So I got on Pinterest today, and I found that they've added this new feature: Explore Interests. It's merely in a preview phase now, but it's actually quite exciting.
From the looks of it, Explore Interest compiles pins based on what you seem to be interested in. Based on my 43 Boards (8,464 pins) & 632 Likes, this is a screenshot of some of my interests:
It's amazing how accurate these categories are. For instance, I have a board called "Beauty of the Beast" consisting of interesting beauty pins - crazy hair colors, nail art, etc. However, somehow Pinterest found that I'm specifically fond of red hair!
I took a class on privacy in college. From it, I gathered that the largest issue of online privacy is the judgement that comes from aggregated information. We may not care so much that the information about us is collected, but we do care about what the collection of information means once put together. It makes me happy that my interests have been accurately predicted so far!
My latest geek obsession has been The Venture Bros! This Adult Swim show parodies classic cartoons - such as Johnny Quest, Scooby-Doo, The Hardy Boys and G.I. Joe - in a hilarious story about a father, his twin sons, their bodyguard, and their adventures across the globe. (Perhaps, that's putting it too simply...)
I could spend a day geeking-out about how much I love this show! All of the characters are twisted versions of classic cartoon characters. The level of continuity in this complicated storyline is amazing. Every episode is absolute hilarity.
However, the two aspects that make The Venture Bros. one of my favorite shows of all time are:
Creators Jackson Publick & Doc Hammer
Not only are they the brains behind this fantastic show, but they're many of the voices in the show, too! Many adult animated television shows (like Family Guy & South Park) feature a ton of characters performed by a small handful of voice actors. It's amazing how one person can provide voice to many beloved personalities.
In my opinion, voice acting is one of many underrated creative gigs. Sure, voice actors aren't the richest, but it's fun and quite rewarding. With very little physical acting involved, voice actors can be a wide range of different characters making each experience new and exciting. (Not to mention lessening the likelihood of typecasting.)
In a Comic-Con panel, Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer talked about how straining certain voices are to perform. Sometimes, a character's voice is not so easy to produce. It takes skill and practice to be a great voice actor. It's an art that, if done poorly, can ruin the entire experience...
Nowadays, video games are all about multiplayer. Even games that have been single-player for many years now have multiplayer capabilities. This is mostly because no plot imaginable could compete with playing with real people. Interestingly, the word "multiplayer" has evolved into something completely different in the gaming world...
When I was growing up, "multiplayer" looked something like this:
One console. Multiple controllers. Split screens.
Now multiplayer looks more like this:
One player. One controller. One Headset.
Online multiplayer has completely changed gaming. Instead of gathering all of your friends together in your living room (and creating a wire jungle with your controllers), you can play with people from around the world via the Internet. Online multiplayer is undoubtedly an incredible innovation that has improved the gaming experience.
However, it has almost completely eliminated co-opt gameplay! In my opinion, there is still something irreplaceable about having friends and family in the same location playing a game (without strangers). Not only playing video games; when was the last time anyone played a board/card game?
A few familiar faces in the geek world have YouTube series featuring games like these, and they're certainly worth watching. Check out a couple of my favorite episodes below! I guarantee they will make you want to get your friends together for a game night.
There's just so much fun to be had in this pile.
The Guild's Felicia Day & her brother Ryon have a hilarious web series, called Co-optitude, on the Geek & Sundry channel. On the show, Felicia and Ryon play the old school video games their mom never let them play as children.
The frustration, Day-sibling-hilariousness, and nostalgia make each episode a side-splitting joy. It also makes me want to a get a Super Nintendo and play video games with my best friend.
On The Nerdist channel, Wil Wheaton (of just-about-everything fame: Star Trek, The Big Bang Theory, Eureka, etc.) hosts a table-top gaming show called...Table Top.
Until I came upon this show, I thought they'd stopped making table-top games. It's always fun to get a bunch of geeks together for a game. Whether it's D&D or something you've never heard of, there's nothing like basking in the boundless creativity no game design studio could muster.
These are my favorite episodes of Co-optitude & Table Top. I hope you've found them thoroughly entertaining. More so, I hope you've been inspired to gather some friends together and create some hilarity of your own!
What a fun project! Your home is your castle; it should reflect the things you love. This video gives some great tips for geeking-out your room on a budget. To recap:
Frame your posters
Find a theme & use its color scheme (60% primary color; 30% secondary color; 10% accent color)
Use old toys as decorations
DIY is fun and inexpensive
Avoid clutter!!!
If I might add a few ideas:
Look into different decor styles (traditional, contemporary, eclectic, etc.) and try to build a geek-infused design from there
Your room doesn't have to represent every TV show, movie, video game, and comic you love. Narrow your focus.
Keep the layout simple enough to change things over time.
Have a fellow fan help you, if you can. An extra set of eyes can't hurt.
Remember you have to LIVE in what you come up with.
I hope this has given you a few a ideas and some motivation to update the look of your favorite room with a little more of the things you love. There's no better way to introduce someone into your life than bringing them home to see how much you love Doctor Who.
Check out this eclectic zombie apocalypse living room I designed on Polyvore!
And Like A Very Geeky Girl on Facebook!!!
Samsung's Galaxy Gear is an exciting piece of technology! Much like the introduction of the touchscreen, this is yet another step toward the future our forefathers only dreamed of in fiction.
The Jetsons. Tex Avery's "House of Tomorrow". Star Trek. I often wonder how close are we to the advanced technology of "the future". After all, this is the future, right?
