geekosystem

As our readers know, we here at Geekosystem love Minecraft. We write about it, we discuss it amongst ourselves at Geeko HQ, we have our own private server, and we even have the occasional Minecraft get-together. Much of what we discuss, however, starts with the qualifiers, "I wish" or "You know what would be cool?" So, we decided to transcribe a conversation between two of our many Minecraft alums, James Plafke and Max Eddy, for your reading pleasure. Head on past the break to see how our Minecraft-related brains work, and what we'd most like to see added or changed about Notch's blocky masterpiece.

We're just about two weeks from the launch of TheMarySue.com, an entertainment/news site for the the geeky girl, from the ones who love The Lord of the Rings but have never actually read the books, to the ones who want to know which movie stars are going to be at Comic Con, to those planning out their Minecraft cross stitch samplers.  (Just me?) We are planning a February 28th launch, so we're not quite ready yet, but I wanted to share one part of it that we're particularly proud of: our logo. I knew, going into the site design on The Mary Sue, that it would be very, very important to get the look of the site right.  (In fact, I believe my exact first words on the matter were "It can't be pink.") The first thing we tackled was, naturally, the logo.  "How about a generic girl geek?  The every-geekwo-man!"  Well, that sounded great until we sat down to try and decide how to depict a generic and obvious but inclusive girl geek without diving headfirst into stereotype.  Do you give her glasses?  A book?  A certain air of social unease? Harder than it sounds.

A year ago today, we launched Geekosystem with the goal of "unit[ing] all of the tribes of geekdom under one common banner." And I think we've been pretty successful to that end. Despite cold-launching with zero marketing budget and an editorial staff of exactly two people, myself and Susana Polo, we've built a great community of readers, and the site reaches an audience of comfortably more than one million people each month. So we'd like to thank you, Geekosystem reader, for your excellent and discerning taste in websites, and for helping make the site what it is today. OK: We'll take a little credit too.

It's a Christmas miracle! "A Klingon Christmas Carol," a live production of the classic Charles Dickens tale performed entirely in Klingon, has made it to Chicago! In a March post, we covered the fundraising efforts by Minnesota-based theatre troupe Commedia Beauregard to bring its tlhIngan Hol production, "A Klingon Christmas Carol," to Chicago in time for Christmas. While it looks like their Kickstarter campaign came up a little short, they clearly found the funds and support to achieve their goals.

Geekosystem is seeking editorial interns for January-May 2011! Our interns spend most of their time writing, and most definitely receive bylines for all of their stories. We like to recruit through our internships, so if ascent to a higher plane is your goal, this isn't a bad way to get started. QUALIFICATIONS The primary qualification for this job is an encyclopedic knowledge of and obsessive enthusiasm for multiple aspects of geek culture. If you are knowledgeable about weird, cutting-edge tech phenomena, follow gadget and consumer electronics news, and/or possess a deep knowledge of video games and/or science fiction (You know, the stuff we cover every day!), then this is the internship for you.

This past weekend, Geekosystem's star tech Scott Smitelli -- who readers of this site may know as the man who wrote an epic 3,000 word review of the KFC Double Down, Auto-Tuned a vuvuzela, and analyzed Roger Klotz's cackles on Doug, all in the name of science -- did something that we've wanted to do for a long while: Made Geekosystem comments a lot simpler. Previously, our comment system was tied to WordPress, the CMS on which the site is built; while this had its advantages, it meant that readers who wanted to comment had to create accounts and log in. Now, we've switched over to DISQUS comments, which allow readers to comment using a number of third-party platforms and to comment as guests without creating site accounts; we hope that this will lead to more and better discussions on the site and bring in people who didn't comment before because they didn't feel like dealing with WordPress' somewhat kludgy comment system. Want to comment on our new comments? Comment in the comments below. (title pic via New Media Rodent)

Geekosystem editor-at-large Andrew Cedotal was on CNBC yesterday talking tech.

Check out his thoughts on the Kinect, the LG Quantum, and more in the video above.

We are thrilled to tell you about a new feature on our site that we think you will like. As of this afternoon, Geekosystem has added a random button to all of our posts. It's pretty self-explanatory:

• 1. Click on the 20-sided die at the top-right corner of any post
• 2. ???
• 3. Profit [by experiencing a random Geekosystem post from the past, present, or future]

What makes the random button work is that it only cycles you through stories that we think will still be fresh and interesting whenever you read them.

As you may have noticed, Geekosystem has a nifty feature called the Power Grid, which ranks people, objects, and assorted eidolons from across the vast expanses of geekery. What is this Power Grid, and by what infernal machinations does it issue forth its categories, subjects, and rankings? A brief FAQ: