I also have a small TV in my bedroom. It’s not a smart TV, but it did have one of those little smart TV boxes plugged into it. This would be fine if it weren’t for YouTube. YouTube as a platform is one that I’ve had a love/hate relationship with. I have spent literally thousands of hours of my life using it. It has taught me, inspired me, and entertained me, but most of all, distracted me. It’s one of those apps that you delete, but like a cockroach that can’t be squashed always ends up back on your screen. Long story short, I put the smart box thing in my closet and replaced it with my DVD player. That way if I’d like to I can still use the TV in my bedroom to watch movies or TV shows from DVD. It’s just completely free of addictive algorithms and ragebait content. Also full disclosure: I do still have a smart TV in the living room where I do still watch some YouTube. It’s just less accessible and thus less attention grabbing.

The last thing I wanted to mention here is my computer. I haven’t gone full August Lamm or Robin Greenfield yet, and I do still have a computer. This is due to two things:

1. I don’t want to make online purchase like booking flights using my card on public wifi and visible to anyone walking past.
2. I also don’t want to do my banking at the library as well for the same reason.

I know there are other workarounds to this like doing banking in a physical location, and buying airline tickets using a travel agent or by calling the company. I’m just not there yet. I’ve been pretty happy and content with the results so far of dumbing down my life. My computer is also very old and very broken. It only functions right now as a desktop computer, so that’s been nice. I still probably will eventually go completely home computer free though. For now I am experimenting with cold turkey. My idea is to block the entire internet and whitelist only the absolute barebones essentials: banking, email, maps, and travel booking. Essentially turning my computer into an offline device except for extremely minimal usage for these basic websites. I’m thinking of locking this block with only the ability to unlock it at a very inconvenient time, that way if I ever changed my mind about it, I could unlock it by staying up till 2AM or something like that. I haven’t worked out the details yet, but using the computer for just these basic sites makes me feel like I’m living during the time of the old internet when it was really just a tool, and that feels good.

I’ve used three different dumbphones prior to this as an adult, the quality/user experience varied with those. So far the Dumbphone 2 has been extremely solid though. Everything works really well. The buttons are snappy. Texting, calling, Whatsapp, Maps, and 2 factor authentication all work great! The app I was most pleasantly suprrised with was the music player app. I bought a 64gb sim card, and put a couple hundred albums from my Bandcamp collection on it. Along with dozens of podcasts episodes downloaded using https://podcasttomp3.com/. The player works really great. It even saves my spot in a podcast episode, so that I can come back to it later. I was prepared to go without good quality for all of these things, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out they all work great. The only app I have had trouble with so far is Uber, but that’s ok.

The worst part about using a dumbphone is not anything about the phone itself. The worst part about switching to a dumbphone is you notice, how alone you are in this pursuit. I don’t mean to say you can’t be social with a dumbphone. A common concern people have about switching is that they will lose touch with friends or won’t be able to socialize as much. I feel like the opposite is really true. I have so much more time to socialize now, and there’s nothing to do on my phone to distract me from calling or texting a friend. I’ve made more phone calls to friends in the past week or so using my dumbphone than I did in several months using my smart phone, so that’s not what I’m referring to. Once, I switched I realized how few of us there were. August Lamm’s is immensely helpful to feel less alone in this.

I spent the entire day going about the city this past weekend. It felt empowering to know I could travel all over the city and run several errands with just my dumbphone. I live in a big city. I saw hundreds of people throughout the day with hundreds of smartphones. I don’t think I saw a single dumbphone. Even among dumbphone users I feel alone because of how many people use a dumbphone only temporarily while still maintaining a smartphone. I was in this bucket too for many years. Almost no one is taking the plunge and completely selling their smartphone for just a dumbphone. It’s frusterating to see how many people want to, but feel like they can’t. Digital minimalism is really trendy right now. A lot of people are putting screentime blockers on their phones and coming up with strategies like only using certain apps on certain days. A lot of people are frusterated and failing with these half-measures as well. It’s frustrating to watch. The solution feels like it’s right in front of people, and many people even fantasize about it. If you have ever fantasized about getting rid of your smartphone completely, I urge you to just do it. Buy the Dumbphone 2 from dumb.co, and fo to your nearest Apple store (if you have iPhone) and trade in your phone for cash. I did, and it feels great.

