The Geekorium

after my most recent rex havoc story arc and 50th chapter garnered exactly 2 readers, i’ve decided that the “return” of rex havoc shall become the “retirement” of the illustrious hero. i’ve put a lot of work into the story, and to receive such a lacklustre response is more than disheartening.

i was writing space flight 704 not because i wanted to, but because it was the sort of story i thought other people might like to read. that’s clearly not the case. from this moment, i refuse to write what is popular and choose to concentrate on what will make me happy.

Leylanilu and Mr Ruffles

i’m going to write a story about a were-bear and a faerie princess. specifically, an erotic fiction about the love between a were-bear and his faerie princess dom. i’ve been plotting this out in my head for months, and i’ve really gotten into their relationship and i think it will make me much happier than rex havoc ever could. the only thing holding me back from putting pen to paper was the fear of what others might think.

but i’m not afraid any more! i’m no longer ashamed to admit that i want to read and write stories about bear-men and faeries having relations.

those of you who follow the rex havoc facebook and google+ pages might want to unsubscribe before i change the names. you probably don’t want to be seen ‘liking’ bear/faerie erotica.

thank you all for your understanding.

Hi there everyone! If you haven’t already noticed, The Geekorium has moved domains. It used to be the.geekorium.com, but we’ve moved to the.geekorium.au - it’s a small change but important, and I’ll be posting more about why I think so in future.

So if you see anything funky, let me know so I can fix it.

In other news, I have more Rex coming, I’m just a bit too busy to get it written.

It was six years ago on a [Sleepless Night]({{< ref “sleepless-nights” >}}) that I wrote my first blog post on what was then (maybe) not even my own domain. I didn’t set up nunnone.com with Google Mail for about a year after that night so I might have used some hosted blogging environment, but I can remember the night, if not the software. I thought it might be therapeutic, and it did let me get a lot off my chest in those early days.

I spun off a “godblog” for [religious posts]({{< ref “/categories/religion” >}}) that documented my dawning atheism, then later absorbed them back in. Since then I’ve done the same for a number of ventures: [posts on education]({{< ref “/categories/education” >}}) and more recently [Google Wave]({{< ref “/categories/google-wave” >}}). But I keep coming back here, where I can [hone]({{< ref “/posts/joshnunn-theme.md” >}}) [my]({{< ref “/posts/loading-ready-run.md” >}}) [CSS]({{< ref “/posts/claim-theme.md” >}}) [skills]({{< ref “/posts/comic-book-hero.md” >}}) and learn about new products and [technology]({{< ref “/tags/tech” >}}) as they come out.

The site has undergone some name changes. Once “Josh Nunn’s Wee Blog” (weeblog, weblog geddit? What in space was I thinking?) then simply nunnone.com, now The Geekorium with its own domain, but the site has been the same site with all the same content it originally had (I’m very proud of that fact). Occasionally I clean up: there was a phase of importing crap from all over that I’ve since deleted, and [Disqus]({{< ref “/posts/bye-bye-disqus.md” >}}) butchered my comments database at least 3 times leaving some posts with up to six duplicates of each comment. But the essence of the site lives on, eclectic, haphazard and unfocussed¹ .

Recently I’ve found a direction I enjoy - writing the adventures of [Rex Havoc the space adventurer]({{< ref “/series/space-flight-704” >}}). Some stalwart friends have followed my meandering to this point and I hope are enjoying the more structured posts. I’ll still occasionally post non-sequitur posts like this though, just to keep you on your toes. Hi guys

So here’s to The Geekorium! Six up and down years, but six years I’ve been happy to call this my own slice of the web. Welcome! Stay a while! Have a drink²!

Hi there!

If you’re seeing this, it’s because you’re a subscriber to my site. I wanted to make it possible for you to see some special content just for you, such as exclusive Rex Havoc chapters and whatnot. Let me know what you might like to see! From the bottom of my heart, thank you!

A few weeks ago I posted on G+ that I’d enabled IPv6 on my home network through Internode’s experimental support. The couple of responses I got were variations of “why?” which is understandable, as it’s kinda like turning on a second version of the internet where there’s Google and a tumble-weed.

But now, thanks to the power of CloudFlare, The Geekorium is here now too!

Ping me bitch!

Eventually I hope to set up IPv6 “correctly” through my host, but they’re waiting for CPanel to support it. I’m sure that will happen soon. In the meantime, through the magic of pixies and fairies, I’m doing it now!

So if you’re on IPv6, come by! We’re open 24/7.

Tonight is my five year anniversary of this Blog. It started out as Josh Nunn’s Wee Blog on nunnone.com, and tonight - in honour of my achievement and due to my name-change earlier this year, I’ve migrated to this new domain¹.

The Geekorium is now officially at https://the.geekorium.au

The last five years have seen a lot of changes here. I no longer write much about religion any more, I’ve started doing some videos posts and I’ve made numerous cosmetic changes over the time².

I’ve had a kid, I’ve started a new job, and bought a house.

I wonder where I’ll be in another five. Hope you stick around!

