Parenthetical » geekery

Squeez Bacon!

Sam — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 21:32:00 +0000

My favorite April Fool’s jokes:

1. ThinkGeek has some brand-new products you might enjoy, including an adorable Tauntaun sleeping bag for the cold little Jedi in your life, a Unicorn Chaser to cleanse your brain next time you’re sorry you looked at that horrible link your sister-in-law sent you, and of course make your breadmeat shine with deliciousness with Squeez Bacon!

2. Get excited for the hottest new reality show, Project Publishing!

3. Let Gmail Autopilot read and respond to all of your mail for you, as it learns your personal style! (Yeah, I know everyone has seen this already, but it’s funny, ok?)

4. Google’s brand-new CADIE technology can also be used to create a blog using optimal design principles [warning: annoying MIDI file].

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Ten! Years!

Sam — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 19:06:09 +0000

In the immortal words of Jeremy Piven in Grosse Pointe Blank: “Ten years! Ten years! Ten! Years!” Yes, believe it or not, I have owned this domain for an entire decade. It’s been home to everything from passive-aggressive collegiate angst to stories of my travel adventures to this YA lit blog.

I had big plans for some new additions in honor of the anniversary — which was, um, actually 2 weeks ago, on Valentine’s Day — but February turned out to be a more complicated month than anticipated.

Anyway, expect some shiny new stuff ’round about the end of March, when I’ve had two whole weeks of spring break to party, procrastinate, and give my blog some love.

In the meantime, some nostalgia. Back in the late 90s, when the web was young, we were so excited about “web journals” and other ways to use the internet for real personal connection. Now, of course, the word “blog” isn’t just some silliness Peter came up with on his website. Oversharing is standard. The lines between private, public, and professional are blurring more and more. The internet is for crass commercialism and research and blah blah blah, but even more than it was in 1999, it’s about people sharing their thoughts for free. (For good and for ill.)

No one will care about this except me (and Jesse), but… what’s my circa-1999 “blog roll” (er, list of bookmarks) up to now?
Fray: True Stories and Original Art
Jesse Chan-Norris
Adam Rakunas
Peter Merholz
Derek Powazek
Molly Steenson
Lance Arthur
Magdalena Donea

And some snapshots from the Wayback Machine of things I loved back in the day:
Maxi
Water
Colors

What were you doing on the web 10 years ago?

When 3.5 in. floppies looked futuristic

Sam — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 22:10:09 +0000

My friend, a public librarian, found this in her library’s attic:

Behold, fabulously 80s library poster!

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Hey you kids, get off my 3 1/2 inch lawn!

Sam — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:45:05 +0000

This morning I checked out a digital camera to a middle schooler. The only one we had left was one of the old ones that stores the pictures on a floppy disk. I explained this to my student. Her friend overheard and asked, “What’s a floppy?”

The first student’s answer? “It’s like a USB drive, except older.”

(The friend continued to be baffled by such questions as, “But how do you read it?” I showed them both the disk, and they agreed they’d never seen one before.)

Consign another one to the Museum of Useless Junk, I guess!

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A break from reviews for a geekgasm

Sam — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 23:28:34 +0000

Via my dear friend Eric at The Oyster’s Garter:

Who would win in a fight, Capt. Picard or Darth Vader?

I showed my 8th graders the tree octopus page today, by way of teaching website evaluation in a way that didn’t make them start snoring and drooling on their computers. “Why would anyone make a page like that?” they asked in bemused contempt. “He has way too much time on his hands.”

I thought this was supposed to be the Net Generation! Don’t they understand that people with too much time on their hands are the entire point of the internet??

In other news, who wants to watch a whole lot of ST:TNG with me this weekend?