Miss Geeky

Trailerrific: Revolution

Melinda — Mon, 14 May 2012 09:29:08 +0000

Ooh, it’s that time of the year when the current TV shows are ending and the new Fall shows are being announced. There have been some awesome season finales this year, but I’ll write more about that in a later post (once all the shows I’m watching has ended). Most of the picked-up pilots haven’t released anything yet, but NBC is this year ahead of the curve with some actual trailers. From the 6 trailers they released, only Revolution looked interesting to me:

I’m not completely convinced by the trailer yet though; I think it has a lot of potential, but visually it looks a bit too much like a crappy B-movie. The story though looks like it could be interesting, although it does have a bit of a Lost vibe going on that so many shows have been trying to recreate. Despite that though Revolution is definitely going on my To Watch list for this Fall; we need more post-apocalyptic sci-fi on TV!

What did you think of the Revolution trailer? Yay or Nay?

Link Love: April 2012

Melinda — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 10:00:09 +0000

I’ve been quite quiet the past couple of months, mainly because of a combination of working hard and being sick (I bumped my head pretty bad 4 weeks ago, but I’m fine now). I’m trying to get back into the habit of blogging, but it’s so much trickier now that I a “proper” job. Still I’ll try to post at least once a week.

Now on to the cool stuff! Here is a roundup of interesting things I’ve come across:

Hackathon Survival Guide: I got interviewed 2 weeks ago by the awesome Jamillah Knowles about surviving hackdays. The article turned out great!
Fictional Character Birthday Calendar: With which fictional character do you share your birthday with? I share mine with Dana Scully!
Wear Sherlock: A blog about the fashion and props used in Sherlock. I so want Irene Adler’s white dress:

Spice Effect: For all you Garrus fans out there.
The Indoctrination Theory (Mass Effect 3): I still want to believe that this theory is true, but that it backfired on Bioware completely. Even if it turns out to be right, I think the fan backlash would be awful. I’d rather believe that it was a plan that went wrong, rather then it being a really crappy written ending.
The 20 Most Beautiful Bookstores In The World: Library porn. Drool.
My Little Geek ABC Book: Awesome idea!

Cheese or Font?: Trickier than you’d think!
Pokemon or Startup?: I have to admit this was pretty easy for me, but only because I could pick out the pokemons…
An Extra Life On… Martin Scorsese’s Hugo: Cool post about what it is to be an extra.
Map of Italy: This is such a cool way to prettify your walls:

Me Wantz: Companion Cube Necklace

Melinda — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 10:00:23 +0000

I love the Portal necklace I got for my birthday (this one), but you can never have too many geeky necklaces. And this one is super pretty!

The Companion Cube pendant is available in the etsy store The 17th Bit for $39. Cute, right? The store has a couple other Portal inspired jewellery too:

Aperture Science pendant – $39

Companion Cube ring – $49

Posterrific: The Avengers Mondo Designs

Melinda — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 20:30:31 +0000

The Avengers is finally out today! I know I should call it with the actual name it came out under here (Avengers Assemble), but it just doesn’t sound right. I’ve been looking forward to a movie called The Avengers, not a movie called Avengers Assemble.

I was lucky enough though to see the movie 2 weeks ago, and it’s awesome! It’s exactly what I was hoping it would be. I loved the banter between some of the characters, and there are some brilliant one-liners and funny dialogue. Plus of course the action scenes are amazing.

To tie in with The Avengers opening Mondo has created some gorgeous character posters. All of them are sadly sold out already, except for the Iron Man poster which hasn’t been released yet. They’re a bit pricey, but I so would have loved to have these hanging on my walls. I love the colour scheme of the Hawkeye poster, but my favourite is the Iron Man one. Which one is your favourite?

Cool Stuff: April Fool’s Roundup

Melinda — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 10:32:19 +0000

I always like seeing the different funny stuff people come up with for April Fool’s; it’s amazing how creative some people will get. It’s been a while since I fell for something during it, but it’s so much fun just to see what people have created. Here are my favourites of this year:

1. Assassin’s Creed for Kinect

This starts off as pretty plausible, but slowly gets less and less likely. I love the Assassin’s Creed games (although the last one was a bit disappointing) and the moves here are just as recognizable.

2. Mass Effect Cartoon

Ridiculous, but funny:

3. ThinkGeek’s Admiral Ackbar Singing Bass

Like most ThinkGeek’s April 1st announced products I actually think they might make this if there’s enough interest (it’s $39.99 on ThinkGeek).

4. CatBlock

The AdBlock browser extension announced they were making a special CatBlock version of their extension that would replace all ads on a page with photos of cats. The thing I find really funny is that the creator used photoshopped photos of my cat Casey!

5. Google Street Roo

The Google Australia blog reported yesterday that the Australia Street Car team (that drives around taking photos for Google Map’s Street View) would be expanded with kangaroos with cameras strapped to their heads. This way they’d be able to collect photos of Australia’s outback.

Video of the Day: Peter Weyland at TED 2023

Melinda — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 11:00:31 +0000

I have a little confession to make: up until yesterday I had never seen Alien or Aliens before. It’s just one of those movie series I never got around to watching. Anyhow I finally saw both Alien and Aliens yesterday; Alien just at home on my tv, Aliens at the Prince Charles cinema as part of a Mass Effect 3 launch (sidenote: seeing the ME3 trailer on a big screen is awesome). It’s great to have finally seen both these movies, and finally understand what all the fuss is about. I liked Alien, I looooved Aliens.

So of course now I’m super excited for Prometheus. And it seems they’ve got some interesting (viral) marketing stuff going on. A couple weeks ago this TED talk appeared set in the year 2023 with Guy Pearce as Peter Weyland:

Are you excited for Prometheus?

Mini Movie Reviews: The Oscar Edition

Melinda — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 13:00:55 +0000

It’s Oscar time tonight! If all goes right, I’ll have seen all Best Picture nominees this year; the only one I’m still missing is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and the plan is to see that in the cinema this afternoon. Besides the 9 Best Picture nominees I’ve tried to watch as many of the other movies with nominations, but there are still a couple I wish I had the chance to see. I won’t cover all those here though, just the 8 Best Picture noms that I saw.

