
Calm Technology - _bxg1
https://calmtech.com/
======
kickscondor
Going to plug my project Fraidycat here. Feels like it satisfies many of
these. [http://fraidyc.at/](http://fraidyc.at/)

It compiles RSS feeds and YouTube, Twitter, etc into a dashboard-like view
rather than a crowded timeline. No notifications, no algorithm. Just a tool
for a human. Easy to “move into the periphery”. Very calm, even when I’m
following 100s of people.

~~~
tomcooks
EST! EST!! EST!!!

The explanatory video alone is a gem, the fact that this extension is open
source is a juicy bonus, the coziness factor is sky-high.

From a person that doesn't install any extension ever: great concept, amazing
execution, installed right meow.

PS: How much money would you need to program a CLI version of this that I
could host, and run forever and ever, on a tiny VPS?

~~~
kashyapc
What is "EST"? I know it's not the timezone. Given the frantic exclamation
marks, probably it is "Everyone Stands Together" (had to look up: "EST + Urban
Dictionary").

~~~
jdminhbg
I assume this is the reference:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Est!_Est!!_Est!!!_di_Montefias...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Est!_Est!!_Est!!!_di_Montefiascone)

> The unusual name of the wine region dates back to a 12th-century tale of a
> German bishop traveling to the Vatican for a meeting with the pope. The
> bishop sent a prelate ahead of him to survey the villages along the route
> for the best wines. The 'wine scout' had instructions to write 'Est' (Latin
> for 'There is') on the door or on the wall of the inns he visited when he
> was particularly impressed with the quality of the wine they served so the
> bishop following on his trail would have known in advance where to make a
> stop. At a Montefiascone inn, the prelate was reportedly so overwhelmed with
> the local wine that he wrote Est! Est!! Est!!! on the door.

~~~
kashyapc
Ah, thank you for correcting (and also for quoting the relevant bit). That's
one hell of an obscure reference. :-)

To complete the digression (from the same Wiki):

 _... the wine often receives mixed opinions with wine experts ... describing
in The World Atlas of Wine 'Est! Est!! Est!!!' ... as "usually the dullest
white wine with the strangest name in the world."_

------
rohan1024
Few days back, I was thinking on similar lines about Instagram. It does not
respect norms of our society. Consider this, our society deeply values
competence but Instagram does not seem to take it into consideration at all. A
user promoting his content or using proper hashtags or generating activity on
platform will be promoted more than the user who just posts brilliant
photographs.

Who I maintain relations with and who I don't is not other people's business
similarly who I follow and who I don't follow should not be visible to anyone
except me but that is not the case.

I can go on and on about similar things but the bottom line is everything on
Instagram is designed in a way such that it generates more activity on
platform and ultimately more revenue. This is true for almost all the social
networks though. A social network that respects norms of our society and does
not attempt at maximizing revenue at users expense will probably fill the void
left by the existing ones.

~~~
Nextgrid
The app is not a _tool_ to serve _you_ , instead the app turns _you_ into the
tool to serve _itself_.

~~~
classified
You hit the nail on the head. This is the actual, real, definition of "free"
(as in "free to use"). Every instance of that term should be surrounded by red
blinking scare quotes.

~~~
Nextgrid
Or regulation that curbs our outlaws this cancerous business model. If you
can't profit without wasting people's time and/or stalking them then you
shouldn't be in business.

We have regulation that somewhat works (there are exceptions of course and
corruption is a thing, but at least there's an attempt) for other negative
impacts on society (environmental damage, etc) but absolutely nothing for tech
despite these new apps & services turning people into addicted zombies.

------
jes5199
Calm Tech is one of those ideas that's been in floating around for decades but
has never quite gotten the attention it deserves (... sort of a funny paradox,
"pay attention to making tools you don't have to pay attention to").

This article doesn't mention some of the old standard examples:

Live Wire was a sculpture at Xerox Parc that twitched every time some number
of network packets went through the office's router - you could get an
intuitive feel for how much load was on the system.

There's an X Windows applet called "LavaPS" which shows all your unix
processes as colored blobs in a lavalamp, sized by memory footprint, floating
to the top by age. It gives you a quick impression of what your computer is
doing - is one webserver process eating your whole core? Or are you getting
forkbombed by thousands of little ones? Those look really different.

The definitive works on Calm Computing are a paper written by Mark Weiser
(RIP) in 1996, "Designing Calm Technology" (which has unfortunately fallen off
the internet) and an O'Reilly book called "Calm Technology" by Amber Case (the
Cyborg Anthropologist)

Ideally we'd go calmer than a "status light" or "status tone" \- those are
still pretty active! What can you convey with the color of a Phillips Hue bulb
that changes slowly?

