There are some great trailers over at FirstShowing.net, most of which haven’t appeared on the Apple trailer site yet. Here’s a quick look at the ones I find interesting:

Kung Fu Panda
It’s been ages since I heard about this movie for the first time: a panda that does Kung Fu, how can that not be great! The trailer is kind of funny, but I have a feeling the best moments in that film won’t be coming from Jack Black , but from all the other characters. I mean you get: Angelina Jolie as Master Tigress, Lucy Liu as Master Viper and Jackie Chan as Master Monkey!

Awake
I’ve read a couple of reviews about this movie and trust me when I say that this trailer does not give much away. If you’re interested in the film, I would suggest though staying away from future trailers, knowing the track record Hollywood has with managing to spoil a film with their trailers. Oh yeah, it’s got Hayden Christensen and Jessica Alblah in it.

The 10 Commandments
Now this trailer is on the Apple site already and I had actually seen it a couple of weeks ago. I really thought this was a trailer for a fake movie ! It just looks sooooo bad, but has a lot of well known voices in it. Are all those actors ( Ben Kingsley , Christian Slater , Elliott Gould , Alfred Molina ) really that desperate?

Repo! The Genetic Opera!
I’m a sucker for musicals, but I admit most are too cutesy and happy. This movie though just looks deliciously dark and creepy and they’re singing! It just looks plain weird, mixing great musical singers ( Sarah Brightman ) with actors that can sing ( Paul Sorvino , Anthony Head , yes it’s Giles!) with pure trash ( Paris Hilton ). I don’t know what to make of it, but I am very much intrigued.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
The title above has a link to the first trailer, there’s also a second . I love that they’re trying to market this movie in different ways. The first trailer is more general, showing a bit of everything in the movie. The second is purely focusing on the horror aspects of the film and I heard a third trailer is coming soon focusing on the musical parts. It’s looks dark and disturbing, but what would you expect of a Tim Burton movie with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter ? I also love that they cast Alan Rickman and Sasha Baron Cohen .

A long, long time ago in a country not so far away I had great dreams of becoming a visual effects artist for some big studio, creating a little bit of movie magic and earning an Oscar in the process. The backup slightly more attainable dream at the time was to work in the games industry, preferably for a game (series) I loved. Since then 6 years passed in which at one point I realized:

1. there aren’t any real cool movie or video games studios in the Netherlands,
2. there is no feasible way I’m moving to some interesting place where you do have those studios, and
3. linear algebra and computer graphics are not my strongest points.

So I let my dreams of visual effects (and that Oscar) fade away to make room for a more probable and attainable future. At that time I would never in my wildest dreams have imagined that I would now live in London, with all different opportunities just waiting to be taken. It is worth saying though that without making the choice not to pursue computer graphics, but choosing another direction instead, I wouldn’t have ended up where I am now.

Why all this sentimental talking about my dreams garbage? Last Tuesday and Wednesday was the London Game Career Fair , again an event of the London Games Festival . Even though I knew I’m not what they’re looking for, it couldn’t hurt to take a look, right? So last Tuesday I found myself in the middle of the fair at the Old Truman Brewery , surrounded by booths from EA , SEGA , Lucasarts , and many more.

I stopped by almost every booth (I skipped the university and college booths) and with all of them the conversation went down similar lines: What do you do? What do you want to do? Are you looking for a job? If so, here is a business card/website/email address where you can send your resume. Oh, and here is some free cool/crappy stuff.

I discovered (had forgotten) that a lot of companies aren’t only looking for people specialized in Computer Graphics and that my background in AI and pattern recognition can actually be quite useful in the games industry. You do, however, have to be very strong in C or C++. At the moment there’s a discussion going on about whether or not they should step over to C# (similarly 10-15 years ago there was the discussion if they should jump from Assembly to C or C++). Regardless though whether or not C# is adopted in the future, if you want a job now, you have to know C or C++ now. One tip I got was to have some programs/code ready to show your skills when you’re applying for a job.

There were three times that I talked to a woman at one of the booths and each time they were surprised to find a girl interested in games and with a background of Computer Science. One of them even went so far to hug me! They all remarked on the fact that while there are woman working in games, they are still in the minority and most of the time in a non-programming role (character design, environment design, QA, etc). I was planning to go the Woman in Games mixer that same night, but sadly other plans cropped up (free exclusive tickets to 30 Days of Night, which btw wasn’t that good).

So after a day of walking and talking around, I’ve got a list of websites and email addresses, for if I ever feel ready to try to get into the games industry. If I do, I will definitely have to brush up on my C/C++ skills first and create at least some sort of portfolio. I also ended up with a great bunch of freebies: 3 T-shirts ( SEGA , Realtime Worlds and Other Ocean Interactive ), a Lucasarts squishy pen, an Xbox 360 bottle of water, SEGA stickers and a whole bunch of other less useful stuff (mousemat, folders, etc). Not bad for a day’s “work”, huh?

If you’re looking to get into the games industry, I really recommend going to a fair like this. The people are genuinely helpful and give a lot of advice on how to get in. I noticed that a lot of people had brought multiple copies of their resumes (plus dvds with their work) with them to give away to companies, so make sure to bring along your resume. I’m not sure yet if I want to get into games myself, but these type of events are definitely interesting.

Since joining Twitter , Facebook and other social networking sites, my Gmail inbox has been plagued by “useless” notifications of people following me, poking me, messaging me, and other not-so-important [insert verb]-ing. Also since starting this blog, I’ve been receiving notifications when someone has commented or referred to one of my posts. It’s not that I don’t want to receive these notifications, but I don’t want them cluttering up my inbox either. In the past months, the term bacn has been coined to indicate these type of emails (as in: not spam, but still fatty and unhealthy). To quote wikipedia :

Bacn (pronounced bacon) is the term given to electronic messages which have been subscribed to and are therefore not unsolicited but are often unread by the recipient for a long period of time, if at all. Bacn has been described as “email you want but not right now”.

I know some people don’t care about bacn at all and just ignore all these types of notifications. But I truly want this info, just not in my inbox and in my own time. So how can we un-bacn our inbox? Here are a couple of tips on how to get a bacn-free Gmail inbox.

Tip 1: Turn Off Facebook Notifications and Use The RSS-Feed

From all the new social networking sites, Facebook bombards you with the most inane notifications; someone wrote on your wall, someone wrote you a message, someone tagged you in a photo, etc etc. The uselessness of these actions itself aside (why leave a message on FB, if you know my email address?!? why add and tag photos in FB? Use Flickr!), you do want to stay somehow informed on all (or at least some of) these actions. So, what should you do in my opinion? Firstly, turn off all notifications: go to My Account, Notifications, then uncheck all the boxes. Of course, if you don’t mind the emails, but only want the really important ones (like someone adding you), just leave that box checked. Secondly, what a lot of people don’t know, is that FB offers a RSS-feed of all your incoming notifications: you can find it at Inbox, Notifications, in the right column bar. I’ve added it now to my Vienna and check it only once in a while, when I feel like it.

Tip 2: Use Gmail Filters and Gmail RSS

Apart from Facebook, most other sites don’t offer a handy RSS-feed for your notifications. Yes, they have the option not to receive any emails at all anymore, but how do I then find out which people have added me or if there’s a trackback to my blogpost? Here’s what I do for all notifications that come into my Gmail account:

Step 1: Gmail Filters
Create filters that identify all the notifications that you don’t want in your inbox, make them skip the inbox (archive it) and apply one common label to all of them (like “notifications”). Gmail offers several ways to specify the search criteria: for instance, you could use the email address (all Twitter notifications come from noreply@twitter.com) or subject title (Upcoming emails always start with [Upcoming]).

You could leave it for what it is now and check the notification label whenever you want. Our original goal is obtained; the bacn is not in the inbox anymore. However, I still like to be somehow alerted that I’ve got notifications:

Step 2: Gmail RSS
This has actually been around for quite some time and it’s basically what Gmail Notifier and similar apps use to see when Gmail has new mail:

https://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom

gives you the RSS-feed of your inbox. What you might have not known though is that it’s not limited to only the inbox:

https://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom/label

fetches the RSS-feed with the label “label”. This means all the notifications you just grouped into that one label, has now become a very useful RSS-feed. Of course, you could also create a label/RSS-feed for every type of notification you receive; I personally prefer just the one though.

