geekdom

Pointless fetishm of obsolete technology

Art & Criticism, geekdom
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This irritated me:

This essay is the first piece of writing I’ve done by hand, start to finish, since 5th grade, 1992. I drafted it using a Uniball Signo pen and black notebook while sitting at my desk. I edited it in the same way. When it came time to enter the essay into the computer so that it could appear on this website, I typed it in almost exactly as I’d put it down on paper.

[…]

Overall I think there’s greater variance in the quality of the writing I produce by hand. The good stuff I write is cleaner, more honest, less stylized, more well-considered. The bad stuff is more obvious, more ponderous, more self-involved, maybe weirder. In fact, this is definitely one of the weirdest pieces I’ve ever written. Writing on the computer drives my writing towards some average value — I think/write/delete/think/write until I have something that’s decent but maybe less vibrant than the ideas as they were conceived in my head.

What annoyed me is not so much the fact that this guy has rediscovered writing in with pen and paper, but the unconscious elitism behind it. Reading between the lines you can see the idea being pushed that writing longhand is more natural and simpler than writing on a computer, but in fact more people find it easier to use a pc to write: just look at the explosion of writing on the internet.

In contrast, writing in longhand is hard work physically cramps your hand, is less easy to edit, less easy to share, in short less accessible for most people. It’s no wonder most people didn’t bother with it after school until the computer and internet came along and made it easy to share your thoughts. This democratisation of writing is a good thing and I hate to see some hipster quest for authenticity endanger it.

Quick tip: get the fun pass

geekdom, video
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So last Summer, nine year old Caine was stuck at his dad’s used car parts shop and bored, so he started making classic arcade games out of cardboard boxes. He got a little bit obsessed with it to tell you the truth, in that way nine year old kids can get obsessed over their hobbies. There was just one little problem: he only had one customer and would’ve liked to see more people play his games. But luckily that solitary customer was geek/film maker Nirvan Mullick and he set out to give Caine the best day of his life.

They can be wearisome sometimes, self congratulatory and up themselves, but sometimes they show that things can get better with geeks. This was a brilliantly sweet thing to do for one lucky nine year old.

Forsa Pro Vercelli

Football, geekdom
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When I first started to get serious about watching football a few years back, Sandra warned me about getting into Football Manager, because she knew that with my tendency to get somewhat …obsessive… about my current interest I could get addicted to this fast. I’ve always liked simulation games, from Sim City to Civilisation and Football Manager certainly is a hardcore football management simulation game, up to the point where Everton uses it in real life to scout players with; this may say more about Everton than the game itself though.

But it does show the nerdy side of football, as for a certain kind of fan it satisfiess both the itch to get really deep into the statistics and the desire to build up grand narratives around their favourite teams. That metanarrative which transforms a loose collective of mercenary multimillionaires into “your team” is what makes football spectators into football fans, who wouldn’t dream over supporting Arsenal over Spurs, or Feijenoord over Ajax, through good times and bad. And nowhere is this desire better shown than in Brian Phillips’ series of posts about Pro Vercelli and how he guided them from the lowest rung of Italian professional football to be the best team in the world.

Pro Vercelli does actually exist, one of those football clubs who did well in the early days of the game, winning the Italian championships seven times between 1908 and 1922, only to slowly slide down as football professionalised and the big city teams got all the money and talent. It’s the ideal choice to use in the game if you want to produce a heroic tale of epic proportions and that’s just what Phillips did. In the process he nailed down just what attracts people to the game and football both:

What the game is astonishingly good at is creating the feeling of realism, dropping you into a world that behaves both consistently and surprisingly, that’s small enough that it’s roughly comprehensible but large enough that it always seems to be vanishing at the edges. And within that world, if you pay attention and play with a little imagination, there is an endlessly unfolding narrative which you are capable of influencing but not of controlling, a story whose fantastic twists and high-stakes conflicts are more engrossing because the outcome hasn’t been planned in advance. And that, I suspect, more than the fact that it gets all of Tottenham’s roster moves down right, is why this series is so beloved. That probably tells us something about the appeal of football, too, though in another sense, the appeal of the game really isn’t about football at all.

Beer, glorious beer

beer, geekdom, posts interesting only to me
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Meanwhile, last weekend, I was busy drinking beer and watching the rugby. I took some pictures and would like to share them with y’all. All the cool middle aged blokes with beards and hats kids are beerblogging, so why not me?

Coopers Extra Stout

How often do you get the chance to drink an Australian stout? Not often, so I had to try it. Coopers Extra Stout, brewed in South Australia is perfectly drinkable, tastes just like any other stout but lacks a bit of oomph once you get through the initial taste. Decent, not spectacular, would drink again if in the vicinity of where it was brewed.

Meantime Chocolate Porter

Gorgeous. I’ve had a few chocolate stouts, but not yet a chocolate porter (if there’s any real difference between a modern stout and a modern porter that is). Unlike many attempts, Meantime‘s porter keeps it’s chocolate undertones throughout the glass, doesn’t overwhelm the beer with the chocolate or vice versa and will be gotten again this weekend if I can.

Alba Scots Pine Ale

The first of four different ales I drunk this weekend, this was the best. A pine ale, which I hadn’t heard of before, but which tasted very nice. According to the label, Alba is a “triple style ale, brewed to a traditional Highland recipe using the sprigs of spruce and pine collected every spring”. How traditional this is, is anybody’s guess as IIRC, the Scottish Highlands haven’t had their pine and spruce coverings all that long. Doesn’t matter for the taste, which is nice and beery going in, with a decided aftertaste of swiss roll (!), which sounds strange but works, especially after the slightly more bitter chocolate porter. Will get more from this one as well.

T.E.A. - Traditional English Ale

Hogsback‘s T.E.A., Traditional English Ale, was recommended by one of the Bierkoning‘s staff, but was a disappointment. A run of the mill ale, which started alright but whose flavour didn’t last; might have been better in a smaller bottle.

Double Dragon Welsh ale

The Welsh Double Dragon ale, which is the same strength as the T.E.A., 4.2%, I got for the Ireland v Wales Six Nations match and it worked, in so far as the Welsh won. Better than the previous ale, still a bit on the bland side for me. Decent enough, but nothing special. Will drink in Wales, will likely not go out of my way for it.

Sunburst Golden Ale

Darkstar’sSunburst on the other hand, a golden ale from Sussex is brilliant. This tasted like an English ale should, not too bitter, but with a slightly nutty aftertaste and which is sustained throughout my drinking it. Would like to drink more of it.

Nut Brown Ale

Speaking of nutty, the last beer of the weekend (actually drunk on a Monday evening) was very nutty, but then this is Samuel Smith‘s nut brown ale, coming all the way from Yorkshire and brewed at what they claim is the oldest brewery there. Lovely taste, eminently drinkable, not very damaging. Will get more of this too.

So in total: seven beers sampled, two or three disappointments, four beers I will shortly get again.