My new obsession.

I recently caught on (some would say I grokked) to the lifehacking trend of customizing your desktop.

I'm a nerd, but not a computer geek. So I never spent any time thinking about my desktop, really, aside from occasionally wiping off the gazillion old shortcuts that accumulate or changing the wallpaper. But I've been reading lately about how the look and feel of your desktop can improve your productivity. The theory being that the more icons and alerts you have going, the more distracted you will be.

So I downloaded a couple of little gadgets (namely Rocketdock and Rainmeter) and made myself a fresh new look:



I'll let you know how it goes as far as improving my productivity. I'm still tweaking the icons a bit as well. Looks cool, anyway.

Grumblecakes.

So a quick search of the blogosphere shows that everyone is wetting themselves over the new Xbox Live Experience.

Yeah. Um. Huh?

I mean, yes, the new features are great - Netflix on demand, easier party systems, and the community games stuff. Yay. Fine.

My biggest problem is the look and feel of the dashboard. For one thing, forcing me to create a Mii-knockoff avatar is ridiculous. I mean, yeah, I did it, and she looks exactly like me, (except with fangs). But why? If I wanted to dick around with a cutesy-wutesy avatar of myself, I'd turn on my fucking Wii!

To make it even more jarring, I deliberately chose a grim, urban dystopia for my dashboard theme. So now when I log on, there's a roly-poly avatar of me admiring her shoes and looking coquettish, except she appears to be dropped into a set from Blade Runner.

And the other problem I have is that the dashboard now seems to be chock full of advertisements. The new interface has about eight menus, including Spotlight (on things you can buy), Game Marketplace, Video Marketplace, and Inside Xbox (added content for things you can buy). It's also very graphic-heavy, so to see your gaming acheivements, you have to flip through pictures of the covers of the games. It just feels very much like living inside a flier for Target or something.

Anyway, rant over. What did you guys think?

I heart this.

Clippity for you guys:



Thanks, Matt!

Avoidance is not an option

I was hoping to avoid this topic altogether, but they threatened to take away my nerd license if I didn't come down on one side or the other. So here goes: Steampunk. Sigh.

If you've been avoiding the internets for the last year, maybe you're not up on Steampunk. It's a design movement which attempts to merge Victorian sensibilities into modern technology, mainly through modifying the outward appearance of stuff so that it looks, well, antique. Also, wearing goggles seems to be important too. Never forget the goggles.

Anyway, some people have spent hours and hours modding their laptops, cell phones, etc., and then posted the pictures on the interweb. This has caused no end of controversy, mainly between the "hey, that looks cool" camp and the "that's utterly fucking pointless" camp.

Okay, yes, I do think it looks cool. But I think the TUFP camp is missing the point by a long shot. Most of the arguments seem to be that the steampunkers are merely changing the appearance of the object without adding anything to the function, and therefore is an exercise in futility. I think this comes from a lack of understanding into the importance of design in our daily lives.

Design is a bellwether to our cultural sensibility, and speaks to our collective values as a community. Most laptops and technology are designed to value ergonomics (it can't hurt your thumbs), efficiency of resources (it needs to be made cheaply), and finally aesthetics (nobody likes ugly stuff). Sleekness is valued highly right now, as well as innovative user interfaces: the iphone is a great example. The design of technology, like the design of anything else, has quite a bit of back-and-forth between the function of the object and the means by which it can be produced.

This is evident in any major design movement. Art deco favored clean lines and smooth surfaces, in large part to take advantage of new materials (plastic) and new means of production (big efficient factories). Mid-century modern favored "space-age" textures and shapes, both as a reflection of where the world was at the time, as well as better and better technologies to mass-produce items cheaply. And so forth.

So the point of my little lesson [adjusts pince-nez] is that, steampunk, like many other artistic movements, is about highlighting our collective values by providing a stark contrast. Steampunk, as it modifies objects, values craftsmanship over efficiency, aesthetics over ergonomics. Is it "pointless" to glue a brass gear onto an object that doesn't run on gears? Well, it certainly doesn't change the mechanism by which the object functions. But it does serve to highlight both the beauty and obsolescence of gears, which magnifies the actual technology in contrast.

In a way, steampunk also speaks to the collective anxiety hanging over our society: by allowing us to surmise how our lives would look if our society had evolved with different sensibilities, we can also imagine how our lives would be different in this parallel universe.

It is always valuable for a society to question its values in design. In as much as steampunk continues to provoke a dialogue, I think it's very useful as a aesthetic movement.

Except for the goggles. They are dumb.

Keyboard image courtesy of The Steampunk Workshop
Goggle image courtesy of Steam Gear Lab

Totally Subjective Gaming Review: World of Goo

Yesterday, my mother downloaded World of Goo for her Wii. Before I begin the review, let me just give props to my mother, who in her life has variously owned and played on an NES, SNES, Gameboy, GameCube, Nintendo DS, Wii, and PC. And sometimes she plays on my PS2 and Xbox 360. Yes. She is the gamingest mom ever. It is awesome.

