Category: interwebs!

  • Dear Geeks, may I borrow your brains a moment?

    So Rachel and I had an idea – or more accurately, I had an idea, and Rachel endorsed my crazy and agreed that it should happen and she’d help make it so (…Number One… sorry.)

    Want to Skip Right to the Survey?

    Anyway.

    The idea began percolating in my brain almost a year ago:

    …I wondered if there was some sort of consolidated calendar or website listing all the conferences, conventions, concerts, tweetups, meetups, and other random events and gatherings which draw the geeky masses… and for lack of a better search term, googled “nerdy events” (true story).

    Through that Google search, I discovered WordCamp Philly, a couple good sites to keep an eye on for certain types of nerdy events in my area (and corresponding ones for many other interests and locations), and a sudden desire to move to Portland or Seattle or Vancouver… but no big consolidated calendar of assorted geekery!

    But surely, there must be something!
    • Geeks, by the now-consensus definition, are really enthusiastic about the things we like, and have been known to… enthuse… together. In groups. On specific, pre-planned occasions.
    • A possibly substantial-if-stereotypical subset of us are the sort who like to collect, organize, and display Doctor Who memorabilia information.
    • AND the internet is basically our homeland; a disproportional number of us have some capability to produce a website.

    Surely, those characteristics had overlapped in at least one person crazy enough who thought it worthwhile to create such a website.

    So, I kept an eye out for one.

    I asked around. I periodically repeated said googly search and many variations thereof.

    I found:
    . . . Many, many good websites and calendars for nerds of a particular locale.
    . . . Many for certain geeky/technical professions.
    . . . A veritable crazyton of genre/fandom convention calendars.
    . . . Half a gazillion nerd-relevant groups on MeetUp.com.
    . . . Nerdy musicians and authors and internet celebrities list their tour schedules.

    But nowhere that WordCamp Philly and San Diego Comic Con and a Marian Call show and a monthly table-top gaming night and a NASA Social might all make appearances on the same website!

    “Darn. Somebody should do that.”

    And then I realized, No, I should do that. It would be a hellalotta work, which is probably why no one has, but it should be done, I know it can be done and roughly how to go about doing it and can learn the rest… and the thought wouldn’t leave me alone. >.< A few weeks ago, I mentioned it to Rachel, and she agreed: This is a thing that should exist.

    So, we’re doing it. 🙂

    As we sort out the details and get going, however, we’re in need of some outside input from other folks who would potentially use/enjoy such a website.

    We’ve talked to a few geeky friends about it, and I’ve scrabbled vaguely at twitter for name inspiration, and now we’re going to slightly-more-systematically ask you for some ideas and opinions, kay? Could you spare a few moments to share the contents of your brain with us?

    Take the quick 10.5 Question Survey!

  • It's official, I live in the future!

    I was in middle school, I think, when I read Ender’s Game and the rest of the series…es (there are two distinct but intertwined storylines in Ender’s universe – one following Ender, the other following Bean). Anyway, the story is set in a future in which exceptionally bright kids are recruited to go to “Battle School” on a space station, to train for a war with an insectoid alien species usually referred to as “Buggers,” but aside from that, everyday life on Earth doesn’t seem to be too different. Besides living in a space station and playing war games in zero gravity, the one thing that stuck in my mind a brilliantly futuristic were the “desks” that everybody had.

    “Desks” were basically small, portable, internet-connected computers with a touch-screen. I remember thinking that was very nearly magical, and pretty much the coolest thing ever. When I was reading that, tablet PCs did exist, but were fairly new still, and bulky, awkward, expensive, and not very powerful. Even laptops were still something I only dreamed about having, the internet was slow and texty, and WiFi (as far as consumers were concerned, anyway) didn’t exist yet. So, this fictional always-connected computer with the form factor of an Etch-a-Sketch became my benchmark for the future.

    And I just got an iPad(2) for Christmas.

    I can take notes, send email, read books, take pictures, draw pictures, watch movies, look up information, play games, and easily access the whole of the internet, any time, anywhere, from this screen thing in my hand, roughly the size of a college-ruled notebook (thinner than an Etch-a-Sketch)! Mission accomplished. Clearly, I am living in the future.

    (Further proof, also based on juvenile fiction: I remember watching the Disney Channel movie “Zenon, Girl of the 21st Century”, and they had little discs that stored data or music or whatever – basically CDs, except they were the size of a quarter. I was storing my school papers on floppy discs, so had a little nerd aneurysm at the thought of fitting all that data on something so tiny… 12 years later, I have a 16gb micro SD card in my phone, full of dozens of CDs-worth of music, a bunch of photos, full TV episodes, and other data, on this little flake of plastic the size of my fingernail. *brainasplode*)

  • you've all heard of the alot, right?

    Allie Brosh’s magnificent creature, spawned from a common spelling error?
    well, I think the alot needs a friend. based on an equally irritating error.
    and thus:

    and:

    and:

    (via justacleverruse)

    So, so wonderful. I wonder if Allie’s seen this yet?

  • Previous Bloggery

    A prequel/epilogue of sorts

    This is not my first foray into the blogosphere. In fact, I’ve been popping in and out for quite sometime now, since the days when LiveJournal was invite only… and I didn’t have an invite, so I was on a copycat site called “Blurty”. (I did eventually get an invite to LJ, and like 2 weeks later they opened it up. Figures.)

    Many of the posts found here are actually copied from previous incarnations of my bloggery. (When was this post originally written? On which site? The world may never know!!! (heck, I sure don’t remember.))

    Perhaps I’ll dig the addresses for such early brain-leak-recepticals out of the abyss at some point, for the amusement value of middle?school me spilling my guts into the vast virtual vacuum. (That’s what WWW stands for, didn’t you know?* The internet was invented by Germans.**) But for now, I’m riding on the much greater probability that noone actually cares quite that much, and shall refrain for the moment.

    I will, however, leave you with this link to the most recent one (besides this page, obviously), in case you’re really bored/stalking me and want to more blog-age. (I still update it periodically, but it has turned into more of a silly-picture-re-blog/fansqueeing page, and less of where I put words that mean anything, so henceforth I shall [more or less] distinguish the two as such.

    In any case, for further reading: http://LS7.tumblr.com/

    *Lies.
    **Pure fabrication.***
    ***Yes, I blog with footnotes.