Choosing to remove the Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn apps is going to be somewhat controversial. I say that with one caveat: I’ll still be on those platforms and engaged, but only through the web browser, and only with certain controls.

One control is the use of the DuckDuckGo browser for iOS/Android. If you don’t know what that is, you do now. Explore it, see if it feels right for you. Read about the ratings feature for each site as it relates to tracking, privacy, and permission.

Another control is the use of the DuckDuckGo plugin/extension for all major browsers. It provides the same features, but for your browser of choice. Mine is now Firefox.

Another goal here to to regain control of my content. Posting on owned media first feels better today than ever before. Long forms, short, photos, all of it will be rooted here – on a site I own and control, where I get to choose privacy and permissions settings.

If this sounds overly complex or “too hard,” here’s something to consider: these changes are all one-time. It’s a matter of changing habits, and that’s a matter of turning priorities into action. To me, especially these days, the reality is that my data is valuable, and I’m nothing more than data points to sell ads against for the platforms I mentioned. Yuck.

If you have thoughts and feedback, let me know. This is going to be a fun experiment. I hope we all learn something from it!

As always, thank you for being here!

How many of you remember what the gaming ecosystem looked like in 2007? There were consoles, PC gaming, Macs were practically a no-show except for “light” games, and mobile gaming was ports of 8 bit gaming engines and evolved versions of snake.

No one cared about playing games on the phone, that’s not what they were for, they were for email (Windows CE, Blackberry), messaging, and phone calls. Nokia’s N-Gage platform notwithstanding

Fast forward to today, iOS and Android (phones) own the market that was created when the iPhone was released… that market is called “Casual Games.” There’s been no shortage of debate about how powerful the phones are, and how well they can play games, but without a doubt, nearly everyone plays games on their phones.

These games aren’t typically using the latest whiz-bang graphics, or VR, or or even team play. They’re nothing like what a “gamer” would play. They’re far to uninteresting. The gamer wants wicked refresh rates, absurd FPS, and the latest and greatest GPUs and CPUs with as much memory as possible. Add a VR headset and the requirements increase further.

The casual gamer wants to be able to enjoy themselves, play puzzle games, grow farms, checkers, peer to peer backgammon, and so on. Things that run perfectly on their mobile devices.

What’s happening today is a very similar revolution. Oculus released the Oculus go, powered by what amounts to a mobile phone’s core. They’ve stripped the non-essential software and hardware and put it in the market.

What’s different this time? The Oculus Go leverages a well tuned app store ecosystem, developed with their partners at Samsung while building Gear VR. Why does the app store matter? Says Greg Joswiak, Apple vice president of iOS, iPad and iPhone marketing, in a Rolling Stone story called “Apple: How iPhone Gaming Revolutionized Video Games”

“We thought maybe we’d get 50 apps to start, but on the first day we had 500, and we thought that was an omen. But I’d be lying if I said we thought it would be as revolutionary as it would become. It’s changed the world. It’s changed the way software is written and distributed. It’s changed the gaming industry.”

Simply? Consumers want an easy button. The Oculus Go is incredibly simple, and easy. The Oculus Go is not for the “gamers” among us. It’s a very simple and elegant entry into the consumer VR space. It provides exactly the same experience that the current casual games do on iOS and Android, but in VR. You can play with friends, watch movies and TV, and of course you can do most of it in real time with friends.

Here’s a quote from a friend of mine, and new Go convert/evangelist Elie Finegold: “Got another one today for my wife so we can hang together while I’m traveling.” This comes from our first experience in Oculus Rooms. He and I spent the better part of an hour just chatting and catching up. He was so taken by it, well, you see what happened.

We’re on the edge of something great here. I hope you’ll follow along for more as it unfolds.

Previous Go stories:
New to the Oculus Go? Here are 10 apps to get you started.
Wireless consumer VR: slip it on and Go. Anywhere.

Thirty years later, computing has moved from a silo on a desktop to a globally disbursed, always connected network. Sure we still have machines in front of us, but they’re used largely to do things with the internet.

Consumers have never had more choice in platforms – all most people need is a way to access the things they’ve stored somewhere in “the cloud.” More and more, the consumer desktop/laptop is being cast aside in favor of smaller and lighter devices, like tablets and large screen smart phones.

It’s with this realization decided that I’ve decided to transcend the idea of an operating system, and move even further toward platform independence. Over the next several years, computing will go through another massive change, moving away from LCD displays placed 16 – 24 inches from your nose to displays resting quite literally on it.

As importantly, the resulting ecosystem will be, by necessity, platform independent. To use the social VR spaces and to participate in the future of work, you’ll need a machine capable of rendering the environment and a headset. There is no place for vendor lock-in in this space.

Great work is being done for the next generation of human computer interaction. Oculus, Vive, Samsung, Pimax, and many others are working on their best versions of VR displays. Room-scale VR is more than a sci-fi feature, it’s available today. The VR market is heating up, with competition in every space – input devices, displays, head and motion tracking, and even in world building. Apple is also on board, and that in itself should serve as notice to the market that a major shift is coming.