The Artist

Plot: A silent movie star has to deal with the rise of talkies. Oh, and the movie is actually a silent black-and-white movie too.

I thought this was going to be such a gimmicky movie, and it turned out it was. Only: I don’t care. It’s beautifully shot, has a great (although somewhat predictable) story, and the characters are so likeable. Jean Dujardin is charming as the silent movie star, and Berenice Bejo is so sweet and adorable as the bright young actress. It also made me actually want to watch more old movies!

The Descendants

Plot: Hawaiian guy’s wife is in a coma. Guy finds out about secrets the wife had, while dealing with his kids and his family’s trust of 25,000 acres of land.

I did not like The Descendants. I can sort of see what people like about it, but it just wasn’t a movie for me at all. Yes, George Clooney is great as the troubled guy whose wife is in a coma, but George Clooney is great in almost everything he does. The plot is just slow and boring, and I came out of the movie feeling as if I just wasted two hours of my life.

The Help

Plot: It’s 1960s, Mississippi. A young white woman tries to write a book about the perspective of the black maids working for her friends’ families.

I really like the movies Emma Stone chooses lately. I loved Easy A and Crazy, Stupid, Love, and she’s one of the reasons I’m looking forward to The Amazing Spiderman. The trailer makes it seem like she’s the main character (and it makes it look like this is a upbeat cheesy chick flick, which it isn’t) and even though she’s great, this is really Viola Davis’ movie. She’s great as the quiet maid, who decides to share her story with this young optimistic journalist.

Hugo

Plot: The story of an orphaned boy living in a Paris railway station and the mysterious grumpy toy maker who works there.

Hugo is I think one of my favourite movies of last year. It’s so much more than just a kids movie, which I wasn’t expecting. I should have, cause it is Martin Scorsese, but he can be a bit hit-and-miss for me lately (I really didn’t like Shutter Island, and fell asleep during The Departed). The movie is loosely based on some real life events and people, which I didn’t know before going into the movie, but afterwards I spent a couple of hours reading up on the history behind it and it’s a fascinating read.

Midnight In Paris

Plot: During a midnight stroll through Paris, a screenwriter ends up meeting his heroes.

I loved Midnight in Paris! I don’t want to say too much about it and spoil certain stuff (although I’m not sure if it’s really spoiling if it happens that early on in a movie and actually is referred to in most summaries), cause I went into it completely blind and really enjoyed it. It’s just such a quirky and sort of romantic movie.

Moneyball

Plot: Baseball + Maths = Money

This was the movie I was least looking forward to, mainly cause I thought it was just another sports movie. It is, but it’s a sports movie with maths! And it’s very relevant to what I’m working on at the moment: they’re taking large sets of data and discovering useful, valuable patterns.

The Tree of Life

Plot: Let me get back to you on that, I’m still not 100% sure what this was about.

I finished watching this movie last night and I’m still not sure what I thought about it. It’s definitely a gorgeous movie, and for that alone I would recommend seeing it. The first hour though feels like a weird mashup of a nature documentary, a music video without the right music and an artsy stage monologue (“hack-y sack”, bonus points if you get my reference), with lots of “quiet” moments giving you time to reflect on what you just saw. After that first hour it feels a bit more linear, but there’s still that almost pretentious feeling of “this is a deep and profound movie, and you can interpret it however you want”.

War Horse

Plot: Boy meets horsy. WWII. Horsy becomes War Horsy. War Horsy makes friends.

I was really looking forward to this movie; I had heard so many good things about the play it’s based on and was expecting the movie to be great as well. There are apparently some people out there who thought this movie was great (otherwise it wouldn’t have been nominated), but I wasn’t that impressed by it. The entire first act with the boy and horse felt too sentimental, and we’re constantly told how “special” this horse is (without the horse having done anything yet). I did like most of the almost stand-alone type stories in the second act, even though they continue the “he’s a special horse” spiel. I didn’t completely hate the movie, but it just felt too soppy.

Shelftastic: Books in the Rafters

Melinda — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 11:00:57 +0000

This is such a great idea, if you don’t have a lot of space: store your books in the rafters.

I’d love to do something like this in my living room. The only problem would be: I’d be too short to reach those books!

Via Apartment Therapy

10 Geeky Valentine’s Day Cards

Melinda — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 11:00:49 +0000

It’s Valentine’s Day! It’s a bit late to send these awesome geeky cards today, but why not get them and send them any other day than Valentines? It doesn’t need to be Valentine’s Day to tell someone you love them!

You Are The CSS To My HTML – $4

Fezzes Are Red – $5.50

Nyan Cat – $2.50

You’re My Type – $3.00

Eye Chart – $5.00

Love Equation – $4.00

If Else – $3.75

Not Sent From My iPhone – $4.00

#iloveyou – $3.50

My Love For You Has No Bugs – $3.75

Me Wantz: Kimberly Selwood Jewelry

Melinda — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 11:00:23 +0000

Ooh, this jewelry is just so gorgeous (and pricy, but let’s forget about that for now and just drool at the pretties):

Silver and gold wide multi wave cuff with three butterflies

Feather Earrings

Silver drop wave earrings with single butterfly

Lace collar necklace in silver with 18ct Gold links inspired by orchids, fractals and the Chaos Theory

Via Domestic Sluttery

Gadget Review: Samsung Galaxy Fit

Melinda — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 12:55:22 +0000

I always like getting my hands on the newest gadgets in most cases, but when it comes to phones… I can’t really be that bothered. The problem is (and yes I know it’s a bit weird in this age) I just don’t make that many phone calls. Why? A) Most of my friends I’ll contact through other means (email, Twitter, Facebook, etc) and B) I hate phone calls. So why would I bother getting a expensive gadget whose main purpose is making calls?!? Yes, most smartphones will do a whole lot of stuff next to it too (and quite well), but still why pay so much money for something that inherently I don’t like doing?