Anyway, World of Goo: fun. You have to engineer these little goo blobs into various structures - towers, bridges, etc. It can be tricky, especially if you don't have an intuitive understanding of geometry and engineering. It can also be tricky if you do have an intuitive understanding of geometry and engineering, especially if you and your mom happen to be consuming wine.


But really, the frustrations are worth it. The different kinds of blobs have different characteristics, and they blink at you, which is just about the cutest thing ever. The graphics are bright and cheery, the music is entertaining, and the sound effects are catchy and amusing. It kind of reminded me of the Pikmin games in look and feel (only 2d of course).

And it's also fun to watch someone play. It LOOKS easy, so it's the kind of game that invites the player to shout "Well, then, YOU try it, smart ass," and throw the Wii remote at you, and then you try it, and it's really hard and you feel like an idiot, and the other person gets to feel smug. What more could you ask for, for $20? So get it, already.

The Great Conjunction

I have three words for you, friends: German. Metal. Polka.

Did you just hear angels singing? Are you sitting in a pool of light, blessed by the very knowledge of this phenomenon? Well, you should be. Get on that, would you?

It's true. It's the Polkaholix, a band whose mere existence fills me with joy. Of course, their music also fills me with joy too. Seriously, take a listen.

I met a fellow nerd at one of those wine parties who schooled me on this. It was like a Tupperware party, only, you know, with wine. Anyway, this chick named Cheryl, who was pretty awesome in that not only did she play the clarinet, she plays the clarinet in a polka band, had a CD of the Polkaholix in her car. We listened to it with the hostess before the other non-nerd guests showed up. Hearing a mixture of Rammstein and polka just doesn't put everyone in a wine-buying mood, I guess. Go figure.

Nerd Demographics: Niche Geek

When you get right down to it, the very essence of being a nerd is an intense interest in something unpopular. So, really, all geeks are niche geeks, whether it be for a game or a TV show or a hobby. But there are some interests out there that are so microscopic in their scope, so wildly unpopular, that they don't even warrant a separate cohort in the nerd demographic spectrum.

We're talking Ham radio, model trains, Frank Zappa fans. We're not talking chess tournaments, folks, we're talking Boggle.

For ages, niche geeks were the lowest on the nerd pecking order. They couldn't band together the way Star Trek fans could, so they were lonely. And they might not be smart enough to get full scholarships to Ivy League Schools the way math and science geeks could. Most went underground and pursued their hobbies in secret.

But then. Then! Teh Interwebs! Now every niche geek could geek out exponentially! Harry Nilsson fans could trade mp3's of old demos! Fans of The Prisoner could start flame wars about the identity of Number 1: it was the midget butler... no, it was Number 6! Fans of tentacle Hentai could rejoice in their disgusting, filthy habits!*

A funny thing happened, though. As these micro-hobbies were exposed to the light of day, some of them suddenly became Hip. Because nothing is hipper than having an ironic interest in something no one else likes. This is a double-edged sword for the niche geek. A good example is knitting. Couple years ago, only grandmas and niche geeks knitted. Now, you can't walk through a downtown without tripping over three places called some variant of "Stitch 'n' Bitch". Even my tiny town, population 14,000, has a yarn shop now. Re-donk.

Not to say knitting isn't a fun, rewarding activity: it totally is! Absolutely! But it kind of sucks when something you love, yet have been ostracized for, becomes the Next Big Thing. Because then you are in the position of seeing the thing you love be taken over by Hipsters, and god forbid, become Popular. Shudder.

My advice to the niche geek in this position? Take advantage of it. If possible, trade this new found popularity in your interest into something good, like contributing to a blog or getting laid. Because once the Hipsters decide something even more obscure is fun, you will be left with trying to explain to people that, no, really, you were into knitting WAY before it became popular, seriously.

How to make friends: Listen to them talk about their hobby without yawning.

How to get them in bed: Leave a positive comment on their blog.

How to make enemies: If the hobby is currently hip, insinuate that they only like it because it's popular and/or ironic. If the hobby is currently outre, Don't bother making enemies. They're pathetic enough.


*Seriously? That shit is GROSS.

Finally!

Election's over, everyone! You know what this means? That's right! A return to web comics that are actually funny, rather than a pathetic attempt to find a glimmer of sardonic humor in the face of impending doom!

I mean, much as I enjoyed seeing the foibles of Sarah Palin in lo-fi, 2D format, it's nice to go back to funnies that are actually funny:


Super-Fun-Pak Comix, Courtesy of Ruben Bolling/Tom the Dancing Bug via Salon