But VR is the future, right? Kind of.

On Wednesday of this week, I’ll be assembling my first Windows powered desktop PC in dangerously close to 10 years. It’s a workhorse, with plenty of power for the future. Today it’ll allow me to edit 360° video with ease, and of course edit traditional video as well – all in the name of Epic Mini Life.

It’ll also allow me to use any VR software title on the market with no frame skipping or delays what so ever. I won’t have a “monitor” attached to it, it’ll be “headless.” I’ll be using Virtual Desktop and Leap Motion VR instead of a mouse/trackpad.

It’s going to be an interesting experiment, and it may not work out exactly as I expect, but doing anything worth a damn is filled with the unexpected isn’t it? This is my sweet spot… doing things that have never been done, working on technologies that aren’t yet mainstream, and creating things that most don’t even know they need. Yet.

In case you’re wondering, I’ll be using the 4k Pimax headset instead of Oculus or Vive solutions. I’ll lay out more of that decision as the experiment begins.

You read it here… I’m building a PC, powered by Windows 10. I’ll keep my iPad Pro for portability, and I’ll hand my 2012 MacBook Pro down to my daughter, keeping it in the family.

Here’s to the future.

This is so weird. It’s abnormal. Maybe even impossible? No, but this lifestyle is in perpetual conflict with my desire to live high above, but directly connected by roots to the 24/7 vibe of the urban core. Walk, bike, use transit for the long haul trips. Everything is now, delivered to my doorstep, or streaming directly to my retina – by way of a fully immersive VR headset. That is equally attainable, in fact. But I digress.

What follows is a hypothetical recipe for achieving an off-the-grid life. To be clear, we have not done this, I’m interested in all of the feedback, however. Because, one day, we will.

1. Land
2. hOMe
3. Solar Power
4. Water
5. Food
6. Cooking

Land

I’m amazed by the surplus of remarkably inexpensive land across the country. These properties range from $10k to $50k, are between 2.5 and 4 acres, and contain the word “mobile” in the text, meaning they’ll likely allow a tiny home.

This spot is golden. It’s 3.8 acres of densely forested land near a lake, and a 15 minute drive from “town,” and it’s a remarkable $17,900. Yes, 3.8 acres for $18k.

The hOMe

The new hotness is the THoW (Tiny House on Wheels) – homes built on trailers with two or more axels – intended to be towed by a vehicle. They’re closer to RVs than a traditional mobile home (or double-wide). There are many differences, the details of which are far beyond the scope of this post.

And “tiny” itself doesn’t imply wheels – “tiny” can be the smallest permanent fabrication with just enough room to kneel and sleep. There are some simply remarkable builds in this style.

There are two primary ways to acquire a tiny home. First is to buy one outright. This can be a preplanned home, or used, and there are many options with each. If you’re going to order one, for the sake of this post, it’ll need to be designed for “off-the-grid” use.

The hOMe model by Tiny House Build is a fantastic floor plan. You can buy on the fly, or buy plans and build it yourself. The model in the video took the owners 4 months to build from scratch. Details: $33,089.72 221sq ft, plus two lofts 128sq ft. The full specs and plans are available here. This is an example of a modification to the hOMe, shown on FYI.

Solar Power

Off the grid means no city/county provided services. Power is the number one concern for many people looking at this lifestyle. There are many ways to reduce power consumption, and keep in mind that stoves in most tiny houses are propane. Add a wood burning stove and you can reduce power needs even more. Sure, $12,105.00 is a little on the high end – others have done it for less.

We won’t have a microwave or any appliances that will use as much energy, so I anticipate that our power requirements will be lower than the above systems can generate.

Water

Cistern tanks are the way to store water. The source of the water could be simple rainwater, a well fed system, or even delivered. Jesse & Alyssa, a couple in the northwest went through several iterations of storing water. Spend some time reading their posts. If someone else has done it, leverage their experience. Their blog is Pure Living for Life. Jesse said that you can expect to spend about $1 per usable gallon. I’d estimate about $1,500 for us.

If you’re capturing rain water or using creek water, you’ll need to filter it before using it for cooking or consumption. I’ve seen the Berkey Countertop Water Filter ($288.50) system in many tiny home builds. There are lots of things to consider with regards to water… but this is one of the tops if you’re not using city water.

Food

We’d have plenty of space, with rich soil to plant trees, veggies, and whatever else will grow. We’d want a greenhouse for year around needs, but the land would be used when available. I’d like a few free roaming chickens for all of the obvious reasons. We have one pescatarian, and no vegans in the family.

While I can’t think of anything else we’d require, bartering with neighbors is an option, and being close to a grocery store will make up the difference.

Cooking

Propane is pervasive in the tiny world. From full size to RV to single burners, the choices are nearly endless. If you have grid access, the sky is actually the limit – microwaves and toaster ovens included. Off grid choices are interesting too. Wood burning stoves provide some cooking capabilities, but think really far outside the box – to solar ovens and fire pit cooking.