~~~
GuiA
_> a paper written by Mark Weiser (RIP) in 1996, "Designing Calm Technology"
(which has unfortunately fallen off the internet)_

[https://people.csail.mit.edu/rudolph/Teaching/weiser.pdf](https://people.csail.mit.edu/rudolph/Teaching/weiser.pdf)
?

~~~
andai
And html version :)

[https://www.karlstechnology.com/blog/designing-calm-
technolo...](https://www.karlstechnology.com/blog/designing-calm-technology/)

------
boomlinde
The vast majority of technology doesn’t need to notify you or somehow
artificially announce its status. It seems strange, then, that a site on calm
technology primarily concerns technology that does, devoting a good portion of
the page to promoting ”calm communication” through buzzing, beeping and
blinking.

We should instead question whether we need the information that is being
communicated in the first place, because even a colored LED or a soft haptic
buzz can be stressful when we know what they mean. Maybe we should minimize
the use of such technology instead.

In my view, calm technology only functions when you use it. It answers your
questions or solves your problems only when prompted to do so. Maybe a robot
vacuum cleaner that beeps on faults and vacuums on its own initiative is
helpful technology, but with alternatives that won’t have any reasons to steal
your attention I can’t say that it’s calm technology. IM with a soft haptic
buzz to notify you of the receipt of a message may again be immensely helpful,
but an email account that I check myself when I feel like reading messages is
more calm.

If your life seems calmer when you know exactly when you’ve received a message
regardless of what you are doing at the time or the nature of its content, you
should perhaps think of how to lead a calm life before worrying about whether
a pleasant beep or a soft buzz is the best way to direct your attention to it.

~~~
Razengan
> _We should instead question whether we need the information that is being
> communicated in the first place, because even a colored LED or a soft haptic
> buzz can be stressful when we know what they mean. Maybe we should minimize
> the use of such technology instead._

This is why I love Apple for pretty much eliminating blinking lights in their
devices, while other manufactures of laptops etc. still don't seem to get it.

The only lights remaining in my room at bedtime are the power strip and
external hard disks, and even they can be annoying.

------
sholladay
Car dashboard lights meet most of these criteria and yet they are routinely
bad. My partner had trouble figuring out the "flat tire" icon and they are a
fairly intelligent, well-educated person. The icon was basically a circle with
an exclamation point inside. The fact that it had a slightly flat edge
actually made it harder to recognize as a wheel since we normally associate
wheels as being perfectly round. It almost looked more like a steering wheel.
There was no status code to look up, only an icon which they had to match
visually against every other possible icon. And this is one of the most common
warning lights to appear in a car, so imagine how much harder the more obscure
ones are.

Roombas, which the article mentions don't use voice, actually did start using
voice in the last couple of generations. And it's great. It tells you that
it's stuck rather than just beeping sadly at you.

I'm not necessarily saying the car dashboard should speak warnings, as it may
startle people on the highway, but I also think there's a lot to improve on.

~~~
davidwitt415
Here's one explanation: I work as an HMI designer for an Automotive OEM. Since
we have a fully digital driver display, I designed a feature to address your
problem; it displayed a large graphic with a text explanation of what was
happening.

Unfortunately, it was killed by our Customer Care team, who were,
paradoxically, more concerned about giving the driver/customer negative
information that might lead to complaints, buybacks, etc. Needless to say,
there are many stories like this, and it shows that even though UX/UI design
is the most apparent aspect of a product, it is only as good as the decisions
made underneath it.

------
Neil44
Notifications should be renamed to Interruptions IMO

------
soneca
I am currently building a personal journal app will become what I calling a _"
quiet social network"_ [0]. The idea seems similar of this calm tech, although
they are talking more about hardware.

I am on the fence about notifications though. They can be very useful for the
user. I am planning to add notifications, but probably all off by default, and
the user decides very granularly what they want on. Does it seem the right
approach? I would appreciate any opinion

[0] [https://www.quidsentio.com](https://www.quidsentio.com)