For the past few years, my setup has been this: an iPod Touch, a mifi, and a cheap mobile phone that does what it does best: making calls. My current phone though is more than 4 years old, and it is on its last legs. So I’ve been looking around for a replacement, which will survive the next few years. If possible, it would be cool if I could use it as a wifi hotspot too (cutting out the MiFi), but this isn’t completely necessary.

So when I got contacted whether I wanted to try out a Samsung Galaxy Fit for a couple of weeks, I thought “sure, why not?” It would be great to try out an Android for the first time, and see if it suits me.

What I liked about the Galaxy Fit was how simple and sleek the design felt, yet it still felt sturdy. I even dropped it quite hard a couple of times (by accident, I swear! I’m just pretty clumsy) and it survived each time: no chips, no back panels or batteries popping off/out, no front panel major shattering. The front of the phone has a glossy metallic finish, while the back has a ribbed plastic panel. For a phone on the lower end of the price spectrum it surprisingly doesn’t feel like a cheap phone.

On the front the Galaxy Fit has one real physical button, and two touch-sensitive ones for “menu” and “back”. It comes with Android 2.2 (Froyo) installed, and to me it was sometimes a bit confusing what button did what (and when you weren’t supposed to use a button, but the touch screen). On the left side the Galaxy Fit has two simple volume control buttons and a microSD card slot. The microSD slot felt a bit finicky, but this isn’t something I would be opening/closing on a daily basis anyway. On the top is a mini-USB port with a nice sliding door cover (much much better than the finicky microSD card slot cover). Finally, on the right is the on/off button.

Battery life was interesting. I never properly kept track of how long it lasted, but when using it as my main communication device (so also checking emails, Twitter, etc.) it would easily last the day. Using it as a wifi hotspot drastically cut that down to only a couple of hours. What I loved though was that it lasted a full week without charging when I was only using it for calls and text messages (bear in mind though, I’m a very “light” user, so it won’t last this long for everyone).

The one thing I didn’t like about the Galaxy Fit was the screen. It has a low resolution at 240×330, but quite a large display, causing the screen to look grainy and fuzzy. The first time I turned it on I wasn’t sure if it was broken or if it was meant like that. It’s meant like that. It’s not too much of a problem, especially if you’re just going to do basic stuff with it, but it is something to bear in mind if you’re thinking of getting one.

Me Wantz: 5 Geeky Necklaces

Melinda — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:00:08 +0000

I need more geek jewellery! I realized that even though I often blog about these awesome geeky necklaces and earrings, I never actually end up getting them. That needs to change!

Here are 5 awesome necklaces I’ve come across, now I need to decide which of these to get (well, which of these to get first, eventually I hope I can just get all of them). Plus it’s my birthday soon…

1. HTML Glass Pendant – $23 on etsy

2. Portal Necklace – $16 on etsy

3. Pacman Ghost Necklace – $18 on etsy

4. BSG Pilot Wings – $32 on Her Universe

5. Caffeine Molecule Necklace – $85 on ThinkGeek

So which one of these should I get? I think my favourite one is the Portal necklace, although the html one comes closely behind that. I also really like the caffeine molecule, but I think there should be cheaper options out there.

Which one is your favourite?

Cool Stuff: Fashion Princesses

Melinda — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:00:48 +0000

These drawings from viria13 on deviantart are awesome! They’re exactly how I imagine animation princesses would look in real life

My favourite is Belle (of course), although I would have loved to see a version of her blue dress too.

Trailerrific: Game of Thrones Season 2

Melinda — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:00:10 +0000

I loved the first season of Game of Thrones, so obviously I’m excited for season 2! I finished the fifth book just before Christmas, and I’m so curious to how this series will end. It’s weird though that I’ll have to wait at least 4 years (most probably more) to see those words translated to the small screen. Assuming, that is, it won’t be cancelled at a certain moment.

The new trailer got released this weekend, and it’s looking great! There are a couple of casting choices that I’m not too sure about, but this trailer doesn’t really show those yet:

Event: Festival of The Spoken Nerd (plus a giveaway!)

Melinda — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:30:58 +0000

One thing I love about being a blogger is that I’ll occasionally be emailed something I wouldn’t have discovered otherwise. Like today.

Next week Thursday (2nd of February) there will be a one-night performance of Festival of the Spoken Nerd. Why have I not heard of these guys before? Their show sounds like something right up my alley!

Here’s the description:

Stand-up mathematician Matt Parker, geek songstress Helen Arney, and Blue Peter’s resident science expert Steve Mould bring you Festival of the Spoken Nerd – a comedy night for the insatiably sci-curious.

After a year of sold-out shows in London and at science festivals across the UK, Matt, Helen and Steve are taking over the Theatre Royal Haymarket. Join three of the London’s best (and nerdiest) performers for a night of comedy, science, maths, geeky songs, special guests, interactive experiments, maybe some things that go bang…

What: Festival of the Spoken Nerd
When: February 2nd 19:30
Where: Theatre Royal Haymarket
Tickets: £12 (buy here)

I’ll definitely be going next week, but I’ve also got two tickets to giveaway to one lucky reader! All you’ve got to do is leave a comment behind with who your favourite scientist is and why.

You’ll also get a second entry if you’re following me on Twitter and tweet about this giveaway with the hashtag #missgeeky. The competition ends on January 30th after which I’ll randomly draw a winner. Of course, you’ll have to be based in London (or willing to travel to London) and be available on February 2nd.

Fashion Focus: Next Dress

Melinda — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:00:44 +0000

One of the things that I didn’t really realize when moving to another country was that you have to rebuild your entire mental database of stores. Back in the Netherlands, I knew exactly which places would cater to my style, size, price range etc, and which places I should just avoid. Then I moved here to the UK… There were some stores that were the same, but mostly they’re just completely different. So in the past few years, I’ve been slowly figuring out which places I should shop at.

One of the places I still hadn’t ever really tried was Next. It’s just one of those stores that never grabbed my eye when walking past it. So when I got the chance to review a dress from the Next online store, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to try it out. I found a cool looking dress, ordered it in size 10 and within 2 days it arrived. Tried it on… and it didn’t fit. Damn. I’m not a size 10 with them, I guess.

