Then I moved to New York. After living here in even more cramped quarters for a few years, I’ve come to see a small room as more of a feature than a bug.

That’s because constraints breed innovation. Or at least fun problems to solve. Here are a few things I’ve learned living in small quarters:

You can find furniture that fits. When I moved into my current room, I needed a computer desk. I knew exactly where I wanted to put it, how big it needed to be, and roughly what I wanted the desk to look like. I went to Ikea and looked around. They had maybe a dozen computer desks, none of which fit my criteria. I considered having a desk custom-made but decided that was extravagant.

Then I remembered: We live in the 21st century. We no longer have to be content with choosing from only a few dozen computer desks. So I went to Amazon and searched for “computer desk.”

Yes, you’re reading that correctly: Amazon offers about six thousand computer desks!^[2] Eat your heart out, Barry Schwartz.

This means that, if you’re willing to put in a little effort, you can find a desk that fits your room really, really well. At least, that’s what I did, and I managed to find a desk that fits my needs just about as well as I could have asked for.

It's hard to see, but my desk fits between my armoire and bed with a half-inch to spare.

Get your cables under control. This one was so easy I don’t know why it took my so long to do it. I just mounted my surge protector beneath my desk, added a few twist ties, and viola — no more cable clutter. This also has the benefit of making cleaning around your cables much easier.

Grow up. While the horizontal space in my room may leave something to be desired, I’m fortunate to have gloriously tall ceilings. I’ve mounted a whiteboard, coat hooks, and two bookshelves on my walls. One of the bookshelves runs along the wall next to my bed. The other is mounted eight feet high, and there’s still plenty of room for me to build higher. I like to think of my room as like Manhattan in this respect, except I get to look at exposed brick instead of New Jersey.

This shelf is mounted eight feet up my wall so it doesn't feel like it takes up space.

Stop putting things away. Every time I clean up and find myself “putting things away” I know it’s only a matter of time until I have to clean them up again. The clue is right there in the saying: putting things “away.” Not where they can be easily found, not where they’re likely to stay, not where they’re properly organized, but “away.” Don’t get me wrong, some things should be put away, like a Christmas tree stand, since you know you won’t need that for another year. But other stuff almost by definition can’t be put away, like books you’re currently reading or mail you’ve yet to process. Next time you’re putting something “away,” ask yourself if there’s a place you can put it that makes your room feel cleaner but is still accessible. Find an equilibrium state for your things.

Get rid of stuff you don’t need. For someone who doesn’t shop for clothes, I manage to amass an impressive amount of clothing. I also have a hard time getting rid of stuff, usually because I either tell myself I’ll surely need it someday or I can’t get rid of it because it has sentimental value. This is unsustainable, and luckily a friend taught me a trick for clothes that you’re having trouble ditching: Go through your clothing and take out all the stuff that you think you should get rid of but can’t bring yourself to. For anything that has sentimental value, take a picture of it. Then fold it neatly and stick it in a bag. Place the bag under your bed and go back to living your life.

If after a few weeks or months you haven’t found yourself searching for that old X-Men t-shirt or pair of cargo shorts (why I was unsure about those I’ll never know), take the bag out from under your bed and donate it to the Salvation Army, Second Mile, or Purple Heart. You already know you don’t really need or want any of the stuff in the bag, since you’ve been living just fine without it, and you won’t ever lose the memories of it because you’ve already taken a picture.

Bonus: Before you forget, record what you donated so you can be sure to write it off come tax time.

1. For my junior year of college I had a 235 square foot single, but I’m going to ignore that.↩
2. OK, the number is actually smaller than that because there are some erroneous results. Still, my point stands: Amazon sells a staggering number of desks.↩

I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t all historic. We heard about the recent anti-casino movement: 13,000 Philadelphians voted in an alternative election in November 2006 to draw attention to the state’s ability to summarily place casinos in residential neighborhoods. We heard about skateboarders’ problem-solving with the city over local parks, and the low-cost art classes available through the Fleisher Art Memorial. We even got a folk etymology (hotly debated) of the word “sabotage.”

The tour will be offered three more times in the next week, Tuesdays Sept. 4 and 11 at 5:30, and Sat. Sept. 15 at 11 a.m. Tickets are just $10 — come on out!

The slightly more subtle change is that I’ve integrated Twitter using Twitter Tools by Alex King. This means that whenever I post to Twitter, a post on Unschooled will automatically be generated. Similarly, if I post a new entry on Unschooled, a link to it will be posted to Twitter. (Thus if you want to always be the first to know when I post a new entry on Unschooled, you can start following me on Twitter.)

These changes were made largely as an experiment. I have developed a hypothesis that goes something like this: Posting a blog entry — no matter how short — is psychologically heavy, while posting a tweet is very lightweight. Think e-mail (heavy — oh lord do I hate e-mail at the moment) vs. a Facebook wallpost (light — who doesn’t have time to post on his friend’s wall?).