Just a quick note to say sorry for the unstable feed. I changed it to point elsewhere and back again, so it gathered multiple entries quickly a few days in a row. I’ll stop doing that now

This site was always just a place to practice my website building skills and publish something to attach to my name if anyone came looking for me. As I didn’t have a burning need driving me to write (other than my first post), I’ve struggled sometimes to find anything to write about.

That probably won’t change — I’m not a writer deep in my soul — but I’m hoping that as I begin my TAFE course I might find stuff to post more frequently. I’m going to study programming (beginning with JAVA), and I’m expecting to write about some of the things I’m learning. So let this be a warning to you if you visit here regularly (yes my three loyal readers, I’m talking to you), I may be posting programming stuff, including code bits, and expanding on what I’m learning as I go, so if you don’t get programming, or are a super-coder you may want to skim over my posts (or even better, correct me when I’m wrong).

Just a heads up.

It’s getting silly really. I spend so much time updating this blog, without actually publishing anything. This is another test to test my new shortening service using Yourls. It should send a tweet out with my own url.

I’m working on a new theme though, so that’s something.

Thank you Beau - your subscription brings me to 16 subscribers in Feedburner!

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Pitiful… Absolutely pitiful

And if that was you that actually clicked on one of my feed items, you’ve given me a feedburner “reach” of one! Hooray! I’m popular! I can use exclamation marks! See?!

On another more serious note, Hittail.com suggests that I should be writing about “bible comic strips” and “allinurl blog”…

Hittail - confused

I suspect that Hittail might be getting confused.

My personal Wordpress theme is finished. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do since I first installed Wordpress, and I’ve finally managed it. It isn’t fancy, but it’s mine from start to finish (with the help of some online guides).

My stats since the beginning of the year show the percentages of browsers that visit my site, with IE on top. So I’ve tested it on Opera, Firefox, Safari, IE7 and IE6 - if anyone else finds problems, please let me know and I’d be happy to take a look at it.

To those of you using Internet Explorer 6

(it looks like this ),

I strongly recommend you switch ASAP. You can download the latest version of Internet Explorer, Opera or Firefox. There are others, but those three are the big players. IE6 doesn’t handle some very common web site tricks, and it takes a lot of work behind the scenes to make your favourite websites look like they do on such an out-of-date browser. This site is broken in IE6 (no footer - help appreciated), but about a quarter of my very few readers still use it, so I had to accommodate them. If everyone moved on though, life for web developers would be much easier. You can check out my article on making the switch to IE7 on edublogs

Enough preaching - enjoy the new look NunnOne - with external links clearly marked and my Creative Commons licence proudly displayed. One day, I might bundle my theme up into a package and offer it to all.

When I started writing in my blog (infrequently as it is), I never expected anyone to read it outside my friends and family. And I’m talking across the span of my life - I expected family and friends to visit my site occasionally and get maybe a few visits a year. Primarily, NunnOne is so that I have a place on the web that embodies ‘me’ when someone Googles my name.

Of course, I kinda wished deep down that other people would find my little home and derive some small pleasure from reading about me and my thoughts, but I never seriously thought that it would happen. It still doesn’t really happen, but I do get a small number of visitors here that find me (mostly through Google) via a couple of topics that people seems to care about. One of them is Hercules Returns for which I still get many visitors (but few comments or repeat readers), and the other is my commentary on Fred Basset. These two topics are my most heavily found/read/commented-on posts but for different reasons.

Hercules Returns: PLEASE! was a post about a service I was trying to provide - getting Hercules Returns on DVD. Once that service had been given and visitors found their way to a copy, they no longer cared about my involvement or what else I have to offer here. That’s fine - I’m not complaining just illustrating.

My Fred Basset post was a rant on how pointless I find the comic Fred Basset. It’s entirely opinionated and completely rude, but it isn’t anything that my friends and I haven’t said to each other in private conversation - just that now it’s on the web. And I stick by the sentiment. On the other hand, I wasn’t writing the post entirely seriously and I don’t think that the author is a terrible person for writing a comic that they obviously enjoy writing (for some reason).

What I didn’t expect is how many people I would annoy by stating my opinion. I’ll re-iterate that I never expected people to read anything I write here, but thought it would be nice if people did. I just wish that they left opinions on posts that I actually bothered to think about before posting, and not some silly throw-away rant.

It makes me realise why so many people write ridiculous inflammatory stuff on their web sites - because not only do people read it, it makes them care enough to write! And when people write, the commenter feels like they are being heard. And it’s a nice feeling - being heard. It’s the typical negative reinforcement problem: being nice doesn’t get attention as quickly or in such volume as being naughty. Children learn it, trolls learn it, Dvorak learnt it.

I realised this myself after the most recent comment on my Fred Basset post:

also you dont need to make a friggin thesis on stupid comics. we all have our own opinions. if ur not happy with anyone elses then shut ur mouth and keep it to urself. so clearly ur thesis was ur own opinion. u were not necessarily ‘correct’
emma - dumbarse

I toyed with the idea of doing it again. Not specifically with Fred Basset, but anything else. Just saying shit for the sake of the traffic it makes, and the comments it could generate. But it’s not me. I usually only say what I think (maybe I go over the top sometimes but it’s normally a warped distortion of what I really think) and I want people to know me by what I say. I’d love to be able to share things with my readers that I’m passionate about and not have them wonder if I’m just taking the piss.