I was about to leave for Christmas a couple days later, so decided it would be easier to actually go to a store and exchange it there. Sadly they didn’t have the dress I ordered in a smaller size, so I needed to find another dress. And that’s when I realized why I had never shopped at Next before: I tried on about 20 dresses until I finally found one that fit. Almost every single dress didn’t fit my hips properly or was too long on me, just not suiting my body type at all.

I eventually did find something that fitted me though: a nice slightly business-y looking dress. What do you think?

I have to say though that a lot of the dresses I tried on I wish had fit on me. I know I have short legs (compared to my upper body), so I’m guessing if you’ve got long legs, the dresses would suit you fine. The interesting thing though is I’ve read other bloggers complain about other stores like New Look and Dorothy Perkins that their dresses are way too short, but I’ve never had a problem with them. I’m guessing it really depends on your body type, which stores will suit you best.

So anybody else “discovered” this? Which stores work best for you?

The End Of An Era…

Melinda — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 15:00:13 +0000

This Sunday, the 15th of January 2012, it will be five years ago that I moved to London. It will be five years ago that I showed up here with only a single suitcase to start a one year student exchange at Imperial. It will be five years ago that I was that shy, scared girl that I remember I was.

My plan was to finish my masters that year, and then to most probably go back to the Netherlands and find a job there. I remember wondering at the time about the 2012 Olympics and thinking that by then I wouldn’t be living in London anymore. Somehow I got a bit distracted along the way. What was supposed to take only a year, took me 4.5… oops. I never thought I would become the perpetual student.

I don’t regret it though. Within these 5 years I’ve done stuff, I never thought I would do. I started this blog, which has led to so many cool experiences, giving me the chance to meet awesome people and to cover awesome events. I attended GeekDinners, BarCamps and HackDays, learning to present, to code, to not be afraid to talk to people I don’t know. And then I also started organizing those events, allowing me to give something back to the community who had taught me so much.

They say that with every choice you have to make, the universe diverges and creates the realities of both choices. And sometimes I can’t help but wonder: what if? What if I had finished my degree within that first year? What if I got a job after that first year? Or had moved back to the Netherlands? Would I still have gone to GeekDinners, BarCamps and HackDays? Would I have met the same awesome people? Would I have done all those things that I never thought I would do? Would I be the person I am today?

I don’t think I would be. Part of me regrets not having finished my degree sooner, but I don’t regret all the things I’ve done and learnt instead. I don’t regret the wonderful people I’ve met and the amazing friends I’ve made.

This Sunday, the 15th of January 2012, it will be five years ago that I started the beginning of the end of my student life.

This Sunday, the 15th of January 2012, will be the last day of my student life.

This Monday, the 16th of January 2012, I will be working at EmberAds. Working with some of those awesome people I mentioned: Baz, Caius, Cristiano and Dom.

Part of me is scared, most of me is really excited. One thing I know though:

It’s going to be fracking awesome.

Books I Read In 2011

Melinda — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 14:40:06 +0000

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year’s Eve. I went pretty much gadgetless for most of the past week, giving myself a much needed offline break. I will be trying to post more in this new year, but I don’t think it will ever be as much as I formerly used to write.

This year I wanted to start off the year with some 2011 retrospectives. I never got around to reviewing each of the books I read the past year, but I thought the least I could do was make a list of everything I read. This year I managed 39 books, which on average means I read 0.75 book per week (or 1 book per 1.3 weeks). Not too bad, if I say so myself. Let’s see if I can aim for more than 40 next year!

Highlights for me this year were The Hunger Games trilogy (well, actually only the first book, the rest I found a bit disappointing), Seanan McGuire’s October Daye series (Rosemary and Rue is the first one, if you’re interested) and George R. R. Martin’s A Dance of Dragons. So what books did you read this year? What were your favourites?

Read In 2011

Melinda Seckington’s favorite books »

Video of The Day: Woody Allen Jesus

Melinda — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 10:54:19 +0000

Wow, the last couple of weeks have been so super busy, I’ve again managed to neglect this blog. Sometime soon though I should have something exciting to share with you all…

Anyway it’s the day before Christmas and I need to catch up on Christmas posts! This awesome song from Tim Minchin has been doing the rounds the past two days (it was sadly cut from tonight’s Jonathan Ross show):

Christmas Giveaway: Threadless Vouchers!

Melinda — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 13:00:23 +0000

It’s almost Christmas time and to get this blog in the proper Christmas spirit, I’m holding a giveaway! You’ll have the chance to win one of two $10 Threadless vouchers, just read the details below the image.

To enter the giveaway:

leave a comment behind with your funniest Christmas story or anecdote

I’ve got 2 vouchers to giveaway, so you’ll have 2 chances of winning:

1. One winner will be randomly selected from all the comments below.
2. A second winner will be picked by me for the funniest, most original story.

The closing date for the giveaway will be Friday December the 16th at 14:00 and is open to anyone.

15th/16th December: knomo Sample Sale

Melinda — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 08:00:48 +0000

It’s been a while since I last wrote about them, but I love knomo’s laptop bags. They’re the perfect combination of pwetty and practical. And this week they’ll have another sample sale! Squeee!

The sample sale is this Thursday and Friday at the London knomo office. Here are the full details:

Date: Thursday 15th December, and Friday 16th December
Time: 11am – 7pm
Address: 83 Great Portland Street, London, W1W 7LS

I’ve been to two of their sample sales in the past and each time I’ve ended up buying a shiny new laptop bag for only £50. Both of those laptop bags were unique pieces and I’m so glad I got them! And even though I have two already, I am very tempted to get another if something interesting catches my eye… I’m hoping they might have a Silvi, cause I need a bag like that for my laptop! Fingers crossed…

I’m in The Times!

Melinda — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 14:12:53 +0000

A couple of months ago I got asked whether I’d be interested in “contributing” to an article in The Times about different trends/tribes, with one of the trends being “girl geeks”. After waiting for weeks, that article is now finally live! It was in last weekend’s Saturday Review and was also online on the Times site (it was briefly accessible for some people, but it’s now disappeared behind their paywall).

