Full Circle Magazine FR

The black, featureless background is broken only by the repetitive blinking of the amber-colored cursor. Its rhythmic pulsing reminds that I need to press a multitude of keys on the keyboard to make these words appear. Aside from a small line of text below, informing me of how many lines, words and characters I have produced, there are no other options to select, no notifications, suggestions or other distractions. By modern day standards, this application lacks a massive number of features. No markup menu, word suggestions, contextual menus, or share buttons. Just amber words on a black background. Yet this is one of the most productive pieces of software on my computer: it lets me write these very articles. The computer I am running this application on is equally “underpowered” by todays norm, also underpriced! My Raspberry Pi computer with its hilariously low amount of memory, CPU power and storage is possibly less powerful than the smartphone in my pocket, yet I've chosen to make it my machine of choice? Why?

Le fond noir, lisse, n'est interrompu que par le clignotement répétitif du curseur de couleur ambre. Ces pulsations rythmiques me rappellent que je dois appuyer sur une multitude de touches sur le clavier pour faire apparaître ces mots. Outre une petite ligne de texte en dessous, m'indiquant le nombre de lignes, de mots et de caractères produits, il n'y a pas d'autres options à choisir, pas de notifications, de suggestions ou autres distractions.

Selon les normes d'aujourd'hui, il manque à cette applications de très, très nombreuses fonctionnalités. Il n'y a ni « markup menu », ni suggestions de mots, ni menus contextuels, ni boutons « partager ». Il n'y a que des mots ambres sur fond noir. Et pourtant c'est une des logiciels le plus productifs sur mon ordinateur : il me permet d'écrire ces articles.

L'ordinateur sur lequel le logiciel est lancé manque tout autant de puissance selon la norme actuelle, mais son prix est très bas en conséquence ! Mon ordinateur Raspberry Pi, avec sa quantité ridicule de mémoire vive, la puissance ridicule de son processeur et l'espace ridicule de stockage est peut-être moins puissant que le smartphone dans ma poche, et pourtant, j'ai choisi d'en faire ma machine principale. Pourquoi ?

Well, I have a love-hate relationship with modern-day computers. Their powerful CPUs and elaborate operating systems are the very pinnacle of our digital existence. They come packed with a plethora of options and possibilities that can accommodate our every need. That, however, is also their undoing, in tandem with over-connected applications and services which want to do nothing else than to have you either tweak or tweet whatever you are doing .. to the point where your productivity is reduced to zero. Sometimes it’s just “too much”. That is why I took the plunge and went back to “basics” for a couple of days. Using the Raspberry Pi, with its very moderate capacity, helped me re-think and re-evaluate what I really needed to be productive. The Raspbian operating system isn't packed with a lot of features, just the basics to help you do what you need to get done. There are some applications installed, but, when choosing extra software, you have to keep the limited “power of the pie” in mind. Hence, I started thinking about what applications I needed to be productive, and what the minimal requirements of those applications were.

Il se trouve que j'ai des rapports ambivalents (du type « je t'aime/moi non plus ») avec les ordinateurs modernes. Leurs processeurs puissants et les systèmes d'exploitation élaborés sont au sommet de notre existence numérique. Ils contiennent une pléthore d'options et de possibilités qui peuvent combler tous nos besoins. C'est cela, cependant, qui causera leur perte, couplé avec des applications et des services sur-connectées qui ne veulent rien faire d'autre que vous pousser soit à « tweaker » (ajuster) soit à « tweeter » ce que vous êtes en train de faire… au point où votre productivité est réduit à zéro. Trop, c'est parfois vraiment trop.

So, I need a browser, but does it need to have 5000 extensions? Turns out it doesn't. I need a word processing application, but does it need to have 39 buttons? No, it doesn't. My initial thoughts of having my creativity seriously curtailed by the limited powers of my “simple” environment were wrong. The simplified environment and “simple” applications helped me focus more on what I needed to get done instead of getting distracted by the tools themselves. “Slow computing” has another advantage. It takes my browser a couple of seconds to start up (an eternity compared to my other systems), but this is a great help in the urge to “quickly check Facebook“ and get distracted. I can't have 50 browser tabs open because I don't have the RAM, but that allows me to pay more attention to the one thing I'm researching. In short: “Slow computing” helps me focus. It gives me the time to think about things before I press another hyperlink. It is free from those over-connected distractions, and it keeps me from going down a 45-minute rabbit hole just to find the 'right wallpaper' for my dual-screen desktop. Sure, I'll bounce up against the limitations of the system… and when I do, I still have my other powerful laptop waiting in the wings. But the amount of stuff I “Get Done” before I have to make that move is pretty amazing. Slow computing helps you focus! Try it.