Support Rock Vibe on Kickstarter!
Rock Vibe is basically Rock Band for the blind. A player attaches peripherals to her/his arms, and the devices vibrate when the player needs to strike a corresponding note. It’s a brilliant way to make a modern video game playable for the visually impaired.
The creators of Rock Vibe need money to get this project off the ground, as building hardware isn’t exactly a cheap endeavor. So far they’ve raised about $15,000 on Kickstarter (an incredibly cool crowd-funding site, if you haven’t seen it). Unfortunately they have not yet reached their goal of $32,000, and they only have three days left.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that one of the creators of Rock Vibe is a woman named Rupinder Dhillon who is the sister of a good friend. That doesn’t take away from how cool her project is. Hardware/ software combinations like Rock Vibe will help blind gamers now, but I have no doubt that their concept has the potential to heighten the gaming experiences of sighted gamers in the future.
Best of The Geek Whisperer (3 Year Blogiversary)
I can’t believe I’ve been doing this for three years (999 posts)! To celebrate, I skimmed through my archive for the first time in three years, and it brought back a lot of memories.
Join me on a brief and mildly narcissistic trip through some of my favorite blogging memories:
- Arguably my best post, at least from an academic perspective is Wonder Woman: The Super Secret & Kinky Origin of a Feminist Icon. Derived from a portion my undergraduate thesis, this post has been cited in a few academic papers, and according to my web analytics has been frequently referenced on some BDSM discussion boards. I am after-all here to educate and entertain.
- My most popular single day post dates back to April Fool’s Day 2010. I collaborated with a mystery designer to introduce the world to the iProbe; it’s still my favorite post.
- In one of TGW’s stranger episodes, guitar legend Peter Frampton stopped by to comment on a post after I berated him for a very disrespectful performance at The Stone Pony.
- When I first started The Geek Whisperer, I wanted to define the difference between geeks & nerds… But I found the task painfully difficult and subsequently spent two and a half years pondering the question before I wrote Geek vs. Nerd vs. Dork.
- And last but not least, I was (and still am) cited in a Wikipedia article on Firefly/ Serenity; my favorite scifi universe.
Never forget to practice safe computing.
Evolving as a Blogger
I’m staring down the barrel of my 1000th post (this is 997), and the three-year blogiversary of The Geek Whisperer (10/4/11), and I’ve been feeling creatively paralyzed. Hitting one thousand posts within three years while earning a masters degree; maintaining full-time employment; starting a business; and having a fulfilling social life is a serious source of pride. I started blogging simply to understand it for professional reasons, and unintentionally found myself on a very geeky journey of self-discovery.
When I started The Geek Whisperer someone close to me asked, “How are you possibly going to have enough to say to make this last more than a few weeks?” The truth is that even if I wrote all day, every day I’m not sure I’d ever run out of cool things to talk about; we live in very interesting times. This blog is about sharing my passions and interests, and I’ve never had a shortage of either. This is both a blessing and a curse.
It’s wonderful because I can’t remember the last time I was bored.
It’s painful because I will never learn all that I want to learn, or accomplish everything that I hope to accomplish.
What’s a geek to do?
The simple answer is evolve. I will not abandon this blog. I love writing it far too much to stop. Even if everyone stopped reading, I’d still keep writing.
The bigger question is how will I evolve?
I’ve got a lot of things in the works that I’m incredibly excited about, and will reveal over time. To pursue those passions, I need to post less. However my intent is to post high quality content when I do. The short, “check this out” posts that filled the gaps between substantial thought are going away because people don’t seem to read them very often.
Thank you for reading
As I’ve said many times before, I appreciate everyone who takes the time to read.
Thank you for sharing my links; buying from the Shop; commenting; and taking the time out of your day to read. I know there are a lot of other great websites out there and I’m thankful for every person who feels that mine is worth their time.
Thank you for your continued support. Here’s to the next three years.
Typography For the Non-Designer
Typography is the art of arranging and selecting fonts. Non-designers usually don’t even know the word, let alone how to do it well.
I’m not a designer, but in working with them over the years, I’ve picked up some basic knowledge.
When designing anything with type, it’s been my experience that non-designers usually screw their work from the get go by choosing a fancy-looking fonts like comic sans, papyrus or an unreadable script.
The best tip I’ve learned is to pick a simple, balanced, sans-serif font like Trebuchet or Helvetica.
What’s a sans-serif?
Sans-serif don’t have anything hanging off them:
Why use a sans-serif?
They are clean and simple, and as a result, they are easy to use.
Here’s an example, imagine we’re trying to choose a typeface for a new company called, Incredible Inc.
The first is Trebuchet, the second is Comic Sans, the third is Time New Roman, and the final one is some script font.
Trebuchet looks clean, simple, professional and readable.
Comic Sans is readable when it’s large, but doesn’t look clean or professional.
Times New Roman is a bit cramped and busy.
And the script is absolutely brutal to read.
The bottom-line
Do what you like, but using Helvetica or Trebuchet is an easy way to make text look visually appealing without having to build up all of the skills and experience necessary to understand design.
The Geek Whisperer – New Look, Same Great Taste!
I hope you enjoy the new navigation, and design.
I’ll be posting daily again.
Maintenance Complete!
All of my domain maintenance is finished. I hope it didn’t cause any issues.
Everything on this site should be mapped to “thegeekwhisperer.com.” My old and lame “geekwhisperin.wordpress.com” domain is no more (but all redirects from that domain should work too).
Please let me know if you encounter any problems at all.
Thanks!
A bit of site maintenance
I’ll be doing a a bit of site maintenance over the next day. Apologies if it disrupts your access.