If you wanted you could also add the Facebook notifications the way I just described, but there’s a reason I mentioned the other tip first. For starters, an incoming email can only be automatically archived; you can’t mark it as read and you certainly can’t delete it, because it otherwise wouldn’t appear in the RSS-feed. This means that once in a while you should check your notification “label” and delete/mark as read/whatever you want to do with it. Next to that the RSS-feed items are minimal, only giving the first line of the email. In most cases, though, this seems to be sufficient; the first sentence usually gives some inkling away what the gist of the notification is.

Future

What I’d really like to see in the future is that I receive bacn via something like Twitter or Jaiku. In my mind that’s where that information seems to belong; it shouldn’t be in your inbox with the important messages and it also doesn’t really fit in your RSS-reader with news items and blog posts. While I like the Gmail Filter/RSS combo, I feel there’s more potential in it if more options were available. I would love some means to automatically delete items with a certain label if, for instance, they’re more than a month old and I definitely would want the whole mail in my RSS instead of just a snippet. The Filter/RSS combo can also off course be used for other purposes, like mailing lists, but without getting the complete mail in your RSS-reader this just wouldn’t be useful enough.

So, I hope you’ve found this tips helpful! How do you deal with bacn at the moment? Leave your own tips and tricks behind in the comments.

One of the London Games Festival events is Be Very Afraid , an annual event held at BAFTA displaying how schools and universities integrate new technologies into their curriculum. It’s meant to show policy makers what the possibilities are when children get in touch with new gadgets, ideas and creative resources. I was able to get a guest ticket, so last Monday I found myself being very afraid…

I got to speak to a couple of the kids and I found it really refreshing. A couple of weeks ago at BarCamp Brighton there was a discussion of how difficult it was to get kids more interested into technology. What I discovered was that these kids were so passionate and creative without needing any real motivation. Just the opportunity to let them play/work on/mess around with PDAs, Nintendo DSs and iPod Touchs (!!) is enough to make them realise what they can do with it.

I’ll try to describe what a couple of the schools were doing. One interesting thing I noticed though was that it was mainly the primary schools and the first years of secondary schools that were doing the really cool stuff. It seemed as if the older you got, the less appropriate it was to use gadgets and computers in a fun (but useful) way; everything turns so serious. In my eyes, you learn the best if you’re having fun with the subject, so why not try to motivate the students in a better way? Anyhow, here’s what I found out:

Dhoon School, Isle of Man

I talked to a sweet 9-10 year old girl who showed me on a iPod Touch (!!) the website her class created. It was an online learning game, where you could pick a place on the map, watch a video about the place and answer a question about the place. They also had simulated a part of it in a KeyNote (!!) presentation, putting all my KeyNote skills to shame. All the children in her class had an iBook or a MacBook, which they used on a daily basis.

St Columba’s Primary School

At this school the Brain Training game on the Nintendo DS was used to coach kids in logic and math. For ten weeks every morning every child had to “play” 10 minutes with the game. The teacher tested their grades prior to the 10 weeks and after the 10 weeks and discovered a significant increase. The boy (10 years old) I talked to was jumping up and down the whole time, desperately wanting to show how quick and precise he could solve all the math problems.

Whitmore Junior School, Essex

This school offered an afterschool club for children to create podcasts and comics. It started out with the podcasting, with the kids going through the complete process of creating regular episodes, writing the script, recording it and editing it all together. Eventually they also began making a weekly comic with several recurring characters. One of the girls loved it so much that even though she is now moved to another school (high school, secondary school? not sure what you call it here in the UK) she’s coming back every week for the podcasting club.

Capel-le-Ferne Primary School, Kent

There were several interesting things this school did. For starters, they had a special project week, where all the kids brought their robots and gadgets along with them to school. Based on the items they brought with them, they created a movie with some kids filming it, some acting in it, and others editing it and adding sound effects to it. Next to that, they built and programmed Spike (see image), a robot that could “see” the edge of tables (and not fall off) and would try to grab your hand. Finally, every child had an own PDA with camera and internet access. There was one project where 6 of the children went on an excursion to a mill, with the rest of the class staying behind at the school, but staying in constant contact because of the PDAs. The idea was that they had to write a story about the mill: the stay-behinders had help from a children’s book author, giving tips on what type of information was useful. They played this info through to the mill-kids giving them instructions on what to look for. The mill-kids in turn investigated everything and emailed the data and photos of the place back to them.