Other than August Lamm and Robin Greenfield, I have found one other person online who has gone the hardcore, selling their smartphone route. (I’m positive there are others. They are just anomolies.) Here is his video:

If you missed it, I sold my smartphone a few days ago. The only phone I have now is the dumbphone 2 by dumb.co. It’s still setting in that I won’t have a smartphone again. I’m just not the type of person to make a big purchase on a whim, and I don’t like buying things. Switching back to a smartphone just isn’t something I’d ever have a reason to do, and it’s just so weird having to adjust my mindset to the idea that I don’t have a computer in my pocket always. In the past, I would allow myself to keep my smartphone, but that never really made the switch feel real or final. I always knew there was a backdoor, and I feared I’d go back to it. I also always did.

I go on my computer now just for a few minutes a day. Cold Turkey only allows 1 hour a day of internet use. It’s like being a kid again. If I wanted to change this restriction, I’d have to wait till a specific time during the day to change it. When that time comes around, I’m never thinking about it, and I would only change it if there was something absolutely critical I needed to do which there most likely won’t ever be. Almost everything can wait till tomorrow.

Now, I check my email or RSS feeds for a couple minutes, and close my browser. There’s just not really anything to do on it. It feels good and refreshing to engage with the internet in a normal, non addictive nor manic way. I’ll work on a game I’m writing or something like that, and that’s it. There’s nothing on it that is really screaming at me to scroll forever. YouTube shorts are blocked forever thanks to Cold Turkey. They’ve been blocked for years on my computer, and I’ve never felt the difference. They’re blocked with a password, that I don’t know. In other words, I’d have to completely reset Cold Turkey in order to access YouTube shorts. That will never be worth it. I also deleted my social media accounts years ago, and they don’t let you scroll unless you have an account for the most part. So yeah, I feel like I finally just get to exist. To add onto all of that, my laptop has a busted screen and no battery, so I have converted it into a desktop. Using it someplace other than my desk is basically impossible. It only has 2GB of ram, and can handle pretty much just one task at a time. My large goal with digital minimalism is just to go back to the way the internet and technology used to feel, prior to algorithms and companies stealing our attention. I think I’ve gotten there for the most part with my current setup.

One of the changes, I’ve noticed already and pretty instantly, was the pretty much immediate uptick in my creative impulses. There are so many more small moments in my day, where things are just silent.I’m just listening to my thoughts, and I find myself planning out creative projects or coming up with ideas. I have more thoughts in general because of it! I want to write them down or make things like I used to. It’s only been a couple days, but pretty much everyday, I’ve either read or done something creative like write or draw. I haven’t read or engaged with my creative hobbies in what feels like forever, so that’s really nice. I have been craving some substance like that in my life for a long time. With all of my attention being sucked into endless algorithms, it wasn’t an option before. It finally is though. It feels like I’m coming back to who I used to be before smartphones were so addicting.

It’s surreal. I’ve had a smartphone for years. I’ve had various dumbphone phases. I’ve dumbed down smart phones, and owned at least three dumb phones as an adult. I’ve tried lots of different setups. I never took the full plunge though, and ONLY had a dumbphone. There was always a fear. I got the dumbphone 2 from dumb.co yesterday and spent the day getting my contacts imported, switching my whatsapp account over, and letting friends know, I won’t be texting as much anymore. The phone comes with maps, uber, 2FA, whatsapp, and signal. There really was no reason anymore not to switch.

I had several days to wait before the dumbphone arrived. While I waited, I thought about what I’d do once it arrived. Part of me was going back to the old problem solving tactics, “What if I just keep my smartphone in the storage area downstairs? I’ve never had a storage area before, so I could use this!” or “What if I asked a friend to hold on to it?” While excitedly awaiting my dumbphone in the mail, I watched every video I could find about dumbphones, and life with a dumbphone. There was a common trend with what felt like almost all of them. They never fully got rid of their smartphone. The titles of these videos or articles would always be something like “I ditched my smartphone.” Never, “I sold my smartphone.” It was never fully gone. Almost all of them eventually switched back, after 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, or even after a 1 year break. It was disheartening how few people actually committed to this lifestyle change. It fed my fears, that it really is “impossible”. Afterall, all of these people had to switch back at some point because eventually they encountered a problem that needed a smartphone to overcome. Until, I heard someone mention August Lamm, and her work inspiring their dumbphone journey. I found her site: https://augustlamm.com, and I read everything and listened to every interview I found.

