Matter, Energy, and Life of Michaela A. Castello.

Tag: geek.culture

  • A Connected Life

    I remember the first time I got online, typing commands into Trumpet Winsock on Windows 3 to establish a dialup connection over our single phone line. From that moment onward our house answering machine message was effectively modem sounds—I kept a computer online as much as possible. Even when I was nowhere near the computer,…

  • Pi Day! (with pictures)

    This week included March 14th, or 3/14, the holiday in commemoration of a certain special number celebrated by geeks and nerds everywhere. The homophony with pie provides instructions on how said day should be observed. Our Pi Day party featured a spread of six delicious pies: Blueberry, apple, peach praline, key lime, chocolate pudding, and…

  • RPGs Are Powered by Characters, Not Stats

    I am super-excited about Dragon Age 2, Bioware’s latest RPG. One thing that always comes up when a new RPG is released however, is whether or not the gameplay has been “dumbed down.” The idea is that hardcore RPG-players want a high level of customization so they can fine-tune their character’s development, while the wider…

  • Crytek Is Going to Be Just Fine

    Remember Crysis? That mediocre first-person shooter with massive hardware requirements that turned “But can it run Crysis” into a phrase that still hasn’t left the geek culture consciousness? The studio behind the game, cleverly named “Crytek,” has been working on the sequel (scheduled for release in late March). An unfinished version has leaked online, prompting…

  • Keming at LLU

  • Scott Pilgrim

    My friend Jeff first introduced me to Scott Pilgrim when we were still in Maryland. Jerks that we are, we moved before the movie came out. It seemed like a good film to invite my fellow first year MD/PhD students to come see with me, but it turned out they were in Canada, Japan, and…

  • Boarding Pains

    Everybody who’s flown before is likely familiar with the boarding sequence. First class, elderly and parents with children, military personnel, and everybody else beginning with the back of the plane. For the most part, it makes sense. But thanks to airlines charging fees to check baggage, most if not all of the passengers are bringing…

  • Holiday Hiatus

    Over Christmas I underwent a kind of internet fast. It wasn’t exactly self-imposed or rigidly enforced, it just kind of happened because I was away from my computer, Rachel commandeers the laptop to be her e-reader, and my phone is from before phones really figured out how to access the internet in a useful manner.…