Final Note

These weren’t the only schools that were at the event, just the ones that really popped out to me. I loved the enthusiasm and creativity of the all the participating kids and definitely do feel intimidated by what these kids are learning to do. Most of them aren’t even 10 yet and they can do stuff better than I can. Just imagine what they’ll be doing in 10 years time! Be Very Afraid, indeed…

Last Saturday I attended MediaCamp at BCUC in High Wycombe and after the last couple of busy days I’ve only now finally found the time to blog about it. On it’s website, MediaCamp is described as this:

It’s an UnConference with a strong educational flavour for gamers, bloggers, casts, and new media professionals & amateurs for one day to share, explore, challenge, and grow our abilities in new media. Learn about audio and video podcasting, blogging, photography, Second Life, Twitter, and all kinds of other new and social media tools.

I’ll highlight the stuff that I liked and also dwell on some of things that in my eyes could have made it better.

The Good Interesting

In total I went to six different sessions, three in the morning and three in the afternoon after lunch. The first was an introduction to Second Life by Chris Hambly . I’ve never used/experienced/tried out Second Life before, so it was great to see what all the fuss is about. To be honest, though, I personally still don’t see the “use” of SL; why would I want to hang around all day in a virtual world with a virtual life? My real (First) life is interesting and busy enough as it is and if I want to escape it, I’ll play a real game (like FF or WoW ).

Another great session was Eaon Pritchard ‘s talk about Interactive advertising and TV 2.0. (I didn’t take any notes so excuse me if I get my facts wrong, I’m writing this purely on memory) He talked about an tv advertisement his company did for the Xbox 360 using the interactive Red Button. During the ad the word EGG appeared at a certain fragment and three small eggs were visible at the bottom of the screen with one egg coloured green (indicating Level 1). By typing the word ‘egg’ in with the remote control, you unlocked the second level: two sheep saying ‘ofni’ (info backwards). After you filled ‘info’ in, there was a third level, but I don’t remember exactly what that was. Once you finished all three levels, you had conquered the game and could leave your name behind. The interesting thing was that for weeks nobody had discovered the hidden levels, but the instant 1 person figured it out it spread rapidly. Within a couple of hours of that first person, 25 more finished the game; a couple of hours after that, 1000 people. After a couple of days 1.9 million people had completed the hidden levels. This whole story led to a great discussion on viral marketing and what techniques had been used with other advertisements.

For lunch I went to The Noodle Bar with Twain, Improbulus , Sarah Blow and Steve Lamb . I loved the noodles and it was great to talk with the more tech savvy people instead of the media/marketing-oriented people (who were clearly in the majority at MediaCamp).

After lunch there was a talk I was looking forward to called Job Hunting for Grads 2.0. Being almost finished with my studies (3, 4 months) and having no experience whatsoever with finding a job, I really need some help/info/tips on this all. The session, however, was more focused on finding a job within the advertisement world and wasn’t really helpful for me. It was an interesting story though; Sam Ismail told us about the “stunts” he and a friend did to get scholarships at Saatchi & Saatchi .

Once all the sessions were done (and we were kicked out of politely asked to leave the building) there was a fun jam session in the pub. I surprisingly don’t know as many lyrics as I thought :D.

The Bad Not So Good

Although there were interesting moments and a great atmosphere, there were a couple of things that could have made the whole experience better.

A hungry stomach cannot hear.
For starters, the event wasn’t sponsored, so there wasn’t anything to eat or drink. In itself that wouldn’t have been so bad, but the closest coffee place was 10 minutes away. If I had known that, I would have brought some snacks and drinks along (it didn’t help that I skipped breakfast, but that’s my own stupid mistake). I do understand though, how difficult it is to find sponsors for these type of events, especially for the first time around.

Strength lies in numbers.
One problem was about only 30 people showed up and with such a small group the topics that will be discussed are kind of limited. For instance, there wasn’t anything about games (sidenote: I don’t see Second Life as a game; it’s a procrastination technique). While there was the space and opportunity to do something spontaneous on the spot, it was tricky to figure out if there was any interest for it. I think with a larger group of people there is more room for different types of sessions. At BarCamp Brighton we were with “only” 100 people (I say “only”, because so many more signed up, but only 100 were allowed) and the diversity of the topics was excellent.