So rest assured gentle reader, that Fred Basset was a once off. I still think it stinks, but I don’t care enough about whether some random person who’s actually searching for Fred Basset to begin with disagrees with me to write about him or anything else I don’t enjoy again.

To my 3 loyal readers, sorry I haven’t written in a while. To be honest, I keep up with you regularly anyway, and you know all my news. And frankly, anything I think I’d like to share with the world gets covered in other blogs very quickly by a lot of people before I can anyway.

So on to my update:

• I have a new job working in a school. I already worked in a school, but this time I get to make the big decisions.

• I have a new Mac - my dad’s mini, which is very cool, but in vital need of a stick of RAM.

• I’m at my parent’s-in-law’s place - a very nice house between two little towns outside Adelaide, where Mil and I have been trying to recharge. While my Internet credit has suffered (my father-in-law doesn’t use it as much as I), we are appreciating the chance to stretch out in a house three or for times the size of our flat (and we aren’t even using a third of the house!)

• I purchased the 1949 movie serial ‘Batman and Robin’ and have finished watching all 15 episodes. It’s really fun, and I’m gonna take the time to write something on it soon. Until then, here is a little taste of how marvellous it is.

• I’ve got a few extra plans for my site (or my ‘NunnOne Network’ as I’ve facetiously called it). One is to create a wiki, where (in a genius moment of sheer egotism) Josh Nunn’s (and only Josh Nunn’s) from all over the web can write about themselves. Hehe.
  Edit: It’s done… kinda… When I’m ready to tell other Josh’s I’ll make an official post, but check it at Josh Nunn Wiki

• One amazing discovery I’ve made is that setting a text editor to default to Unicode line breaks and then forgetting can make a whole bunch of web-site files stop working when you upload them. I’ve set it to Unix line endings - now my .htaccess files might work properly…

• I’ve got my bookmarks to follow me around now, so no matter where I am, I can find that site quickly. You can check out my setup at http://bm.nunnone.com(site no longer active) - but you’ll only see my public bookmarks.

• By the way, does anyone want to give me money? I’ll take it… I’ve been eyeing off the new Intel Macs you see…

• Nothing else. There is no third thing… (my text based ‘Spanish Inquisition’ impression needs work I know)

Update: 2006-04-06 It’s over and I lived!

I’m getting this in early, in case I forget or don’t have time on the day - April 5th has been declared the First Annual CSS Naked Day. No my web site is not broken.

This is a minor big deal in the web world. Credit to Dustin Diaz for coming up with the idea.

To those who don’t understand: CSS is a web maker’s tool for styling a web page. In the early days of the web people used all sorts of tricks just to make their pages look good, but they often only worked on one or two specific Internet browsers. So someone using Internet Explorer might see a pretty web page, but someone else using a Mac’s Safari browser might see something else entirely. Not to mention that all these crafty tricks twisted the information in the web page into nooks and crannies all over the page - making it difficult to extract the information using the ‘wrong’ browser or a web page reader such as a blind person might use.

The people who make decisions about the Internet decided it would be better for the information to be set out logically on the page, and have the pretty designs added later (this was in the original plan for the Internet, but it kinda got forgotten by a lot of designers). CSS is a way of ‘prettying’ a web page without changing the underlying information, and leaving the info accessible in a logical and sensible way. Web designers can make a basic page, and then use different CSS ‘style sheets’ to make the page look a certain way on a computer screen, a different way on a tiny mobile phone screen, even sound a certain way on a web page reader!

If you are here on the 5th of April, you can see this site sans CSS, and you should still be able to find your way around. In effect, this is how a blind person might ‘see’ my site, so it has to still be usable or I have failed to make my site fully accessible. Other sites listed at the above site are going naked too, in an effort to promote this idea of ‘usability’.

If you aren’t here before or after the 5th, you can still see what I’m talking about if you use Firefox, by selecting the View menu > then Page Style > then No Style, or in Opera: View > Style > Usermode.

Select View > Page Style > Basic Page Style in Firefox to go back, or View > Style > Authormode in Opera. It is also possible to do something like this in other browsers, but it can be more tricky.

So enjoy CSS Naked Day, and in the spirit of this nudieness, a lewd joke:
Q: How do you titillate an ocelot?
A: Oscillate his tit a lot!

I’ve switched web hosts. This might not mean much to some, but it means a better, easier experience for me. What it does mean though, is that I had the opportunity to switch from one blogging program to another. However they are two entirely different beasts, and I’m manually moving most of my old posts to this new system.

So there will be a small transition phase. I’ll get the bulk of the comments over to this system too.

I still have my [GodBlog]({{< ref “/categories/religion” >}} “Religion category on The Geekorium”), my regular blog, my dad’s blog will be back shortly and very soon I’ll be launching my archive of how-to documents that I’ve created in the course of my work. Check it all out!