It’s interesting to see which bits of the interview they ended up using. I think I talked with them for half an hour about all the different events I go to and organize, and it’s weird seeing a very condensed version of what we talked about. I’m also pretty sure that last sentence is not an exact quote from me; I said something along those lines, but I know I did not use the word “entrepreneur” (you know how most people will have a couple of words that they always struggle with and can’t pronounce? “entrepreneur” is one of my words, whenever I attempt to use it, it comes out more like “en-en-en-en-…” ).

And then there’s that photo… I think I look a bit awkward in it, but then I had no idea how to pose with the iPad (if this was my best one, I dread to see the photos that they rejected). I wish I had bought actual props with me, instead of just a geeky t-shirt (which you can’t even see!) and an iPad. I’m still wondering what I should have bought along; what do you think would have worked?

Trailerrific: Prince of Persia: The Sand of Times

Video of The Day: The Ballad of Russell and Julie

Melinda — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 11:13:09 +0000

How have I not seen this video before?!? David Tennant remains my favourite Doctor.

Shelftastic: Built-In Arch Shelves

Melinda — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 13:03:52 +0000

I really don’t like the rest of the decor, but these bookshelves between the roof arches (or whatever you’re suppose to call them) are so pretty:

Via double takes

Me Wantz: Bookish Charms

Melinda — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 14:34:02 +0000

I need more geeky necklaces! Even though I often blog about these amazing geeky jewelry, I don’t splurge enough and buy them for myself. This week I stumbled on some awesome necklaces for book geeks!

Etsy store Bookish Charms makes jewelry and accessories for the bookish, with necklaces featuring quotes from books (although she has now also expanded to TV show quotes). Here are my favourites:

Awesome, right? My favourites are the “Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey” one and the “Winter is Coming” one. Depending on the quote, the necklaces range from $14.50 to $18.50. Take a look at the Bookish Charms Etsy page for more items.

Video of The Day: 3 Minutes

Melinda — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 16:18:59 +0000

This is quite an old video (well, “old”. It’s from January this year. It’s only “old” in internet time), but I hadn’t come across it before now.

Cool Stuff: Can You Crack It?

Melinda — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 12:55:07 +0000

Regular readers of Miss Geeky will know how much I love a good puzzle, and this site is definitely an interesting puzzle. Go to canyoucrackit.co.uk and take a look. Intrigued? I am.

This could take me a while. I always love code-cracking type games, like MacHeist and some of the more interesting movie virals. Most of those though have been quite easy, using simple substitution cyphers. Having been to Bletchley Park last month (which you all should do, cause the place is awesome) made me realize how intricate and crafty some codes can be.

And this one looks like it could be quite intricate and crafty. Just look at the last line: "9d ff ff ff 41 41 41 41". With those repeats, I don't think it's going to be a simple substitution. Plus the combination of letters and numbers is throwing me off.

So: can you crack it? Do you have any ideas on how to solve this?

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Viral video by ebuzzing

Book Lust: Hot and Steamy (Tales of Steampunk Romance)

Melinda — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 13:45:54 +0000

Hot and Steamy is such an awesome name for a steampunk romance anthology! I haven’t read much steampunk yet (but I want to) and this looks like the perfect place to start.

There are 16 stories in total, but I can’t find descriptions online for any of them. Here are the titles though:

Chance Corrigan and the Queen of Hearts – Michael A. Stackpole
Absinthe-Minded Archaeologist – Vicki Johnson-Steger
The Problem of Trystan – Maurice Broaddus
Clockworks – Jody Lynn Nye
In the Belly of the Behemoth – Matt Forbeck
Automata Futura – Stephen D. Sullivan
Love Comes to Abyssal City – Tobias S. Buckell
For the Love of Byron – Mickey Zucker Reichert
For Queen and Country – Elizabeth A. Vaughan
Grasping at Shadows – C. J. Henderson
Go Forward with Courage – Dean Leggett
Her Faith is Fixt – Robert E. Vardeman.
Kinetic Dreams – C. A. Verstraete
For the Love of Copper – Marc Tassin
Cassandra’s Kiss – Mary Louise Eklund
Dashed Hopes – Donald J. Bingle

Hot and Steamy is available on Amazon.co.uk for £4.90.

Me Wantz: Morse Code Necklace

Melinda — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 09:00:08 +0000

This is so subtly geeky, and looks pretty! I wonder how many people would figure it out. COATT designs necklaces, each spelling out a word in morse code.

This one is “lucky“:

And this one is the obvious “sos“:

My favourites are the above two necklaces (I would so love to have the sos one in silver), but they also do more designs like “love”, “friend” and “peace”. Most of the necklaces cost $36, but it depends on the amount of bits used (the above ones all cost $36). You can also get a custom name one for $56.

Video of the Day: The Orange Show

Melinda — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 16:20:56 +0000

Most of you based here in the UK will have seen an Orange commercial before a movie in the cinema (not sure about other countries; I’m guessing UK can’t be the only place where they’re shown); some of them work, and some of them don’t. This latest one is part of the first group, featuring the loveable Muppets:

Via Bleeding Cool

Trailerrific: The Hunger Games

Melinda — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 12:45:37 +0000

I didn’t understand all the hype when it first was announced that this book series would be turned into a movie, and then I picked up the first book… I devoured it within a day. It’s one of those books that you can not put down. The premise is pretty much Battle Royale meets Big Brother.

I’m still not sure if a movie adaption is going to work though. What I loved about the book was that you get to see Katniss’ thoughts about every decision she makes. She knows she’s being constantly watched and it’s the internal conflict about whether or not to manipulate people that was the most interesting to me. I have no idea how and even if that is going to come across on the screen.

So now that a first trailer has come out, what do we think of it?

Some of the actors I think they’ve cast spot on (Jennifer Lawrence, Elizabeth Banks, Woody Harrelson). Others I’m not too sure about. Lenny Kravitz as Cinna looks great, even though I always pictured Cinna as Cillian Murphy. And Josh Hutcherson as Peeta… I’m still not convinced.

They’re staying very true to the book, but I’m not too sure that’s a good thing. The characters from the Capital are a bit over-the-top (pink hair, curled moustaches, etc) and seem a bit too comical for me. I was hoping they would tone that part a bit down, but it looks like they’re sticking to exactly what is in the book.

