Endearing Geeks

For some reason, much of what gets suggested during the week for some Friday fun is geek related. That's not bad thing, and perhaps it says a little about my own personality traits that I find such things amusing.

There were several contenders this week, but I wasn't feeling terribly inspired by many of them. They were all good, but not terribly original - too similar to previous weeks. (Or, slightly beyond what I feel is appropriate for this post!)

However, a discovery on Wired yesterday brought a little smile to my face, so I thought I'd share that instead - The Top 10 Endearing Habits of a Geeky Spouse.

From the cute:
#9. Being romantic in unusual ways. Because who wouldn’t love to be wooed with Shakespeare in the original Klingon or a poem written in Elvish? Red roses are nice, sure, but they’re so … mainstream. When was the last time someone gave you a flashing LED heart?

To the practical:
#5. Having a lot of hand-me-down gadgets that are still perfectly good. While I can see how it might not always be endearing that we love to get the latest technology the moment it hits the street, if not sooner, this habit does have a fortunate side effect. “Why do I need to upgrade to the iPhone 3GS? Well … because I know you want an iPhone, too, and this way you can have my 3G!”

Bless. In case you feel that there needs to be a balance of opinion on this one, it's actually a follow-up to the 10 Annoying Habits of a Geeky Spouse.

Of course, I have no spouse - geeky or otherwise - but if you remove the romanticism/lifetime commitment elements, they're pretty good examples of what's fabulous and downright tedious about geeky friends too.

And, in the style of Gizmodo, here's what didn't quite make it this week:

A cyber cheetah...Another geeky t-shirt but this time with animation and batteries...A puppet that provides technological 'advice' and general offense...And today's gadgets if they were made in 1979.

The many nuances of the written word

So many times lately, everything comes back to communication.

Throughout history, ever since the concept of pen meeting paper (or even stylus meeting wax) came about, the written word has been at the centre of how we communicate when not speaking to one another.

Maybe in ye olde days of letter writing, one put more thought into the words gathering on the page. Sentences were well crafted, paragraphs existed, letters were long. When I was a student in the missionary archives, I would read carefully written epistles, covering every inch of the paper (sometimes twice - writing across the text again, for good measure) that took almost a year to reach their destination and another year to receive a reply. They had to be good. Their meaning had to be clear.

As I feel I keep saying, we now seem to take written communication for granted. Everything seems to get squashed down into the smallest possible space - 140 characters for a tweet, a bit more for a text or facebook post, possibly a bit longer for an e-mail. Online chatting seems to reduce sentences into acronymns.

I love an online chat. I like the fact that the beeping, flashing and popping up of boxes shows that there are people out there who want to communicate with me right at that moment. But it has issues. I've lost count of the number of times a sentence I've typed has been misconstrued - where sarcasm or irony hasn't quite come across in the way it would have, if I'd spoken it.

What about a simple "ok"? Aloud, that can have numerous nuances. You know when you hear it if it's enthusiastic or under duress. Does "ok, I'm going to stop talking to you" mean "I'm offended by your last statement so I'm ending this conversation"?

Today I feel bad, because I think I snapped at a friend on their Facebook wall. It wasn't intentional - certainly not when writing my quick reply - but their reply seemed to suggest that they'd taken offence. (All I wanted was to go and see Harry Potter sooner rather than later!) Now that conversation is in public for all our mutual friends to see and I regret it.

Of course, it helps when you're communicating with someone you know well. Sometimes, with particular friends, I can hear the tone that they would have used aloud. Then again, at other times, with the same people, there's a question mark.

It's so complicated...but you know what? I still wouldn't be without it.

Maybe we simply have to be more honest with each other, more caring and less hasty in coming to wrong conclusions.

A handwritten blog:

Click on the image to enlarge.

MS Beauty

Today I went on an IT training course, under duress. I don't mind training courses as a rule (especially as they usually begin later and finish earlier than normal working days), but when I know that they'll involve hard work, lots of information and a complicated IT system, I'm a lot less keen.

By lunchtime I was grinning ear-to-ear and thoroughly impressed with the thing of beauty I was being inducted into. MS Projects is genius and a lot less complicated than I thought. Even writing this I'm actually shocked by how excited I am by this software, I am such a loser!

Plus, I had one of those "Did I just say that out loud?" moments, when returning to my desk after lunch I looked at my screen and said: "Oh, I love how all those lines and arrows cross over, it's so pretty!" The room, as one voice, laughed at me heartily.

First task involved creating a timeplan of what we did that morning, before the course. As my morning involved a swim and a long walk along the South Bank I was rather gloating that at least mine would be interesting! The pinnacle was the moment it was explained how two tasks could occur concurrantly, so I was able to illustrate how, during my walk along the river, I popped into Nero to pick up a Chai Latte...gosh I need to get a life!

Because I am the greatest nerd, I took a screenshot of it just so I could show you:

And here are ones of the slightly less interesting House Building task we did, including one with percentages, resources and costs. Super, super exciting!

And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to build my own computer, as that's clearly the geek I seem to have become....

Living idols

Reading an excellent article in the Guardian today, a sobering thought struck me: It is pretty inevitable that I will now never get to see Nelson Mandela in the flesh.

The article outlined how South Africa have recently done a poll similar to the BBC's 'Great Britons' poll of a few years back. Thing is, with the top 10 announced, the winner is so clear that there will simply be a contest as to what order the other 9 will be in. As the article states: "Mandela is that rare thing: a man turned into statues in his own lifetime".

