity politics. I have more to say about this, but, I, unlike Peterson, will make real demands on my readers.
Rule 37: More than one parenthetical in a sentence means you don’t even believe your own bullshit.
I like nested parentheticals (some of the time (though it can get a little annoying closing them all (like now(?)) (nope, got ’em all(like Pokemon!))) but I understand that most people don’t like them.
“The project of capitalism is, one, extremely brutal, as attested by Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness, and the real-world history (the 19th century Congo) it’s based on.”
Someone didn’t read Heart of Darkness
“And this is not to mention the massive human catastrophe of American slavery, which was a capitalist project.”
That makes no sense. In what way was slavery, which had existed since ancient Egypt, a “capitalist project”?
“For Piketty, it misrepresents what capital actual is, whereas a description of American slavery would represent it precisely: these humans were valued in exactly the same way you value a house or a financial asset—in short, as capital. And how much of this dead capital was tossed into the sea during its shipment across the Atlantic? This was capitalism. And so was the potato famine.”
The Irish Potato famine was literally the opposite of “capitalism”. The potato famine was exacerbated by the Corn Laws (which were stridently opposed by free market advocates) and by Malthus’ idiotic notion about “peak population”.
Well, slaves were essentially capital assets, that is, productive property. Of course, slavery was by no means a capitalist undertaking, in the sense that it was unique to capitalism. And, if capitalism is properly understood as the free market in goods and services, including capital, then slavery is profoundly incompatible with capitalism, and is better understood as an unfortunate and temporary holdover from pre-capitalist/free market economies.
Dude. You write for the online version of a free alt-weekly. You weren’t good enough to pad out the page count before the hooker ads.
“the stranger” is when you fall asleep on your arm and then use that numb appendage to *ahem* stimulate another appendage when you wakeup in the morning.
Wait, are we saying that’s not true? It seems pretty obviously true.
Hey T&T, great article.
Wish I’d figured this out years ago. If I could go back to my 24-year-old self I’d tell me “Don’t buy shit and if you do throw it away if you don’t use it often in the first year.”
What I didn’t realize is that the cost of HAVING something can be greater than the cost of just buying something.
For the dead enders out there who think that if you don’t believe Trump colluded with Russia you’re obviously a MAGA person, here are two Russian assets (I. WANT. TO. BELIEVE.) discussing the farce of Russia Fever Dreams.
Michael Tracey interviews Tulsi Gabbard
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPq5Qp5mlc0&feature=youtu.be
The thing is, I suspect they could have actually gotten one of their failed stings to work if they had offered something of real value to the Trump campaign. Basically, their operatives said “Oh, ve haf dirt on Hillary.” Who the fuck doesn’t? Her record is basically compressed dirt. I mean the whole thing, from the Steele dossier to the attempted stings, was just complete amateur hour.
Probably. But, the basis for the actual investigation that occurred was exceptionally flimsy. The Steele dossier was created because they had nothing to the accusations and then that was used as the basis for FISA warrants
it was Tyler Durden in Fight Club who said don’t let the stuff you own own you.
Larry Joe Taylor mentioned it too
OT: Okay, it’s a bit away, but I’m trying to redo SNP as a video series. One (admittedly odd) difficulty I’m having is the name of the male host. With the advent of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, I wonder if I should change his name from Cortez Cortez, as I think people will take it as a poke against her. I came up with that name years prior to hearing of that douchebag, and I’d like my pokes against her to be wittier than that.
If you could give me your thoughts, I’d appreciate it.
I forget exactly what he looked like…should it need to be a hispanic/latino name?
Whoa…only 6 hours late.