I’m curious to see how the movie goes; it’s definitely something I’ll be watching in the cinema. I still have that nagging feeling though that this shouldn’t have be turned into a movie. What do you think? Have you read the books? Do you like the trailer?

Me Wantz: Pipe Corner Shelf

Melinda — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 12:30:18 +0000

Ooh, now this a cool way to show off your favourite books:

This would look great in my living room! Bonus: my cats wouldn’t be able to clamber all over it (I hope).

You can get it from this etsy store for $89.

Event Report: September & October

Melinda — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 12:30:08 +0000

I’ve been trying to get back into the habit of blogging, but it’s so tricky. I’m not sure how I used to manage to write 3 posts a day; I’m now struggling with only writing one post a day! We’re already 9 days into November, but I thought I should write up a post on the events I’ve been to the past months.

Charity Hack 2011

Back in September I attended Charity Hack, another two day 24 hour hack competition, where developers have to “hack” something together for charities. I had been the past two years and both times had been a lot of fun. Last year me, Cristiano, Dom and Caius even won the first prize (an awesome trip to San Francisco, I can’t believe that that all happened a year ago). So of course I had to attend this year’s one as well!

Again I teamed up with Cristiano, Dom and Caius to work on a hack: CharitySite. The idea was to create a simple CMS for charities, with which charities could setup their own simple site without having to tweak too much. They could create and manage pages, posts and events, show photos, manage their own mailing list and more. The judges liked what we created and we ended up coming 3rd place, each winning an Xbox and a Kinect!

Great British Chef’s Truffle Making Workshop

Who knew it was so easy to make truffles? I didn’t. Great British Chefs organized a lovely truffle making workshop at Homemade London with one of their chef’s recipes. I made an awesome batch of Earl Grey (bergamot) flavoured truffles. It’s super easy to make truffles and I am definitely going to use that recipe again!

Ladies Who Code

Ladies Who Code is a new meetup group for, well, ladies who code. I went to their second meetup, and it was great meeting other female developers and sharing our experiences. Girls do tend to be outnumbered by the guys at hackdays and other tech events, and events such as Ladies Who Code is a great way to get more girls along. I spoke a bit about organizing events, going to hackdays and some of the hacks I had done in the past year.

Unruly Media Tech Night

I’ve been using Unruly Media for a while now (occasionally you might see a post with one of their videos) and a couple of weeks ago they organized a tech night for bloggers. Everyone got to make a cute little “robot” out of toothbrushes, batteries and other random stuff. Mine looked adorable (if I say so myself), but I glued some of the parts wrong, so it couldn’t move that much.

TweetCamp II

TweetCamp is one of those events that I’m not sure I completely get. It’s an unconference about Twitter. Right. Okay. So we’ll sit around and talk about Twitter the entire day… It’s the type of event that does attract social media douchebags and if you go to the wrong sessions, you’ll end up with a really bad experience. I managed to go to the right type of sessions for me though; I went to discussions about using Twitter for events, and how journalism has changed because of Twitter.

Tee-rrific: Assassin’s Creed Hoodie

Melinda — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 12:00:08 +0000

Okay, so this isn’t exactly a tee-rrific tee. It’s a tee-rrific hoodie. And a tee-rrific hoodie referencing Assassin’s Creed no less:

I think the lighting in this photo might be a bit deceiving though… The hoodie is listed as grey and if you look at the photo of the girl, the hoodie is much darker. Still, it’s a pretty awesome design and I’m quite tempted to get one for myself. They’re £35 on Insert Coin, but sadly they’ve run out of size S

BarCamp London 9: An Organizer’s Perspective

Melinda — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 15:49:31 +0000

Two years ago I wrote a blog post that started with these words: I’ve kind of sort of recovered a bit from BarCamp London 7 last weekend (part of me is cringing at the sound of that sentence. Seriously, 2009 me? “kind of”, “sort of”, “a bit”?!?). That was the first big event I helped organized. It was manic and stressful and intense, but in the end so so worth it. I guess it’s like running a marathon: you put yourself through hell, but it’s for a good cause and afterwards you can’t help but feel happy you did it.

It’s now two years later, and I haven’t stopped with organizing “big” events. Together with Kevin and Cristiano, we’ve done HackCamp, BarCamp London 8, LinkedGov Data HackCamp and the Big Geek Trip. All two day (or longer) events that require more organizing than you’d realize and lots and lots of running around and ~~shouting~~ delegating to people. Plus a bunch of one-day and evening meetups next to all those. The mother of them all though remains BarCamp London, and this year’s one was as manic and stressful and intense as ever.

So I’ll start this blog post with the same words as I did two years ago: I’ve kind of sort of recovered a bit from BarCamp London 9 last weekend. *cringe*

If you’ve somehow stumbled on this post, but have no idea what a BarCamp is, here’s a short explanation. A BarCamp is a two-day weekend unconference, where all attendees are speakers. Instead of pre-announcing speakers, we have a huge grid of session spaces and time slots, where each attendee specifies what they will be talking about. Sessions can be about anything: most attendees will be from the web community, so many talks will be quite “webby”, but I’ve seen a good deal of non-webby stuff to (some of which have been the most interesting sessions I’ve been to). Saturday night the venue remains open, with attendees staying awake through most of the night talking and playing games.

Even though a BarCamp is an unconference, there still needs to be a lot arranged. The unconferenc-ey bit comes from there being no pre-announced speakers; everything else though still needs to be managed. With BarCamp London that comes down to three major elements: venue, sponsors and food/drink.

With the venue we were lucky again this year: City University were happy to host us for a second time. Typically you have to pay to use their venue, but we’ve worked closely with City University to get students involved and interested, and for them BarCamp is very much a “free learning” event where attendees are willing to learn and share what they know with others. For them it’s an internal as well as an external event, so they’ve been able to cover a lot of the costs that we haven’t had to (like security, cleaners, etc). It’s amazing to have such a great venue on board, who understand what BarCamp exactly is about.

