Random Non Sequitur

A truism: engineers are often not the healthiest people around. We don’t sleep enough, we don’t eat right, we don’t get enough exercise and we’re prone to being overweight. Moreover, we neither have time nor the inclination to address our bad physical habits because we’re so often hyperfocused on the metaphysical, the intellectual or the technical. Inner self: very important. Outer self: not so much.

I myself grew up quite pudgy and have always been so. I was a stubborn mule about it too. Even though I knew it was unhealthy and I was unhappy looking the way I did, I refused to do anything about it, both out of laziness and the ridiculous notion that being concerned with my physical appearance was somehow shallow. For years I trudged on this way until I realized, as many people in my aging generation are starting to, that my lifestyle could go on forever, but my body certainly wouldn’t.

So earlier this year I made it a resolution that I was going to get myself to a healthy size and stay there. I signed up with a clinic specifically designed to treat obesity, and started a four month program over the course of which I lost about forty pounds. By no means am I out of the woods yet; any behavior change takes time, and I’m attending courses on weight maintenance for the next six months just to ensure I don’t return to my old Mountain Dew-swilling ways and gain it all back.

It has been an experience the likes of which I can’t adequately describe here (but I’m always happy to talk about it if you ask). But I have learned a few basic things that I thought I would share, as someone who’s been through it.

Five things you probably already know about weight loss (so no more excuses, right?):

1. Reduce the number of calories you eat. I don’t care how you do it – give up sugar, give up fatty food, portion control. Whatever is easier for you. Your body only needs a certain number of calories a day to keep you going (approximately your weight in pounds times ten) and if you routinely exceed this number, it will start storing the excess energy as fat. Keeping a food diary is immensely helpful – I highly recommend calorieking.com.
2. Exercise frequently with low intensity. Find something easy and enjoyable that you will do every day for 20-30 minutes and do it. This will help keep your body burning fat for energy instead of muscle. Just don’t push yourself too hard or you’ll actually start burning glucose stores instead of fat, which will only make you feel hungry.
3. Drink at least 2 quarts of water a day. Not only does it help you fight fatigue (a common symptom of dehydration), but it also serves to make the fat-burning process more efficient. Flavored water counts, but black tea and coffee don’t – and watch the caffeine.
4. Eat lots of lean protein. White fish and white meats like chicken and turkey breast are low-fat and relatively low-calorie. Even better, they are loaded with protein, which will help you feel full even if you’re cutting calories.
5. Don’t let yourself get really, really hungry. If you’re dieting, you will be hungry from time to time. What you want to avoid is the situation in which you let yourself get absolutely starving, and then start making bad decisions about food. Eat a healthy snack in between meals, or eat smaller meals more frequently.

I won’t lie and say that it’s easy, but it does get easier. 90% of the battle is education. If you’re interested in learning more, I recommend The New Fit or Fat and Thin for Life. Both are fairly technical and don’t have too much of the usual pseudoscientific nonsense.

And if you’re trying out a Wii Fit, let me know how it works for you. :)

During a recent trip home to Chicago (more precisely, Algonquin) I found myself going on a nostalgia treasure hunt through my parents’ basement. Among the usual prizes of old yearbooks, photos and toys, I unearthed a cache of computers, none of which had been turned on in almost fifteen years. The oldest machines in the collection were an Apple ][, a Mac Plus, and a Macintosh SE (all of which still boot). There were also two newer machines – a PowerPC box and a Performa, which was our first computer with a CD-ROM drive. Other Macs the household has seen are a blueberry iMac, a G3 iBook and a G3 tower. These days I use a Mac Pro tower and a Macbook Pro for work, while I tote around the featherlight Air for personal use. And then there’s the iPhone.

Yeah. This stuff is in my blood. It’s probably in yours too, if you’re reading this.

Old Mac users have more than just a shared history. We have intense cultural pride. There were times when it was a 45-minute drive just to get to a store where you could buy Mac software. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like to try to make the stuff, much less sell it. While I was milling around the SFMacIndie party at Jillian’s last night I was astounded by the sheer number of developers there. There are people who converted because of the excellence of the developer tools, or because they see opportunity in the market, or because they are attracted to the explosive growth of the iPhone. Actually, these are all pretty legitimate reasons to develop software for a platform. It’s not just folks doing it for the love of it anymore.

There’s no way this is a bad thing. More developers means more choice, more innovation and a better experience for Mac users everywhere. It’s just different, and it’s easy to be wistful for a world that has gone by.

To me, the rainbow logo is the icon of the Old World of Mac. The world of Mac that I fell in love with is different, both simpler and more complex, than the glossy technoporn world we know now. So I’ve decided to take it back (with all due respect to Clerks 2). I want to remember the richness and color of that shared history, even as we move forward into what looks to be a Golden Age for the company who’s products have shaped my life in so many ways. So henceforth I’ll proudly display the old logo in place of the new one wherever I can, as a simple homage to the culture that brought us here.

If a computer can be said to be a place, then my computer is the place that I call home. I spend more time there than anywhere else, love it and get sick of it, and get a bizarrely human satisfaction from decorating it. It stands to reason, then, that one of my great passions (and not-so-secret shames) is customizing my OS.

I’ve recently become enamored of Gedeon Maheux’s vintage game-themed Arcade Daze icon sets over at the Iconfactory, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that when I installed the first application set that almost all the apps I have in my dock were updated. Being the completionist that I am, I created my own icons for the missing applications: Firefox, Xcode and Interface Builder.

The two developer tools were surprisingly not too difficult, but Firefox was more challenging and I’m still not entirely happy with it. Here’s hoping Gedeon covers it in the next application set. In the meantime, you can grab all three icons here. (And check out my now fully pixelated dock!)

Interface Builder, Xcode and Firefox icons

Colin tells me that I need an introductory post, so here it is. You can read my profile on the About page, but the short version is that my name is Anne, I like Macs, I have two cats, and I make web pages for a living.

My blog is called Random Non Sequitur partially because I am interested in a staggering amount of random crap, but mostly to poke fun at the rather silly URLs people are forced to resort to these days. I also considered thisurlhasanumberinit.com and domainhacking.isforpussi.es.

So yes. Welcome and enjoy. I hope you find something useful or at least amusing in the posts to come!