khal weir | blog

For various reasons, I’ve moved a lot in the past few years and with each move I’ve reduced my processions. After reading recent articles such as this BBC one, I begun to think about minimising even further.

Its not even like I have that much stuff – a TV, a 5.1 surround system, MacBook Pro, iPhone, a drawer of assorted computery bits, a bunch of clothes, a collection of Vans skate shoes, a signed Faith no More poster, some bike stuff, back issues of Little White Lies, Dirt and Wired and a small box of my remaining books and CDs which I’ve yet to open since my last move.

But how much of that do I actually need? As much as Shepard Fairey designed George Orwell novels and the WWF cookbook are nice things to own – in truth I may never read them again. Keeping back issues of magazines is crazy too, as a majority of their content is more accessible online.

With the exception of the Apple goodies (ok.. and Mike Patton’s scribble), I’m not terribly attached to any of this stuff, the only problem items are my 3 bikes… yup, I’m a bike nerd and am currently trying to figure out a solution.

I’ve already made a decision to stop buying music, movies and games on physical media – I got burned in the HD format wars and am sick of storing and lugging around shiny discs. I’ve been streaming music from Spotify, buying from iTunes or erm.. acquiring it from other sources for years and can’t remember the last time I bought a DVD.

Basically, I’ve come to the conclusion that I can reduce my processions further still, I’ll begin a clearout session this week and at some point will buy an iPad as a replacement for printed media. An iPad, in fact, could serve as a replacement for my MacBook for a large proportion of what I’m currently using it for. However, annoyingly I would have to keep the MacBook around to upgrade and manage the media on my iProducts, but thats a separate issue that I like to call ‘where the hell is iTunes in the cloud?’.

Having less stuff is important to me, it feels good not to be burdened with an overwhelming amount of objects. It wasn’t long ago that I had 100s of CDs and DVDs, a collection of Star Wars memorabilia and almost every major games console released in the last 20 years. Nowadays, it seems ridiculous that I considered any of that important and I’m pleased to be free of it.

I follow over a hundred different blogs and twitter accounts, most of them tech related so I can keep up-to-date with the latest trends and topics in my industry; however I always take time to relax and read about my other interests.

The following blogs are among my favourites and most often visited; they all have great designs and some amazing content, I hope you enjoy them too.

kitsunenoir.com

How can you not love a blog that features ‘Space Suit of the Week’ ? KN has varied content covering fashion, music, culture and art, with frequent free mixcasts, downloadable ‘mixtapes’ based on themes and some fantastic wallpapers by guest artists.

topleftpixel.com

I first came across this photoblog while reseaching for a holiday in Toronto a few years back and have been following it since. I love Sam’s photography and the simple concept of uploading a photo every day, the site reminds me of my time in a fantastic city and the alt text included on every image detailing the equipment used even influenced my last camera purchase.

locallemons.com

I’m into food and enjoy cooking; Local Lemons is probably my favourite recipe site. The photography is beautiful, dominating the page and detailing all the ingredients and stages required. Its clear that the author has a real passion for food – check out her ‘Fast Food Slow: Big Mac‘.

boutiquecycles.com

Bikes are another passion of mine, I recently added a third to my stable. Boutique Cycles is a simple site for proud owners to show of their custom bikes. There is a subculture of riders that make building up bikes an art form, sourcing just the right parts and dreaming up colour schemes.

littlewhitelies.co.uk

This one is actually an independent film magazine; the site features interviews and articles as well written review and encourages community feedback. Every copy of the magazine is viewable online, but I’d really like to own some of the printed versions if only for the amazing artwork.

Something I’ve come to realise as I’ve broadened my view on web application development, is to not rely solely on conventional sources such as books and blogs for learning.

Think about it, were you ever shown how to use a hand dryer? What can their design teach you about UX design? Good design is good design, it doesn’t have to be a web based to inspire you to create a fantastic new webapp.

Great customer service in an Apple store, a nice touch at a restaurant or hotel that made a difference to your visit… what can you take from that? How can you use what pleased you in the real world and apply it to your site or application?

The pride and attention to detail a master knifemaker puts into his work is inspirational, even if your product is virtual and your tools a mouse and keyboard.

Seeking inspiration from unusual sources isn’t new; the development methodology SCRUM is based on the sport rugby. The concepts of Kanban and Just-in-Time, first employed by Japanese factories, have also been applied to software development.

Nature has always been a valuable source of design inspiration, for example the nose cone of the Shinkansen bullet train is modelled on a Kingfisher’s beak and the Fibonacci sequence is also found in the iPod’s design.

Everything in life has a lesson to give, the skill is knowing how to find and use it.

So its finally going to be 2010, from now on we get to say ‘twenty-x’ instead of the clumsy ‘two thousand and x’. Already it feels like the future is now; surely hovercars and jetpacks will follow.

This year, I lost over 20kg, took up mountain biking again, started growing my own chilli peppers and got into cooking and baking. I’ve been learning Codeignitor, Wordpress, jQuery and continued to learn Django.  I saw two of my all time favourite bands live and had awesome holidays in Germany and New York.