She had done it. She had no smartphone at all. She moved to a new city with no smartphone, and she even got rid of her computer completely. She continued to work, make friends, navigate, and do all of the things responsible adults need to do. With just a dumbphone. She didn’t even have a computer. There was no crutch anymore. It was just existing. That was it. No alternative, digital reality to dip your head in and out of every few minutes. She was permanantely unplugged. This made me realize several things:

1. There is no reason someone “needs” a smartphone.* Her new book is appropriately titled, You Don’t Need a Smartphone

2. Keeping your smartphone somewhere, anywhere is a crutch. It’s just the addiction talking, telling us we still need to have a “way out”. It’s like we’re scared of reality.

3. Not only is keeping your smartphone a crutch, but I think the addictive design of it always leads people to get back on their devices one day eventually. Otherwise, all of these people who switch to dumbphones and talk about loving the experience and prefering it would never switch back. One day, for one reason or another they start their smartphone again, and they’re back to believing they “need” it.

So that’s it. I have no crutch anymore. It hasn’t fully hit yet. I mostly just feel happy. I’m sure it’ll be painfully boring at times, but I’ll do my best to bring a book or something with me everywhere, and savor the realization and knowledge that I am in fact alive. You really don’t need a smartphone. Most folks want to believe they have a special reason they still need to hang on to their smartphone, but it just isn’t true. The “inconvenient” alternatives aren’t impossible. There’s always a workaround. If your bank requires you to have a smartphone. You can bank elsewhere. There’s no reason we need to unconsciously accept every new “improvement” to our lives companies hand us. You can opt out at anytime.

*The only exception I can think of for this might be for someone with a disability, where a smartphone helps them navigate the world. Everything else is usually just a justification because the person just wants to keep using their smartphone at the end of the day.

• My story of learning hindi
• Where I started
• When I started seriously learning hindi
• What I did to learn
• What I plan on doing going forward

I have been acquiring/learning Hindi off and on for years. Sometimes through more traditional methods, and sometimes through just natural immersion. The traditional methods mixed with reading and speaking too early on, set me back in my language learning journey. There was too much concsious learning and practice early on which fucked up my accent and caused me to not have natural native like grammar. That being said, thanks to the natural immersion and comprehensible input that I did do, I did still acquire a good bit of Hindi.

About 1.5 years ago, I decided I wanted to finally take learning Hindi more seriously and hopefully undo the damage I did as well as see actual growth. I was always familiar with Stepehn Krashen’s Input Hypothesis and liked the idea of learning a language through just comprehensible input. The problem was, I didn’t know if it was actually possible nor did I really know what comprehensible input would actually look like. I only fully understand how this theory could be applied successfully once I discovered Automatic Language Growth (ALG) and Dreaming Spanish. They essentially provided the blueprint for me going forward. The Dreaming Spanish roadmap was the perfect roadmap for me to stay on track.

The Dreaming Spanish Roadmap.

Unfortunately, since I wasn’t using ALG from the beginning, I had no idea how many hours of input I had actually done, so I had to guess based on the different level descriptions. After reading through the full description for Level 5 though which I found in this pdf, it seemed to fit me and the level I felt I was at perfectly.

You can understand people well when they speak directly to you. They won’t need to adapt their speech for you. Understanding a conversation between native speakers is still hard. You’ll almost understand TV programs in the language, because you understand so many of the words, but they are still hard enough to leave you frustrated or bored. Conversation can be tiresome, and if you try to speak you can feel a bit like a child, since it will be hard to express abstract concepts and complex thoughts. You understand most of the words used during daily conversation, but you still can’t use many yourself. If you try to speak the language, it will feel like you are missing many important words. However, you can, often, already speak with the correct intonation patterns of the language, without knowing why, and even make a distinction between similar sounds in the language when you say them out loud.

Next, I needed to figure out how many approximate hours of input this meant I had under my belt. Dreaming Spanish says to take the roadmap estimated hours of input and double them if the language you are learning is quite different from your native language. This meant that I had about 1,200 hours of input done already with 800 hours to get to the next level of 2000 (i.e. level 6 out of 7). I started 2025 off with exactly 300 tracked hours. That meant I had 500 more to go if I wanted to hit level 6 out of 7 on the roadmap. It’s January 1st now, just a few minutes after midnight, and I’m happy to say that I did hit 800 tracked hours before the year ended which should put me at approximately 2,000 hours and level 6 out of 7.

I tracked my stats using the iPhone app Habit, but you can also use Loop Habit Tracker for android which I actually prefer.

