A Retrospective in 2020

Hello, World.  Sometimes, people are extroverted and inclined to seek out and communicate with other people.  Sometimes, people are introverted and inclined to internalize their thoughts and not communicate with other people.  Sometimes, this goes on for the better part of a decade.  You are free to determine which type of person this author may be.

Nerd Up obviously did not achieve the goals which were optimistically proposed over seven years ago.  There never were posts in The Lecture Hall detailing the basic principles of Physics.  When trying to compose a post, there were always thoughts that someone else had already explained things better.  The urge to avoid internet arguments over why particular points were not precisely perfect overrode the desire to communicate.

This is not to say that things did not happen during this time.  Degrees were earned in Physics and in Anthropology, and a Masters degree in Anthropology was also earned.  Significant progress was made towards a Doctorate in Anthropology, including the publication of several academic journal articles and the instruction of several college level courses.  Then things ground to a halt in 2020, with no job and no significant personal progress to show for it.  Some old demons slain, some new demons remain.

Expansion Of Scope

While contemplating future topics of discussion for Nerd Up, I realized that when I made the original post outlining areas of discussion for the blog I had neglected to create topical divisions for several types of discussions.  For instance, there is no place to talk about books, comics, stories, and other types of literature.  Also, there is no place to talk about games themselves. 

And while the discussions on specific albums, movies, recipes, and novels fit nicely within their respective divisions, there is no space to place current news about various topics such as an album release or a movie trailer.  In order to remedy these oversights, we will introduce the following divisions:

The Great Library – Discussion of books, comics, and stories.

The Gaming Den – Video game, board game, and tabletop game discussion.

The Time Capsule – News and announcements relevant to “current” events.

I did mention in the original post that the listing of topics was preliminary, precisely because I knew that I was likely to forget something.  Since this has not yet changed, I will maintain that these listed divisions of topics are still preliminary.  If you can think of anything else that needs to be added, please let me know in the comments below.

And now back to our regularly scheduled ramblings.

What is Nerd Up?

You may be asking yourself, “What is Nerd Up?”  Strangely enough, we have the answer that you are looking for!  Probably not the droids, though.

Nerd Up is a discussion of some topics that might be considered to be marginally nerdy by the general populace.  At the core, we’ll be looking at music, movies, games, food, and technology.  That’s not so extraordinary; after all, lots of people like to play video games, many people watch movies, most people enjoy listening to music, and almost everyone likes to eat.

However, not everyone listens to video game music with fan created lyrics and story, watches a Japanese comedian playing video games from 30 years ago, or breaks down complex questions of science and technology into understandable terms for those people who may only have a passing knowledge of the subject.  Here, we do.

Nerd Up will be broken down into multiple compartmentalized divisions to discern between the different topics.  Sometimes topics will overlap, so we will attempt to use a tag system to make finding specific types of content easier.  The goal is to have at least one new topic of discussion per week.  The preliminary divisions are as follows:

The Control Room - This is a space for announcements about Nerd Up.

The Lecture Hall - Discussion of science, technology, and history.

The Test Kitchen - Food, spirits, and cooking discussion.

The Screening Room - Discussion of videos, anime, and movies.

The Listening Chamber - Discussion of songs, albums, and all things aural.

The Viewing Stand - Discussion of conferences, seminars, and festivals.

The Observation Deck - Observations and discussion of random things.

The Peer Review - Input from our peers as well as Comments on posts.

That about covers the introduction to the blog.  We'll see you soon with some more interesting things to talk about.

Nerd Up Launched Today

Welcome to Nerd Up.  We'll use this space to take a look at video game music, emulation, gaming history, science, movies, food, technology, and any other topics that might tickle our fancy.  Actual content to follow shortly.  Enjoy the meal.