Recently in Be Your Own Geek Category

Check it out -- Chris Higgins got himself a blogging gig over at MentalFloss! As he noted recently, I've long felt he should maintain a regular old blog in some capacity -- you know, like a log of the websites he visits and finds interesting.

If you're a friend of mine who enjoyed the kind of nerdly trivia and news I used to pass on from Higgins, you will probably enjoy his blogging there.

And who wouldn't like to know more about "Atari 2600 Cartridge Source Code as Art" or a "Nerdcore Hip Hop Documentary" or "Advertising Slogan Generators"?

You may enjoy the entries by the other writers, as well. It's all pretty nerdy.

I'm still a little confused by the concept behind Mental Floss the magazine ("where knowledge junkies get their fix"? doesn't that potentially cover, like, everything in the world?), but I have been enjoying the blog.

As you can see, I'm updating my blog, with a lot of help from Chris, who updated our movable type. The blog spam was driving me nuts, so he set us up with typekey so you'll now have to register with them (it's painless) or have your comments approved by me - not a big deal, actually, and then I'm working on the look of the whole thing by stealing Chris's templates which he got somewhere else. I won't leave it this dull -- actually, I have a newish logo that Pete made me like a year ago that I'd like to encorporate -- but I'm still working on the whole style sheet thing. Actually, I'm pretty pleased with myself with what I've been able to do so far without screwing things up!

This is the second installment in a series, Be Your Own Geek. (I still haven't figured out how to show content by category.)

One of the nice things about being married to someone in a different field than yourself is he or she can keep you abreast of what's going on in that field without you having to do any extra reading. This is especially nice in the field of technology because there is so much going on and so much of it is boring. But some of it is genuinely interesting and worth knowing. And it's nice to in turn being able to drop bits of technological trivia and gossip yourself at parties (or at least nod knowingly when someone else does). So here are some of the websites I've begun reading regularly in order to replace the internet flotsam that used to come to me as pillow talk.

Slashdot, the motherlode. Here I discovered that much of what previously struck me as obscure and arcane is actually being fiercly debated by thousands of nerds. And they're kind of sexist. I would never post there in 1 million years, of course, although I'm kind of tempted to ask them to run this particular topic as an "Ask Slashdot," (e.g.,: "if you broke up with your girlfriend/wife, what 5 sites would you suggest she visit on a regular basis to replace what you formally told her over the kitchen table?"). In any case, I can feel well girded for any geek party I attend if I've at least glanced at it -- not that I'm invited to geek parties anymore.

Think Secret, an apple rumor site -- I gather there are many, but this is the one whose editor is being sued by Apple, so that was good enough for me to add it to my bookmark. Ours was and remains a Mac household, so talking about potential Apple releases was kind of like what I imagine sports fans might say about their favorite teams and the players they might get. I'm using this site to keep up on the all-important world of what might or might not be happening at Apple.

Gizmodo, a gadget blog. Lot of cute little expensive things that I don't particularly lust after but I know someone who does! And it's written in an engaging manner.

That's all I can think of for now. I'd love your suggestions ...

I just realized how to add categories again in movable type (it had something to do with allowing pop-ups), which is appropriate given the category I wanted to add, which is: "Be Your Own Geek." This is my idea for a self-help book for (not to be sexist or to diss my she-geek friends) ladies breaking up with their geeky boyfriends/husbands and wondering what to do with all the equipment and cords that are left behind. It would be like those guides for women to work on cars or fix their leaky faucets or whatever that I assume were put out in the 1970s.

"Be Your Own Geek" probably exists, but I couldn't find it in about 2 seconds of web/Amazon searching, so for my purposes it doesn't exists. Chris has agreed to collaborate with me on this if I share the profits and we're off to a great start! I think if we wrote a cute forward and got some cute cartoon illustrations it could definitely sell. As far as I can tell, the divorce market is under-exploited, although I'll bet I'm missing something there. I DO think we need more divorce/breakup showers and parties and stuff.

This book would be an extremely general guide to things that geek boyfriends/husbands generally take care of, like hooking up stereo cables, buying technological supplies (like CDs), doing software updates, knowing what cool gadgets to talk about at parties, etc. I agree that incredibly general guides are often pretty useless, but keep in mind that as usual I'm more arguing for the market than the utility.

My actual implementation of this idea, to the extent that I implement it, is to create a new blog category, "Be Your Own Geek" and as I encounter problems that I need Chris's help solving, I'll blog about them under this category. That's the plan, and I'm sticking to it!!!

So here it is, without further ado, entry #1 in "Be Your Own Geek":

What Kind of Blank CDs Should I Buy Since You Took Them All When You Moved Out and Now I Need to Make CDs for My Sister?

[It should be noted that Chris gave me a bunch of blank ones as soon as I posed this question, but then he also answered the question in detail.]

Answer: I want CD-Rs. I don't need the kind that say they are for music, even if I'm recording music, because data and music CDs are identical, but the ones that say for music cost a little more because the record companies managed to impose some sur-charge on blank CDs. I probably won't ever take the time to re-write the CDs that are re-writable, particularly since they are cheap. The ones that we use are very cute because they have a good dye layer on them and no logos. I can get them at the audio store in NW. Dye layer matters in part because the CDs that you record are vulnerable to scratches that matter on the top rather than the bottom because of the way they are recorded.

I want to buy them in a spindle or cake packaging because it's cheaper, and I can buy the cases separately. I should make sure there is no lint on my CDs before I put them in.

I can check dealmac for deals on CDs.

I don't care about speed rating because the fastest my laptop can record is 16x (16 times real time) and all CDs are now faster than my laptop.
I should not be fooled by older audiophiles and debates which will tell me to record at slower speeds, because the faster speed is what my thing is designed to work at and slower speeds will make it fuck up.

I might want to get Toast sometime if I don't already have it, and what do you know, I do.

CDs degrade over time, especially if they are not in cases or if they are of poor quality.

OK! That's everything I learned about CDs! Look for more exciting installments in this category!! You can be YOUR own geek and figure out how to find entries by category!