Growing up, I'd stay up until 3 or 4am on IRC, chatting with people from Europe, South America, Australia/NZ. We built websites, setup servers, shared knowledge, hosted radio shows together. No rails with technology. Fun times. That time is entirely why I'm able to support myself now. Sadly lost touch with most of them.  I wonder how they're all doing now. This post brought to you by some MP3s of "The Streets" that I got from a Swede in those days.

I bought a new (shorter) domain for my new email address. One advantage of migrating away from gmail that I hadn’t anticipated is how much calmer I feel.

You see, Gmail technically supports IMAP, but it’s more of a shim. You’re not really supposed to use IMAP with Gmail. And as such I never felt comfortable using a regular email client, instead opting to check mail via the web-app.

Checking mail via a browser is fine but being in a browser switches your mind to a different context. Browsers are meant for consuming. The entire internet is just a simple cmd-T away. So “checking email” became a mental excuse to open my web browser. And then Twitter. And then Hacker News. And then Reddit. Oh, I wonder if I got any new email? And repeat.

Now with a provider where IMAP is a first class citizen, I can use Mail.app again. Mail is set to be pulled in once an hour. No more temptation from a web browser. And an unexpected sense of calm.

I’m back in control.

Love that new shiny email address smell. Especially one that isn't owned by Google (import almost finished) and it's shorter to boot!

Each time I watch “Rams”, a documentary of Dieter Rams, something different gets stuck in my head.

This time was brief interaction at the very start of the film. A designer asks how he can propel his work beyond mediocracy. Rams’ response is simple: Find people whom you can collaborate, and to use this collaboration to move beyond mediocracy.

The shift in ability required to elevate your craft is something that often can’t happen alone. Collaborating is the most effective method to improve your work. Looking back, I can pinpoint exactly when and where my sense of design as a developer went from typical engineer to closer to a designer.

I was moonlighting and doing some work with a designer, who was also the lead on the project. I’d submit a revision and she she noticed immediately when my implementation wasn't perfect. A section was a bit too tall, or a line off by a pixel. Through this back and forth, I began to catch things I didn’t before. My eyes began to see what she saw.

Before I was blind and, through collaboration, I could see.