BarCamp is completely free to attend, so we need sponsors to cover all the food and drinks that are consumed during the weekend. I wasn’t that involved with finding sponsors this year, mainly because I was still busy working on my dissertation. It most of the time takes 4-6 weeks to get the sponsoring through with companies, so you’ll need to be looking for sponsors at least 4-6 weeks before the event. I tried emailing some companies 2 weeks before the event, but by then it was already too late: most companies aren’t interested any more in sponsoring that close to the date. We had great sponsors this year though (check out the sponsor page); without them BarCamp London wouldn’t be possible.

The last element that needs to be arranged is food and drink. Easy, right? Just order some food and be done with it. Well, no. At BarCamp we do lunch, dinner and midnight snack on Saturday, and breakfast and lunch on the Sunday. Besides that we provide a ton of candy, crisps and drinks during the event. For the main meals, it’s always tricky to find a good deal: we’d love to give attendees something awesome for each meal, but we’re pretty restricted by our budget. Next to that, we try to predict the number of attendees that show up and order the amount of food accordingly, but that involves quite a lot of hassle.

For me, BarCamp preparations started two weeks ago. A couple events ago, Kevin had created our own check-in system, called Retain, where we could track attendee responses and turnout. I’ve been heading registration for most past events though, and realized we could do with some added features. So two weekends ago at the Autumn Hackathon, I mainly spent my time working on that. That weekend I was also trying to arrange a proper breakfast and lunch for the Sunday (hot bacon!) with a pub that shall not be named, but after four days of emailing back and forth with them, they decided they couldn’t do it. Shame.

Proper preparations started on the Thursday and Friday before BarCamp. Badges need to be printed, laminated and punched. Rooms need to be photographed (so we could put them back as they were), rearranged and checked. Posters with room names and directions to those rooms need to be hung up (and figure out where we need to hang those up). Food and drinks need to be bought, driven back to the venue and dragged into a crew room. Registration desk and help desk need to be set up. Swag needs to be sorted out and put out somewhere. Halloween decorations needed to be put up. There was a ton of stuff to do and not a lot of time to do it in.

Now I should explain a bit more about Retain. We’ve got more than 1,000 people signed up to the BarCamp London mailing list. Most BarCamps London venues are only allowed 200-300 attendees. That means: a lot of disappointed people who don’t get a ticket. And yet… even with past BarCamps there will still be people who don’t cancel their ticket and then don’t show up. It costs about £30 for the food we buy per attendee, so if you don’t show up that’s £30 down the drain. If 50 people don’t show up, that’s £1500 down the drain…

So: Retain. For the past couple of events, five days before the BarCamp we’ll send out an email asking you to confirm whether or not you’re coming or if you’re cancelling your ticket. If people confirmed their ticket, we definitely knew you were coming. If you cancelled your ticket, we definitely knew you weren’t coming (and could give that ticket away to someone on the waiting list). If you didn’t confirm or cancel your ticket, we gave you a 50% chance of actually showing up and ordered the amount of food accordingly. Then on the day itself we could see in Retain who had confirmed and who hadn’t, and who had shown up and who hadn’t. It made ordering food a bit more exact.

For the past events this system has really worked well. And we’ve gotten food orders exactly right. This time around though… of the 250 people who had a ticket, 240 of them confirmed 5 days beforehand that they would come along but 50 of those did not show up. 50 people. It could have been £1500 that we wasted. Luckily it was a bit less than that, as because the pub food for Sunday had fallen through, we were forced to buy food on the Sunday itself (meaning we could get those numbers at least right). Still the food on Saturday was ordered for 250 people, and we wasted money and food, because people didn’t bother to show up. How much effort is it to cancel your ticket? Some people did cancel their ticket on Saturday morning, but by then it’s too late; the food has already been ordered.

Most of my Saturday morning I was heading registration, scanning attendees in and keeping track how many people we had in the building. Each attendee badge has a barcode on it, and with laptop + barcode scanners we can check people in and out. The university needs to know exactly how many people are in the building, so we needed to scan everyone that goes in and out. I managed to go to 1 talk that morning, before having to help out with lunch setup.

By Saturday afternoon we realized we were “missing” 50 people, and Kevin and me discussed what we could do to help that. We first sent out text messages to the No Shows whose mobile numbers we had, and got some replies (some with family emergencies, some who said they show up tomorrow). It didn’t seem most of those would still show up though, so we also released extra tickets to the waiting list. Only 3 people responded.

The rest of Saturday afternoon was reasonably quiet, up until dinner. The pies we had ordered from Square Pie arrived half an hour early, and were already a bit on the cold side, because the driver couldn’t find the place. Argh! We quickly needed to set up dinner to make sure the pies were in the hands of attendees as quick as possible. Turned out though that all the boxes were mixed up. There were 7 types of pies in total plus jacket potatoes for vegans and dairy free people, but everything was through each other. We quickly needed to sort everything in the right piles, so that serving them wouldn’t be complete chaos (and that the vegetarians and vegans ended up with the right stuff).

What I didn’t realize was that at the same time, a delivery guy showed up with the ice we had ordered… but he was 2 hours early. Kevin dealt with that, while me and 10 or so volunteers were dealing with the dinner. Somehow though two deliveries were screwed up, causing only more problems on our end.

Later that Saturday evening Kevin wasn’t feeling well, so we forced him to go to sleep. It didn’t help, about an hour or so later we found him in the food room counting stuff. We again told him to go sleep, and I would take over and arrange all the evening stuff. Not much to be done, I thought… I was wrong.

At about 12, we needed to order pizzas for the remaining attendees. I did a quick head count to see who hadn’t gone to sleep yet, and realized our system was off by about 30 people. Oops. We needed to know exactly who has in the building in case of an emergency. First, I ended up running back to where the pizzas were ordered to lower the amount we were ordering. Then I had to do a second proper head count. This meant asking every single attendee if I could see their badge and re-register them. Including the people who had gone to sleep already. We kind of forgot to specify a designated sleeping area, so somehow attendees managed to go to sleep in every single session room. I ended up having to wake up people and ask if I could see their badge. Not an experience I’d like to go through again.