The result should be a significant increase in the number of (very) short posts, and business-as-usual in terms of the frequency of longer posts.

Let’s see what happens.

I always take out-of-town visitors on a tour of my favorite Philadelphia murals. Not only do we have more murals than any other city in the U.S., the city’s Mural Arts Program has perfected a process that gathers community input to design each mural, making every one truly a homegrown phenomenon. In this city of neighborhoods, where people feel passionate allegiances not just to areas but to single blocks, that’s important.

So if you visit Philadelphia, please take a tour of our gorgeous murals. And if you’re not here, at least get yourself a book for your coffee table.

And right now, go look at the photo essay. I like #6, for its artsy craziness (is that a water tower the mural is covering up?), and #12 for its creative use of jagged building edges. And I love the soaringly tall Dr. J, the legendary Julius Erving. What is your favorite?

Because I can’t stand to stay away from it for too long, this post will be in the form of an off-the-top-of-my-head list of thoughts about this beautiful — beautiful — device:

Waiting in line and then purchasing two 8GB iPhones (one for me, one for my sister) at the Fifth Ave. Apple Store was perhaps the most pleasant and exciting buying experience of my life. I say experience because the entire thing felt like a spectacle: dozens of companies showed up to jump on the bandwagon and advertise their wares. I got a free fan, buttons, a keychain, slick info packets about everything from recycling your old phone to social networks trying to tie themselves to the iPhone, bottled water and lemonade.

While standing in line I watched a near pornographic campaign video for Giuliani be shot 15 feet in front of me. My guess is that if you google “Rudy girl” within the next couple weeks you’ll see what I’m talking about. Also, listen for man in the background yelling “vote Ron Paul.” That’s me.

I was interviewed three times. Once by a young woman doing competitive market research for LG (she’s going to call in a few weeks to see how I like my iPhone). Once by a Yahoo! Tech blogger (who said her press contacts put the number of iPhones at the Fifth Ave. store at 2,000). And once by a Fox News (barf) woman from the Geraldo show. They grabbed me right after I emerged from the store to the cheers and high-fives of dozens of Apple employees (they cheered everyone — not just me — but I suspect they may have sensed my enthusiasm).

Everyone in line was awesome. I lucked out and ended up next to a true Apple diehard and we reminisced about the days of the Apple II.

I was terrified walking home with two iPhones in tow and a beautiful Apple iPhone bag that screamed “mug me!” I stopped by the vendors at Columbus Circle and they were kind enough to give me some less inviting plastic bags to cover my loot up with.

I cannot explain how giddy I was and still am, though I imagine my roommates who saw my face when I walked in the door have a decent idea. My full experience was delayed a bit when the iTunes activation got stuck trying to talk to Apple’s servers (which I believe were trying to talk to AT&T’s, which according to the forums I read last night were hammered in the activation process.) I went to bed last night around 2:30 with a non-activated iPhone.

I naturally arose shortly after 6am this morning and immediately hopped out of bed and had my phone activated inside of a minute. Aside from the hiccups last night, it was a glorious activation process with no annoying salesperson in sight.

This phone is stunningly, achingly, painfully gorgeous. It is the single best designed piece of consumer electronics I have ever owned. This puts the all three Playstations, all iPods, Tivo, the Wii, the PSP, the DS and all the others to shame. Undoubtedly, the iPhone lives up to the hype.

The EDGE network is not nearly as bad as I expected it to be. Word is that the speed was bumped to 270 kbps in major metropolitan areas yesterday right before the launch. The wifi access I hawk from my neighbors is painfully slow sometimes, so right now my fastest net connection in my apartment is on my phone. Weird.

I browsed my favorite blogs, posted on a Facebook wall, checked Gmail. Everything just worked (though I was only able to view Google Docs — no dice with editing them).

There are a million little touches that make you smile. If you get an e-mail with a link to a YouTube video, clicking on it doesn’t open YouTube.com in Safari but instead starts streaming the video in the built-in YouTube player. Deleting e-mail messages is done through a “swipe” gesture that feels like “crossing out” the message. Visual Voicemail rocks. Text messages pop up while you’re on the phone in a delightfully friendly and helpful manner.

Battery life. I’ve been running this pretty hard (browsing the web, e-mail, long phone calls, listening to music, watching videos) for the last 4+ hours and it still shows over half the battery remaining.

My ringer is set to “Old Phone,” which sounds exactly as you would want it to. It’s a pleasant, tasteful, traditional phone ring.

The keyboard, which I was more than a little nervous about, is I think ultimately going to be a non-issue. The first five minutes were frustrating. The next ten were a little better. After an hour, it started to feel decent. My prediction? Within a week I won’t even think about it.

One revelation I hadn’t really thought about before — and which I still have yet to truly internalize — is that I now have Wikipedia in my pocket. Take a moment to think about that. I suspect this is one of those things that seems cool at first but can’t be fully understood until the ramifications begin to manifest themselves. And it’s not just Wikipedia, I’ve got the entire web — the REAL web, not some “junior” version — in my pocket. I have near-instant access to the largest store of human knowledge ever compiled.