So what did my method actually look like? Since, I was already at level 5 out of 6 a lot of easier native content was accessible to me. Even the content that was more difficult I would just listen to anyway. I definitely priortized quantity over quality of input. Which I know doesn’t produce the best results, but the way I chose to look at is any results are better than no results. The reason being if I agonized over getting the perfect CI input, and then made sure I was 100% fully paying attention the whole time while listening, I just never would have done any CI input. So that being said, I put on whatever content I could find in the background while living my life, podcasts, youtube videos, shitty romance audiobooks, classic and popular audiobooks (translated into Hindi of course) like 1984 and The Alechemist. I prioritized just creating the habit of listening as opposed to making sure I was doing things in the ideal way. This meant that I would listen to input while doing house chores, commuting, or even while playing video games that don’t require a lot of focus, games without any text or words like simple platformers. Once again, obviously not ideal input, but it works for me. I was immersing in the language.

The biggest gamechanger for me was turning my daily listening goal into an unskippable habit. It was very inconvenient at times, but I made it my rule for awhile that I simply wouldn’t go to bed if I hadn’t completed my listening for the day. My daily goal started out small with just 20 minutes a day, but then I slowly increased this amount more and more until it was eventually 1 hour a day of daily listening. I found that while my larger goals seemed so distant and far away seeing my daily progress was extremely rewarding. It let me go to sleep everyday with a sense of accomplishment. Even if I had a lazy day or felt I didn’t accomplish much I could always point towards this one tiny step of progress towards my larger goals. Additionally, seeing my streak grow everyday had created a positive feedback loop where I would be more motivated to do it everyday. It naturally provided short term goals to shoot for as well. Ultimately I was able to hit a 365 day streak minus one sad little day in the middle where I essentially slept all day.

My one year streak. Each colored in box represents a day where I met my minimum goal (which slowly increased with time).

With all of that being said and done. I am very proud of myself for the growth and consistency I’ve be able to attain in this hobby. I’ve always wanted to be able to have measurable results and really stay consistent with a habit. I plan on continuing to do projects and goals like this. However, I feel like I certainly need a break from listening. It has been good, but it also feels like I wasn’t able to be as present in my life at times as I would have liked. The larger goal for the year felt like a lot and starting off with a small daily goal meant I had to play catchup during the latter part of the year. Going forward I plan on continuing to listen to Hindi in this upcoming year, but certainly not everyday. I think it will be just whenever I feel like it. My main goal is going to be to shift into reading actually as the DS roadmap and ALG recommend reading at these later stages. My goal for the year will be to read 1 million words in Hindi. It might end up needing to be a two year goal, but I’ll see how it goes! Getting into reading has been something I’ve looked forward to for a long time in Hindi, and while 1 million words certainly seems like a lot, I will most likely read the Harry Potter series in Hindi to attain this (If I’m able to). So that’s it. That’s my year in review for learning Hindi as well as how I got to where I am, and where I plan on going. Happy new year!

The only major problem with this is really just the commitment to it. The sudden draining of colors from these devices really is like being plunged into cold waters and looking at YouTube videos or pinterest or whatever feels much less engaging. I have felt the draw many times to “just turn the filter off for this one video on YouTube” or this one game. In the past, I used to do that. This defeats the purpose though, and I would always forget to turn the filter back on. All that to say, commitment is the last step. No matter what just not turning it back on even if it’s inconvenient to not be able to see which text messages are blue or green on iPhone.

This is an update to my initial digital setup which I discussed in an earlier post. I kept that setup for over a year, and it served me well but ultimately had some holes/issues. Having minimal apps and a black and white phone is my new setup.

This is especially true while folks are on lower levels of language listening or if there simply isn’t a lot of choice when it comes to the kind of content folks can start immersing in. Many languages don’t have an abundance of content surrounding whatever topics you’re interested in that is also comprehensible to you. This leads folks to start immersing using whatever content they can find, but pretty soon they feel restless and turn off the content. Playing video games or solo board games even, can be a solution to this.

The trick really is to keep your hands and or body active while still being able to remain present enough to listen to the comprehensible input. The same effect could be accomplished by going on a walk/run, or doing some cleaning while listening to CI. Critics will argue that this will lower the quality of input leading to more input being required to acquire the language. They are not entirely wrong! However, doing things half-assed in this case is better than those things not getting done at all. If folks never enjoy listening to CI they won’t do it, and won’t get any CI listening in.