Mandela is most definitely the living person I most admire. I can't actually remember a time when his name was not in my brain. I grew up against a backdrop of parents passionately involved in the anti-apartheid struggle (even if the first I understood of this was why we didn't buy Shell petrol or Cape apples). Watching Cry Freedom, probably aged no more than 10 (I blame the babysitters) had a profound affect on me. Aged 9, with a bad dose of the flu, I lay on a chaise lounge at a friend's house, watching Mandela being driven into freedom.

He's my mother's 'memorable figure in history' for her bank security questions. (She should worry about how much info I have on her banking - pin number, special date, maiden name...) The sharing of this fact at the tea party where I met my sister's in-laws for the first time, prompted a classic difficult family moment. Future father-in-law insisted that Mandela was a no good terrorist - I believe the phrase "once a terrorist, always a terrorist" was used. It went down like a lead balloon.

The thing that bugs me is that I've had missed opportunities to see this man in person. Whilst at university, he gave a lecture at my campus - but in the holidays when no students were around (or even informed). When he launched the Make Poverty History campaign from Trafalgar Square I was stuck at my desk in the first week of a brand new job. My last opportunity - his birthday concert this time last year - was a missed one.

In four days time he will turn 91. His health is failing and he rarely travels, let alone leaves South Africa.

There are plenty of people I'd like to meet one day, from George Clooney (on a shallow level) to Judi Dench or even Obama (I have met Clinton - of the Bill variety - that was exciting), but Mandelas come along once in a blue moon. In fact, less than that. His life brought hope to so many and changed a country some though unchangeable (no matter what has happened since).

I just hope that when the sad day comes and he is no longer with us, he doesn't do a Mother Theresa and become overshadowed by the death of someone much less worthy.

A baptism of skype (Updated)

The world seems to complain long and hard about the way in which the internet drains life (or at least time) from all of us.

People leave facebook in order to maintain 'better' relationships.

We fret over e-mails sent in the heat of the moment or late at night after a couple of drinks.

Communication seems to have become almost too easy, trivialised, taken for granted.

But is it? Personally, I don't think so and I've just watched something that I think has proven this to me. Some friends of mine had their youngest daughter baptised over the weekend, complete with guests from all over the country, plus a couple of Godparents who live in America.

Thing is, the American Godparents weren't physically there. Their faces instead appeared on the screen of a laptop (carried up to the front and placed next to the font by the mother), courtesy of Skype. They could see the action, commit to their vows and generally get the idea of what was going on. Very clever. I think it might rank as the most creative use of IT I've seen in worship for a long time!

Not only that, but the ceremony is now online thanks to YouTube & facebook, so even those who couldn't make it (even virtually) can now get a taste of the action. Genius.

It did make me wonder whether it's time for me to get back into Skype. I've got an account but very rarely use it. I've got a bit of a thing about video-chats (it's to do with what I get up to at the same time as chatting online...gosh that sounds dodgy!), though I know others swear by them. But, it's a very good way to stay in touch with friends overseas (and my Dad when he swans off places), and a little more grown up than msn or facebook chat. Something to ponder perhaps?

Update: I feel I should also share another genius use of creative IT by these friends. Three years ago they attempted a Christmas Letter via YouTube. They weren't terribly successful at it, so edited all their efforts together into a work of comic genius. I don't think you need to know them to appreciate it!

Dull blogs

Whilst this blog may occasionally vie for the title of 'dullest blog in the world', it actually isn't...

...this is.

Whilst its author may have entitled it 'the dullest blog in the world', it's in fact quite the opposite. It has many of the things that this blog lacks - brevity, humour, making a point - I could go on.

Having had an absence of some years, I was pleased to discover that it's back, and just as good. Written by Dave Walker, of Cartoon Church and the Church Times blog (and the best cartoons ever on the sometimes dry subject of the Church of England), it is quite refreshingly un-dull - as the post below shows:

Standing in the middle of the room

I was standing at a central point in the room. The walls were all at approximately the same distance from me. I continued to stand there for a few moments.

Clever Clothing

T-shirts are wonderfully multi-purpose items. Not simply clothing, they can in fact communicate any number of things about their wearer.

From the age-old "I'm with stupid" (message: the wearer is actually stupid) to retro bands (message: 'I wasn't born when this band were around, but I like people to think I've got good taste in music'), or political causes, the t-shirt has long had a dual function.

For your amusement today, I bring you: intelligent t-shirts.

Shirts that show that not only is the wearer clever, but also has a sense of humour. Ok, a warped sense of humour. Actually, they are in fact a geek who would not be out of place on Big Bang Theory. (Unfamiliar with this comic genius? Watch this and this.)

First up: The Binary Finger

Second: The Ferrous Wheel

[It took me a good long while to get what this actually meant. I'm rather pleased - it means I'm not a geek, but that the person who sent it to me may well be!]

Third: Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock

[Thanks to the wonderful Big Bang Theory]

Finally, my favourite (as it's the only one I truly understood): Lego Evolution

ThinkGeek seems to have an almost unlimited supply of these things, so there's bound to be one for the geek in your life...

...unless they're someone who subscribes to the "I will not wear t-shirts with words on" philosophy. I find this both amusing and bemusing. Yes, we all have irrational ideas with regard to clothing (or 'apparel' stateside - could we bring that word into British use?). I, for example, will not wear grey on my top half - it's a stringent rule. But words? Hmmmm.

I guess it depends on what the words are. I don't have many, but I don't actively avoid them either. I like political t-shirts, but my current favourite has a random inscription of 'Talk like an Angel' which I believe to be enigmatic enough to not be embarassing and yet be quite a good conversation starter. You never know when that might come in useful!