This
flow chart from a Bruce Sterling speech popped up (
flat form). The step after you sell everything that isn't beautiful, emotive or a tool is to buy the best bed and chair you can find.
My philosophy is similar, I tend to be minimalist in how I live. I don't have a TV for instance and our house is modernist, contemporary and miminalist. Most of the trapping of a pre-ought society we have dropped as well; ie we don't have a land line phone. There are some areas we don't compromise though.
We spend a lot of time working. We spend a lot of time sleeping. We spend a lot of time commuting as well though I would love to drop this time sink hole. The take away from that is:
1. I should have a kick ass job.
2. I should have a kick ass bed.
3. I should have a kick ass car.
We recently bought a tempurpedic bed. It has like an extra layer on top and everything. The bed was expensive, but, we spend eight hours a night on it. Having a good bed is imperative. I move jobs to make sure my happiness is maximized, but that is not unusual for the tech industry. My car is a Corvette and I love it. Though I would be happy if I could ride a bike to work everyday.
The flow chart has 'the best chair you can find" as well. That is a good permutation on the 'kick ass bed' part of the philosophy. Bad chairs can be crippling. I can recall watching the documentary Objectified. One of the designers made the comment; "Why do we make uncomfortable chairs anymore?" Very good question. It is a failing of design.
One of the comfier chairs I have sat in (we have them in our office and dining room) are these
Ikea chairs. They look good too.
Phoenix Eats Out is the restaurant review site for
Phoenix,
Scottsdale and
Old Town Scottsdale which lists the modernist and contemporary restaurants, taverns and bars in the greater Phoenix area.
This is the list of the most popular restaurants pages from phoenixeatsout.com that have been viewed the most;
My personal favourite restaurants in Phoenix are
AZ88,
Postinos,
Bomberos with
Grazie,
Humble Pie,
Orange Table,
The Vig,
Fez and others coming close behind. View the complete list with the photo-journalistic style images on
phoenixeatsout.com
Arizona is an outdoor state and has lots of hiking in the city and around the state. Phoenix is unusual for most cities in having several large mountains in the center of the city with great hiking. Anyone who comes to Phoenix has to do the
Echo Canyon trail on Camelback and the
Summit Hike on Squaw Peak or Piesta Peak. The views of the city, suburbs and surrounding mountains are wonderful from Camelback and Piesta Peak.
For more experienced hikers there is the McDowell Mountains in North Scottsdale that has several difficult and strenuous hikes in
Tom's Thumb and
Bell Pass. Alternatively, you can hike the highest mountain in Arizona. At 12,600 feet
Humphrey's Peak is a long and difficult hike.
Between 2004 and 2009 this site,
southsearepublic.org, was a constitutional blog based on scoop which focused on Australian and global constitutional issues.
One of the strongest aspects of it was the development of constitutions by those involved in the blog. These constitutions are the outcome:
The constitutions were built using principles from Montesquieu's separation of powers, the enlightnment's universal political rights and the ancient Athenian technology of sortition and choice by lot.
South Sea Republic started in 2004 as an Australian constitutional blog in 2004 based on scoop software. It was an immigrative outgrowth of Kuro5hin. The archives for each year since then;
The articles are ordered by views.
I am an Australian living in the United States as a permanent resident.
I am a software developer by trade and mostly work in Java and jump between middleware and front end.
I originally worked in the New York area of the United States in telecommunications before moving to Washington DC and
working in a mix of telecommunications, energy and ITS. I started my own software company before heading out to
Arizona and working with Shutterfly. Since then I have joined a startup in the Phoenix area and am thoroughly enjoying myself.
I do a lot of photography which I post on this website, but also on flickr. I have a photo-journalistic website which lists
the modernist and contemporary restaurants in phoenix. I have a site on the
Australian Flying Corps [AFC] which has been around since the 1990s and which I unfortunately
lost the .org URL to during a life event; however, it is under the
www.australianflyingcorps.com URL now.
The AFC website has gone through several iterations since the 90s and the two most recent are
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2004-2002) and
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2002-1999) which are good places to start.