By then the pizzas were about to be delivered and as I was the only one available with a Geeks of London debit card, I had to wait outside in the cold with a couple of other volunteers, waiting for the delivery guy to show up. I realized at that moment that was first time that day I had been outside; I had stayed for over 16 hours straight in that building. Of course the debit card machine wasn’t working properly, and we got charged an extra £10. The manager of that Dominos was supposed to call us back that night to make sure we got the money back, but I think that still hasn’t happened.

After that I needed to merge the night head count I had just done into our system. It turned out that attendees had been leaving with their badges, not bothering to be scanned out and messing up our system completely. Of course, Retain didn’t show a list of attendees currently in the building (I forgot to add that bit), so I needed to manually go through all attendees and cross-check their presence with the 2nd list. Not something you want to do at 1 in the morning.

Then it was time for the candy round! I think that might be one of my favourite bits of BarCamp. Sneaking in to the Werewolf games and giving out chocolate and candy to “sleeping” Villagers. Especially handing out Kinder Surprise Eggs is so much fun; the eyes of attendees just light up and you realize some people haven’t had them since they were kids.

Finally at about 2:30, Cristiano forced me to go to bed. I found a nice couch, but it wasn’t exactly the quietest of places, plus my mind was still reeling, wondering if I had done everything right and if I hadn’t forgotten anything. I think I finally fell asleep at 3:00.

Three and a half hours later, at 6:30, Cristiano woke me. His turn to sleep. After a quick shower, I headed back to the main area to see what needed to be done. The first thing we needed to sort out was breakfast: how many people were there still in the building and required breakfast. After that head count last night not much had changed, so we had a pretty accurate number. Kevin and some other volunteers went out to get breakfast, while I arranged for the registration desk to be set up again.

Around then I found out that my laptop was acting up. Seriously? Right when registration was about to start again? I managed to get my hands on another laptop, and spent the morning trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with it (a fresh install seems to have fixed it).

Sunday lunch was a little bit stressful. We somehow managed to get the numbers wrong again and didn’t buy enough lunch. Crew was asked not to eat, so that all attendees at least would have gotten something. It’s so tricky getting this number right though. One time you buy too little, the next you buy too much. How the hell are you supposed to get this spot on? Crew ended up getting food later though, so it wasn’t too bad.

Before I knew it, we had the closing talk! It’s an awesome feeling, seeing all those attendees and knowing (well, hoping) they had a great time. After that, it was clean up and break down time. We had about an hour to pack everything up and out of the building. As I said before, we had a lot of “food” (mainly cans of drinks and candy) left over because of no shows, and needed to pack that all up and bring that home. It took a good hour to break everything down. We ended up with two cabs of stuff that needed to be brought home: one cab to Kevin’s with all the stationary, hardware, etc, and one cab to mine and Cristiano’s with all the food leftovers.

And that was it. That was yet another BarCamp we had organized.

There are a couple of things I am regretting. I only managed to go to 3 talks. Looking at the grid now makes me annoyed about how many interesting things I missed! This time I actually checked the grid a couple of times, but kept forgetting which talks I wanted to go to and got distracted by doing other stuff. Next time around I really need to come up with a way that the main members of crew get to see the talks they want (and get poked by other crew to make them go to those talks).

Besides that I don’t think there’s a proper photo of me during the entire BarCamp. There are a couple where I’m sort of in it, but none with really me as a focus. I’m kind of disappointed with that, especially cause I had full on witch makeup and hat on for Halloween!

Sometimes I wonder why I put myself through it all. Most people seem not to realize how much time and effort we put in to these events, and we always get flak for doing something or other “wrong”. It’s stressful. And super intense. And afterwards I tend to feel sad and under-appreciated. But I don’t think I could ever stop organizing events now. Even now, when I should be “recovering” from the previous BarCamp, I kind of just want to jump right back in and organize the next big thing. Yeah, I might be a big crazy…

A couple of things before I wrap this up. If you’ve got a ticket to an event and can’t make it, please, please, cancel. This mentality of it being okay not to cancel has somehow got to change. It’s one of the worst issues event organizers have to deal with and this has got to change.

Finally, I want to thank everyone involved with this BarCamp. Thanks to City University and Kate for hosting us yet again. Thanks to the awesome building staff (security guys, tech/AV staff and cleaners) who had to deal with this weird bunch of crazy people. Thanks to all the lovely sponsors for enabling us in feeding our attendees. Thanks to all the volunteers who helped out the entire weekend and did anything we asked them to.

Thanks to Kevin and Cristiano and the other organizers for making this another fun, even though it is stressful, experience.

And thank you to everyone who attended and participated. Without you BarCamps wouldn’t be BarCamps.

If you’re interested in hosting, sponsoring or helping to organise future BarCamps, you can contact me at melinda@missgeeky.com.

Video of The Day: BOB

Melinda — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 10:00:41 +0000

Make sure you watch the bit after the credits:

BOB from Jacob Frey on Vimeo.

Me Wantz: Nightmare Before Christmas Book Ends

Melinda — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 10:00:38 +0000

Halloween is almost here! Which always makes me want to watch Nightmare Before Christmas (even though it’s more of a Christmas movie). I love Night Before Christmas and I love most things book related. So mix them together and chances are I’ll like the result:

Cute, right? It wouldn’t work in my house though, most of my bookcases are completely full, so I don’t need book ends. I’m actually at the point where I’m tempted to get another bookcase, cause I’m running out of space!

The Nightmare Before Christmas book ends are $49.99 from ThinkGeek.

Video of The Day: Hugh Jackman & Jimmy Fallon Water Fight

Melinda — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 10:40:52 +0000

Need I say more?

Me Wantz: Super Mario Heels

Melinda — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 15:31:50 +0000

These heels are awesome!

They’re a personal project from Jamie Ferraioli, and sadly she doesn’t have any plans on making more of them. I would love to create something like this myself though, but I’m not exactly skilled at painting…

Video of The Day: Jurassic Park Theme Song

Melinda — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 14:30:17 +0000

I think epic and awkward is the best way to describe this:

Via Geek Are Sexy