~~~
floren
What about a notification digest, where the user gets a list of updates every
(day|week|<configured duration>)? Perhaps after explicitly requesting to
receive updates about so-and-so. This allows the user to decide, "At 20:00
each night, I'll get a list of new stuff from my friends, and I'll take some
time and peruse it," rather than getting blasted at odd times.

~~~
mustacheemperor
I wish this was an OS level feature on my phone and computer. I will often
disable notifications from, for example, Slack on the weekends, and every time
I do I silently wish there were a way to automatically control notifications
per app based on time and day.

------
cykod
I switched to the Android Headspace app recently and the juxtaposition of what
they're trying to achieve (meditation / mindfulness and being in the moment)
with the onslaught of unasked-for notifications, sometimes when I was already
asleep, was jarring. They should be a poster boy for Calm Technology, but Tech
just can't seem to help itself.

~~~
gtirloni
That was my experience as well. I've switched to Insight Timer.

~~~
bostonvaulter2
Can you disable the cloud features on that now? I stopped using it when they
forced that on everyone. I had even paid for it previously.

------
gandutraveler
Tech products starts this way but eventually they need to make profit and then
ads take over the product. The only way this works is for paid products.

~~~
Nextgrid
Even paid products or services are not immune.

I order a pizza, I have no choice but to provide details since they need them
for delivery. Guess what happens next? Yeah, e-mail and SMS spam.

I pay hundreds of bucks for a complete Tado system (thermostat, radiator
valves, etc). Guess what I get? E-mail spam about discounts for their "new"
app which actually has _less_ features than the current one.

I buy a PS4 and try to set it up. Even for a few hundred bucks for a new
console, there is _still_ bullshit telemetry and other crap I need to opt-out
of, not to mention some half-assed attempt at a social network where I have to
spend 15 minutes setting everything to "No one can see this" so I can regain
some privacy because I have no desire to use the social features.

Heck, even some US government agencies (DMV I think) sell your data to scum
and you can't even opt out.

I can go on and on. We need some actual ethics, and regulation as a fail-safe
for cases where the former doesn't work.

~~~
tomcooks
> I can go on and on. We need some actual ethics, and regulation as a fail-
> safe for cases where the former doesn't work.

Or become an EU resident and use their brilliant data-handling privacy laws

~~~
Nextgrid
I am in Europe and the GDPR is a joke. You are supposed to _first_ complain to
the company itself, give them a month to reply with a satisfactory response,
and if not, then escalate to the country's privacy regulator which seems to do
absolutely nothing according to my experience.

Can you imagine doing all these things every time your privacy is violated
(every non-compliant cookie banner, tracker, newsletter, etc)? That would be a
full-time job. It's almost like "justice" in the US, in theory you can win, in
practice you have no chance unless you have billions to pay lawyers to fight
decade-long legal battles on your behalf.

~~~
tomcooks
Much like my sibling comment, things have always been pretty fast and reliable
in France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, UK, and the Netherlands.

I literally do these things everytime my privacy, just like I'd do with any
other right, is violated. And no it's not a full-time job, that's precisely
why I delegate.

Not using real data, unless the interactions are legally binding, helps a lot.
Give it a spin maybe?

~~~
Nextgrid
I am in the UK and my experience has been the opposite - they are helpful when
it comes to questions but seem completely useless at actually getting things
resolved. I file complaints regarding privacy and never hear anything again
and the company continues with the bad behaviour.

> that's precisely why I delegate.

You mean you pay someone else to deal with the bullshit? It's a good strategy
and I've considered it but it shouldn't be up to us to pay (with time and/or
money) to investigate these issues, especially considering the regulation
doesn't give you any way to recover those expenses even if the offender is
indeed in breach of those regulations. There's also the problem of the people
who would be the most affected by the privacy breaches are the ones that are
less likely to have the disposable income necessary to pay someone else to
deal with this on their behalf.

> Not using real data

Two problems with this:

1) It's hard to defend against data being collected in the background, and
privacy plugins can be a double-edged sword by making you stand out more (the
_lack_ of data is data by itself). IP tracking is very hard to defend unless
you have access to a huge pool of IPs and configure your computer to pick
random ones for each host it's connecting to.