All in all, it was an interesting event and I met a whole bunch of great people! MediaCamp has the potential to be a very engaging event, even though it’s not quite there yet. With more attendees and sponsors this could be a great get-together to talk about all things media.

I’m writing this post while in the train to High Wycombe (pronounced High Weecam as the tickets sale guy told me. Why do some English names sound completely different then how you write them?) off to MediaCamp. This is just a quick post to let you know what I’ll be doing the next couple of weeks (and a way for me to kill time in the train).

20 October (aka Today): MediaCamp
22 October: Be Very Afraid IV
23 – 24 October: London Game Fair
23 October: Woman in Games mixer
24 October: Computational Brain
25 – 26 October: Mac Live Expo
25 October: Have I Got News For You Recording
29 October: London Geek Dinner
3 – 4 November: BarCamp Berlin
6 – 8 November: Web 2.0 Expo Berlin
6 November: Girl Geek Dinner Berlin
19 – 20 November: BarCamp London

I’ll update this post with links soon; don’t have time for that now.

By now you may know I’ve been a geek for almost my entire life. What you might not know is that my first obsession geeklove passion was for animation series. When I was about five (maybe even four), I used to get up every morning at 6:00 to watch tv. Looking back, the weird part is that I didn’t need an alarm clock or anything; I just woke up everyday at the exact same time. What I would give to be able to do that again.

This addiction to kids tv series gradually turned into an addiction to normal tv series, but left me with an insane amount of memories of those tv shows I used to watch. To put that knowledge at least to some use, I’ll list a couple of shows you might have forgotten about.

So in no particular order:

20. The New Archies: Not really one you would have forgotten due to the comic, but not eveyone knows there was a tv series. Are you a Betty or a Veronica?

19. The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin : I just loved the world they created here; all the different types of creatures.

18. Gummi Bears: Who didn’t love the magical bears that bounced?

17. C.O.P.S. : I loved the cool nicknames: Mace, Sundown, Nightshade.

16. Captain Planet and The Planeteers : I still know the lyrics of the themesong (which by the way is from Phil Collins). A lot of known actors did (guest) voices for this (Whoopi Goldberg, Levar Burton, Meg Ryan, Martin Sheen).

15. Police Academy : I loved the running gag with the goldfish.

14. Pandamonium : Pandas!

13. M.A.S.K. : First time I realised what an acronym was.

12. Dino-Riders: My brother had a Dino-Riders Triceratops set; I loved playing battles with the Transformer against the Dinosaur.

11. Captain N : Is it weird to have a crush on a cartoon character? I completely adored Kevin when I was 7.

10. Bobby’s World: I only just realise now that that Howie Mandel is the Deal or No Deal Howie Mandel. Then again, I’ve never actually watched the US Deal or No Deal.

9. Mysterious Cities of Gold : This had the most catchiest theme song ever; I still get goose-bumps every time I hear it.

8. Pound Puppies: I had a two-sided jumper with on one side a cross-word puzzle pattern with one of the puppies and on the other side a big version of that same puppy.

7. Muppet Babies : Cute in a very creepy way.

6. Ewoks : I remember watching this before ever consciously having seen Star Wars. When I did see Star Wars, I remember thinking: “Cool, they’re using real life ewoks in here!”

5. Babar : Royal elephants! What more do I have to say.

4. Beverly Hills Teens : I was too young for the real Beverly Hills, but this was one of those real girl cartoons.

3. Kissyfur : I only remember that I watched it, for the rest I’m drawing a complete blank.

2. The Littles : This was just so cute!

1. Ghostbusters : I don’t mean the Ghostbusters animation series based on the movies with Dan Akroyd and James Belushi. No, I’m talking about the other Ghostbusters. The one with the gorilla.

I’ve just gotten back from a screening of Stardust and to summarize it in one word: brilliant. I read the book (by Neil Gaiman) a couple of months ago and to be honest I wasn’t that impressed. The movie, however, took all the elements that did work in the book, altered the story line into something more fit for screen and added some fantastic features. I think this might actually be the first time I like the movie much more than the book. In terms of style, it certainly belongs up there with Labyrinth , The Princess Bride and The Never-Ending Story , but what I love from this movie is that it isn’t a kids movie. Yes, kids will enjoy it, but it’s not purely aimed at them. It’s first and foremost a fairy tale, albeit a very funny one.

