About this Site (or: Seldom Asked Questions)

So, what's this site about?
Asking what it's about implies that there's some theme or connection between all of the content... there really isn't. Aside from me.

But what's the general point of this site?
Well, there's some random stuff thrown together haphazardly — half-finished projects, graphics, and stuff — but I suppose the bulk of it is this weblog here.

Oh, a weblog.
Mmm.

It's really primarily a weblog then.
Yes. Yes, it is.

Okay.
Yeah.

What's a w...
A weblog (often called a blog for short) is a website made up of posts ordered by date.

That's quite vague.
Yeah, but there are literally millions of weblogs, and they vary a lot in their style, content, and audience, so an all-encompassing definition must necessarily be vague.

So can you be more specific about your weblog?
It's a personal weblog, filled with a roughly 50/50 mix of diary-style entries ("today this happened") and link-style entries ("this website is interesting"), with a vague tendency towards geeky subjects and the news. There's no real theme to it, and I write it for myself and for anybody else who wants to read it, which is usually a pretty small number of people, to no schedule I'm consciously aware of.

Hmm. So why do you do it?
Because the benefits usually outweigh the effort. Trying to write an opinion on something helps me to work out where I stand and why — it's a useful part of the thought process. Also, keeping a weblog is good writing practice, it's interesting to hear opinions on entries, it's fascinating to look back and see what was bothering me five years ago, and it's fun.

I disagree with something you wrote!
Leave a comment on the entry — unless it's abusive, illegal, or spammy, I won't remove it, and I'll probably respond to it.

What does 'Trioptimum' mean?
The domain name predates the website, which explains why there's little apparent connection between the two. Like many domain owners, I bought this particular domain because I thought it sounded cool.
More specifically, the name is taken from the computer game System Shock, made in 1994 by Looking Glass Systems, and one of the most immersive and compelling games of its era. The Trioptimum Corporation made a return appearance in System Shock 2 in 1999, shortly before Looking Glass Studios closed as a result of failing to make dumb, formulaic, bestselling games.
(By the way, if you're a legal representative of the current owner of Looking Glass's intellectual property, then I'd really appreciate it if you didn't sue me.)

I came to your site looking for System Shock related material and all I found was this lousy personal website.
Oh. Sorry about that.

Who's the author?
I am: 30 years old, an INTP, British, tall, single, heterosexual, a Ph.D. in Computer Science, mildly myopic, introverted, an atheist, a Guardian reader.

Come on, that's just a list of labels. Who are you?
What do you want from me?

Well, uhh... what are your interests?
Games and puzzles, doing websites, finding interesting and obscure movies and TV shows, and regurgitating pointless facts. And I spend a lot of my life doing random computer stuff, although after seven years doing that and nothing else at university, I might be doing it more out of habit than genuine passion.

Okay... what do you consider to be your greatest shortcomings as a person?
That's really your question?

Uhm... Yeah.
It's not a very good one, is it?

I'm just trying to gain some insight into you as a person.
Right. Well... I'm not very organised, I can be unsociable, I'm habitually lazy, and I carry around a lot of unnecessary anger directed at users of MS Comic Sans.

On that we agree. Anything else you want to say?
The best film in the original Star Wars trilogy is clearly A New Hope, and not Empire as everyone else seems to think.

Do you have a photo or something?
Yeah... here.

Why should I spend my valuable free time reading this site and not one of millions of others?
I didn't say you should.

This site is rubbish. I'm going somewhere else.
Yeah. I know. I'm genuinely sorry.