2) In some cases it's impossible - ordering goods, food or transport online.
Some require identifiers like phone numbers you can't easily get in volume.

------
chrismorgan
A technical issue on the website:

    
    
      html {
        overflow-y: scroll;
      }
    
      body {
        overflow-x: hidden;
      }
    

This makes both the <html> and <body> elements scrolling areas, so that you
see two scrollbars (the outermost one disabled), and keyboard scrolling
doesn’t work until you click within the body.

Simplest fix is to shift the overflow-x: hidden to the html element, or remove
it altogether.

------
m52go
The Android app for 100 Million Books is meant to abide by these
principles...to the point I thought it made sense to call it an "anti-app"!

I see Calm's purpose seems to extend far beyond smartphone apps and consumer
technology, but I was hoping more people would create "anti-apps" when I
created mine, and it it seems like Calm is doing a better job than me of
pushing for such things.

[https://100millionbooks.org/blog/news/android-app-err-
anti-a...](https://100millionbooks.org/blog/news/android-app-err-anti-app-
announcement/)

------
prox
Great idea to point attention to this.

The number one rule I learned for interfaces is “Don’t interrupt the
proceedings” , which means which means the tools should be optimized for the
task and don’t burden the user with unwarranted windows, buttons, lights or
beeps. Optimize for flow. Recognize the posture of the application.

------
efa
Can't help but think of one of Homer Simpson's inventions. The "Everything's
okay alarm" \- a piercing squawk will sound every three seconds unless
something isn't okay.
[https://www.engineering.com/DesignerEdge/DesignerEdgeArticle...](https://www.engineering.com/DesignerEdge/DesignerEdgeArticles/ArticleID/17874/Top-10-Engineering-
Moments-of-The-Simpsons.aspx)

~~~
boomlinde
That reminds me of the local bus/train commuting service. When you searched
for a trip in their app, they'd put red warning triangles on delayed
departures. Delayed departures are so common here that they eventually started
using green warning triangles, to signal that the bus would (probably) be on
time.

------
motohagiography
The opposite of calm tech could be called something like hustle tech, where
the interfaces create user stress by opening cognitive loops. Nagging
indicators, garden path personal information extraction, leveraging users time
investment, Nir Eyal's "hooked model" designs, automated sales pipelining (or
spam), dark patterns, etc.

Funny that some startups by middle class people thought "hustle," meant
energetic teamwork like on a kids sports team, whereas if you had any street
smarts at all, hustle means getting leverage over someone by pre-empting their
ability to reason accurately, often by bullying, nagging, feigning offence,
and exploiting their agreeableness by making them think they "owe," you.

Preying on human goodness like reciprocity, empathy, fairness, and
agreeableness is basically what a hustler and hustle tech does.

~~~
eckza
One thing that I’ve done that’s made my iPhone much less distracting, is to
run the display in black and white.

This makes my notification badges scream for my attention much less. The whole
phone feels calmer and less distracting. I have actually been doing this for
over a year, and it’s been life-changing.

Another benefit is that due to the increased contrast of black and white, I
can run my brightness way lower; this is excellent for battery life.
Screenshots still show up in color.

I have an Accessibility Shortcut mapped to my side button to turn this on and
off. If I want to look at a photo or something, I toggle it by triple-clicking
my side button. It’s seamless and it stays out of my way.

For anyone who wants to try this: Go to Settings -> Accessibility -> Display &
Text Size -> Color Filters. Flip the switch to enable and select “Grayscale”.

Then, go back up to Settings -> Accessibility -> Accessibility Shortcut and
select “Color Filters”.

~~~
tomr_stargazer
Thank you for these detailed instructions! I've been a longtime fan of
grayscale screen, but often end up lapsing after a few days when I want to
look at a photograph. Now I don't have that failure mode anymore!

------
noonespecial
I can't help but finally thinking "You've got mail!" was a wrong turn for
humanity somehow.

~~~
elweston2
I am becoming more and more convinced that keeping my data and programs on
other peoples computers is not a good idea. They can not seem to resist the
idea of 'harvesting' information from me to 'monetize' me for a small monthly
fee. The PC revolution is over. The smartphone killed it.

~~~
hk__2
> I am becoming more and more convinced that keeping my data and programs on
> other peoples computers is not a good idea. They can not seem to resist the
> idea of 'harvesting' information from me to 'monetize' me for a small
> monthly fee.

This has more to do with “free” services than hosting your data elsewhere.