The Plot

The movie is set 150 years ago in the small English town Wall, named after the nearby wall guarding the way to the magical kingdom of Stormhold. Our protagonist is Tristan Thorpe ( Charlie Cox ), a young man from Wall, with an unrequited love for the pretty but cold Victoria ( Sienna Miller ). While seeing a shooting star fall down to earth, Tristan promises to go beyond the wall and retrieve it to prove his love to her. He finds the star, only to discover it is a beautiful, shining girl named Yvaine ( Claire Danes ), knocked out of the sky by a jewel. This jewel is the dying king’s solution to the succession to the throne of Stormhold; whichever of his sons reclaims the jewel and survives the assassination attempts of the others, inherits the throne. From the seven sons (all aptly named Primus, Secundus and so on to Septimus) only three still are alive; the rest, having been assassinated by their brothers, are overlooking the whole debacle as ghosts stuck in the form they died in (axe in the head, etc). Next to that there’s also a witch Lamia ( Michelle Pfeiffer ) and her two sisters looking for the star to regain their youth, beauty and power by eating the star’s heart. While Tristan initially only wants to take Yvaine back to Wall to show to Victoria, he quickly takes on the role as her protector, slowly falling in love with her.

The Acting

Kudos to the casting crew; all the characters where perfectly cast. Charlie Cox was fantastic as the unworldly shop boy trying to find his place in the world. You could really see his transformation into a man unfold on the screen; although it was helped by the makeover and haircut halfway through the movie. I loved how they made Claire Danes literally glow of delight, matching her radiant personality. I was a bit annoyed that in the trailers and promotions it seems as if Ricky Gervais and Rupert Everett both have substantial parts, while they both only appear briefly. The most impressive performances though would have to be Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert de Niro . Pfeiffer is just perfect as the evil witch, slowly decaying from beautiful woman into ugly hag. And Robert de Niro? Superb as the ferocious Captain Shakespeare. This is just a performance you have to have seen to believe it. I won’t give anything away, but it’s unlike any de Niro you’ve seen before.

The Special Effects

I love it when the special effects don’t get in the way of the storytelling or when effects are added purely “because they are cool”. Here all effects were used to drive the plot, exactly fitting into the flow of the movie. In most fantasy films (yes, even Lord of The Rings ) most effects look cheesy and you perceive them as cheesy. With Stardust there were also cheesy effects, but it somehow fit against the backdrop of the tale. There’s a great scene where Lamia turns a chariot into a giant inn with stables and everything, which just looks amazing.

The Action

No fairy tale is complete without a sword fight, and boy, does Stardust deliver. It has one of the most original sword fights I’ve seen in ages ( The Pirates of The Caribbean Moonlight Dance remains the best), although it could have been a bit longer for my tastes. There are also some great magic battles, with the magic visualized as green flames/light. I’m still waiting for a movie where there’s no need to picture “magic” with pretty colours.

The Funny

This film wouldn’t have worked if it wasn’t for the great comedy moments. My favourite bits included anything with Captain Shakespeare, but as I said before you’ll have to see that for yourself. The ghosts of the princes were also hilarious, giving great commentary during serious moments. The movie is full of little jokes, keeping the mood always light and simple. For instance, there’s a funny scene where the guard of the wall goes completely ninja on Tristan, doing spinning kicks and the like. That actor is 78! Another scene includes a mouse and they managed to get the cutest, sweetest mouse to pose all cute and sweet. I think it was a real mouse; if that was CGI I’m really impressed!

Conclusion

I loved this movie and it certainly has made its way into my favourite movies list. Although at first glance it may seem all fairy tale like and childish, it has some great action scenes and a lot of funny moments. A must see!

As the world around us is slowly becoming more geek friendly, I can’t help but wonder how and why this has come about. With entire tv-shows revolving around geeks to high fashion runway models wearing horn-rimmed glasses, being a geek has become more and more acceptable and, even stranger, fashionable. But how and when did this exactly happen? And, more importantly, is this just a phase society is going through, with over a couple of years geekiness being “out” again? Or are geeks here to stay?