Anyway, so this is my lazy blogger year end post of stuff I’ve liked over the past 12 months.

Albums

Theres been a some great new music this year

Fever Ray – s/t
listen on Spotify

One half of The Knife returns with a fantastic album that I just can’t stop listening to.

Muse – The Resistance
listen on Spotify

Ok, so I admit its kinda cheesy, but I think this album is great.



The Dead Weather – Horehound
listen on Spotify

An awesome debut from the supergroup formed by members of The White Stripes, The Kills and QoTSA;  this is my album of the year. I saw them live in Edinburgh and was blown away, Alison has an amazing stage presence and Jack White just kills on drums or guitar.



Them Crooked Vultures – s/t
listen on Spotify

Another debut from a supergroup; Josh Homme (QoTSA, Kyuss, Eagles of Death Metal), Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters) and John Paul Jones (Led Zepplin). I had to pay a silly amount of money on eBay to secure tickets to the Edinburgh show, but it was worth it, these guys rock!

Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport

Just under an hour of awesome, lo-fi instrumental noise (imagine Exit Planet Dust era Chemical Brothers combined with Mogwai); great for coding and working out to.


Movies

There were some really terrible movies this year, with the exception of

Where The Wild Things Are

A beautiful adaption of the much loved children’s book, I’m tempted to go see it again already. Everything in the film is fantastically designed and takes inspiration from the source material; I loved this film.



The Hurt Locker

A superbly shot film about a bomb disposal unit in Iraq, directed by Kathy Bigelow.



District 9

I loved this, I was really into it’s documentary style beginning; although it gradually devolved into something more generic later on. For me, its between Where the Wild Things Are and this for the film of the year.



Moon

I caught this at Edinburgh Film Festival and have been looking forward to seeing it again since.  Moon is a dark, moody SciFi film directed by David Bowie’s son starring Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey with a great soundtrack by Clint Mansell.

Drag Me to Hell

Sam Raimi returns to horror and kicks ass, the train wreck that was Spider-man 3 is almost forgotten.

Avatar

OK, so I love SciFi movies, and this is just Dances with Wolves in space, but it sure is pretty and the 3D is really well done.

Software

Spotify

With a premium account, I have almost all the music I could ever want, on my desktop or phone, legally – whats not to like?



Call of Duty : Modern Warfare 2 (XBOX 360)

Its the Call of Duty you know and love, but totally Bayified.



I MAED A GAM3 W1TH ZOMBIES 1N IT!!!1 (XBOX 360)

The best 80 points you’ll spend on XBOX Live Marketplace.

Tech

Apple Magic Mouse

I’ve always thought the Mighty Mouse was one of Apple’s weakest designs, its awkward to use the side buttons and the scrolling nipple gets clogged up and stops working. The Magic Mouse is comfortable, works really well and has replaced my MX 1000 at work.

Nike+ Sportband

I recently started a running program and bought new pair of Nike+ compatible trainers; I’m still using an iPhone 3G which doesn’t have Nike+ built in so bought the Sportband instead. I really like the simplicity of it, press to start a run, press to end, plug into computer, watch the animated man run across the screen to show how much you suck at running.

Just 6 months ago I was 20kg (around 3 stone) heavier, classified as obese according to the BMI, wearing 36″ jeans and large t shirts, now I’m down to a 32″ and small shirts; I feel great and am fitter than ever.

The key to losing weight is simply creating a calorie deficit, if you burn more calories than you consume – you lose weight. I figured I could do that without an expensive gym membership or complex diet plan. I calculated my Basal Metabolic Rate (calories burned at rest each day) and approximated my body’s calorie requirements based on my activity level; from then I prepared my own meals as much as possible, ensuring that their content accumulated to less than my daily calorie requirement.

This is what worked for me

• Avoided eating out – its harder to approximate the calorie content of food you didn’t make yourself
• Weighed myself everyday – I found this to be motivating
• Eating whole foods – these are very filling for few calories. Dorset Cereal muesli, Eat Natural bars and peanut butter on rye bread have become stables.
• Workout every day – I have a simple short routine of floor and weight exercises that I do everyday
• Varied additional exercise – I supplement this workout with additional hour or more of exercise atleast 3 times a week, this can be running, a walk, a bike ride.
• Saying no to beer – a pint contains upwards of 250 calories, way to undo 25mins of biking or an hour walking! I’ve switched to rum & Coke whenever possible.
• Snacks are OK! – but make sure they are healthy, I stick to things like wasabi peas, rice crackers and dried fruit.
• Didn’t deny myself treats – I occasionally went out for burgers, had take out kebabs, got a slice of cake at lunch or ice cream at the cinema, just made sure to make up for it by doing some extra exercise that week.
• Encouragement from friends and colleagues – thanks guys!

Whats next?

I want to keep the weight off, so I’ll be sticking to the above but increasing my calorie intake to closer to my daily requirement. I also want to continue improving my fitness level, so I’m planning to doing a ‘couch to 5km’ challenge (yup, theres an iPhone app for that) and I’ll be setting some other arbitrary fitness goals too (100 consecutive press ups, 10 pull ups).