People and Blogs: Piri

Let's start from the basics: can you introduce yourself?

Hey, I'm Piri. I'm a software designer, engineer, and artist of sorts. I build Kinopio, and have been blogging about the craft of making software for 12+ years (:O).

I went to school in Toronto for biology and urban planning. There I learned that I liked illustration a lot more than writing boring reports and papers.

After school, I got a job at a startup as an illustrator, that turned into product design, when also turned into writing code so I could build the ideas in my head.

What's the story behind your blog?

I can't remember a time when I didn't have some kind of blog. In university, I met a lot of new friends around the world by doing more angst-y cringe-y livejournal-y style writing.

I started designing pketh.org while on a flight to SF, paid for by Yahoo, for a job interview at Flickr (times sure have changed).

If you’re curious about the green design, I was inspired by the 1956 Jaguar D-Type, which I still think has such a unique prototype race car shape.

What does your creative process look like when it comes to blogging?

My posts are usually long essays that take about a week or two to write and produce, so I try and make them timeless.

When I have an idea for a post, I'll make a Kinopio space for it and collect thoughts, images, and URLs in it for a while. If after weeks or months it’s still on my mind, I'll start connecting and organizing everything into a rough outline.

From there I'll start pasting things in and typing it up in either IA Writer or TextEdit. When the draft is done, I usually have someone proof-read it and use that feedback to make final edits. Then the final HTML formatting bits are done in my code editor of choice, SublimeText.

Writing is like a muscle that atrophies when you don't use it. Mine's out of shape so the process is quite painful. When I finally git push a new post out to the world, I just want to lie down and never get up again. Probably related, but I end up throwing away 1/2 to 2/3 of what I write in a blog post.

If I had the time to write more often I suspect it'd get easier. I think I could get pretty good at it.

Do you have an ideal creative environment? Also do you believe the physical space influences your creativity?

I prefer different places and tools depending on where I'm at in the process. I collect notes, inspiration, and connect related ideas wherever I am, usually on my phone.

I like doing the early writing stage in a coffee shop or in bed. Anywhere that doesn't make me feel like I’m doing “Real Work™” yet.

When I get really into it, I like to type on a desk with a good keyboard (I'm a big HHKB fan), on a screen big enough for me to keep my context windows (dictionary.app, Kinopio spaces, related web pages) next to my writing window.

A question for the techie readers: can you run us through your tech stack?

My blog uses Jekyll and is published on Github Pages. The domain stuff is done through Hover. It's quite basic.

Given your experience, if you were to start a blog today, would you do anything differently?

I might use something newer and nicer than Jekyll, but it would probably be compiled from markdown files the same way.

The current design is a bit of a Ship of Theseus that I've been slowly and gently updating it over years, so it's kind of grown on me.

Financial question since the Web is obsessed with money: how much does it cost to run your blog? Is it just a cost, or does it generate some revenue? And what's your position on people monetizing personal blogs?

I think the domain name is $20~/yr and I think that's it.

I'm split on blogs with paid content:

If writing is your job, then monetizing somehow totally makes sense. Quality independent writing and journalism is really important and should be compensated (I like Craig Mod's approach).

But for basically everyone else, blogging is a thing they do on the side for fun, and I think it sucks when people feel pressured to turn everything they do into a passive-income side-hustle potential-business-empire.

Time for some recommendations: any blog you think is worth checking out? And also, who do you think I should be interviewing next?

Skimming the depths of my RSS feeds, I realized that I’ve subscribed to literally 1000s of blogs. But sadly most have withered away over the ages.

Funkaoshi has been around for even longer than I've been writing – I consider the author my Toronto blogging senpai.

I really enjoy Alexotos' in depth mechanical keyboard reviews.

It's really cool and encouraging to see newer people blogging the same way we did. Lilly Ashton’s blog is worth reading If you're looking for something more personal and cozy.

Final question: is there anything you want to share with us?

Since 2018, I've been building Kinopio, a spatial note-taking tool to collect and connect your thoughts, ideas, and plans. You can use it to make sense of your thorniest problems and grow your coolest new ideas into plans. I hope you enjoy it.