I have not traditionally put much thought into designing my living space. Sure, I set up my room nicely (both functionally and to a lesser extent aesthetically), but prior to the last year, I had never thought about how much my environment impacts my productivity and happiness.

For example, last fall, a suitemate and I came up with the idea of purchasing a whiteboard for our suite’s common area. We thought it would be a fun and useful way to collaborate on our many problem sets.^[1] The idea percolated in our minds until one day we broke down, went to Staples, and purchased a whiteboard and the necessary accoutrements.

To say that the board was a success would be an understatement. It worked out so well, in fact, that we shortly thereafter purchased a second board, and then a third.^[2]

What did we use the boards for?

First and foremost, they performed even better than expected at helping us with our original goal of collaborating on problem sets. The boards enabled us to offload our thinking into a shared space — a commons — which meant quite literally that multiple people could work on a given problem simultaneously. It also meant problems could be put on the board, ignored (or at least not actively worked on) for a bit, and then resumed.

Compare this to doing problem sets alone, on a piece of graph paper. With graph paper, when you’re not working on your problem set, the problems are not in view — they’re in your backpack, desk drawer or, most likely, on your floor. In any case, you’re unlikely to glance at them when you’re eating or chatting with friends. But if the problem exists on a whiteboard just next to your breakfast/lunch/dinner table, in the room where you and your friends spend 75% of your time at home, you’re bound to gaze upon it from time to time. Chances are also that at some point you — or one of your friends — will have a breakthrough. And when you do, there will be no delay before you can start working again.

That last point is key: Whiteboards operate in realtime and thus have no “startup time” — i.e., there’s no pause between when you want to start working and when you can actually start working. The few things that might actually slow you down, like not being able to find a marker, can be eliminated with a little thoughtful design.^[3]

The boards didn’t just give us a way to do our homework together, though. They actually helped us learn the material more thoroughly, by keeping our work visually in front of us, and by facilitating the social connections that helped cement our new knowledge. They also served as a mechanism for my friends and me to share information that was not directly related to our course work: My friend Spencer taught me some of the basic mathematics behind Western music, and the boards have been used more than once to parse Arabic and Latin sentences.

But the boards’ usefulness did not end there. Over the past months, they have, among other things, served as an oversized message board (I’m at the library. Want to grab dinner at 7:30?); an ad hoc grocery list; and aided in the development of a theory of how best to pick up strangers.

As the above examples suggest, the dry-erase boards became wholly integrated into our daily lives.^[4] Here’s why I think they worked so well — and were adopted so quickly.

First, as I hope I have illustrated above, the boards were genuinely useful. This may seem painfully obvious but I still think it’s worth stating: Things that are useful will get used.

Second, they were right there, so we didn’t have to go out of our way to use them. How many times have you found a new website or downloaded a cool new program, only to find that a week later you’ve forgotten that it even exists?

I think there are two primary lessons to be learned here.

The first lesson is that our environments facilitate our thinking much more than we tend to think they do.^[5]

The second lesson I will sum up in the form of a new law:

Nicholas’s law of technological adoption:

The rate of adoption of a new technology is directly related to its utility and inversely related to how much effort it takes to incorporate it into your established workflow.^[6]

I’m curious to hear what people think of all this.

1. Keep in mind that I am, along with all of the people with whom I live, presently in engineering school. We don’t write response papers or essays; we do problem sets. For better or worse, we live and breathe problem sets. I should also note that for the majority of our classes, collaboration is not only permitted but actively encouraged by our professors.↩
2. In the interest of full disclosure, I should acknowledge that the acquisition of the third board was driven as much out of my near obsessive desire for symmetry as it was out of actual need.↩
3. Early this semester, with the purchase of the third whiteboard, I got an extra set of markers that were magnetized. A friend noticed that they stuck rather well to our rooms’ metal doorframes. Ever since, I have kept a marker or two on my doorframe. Now, when I have a thought in my room and want to work it out on the dry-erase board, I mindlessly grab a marker on my way out to the lounge and I’m ready to go.↩
4. This has become something of a problem. I now frequently find myself looking for the nearest whiteboard (or reaching into my pocket for an erasable marker) when I want to explain something to someone. The problem is that this happens even when I’m places that rarely have publicly accessible whiteboards, like a restaurant or train station.↩
5. Variations on this theme have been studied for some time. The American psychologist J. J. Gibson wrote about the importance of environmental factors in shaping our thinking decades ago. I guess I’m more than a little late to the party.↩
6. As an example of this on a large scale, think about how quickly Facebook went from being non-existent to utterly pervasive. In a matter of months, it became part of the daily routine of millions of people and the sixth-most-visited site in the US. Imagine the possibilities if we could build a grassroots activist network with the same rapidity.↩