It never fails to amaze me how many people call themselves geeks nowadays; from the hard-core computer programmer to the beauty pageant contestant (who owns a mobile and a iPod, and thus of course in her eyes is a geek) to kids addicted to Harry Potter/LOTR/Star Wars , the present-day labeling of “geek” is something to be embraced, not run away from.

While many people may have accepted this new positive embodiment of the geek, there are some that fail to notice the transformation of the definition of geekiness, still clinging on to the outdated demeaning meaning. In fact, if we take a look at a couple of dictionaries, we see the following definitions:

Geek

1. 1. A person regarded as foolish, inept, or clumsy.
   2. A person who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits but is felt to be socially inept.
2. A carnival performer whose show consists of bizarre acts, such as biting the head off a live chicken.

Another:

Geek

1. an unfashionable or socially inept person.
   • [with adj. ] a person with an eccentric devotion to a particular interest: a computer geek .
2. a carnival performer who does wild or disgusting acts.

For starters, let’s write off the carnival performer definition; if the world was embracing that type of geek, it would be a very sad, sad world to live in. Looking at the rest of the definitions, you can’t fail to notice the negativity imbued in them: foolish, clumsy, socially inept, unfashionable, eccentric. While this might have been true in the past, current geeks aren’t typically defined by these qualities. Many geeks may have one or more of those qualities, but nowadays it isn’t that what labels them a geek.

Another preconception that people have concerning geeks is the “single-minded or accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits” aspect. While you do have geeks in these areas, I believe it is not limited to only these areas. Besides the computer geeks and math geeks, there are also movie and book geeks to even something as inane as roof tiling or daisy-chain making geeks.

The definition that comes the closest to what in my eyes the present-day geek is:

a person with an eccentric devotion to a particular interest

The problem I have with this definition though lies in the word “eccentric”, which somehow conjures up the idea that it is strange and not completely normal. Further this definition disregards the amount of knowledge a geek holds over the subject. The real definition of a geek should be:

a person with a passionate devotion to and an extensive knowledge of a particular interest

This fully captures the concept that geeks have a deep, extensive passion of a subject without them being completely socially awkward.

What I see occurring though, is that since geekiness is now “in”, there are a lot of people that call themselves geeks, because it is fashionable to do so, but still believing in the old interpretation of the word. At the same time, there are many people that actually are geeks, yet also still hold on to the outdated meaning, and thus, don’t label themselves as geeks. With the advent of the internet, it has become much more easier to immerse yourself into one particular topic and to connect to other like-minded individuals. It is in part, because of this connection that these people don’t see themselves as geeks, since they are socially active.

So what is the future of geekiness? Will it somewhere in the future be “out” again and will the term be once more demeaning? Or will the more modern definition of geek be embraced and will a whole new wave of geeks emerge in the process?

I can’t believe this new IMDB feature slipped by me. If you’re reading this blog, then I assume you have at least an inkling of an idea of what IMDB is. If not, it’s the Internet Movie DataBase and contains info about movies, actors, directors, producers, etc. Pretty handy, if you want to know everything about movies and tv as I do.

IMDB has two main cornerstones: Name pages, for all the people (actors, producers, etc) and Title pages for, ehm, all the titles (movies, tv-series, videogames, etc). Last week they added a new type of page to the mix: Character pages. Every character from a movie or tv-series or video game can have their own page including biography, quotes and appearances. The IMDB staff have already created 20000 character pages of the most well-known characters, but the idea is that users can add and edit pages.

This feature starts to get interesting when considering characters that appear in multiple series/movies or have been played by different people. For instance, did you know that Ursula Buffay , the sister of Phoebe in Friends first appeared in Mad About You? Or that Jack Ryan, a main character in books of Tom Clancy, has been portayed by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck?

Sadly, I have noticed some problems with this new feature. Because the content is user generated, you only need one lazy user to create a new page for someone who already exists. IMDB gives a nice disclaimer:

The content of this page was created by users. It has not been screened or verified by IMDb staff.

But does this mean that there are also pages that are screened and verified? I’ve already stumbled on multiple pages for one person (King Arthur) and I wonder how IMDB will deal with this.

It’s an interesting new feature and it gives IMDB that extra dimension to create an even more complex network. If you’re looking to procrastinate, you can easily spend some time just clicking from one page to another. Don’t look at me like that; I never do that ! 😉