Science and technology have made incredible advances. Apparently, time travel is possible (in one direction). Hovercrafts are real. Video-chatting allows us to see people we're speaking with in real-time. Late performers have returned to the stage via hologram. Cars can self-park!
I'm admittedly excited about Galaxy Gear. However, I doubt this trend will stick.
For some reason, it feels like we aren't ready for it to be "the future" yet. Sure, we'll adopt the technological advances that preserve us and make our lives easier, but society hasn't fully embraced the futuristic age.
To my knowledge, no major car company is producing a hover car. No one is adding cybernetic upgrades to themselves. Futuristic home furnishings are regarded as mere novelty items. We have the technology; we just don't have the will to implement it. Why is that?
The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.
--Albert Einstein
Perhaps we have too much respect for the past to abandon it. (This would explain trends like Instagram and "vintage" decor and clothing.) Maybe we have too many issues to work out in the present to look forward to the future right now.
My theory is, along with all of the aforementioned reasons, fear keeps us from adopting serious technological advances. If we were to create this very different, wildly expensive infrastructure based on fairly new technology, the likelihood of glitches and failures would be astronomical! And the costs would be just as high. There would be no turning back, and life on Earth could get really bad really fast.
"Doesn't look so cool now, does it?" - Our Robot Overlords
So, it might be better to ease our way into the futuristic world with a talking phone or a fancy watch than having your cyber-brain installed...
Death Note is about a straight-A, high school senior named Light Yagami, who - through arbitrary circumstance and a Shinigami's boredom - comes across a mysterious notebook called a Death Note. Light learns that if you write someone's name (and envision their face) in the Death Note, that person will die. He then proceeds to use the Death Note to kill heinous criminals, to whom he feels deserve capital punishment, in an effort to create a better world...and be regarded as a "god" of this new & better world.
Unfortunately for Light, the police notice the several dozen criminals meeting an unfortunate demise and come to the conclusion that, somehow, someone is responsible for this. They hire the legendary, world-famous detective, known only as L, to solve this mystery - along with a task-force of the police's best officers (which includes Light's father).
Keeping his enemies close, Light also joins the task-force to find the mysterious murderer known as Kira (which, in reality, is Light himself). The great minds of Light and L compete in a sophisticated game of cat-and-mouse that makes Death Note a must-see for anime fans!
Death Note is a fantastic series, but what blew my mind? It wasn't until the last episode that I realized: Light is a sociopath!
I'd been cheering for him the entire time! Every time he was backed into a corner, I'd sit on the edge of my seat hoping he'd find a solution! Then, at the very end, I realized something that was evident from the beginning yet I ignored: the protagonist and his cause are utterly immoral!
Go Light! Kill those criminals! Become a god! Woo!
I recently read an intriguing article on io9 that lists 10 reasons the audience would root for amoral protagonists. Without spoiling the story, Light did some pretty awful things, but he meets a few of the article's listed criteria.
"1) Make their ends noble (or neutral) even if their means are evil":Light's ideal world without violent crimes was a noble cause. However, he chose immoral means of achieving this goal.
"3) Someone or something they care about": There were moments when Light showed us he wasn't a complete monster. There were people, such as his father, that he cared about.
Furthermore, I think audiences appreciate strong skill regardless of the morality conflicts. Though Light was a sociopath, he was undeniably good at what he was doing! It was fun to watch him think his way out of sticky situations. After all, the good guys are measured by the strength of the bad ones, right?
Happy October, everybody! Not only has Autumn arrived, but Halloween - one of my favorite holidays - is right around the corner! Why do I love Halloween? Well, aside from having a valid excuse to eat a LOT of candy and the delightful terror of haunted houses, Halloween is all about costumes!!!
I'm a huge cosplay fan! I love to see people's recreations of beloved characters. If you're not familiar with cosplay, I strongly suggest taking a look at the YouTube series Just Cos on the Nerdist Channel. It really opened my eyes to what cosplay means to its participants; it's actually quite freeing.
Upon "researching" cosplay, I came across two interesting costume styles I'd like to share: Steampunk & Cyberpunk.
If you're familiar with the setting of Bioshock: Infinite, that is essentially Steampunk. Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction that is more retrospective than futuristic. The style is 19th Century Western, but the technology well-beyond that.
Steampunk dates back to early 20th century science fiction literature, although most cosplayers are not specific characters. Instead Steampunk cosplayers are simply people from a different era - the far future where another Industrial Revolution is taking place.
Characteristics of a Steampunk costume:
No neon or bold colors; more browns, creams, neutral colors
Industrial aspects (typically gears, clocks)
19th century fashion (corsets, top hats, ruffled skirts, etc)
I like to think of Cyberpunk as the opposite of Steampunk. Where Steampunk is the punk of the past, Cyberpunk is the punk of the future.
The Cyberpunk style seems to have originated in the late 20th century. (The 1980s respectively.) Again, these cosplayers are not any particularly character, but instead represent a future time period. The Cyberpunk future is one where humans have merged with very advanced technology to create a world of androids and cyborgs.
Characteristics of a Cyberpunk costume:
Bright neon/Bold colors/Metallics
Lights
Technology (mechanical limbs/enhancements)
Tubes/wires
Colored Hair
*Gothic elements & Sex appeal
*Not entirely sure why Cyberpunk is more Gothic and revealing, but those are common characteristics.
If you're still looking for a cool Halloween costume idea, you might consider being a punk. There is a lot of creative potential here! Steampunk Tinkerbell, Cyberpunk Bride...
And, of course, there's always the classic punk...