~~~
chungus_khan
If that were the case paid services wouldn't be doing it too. The reason they
do is that there is no large enough incentive/consequence to make a convincing
argument to leave that revenue on the table. It is neither hosting it
elsewhere nor the "free" services which tend to be the worst examples of it,
but rather the lack of any financially valid reason not to.

------
mrarjen
Wish my Sony headphones had this for when switching modes or battery low
indications. Currently it will mute all sound and speak in a voice regarding
what is going on with limited info, instead of some clear beeps. Get to the
point tech!

------
arthurofbabylon
I particularly appreciate this ->

"Technology should make use of the periphery... A calm technology will move
easily from the periphery of our attention, to the center, and back."

And this ->

"Machines shouldn't act like humans. Humans shouldn't act like machines.
Amplify the best part of each."

------
munificent
_> Technology should require the smallest possible amount of attention _

The challenge — and I believe this is one of the fundamental challenges of the
Information Age — is that the business model of most companies making tech
today is that _user attention funds the development of the technology._

Every ad-driven business rests on this trade: We give you software X and in
return you give Y% fraction of your attention. We sell that attention to
company Z which pays us in cash.

Tech from these companies cannot reduce the amount of attention the software
consumes without directly affecting their bottom line _and_ their ability to
deliver tech to users in the first place.

~~~
danfang
I would like to think we’re heading toward a future where people will want to
pay for products and services to reclaim their attention - as opposed to using
free ones that deliberately track and optimize for your engagement.

The past 15 years of social media has been a terrible experiment in attention-
driven business models.

I’d like to think I’m helping buck this trend with my current project - a
subscription based social network called Thread - [https://get.thread-
app.com](https://get.thread-app.com)

~~~
jkestner
I'd like to think that too, but most people don't have the money or
inclination for calm tech. We want distractions from the uncomfortable truths,
and Facebook is happy to provide distraction with comfortable "truths."

------
jmstfv
It boils down to incentives. When entire business models are built around
hijacking your attention and keeping you "hooked" for as long as possible, you
can't expect _calm technology_.

Vote with your wallet.

~~~
Nextgrid
Voting with your wallet isn’t always an option when the advertising cancer has
already infected _everything_. See my earlier comment for some expensive
examples:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21802985](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21802985)

~~~
jmstfv
The more generalizable version of "vote with your wallet" is to stop using
those services, if possible. Eventually, those companies will either stop
engaging in this behaviour or die.

------
teddyh
This seems to be a continuation of “ _Designing Calm Technology_ ” by Mark
Weiser and John Seely Brown in 1995: [https://calmtech.com/papers/designing-
calm-technology.html](https://calmtech.com/papers/designing-calm-
technology.html)

------
jordanpg
I love this philosophy. Ideals to strive for. It is self-evident to me that
once we get past these salad days, this spasm of raw capitalism, "content",
and absurd business models, internet tech will approach a new equilibrium
where it is something that is in the background, always present, but never
seen, like a utility.

Maybe 10 years, maybe 100, but the sooner the better: a world filled with
pinging "push notifications" and advertisements is not one I would want to
gift to future generations.

~~~
Nextgrid
Check out Hyper Reality:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJg02ivYzSs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJg02ivYzSs)

------
dpflug
I realize I'm well late to this discussion, but Huginn seems to be a good tool
for this: [https://github.com/huginn/huginn](https://github.com/huginn/huginn)

------
p0nce
How about Calm businesses and Calm codebases. "Code should need the least
possible amount of knowledge and attention"

------
zubairq
I love this and I will try to make our product, yazz Pilot abide by these
principles

------
ChrisMarshallNY
This is nice. Thanks for sharing it.

------
mkadlec
Adheres to Tethics.

------
workthrowaway
> Sleep Cycle is a mobile application that monitors your sleep and allows you
> to track times of deep sleep...

oh come on. the examples were good so far...

why would i need an app to monitor my sleep if i don't have any sleep disorder
or similar? i am putting such app in the "need for attention" category.

~~~
bovermyer
You are not the target audience for this if you don't see its utility.

Ironically, in your own dismissive response you give a good reason for the
app's existence.