Some popular examples of video games without a reliance on too many words which you could play while listening to CI would be Super Mario Bros, Minecraft, and Fortnite. However, there are so many games out there that can be played while listening to CI. Itch.io which is a cool platform in its own right for championing creators and having good vibes overall has a search feature which can be helpful for this. The site houses everything from game jams, comics, TTRPGs, and lots and lots of video games. They also have the ability to search by accessbility options. One of those options is “textless” which allows you to search and find games without words! Itch.io is a true treasure trove of interesting and entertaining, indie hidden gems. You can find those textless games here: https://itch.io/games/accessibility-textless.

I have recently enjoyed Slime Rancher, and I even made a collection of games on itch.io which could be played like this. You can find that collection here: https://itch.io/c/6552938/games-without-many-words. I plan on continuing to add to it as time goes on. Hopefully, this provides you something to do to stay engaged while listening to CI.

References:

• Itch.io
• Itch.io’s Textless Accessbility Search
• My collection of games without many words

I wrote an article about how I often write and even publish posts using my phone and Jekyll. Jekyll Now, the specific theme I use, even includes built in support for setting up commenting using Disqus, the most popular blog commenting add on. I began trying to add commenting using Disqus to my blog and was running into issues, I realized after about an hour of troubleshooting that Barry Clark already has Disqus integrated into the theme!

All that’s needed is to setup an account using the Disqus website, and then to input your unique short name into the Disqus global variable in your Jekyll config file. Then just like that, you have comments! Great stuff, truly. Thank you, Barry Clark! If you haven’t already, but are interested in setting up your own blog or site using Jekyll, go star Barry Clark’s, Jekyll Now repository on GitHub, or even better clone it and rename it to your GitHub username + ‘.io’ to have your own blog immediately up and running.

Ecosia is a nonprofit with a search engine that generates income through ads just like other search engines do. Instead of using it to fatten the wallets of those at the top, their profits go to planting trees. It’s as simple as that. They’re transparent about their finances, and they don’t just plant trees.

When it comes to their finances, you can see all of the money they brought in last month as well as where it went. You can see how much is going towards paying their team and how much is going towards helping the planet. For example, last month they brought in about 4 million USD, and 1 million went towards paying their team while the rest went towards the planet.

Planting trees can actually be harmful if not done right, so they don’t just plant trees. They plant the right trees in the right places. their action goes beyond tree planting too by focusing on building biodiversity and making sure their tree planting projects are integrated with the communities near them.

It’s a simple switch, it takes 30 seconds and it’ll help the planet. There’s no reason not to. Yes, you’ll have to get used to a different web searching interface and every once in awhile if I’m unsatisfied with the results I’ll search on a different search engine. It’s worth it though, and the more people who make the switch the better it’ll get as will the planet.

References:

• Ecosia Finances
• Planting Trees Can Be Harmful
• Planting the Right Trees in the Right Places

Cast iron skillets are beautiful, and here’s why: they’re timeless. When you hold a cast iron skillet it feels like a solid real thing. It feels like it doesn’t belong in an apartment. It feels like it belongs in a cabin in the woods. A nonstick skillet will last a few years, and cause cancer during that short lifespan. A cast iron skillet feels fancy and will literally last a lifetime. People even pass cast iron skillets on between generations.

So now that cast iron skillets have been established as superior, a great way to make the most of a cast iron skillet is with lazy cooking! Being lazy is great. It’s smart even. It helps conserve energy, come up with ideas, and proces things when learning. A great way to maximize a cast iron skillet and be lazy is to use it when pan frying anything! Most of the time the goal when pan frying anything from chicken, veggies, or those store bought frozen dumplings is to get a little color and crunch on those food items. Ideally those things are nice and crunchy on the bottom and top, so people stir it around occassionally.

The trick here is with a cast iron skillet, it can go in the oven as well. Place whatever needs to be fried in the cast iron skillet, and set a timer for as many minutes as needed. Once, the timer goes off put that cast iron skillet in the oven and turn the broiller on. Once again, set a timer! After that timer goes off, boom! The food is cooked and crispy on the top and bottom, and the best part is it took almost no work. No standing around and stirring was necessary while waiting for the food to cook and crunch up. This and the timelessness of a cast iron skillet make it the best.

References:

• Nonstick pan lifespan
• Nonstick pans cause cancer
• Cast iron skillet lifespan
• Being lazy isn’t bad