What is this place? It’s a framework for my thoughts and a notebook for my notes. From time to time I add pictures as well. It’s not really about *any* one thing, maybe more about *every* one thing, at some point or another. If that isn’t vague enough for you, just consider it a place for writing stuff down.
“It is content, or rather the consciousness of content, that fills the void, but the mere presence of content is not enough. It is style that makes us care.” - Amanda Ziller
The Girl
Photo ©Kenn Tam, downtown Hamamatsu, summer ‘08.
You’ve might have gathered by now that my name is Andrea, with a Mignolo at the end. My first name is pronounced anne-DRE-ah, not anne-DREE-ah, and though I won’t correct you if you say it wrong, it silently irks me when you do. If you can’t keep it straight, just call me Andi, or even pnts1. The whole thing is pretty moot considering we are interfacing via a web page, but there it is.
I like windmills, funny hats, spinach, ducks, and beer. I also really like bourbon and soup; so much in fact, that for years I’ve dreamed of opening a shop that is a soup cafe by day and a whiskey bar by night, though I still haven’t come up with a good name for the place. Conversely, I don’t like Scrappy Doo or asshats, and I downright despise pretzels, which means you’ll never catch me running a Scrappy Doo pretzel joint2.
I <3 <3 <3 the internet. Every facet of it is intriguing; where it came from and where it’s going, what it was built on, how people want to change it and how it changes people, to name a few. I love it so much that in college I created my own major, Technocultural Studies, so I could be vaguely academic about it.
I am a techmonkey both at home and at work, Jill of all trades, interested in open source, *nix, web standards, mobile networks, alternative methods of content delivery, turning the world into one large crontab, technoculture, video games, social networks, the fusion of activism and technology, and anything else that involves pulses of high and low voltage.
I am also an avid World of Warcraft player. I run with an awesome bunch of people on the Khaz’goroth server (Horde, natch). I’m usually on my main, an undead warlock by the name of Peaches, though I can be found on my alts as well, all named after fruits that begin with ‘P’3.
Currently I’m living in Japan Vancouver with the husband-boy (I met him on the ‘net) and a smattering of plants. If that’s still not enough, have a look at my lifestream, which should render you bored in .3 seconds flat.
Self-portrait with panda suit, circa 2008.
The Site
The name Protocol 7 comes from the anime Serial Experiments Lain. In the series, protocol 7 is:
“The protocol that fully links the Wired and Real World together. Devised by Eiri Masami while he was a Tachibana Lab employee. Against the wishes of Tachibana Lab, Eiri Masami designed Protocol 7 to utilize Schumann Resonance to connect everybody to the Wired (and therefore each other) without devices.” — Lain information site
To that end, it functions as an accurate representation of the intersection of technology, networks, and life that I enjoy. As the husband-boy says, “Protocol 7 is you.” I’ve owned the domain since 2002, though I began blogging before that at anakata.net in 20014.
As I’ve already stated, this is my personal site and as such does not have a single unifying purpose, though over the years I’ve come up with several: to keep in touch with friends and family, to collect my thoughts, to write about all the things I don’t like, to participate in internet memes, to be stereotyped and classified, and to experiment with web technology and standards.
The Colophon
Protocol 7 is powered by WordPress and hosted by Dreamhost.5 While DH has received a good share of negative press for downtime issues and other snafus, overall I’m happy with the service. This is a personal website, not a piece of mission-critical infrastructure, and I hardly find issue with the occasional downtime. Because really, who is going to notice?
Inspiration
Though the web has plenty of grid-based black & white designs, I love the style and wanted one of my very own. Clearly I am smitten with this particular approach, a type of constrained design in the same vein as the Oulipo. The most recent incarnation of Protocol 7 was designed with a number of restrictions - grid-based6, image-free (except for embedded photographs and screenshots in posts), restricted palette, and an elastic layout - that I think succeed in making the site unique. Protocol 7 was inspired primarily by Subtraction.com, Jon Tangerine, and Airbag (I even have Airbag and Subtraction buttons).
Plug-ins
Protocol 7 utilizes a number of plug-ins to ensure maximum reading goodness. Currently in use:
- Contact Form ][
- del.icio.us for WordPress
- Simple Tags
- Smart Archives
- Twitter for WordPress
- WP-Footnotes
Typography
The headings are meant to be viewed in the most lovely Hoefler Text, while the body content is displayed with Lucida Grande. Second to that, headings will render as Constantina (thank you Vista) with body content in verdana. Third-up for headings is Georgia, and after that, whatever serif font the browser can find on your system. If you’ve gone that far down the font-stack maybe you should surf on over here in lynx next time you jump on the web.
Correct typographic display as seen on a Mac.
Other Bits
Protocol 7 was wire-framed, tested, refined, and perfected with TextMate, vi, Subversion, and Firebug. If you are browsing the site in Opera, I apologize for the funky comment rendering, and if you are in IE 6 you are missing out on some of the fixed-positioning fun, not to mention a slew of typographic joy.
{ fin }
- pnts, pronounced pants, from the nickname andisandipants, but spelled without an ‘a’. It’s probably the easiest way to get my attention… even my mom calls me pnts. Really. [↩]
- The world is a better place for it. [↩]
- My kick-ass tankadin, however, is listed with a slight mispelling: Parsimmons. [↩]
- anakata.net has been on hiatus for about seven years now. It was the first domain I ever bought, so keep it around for sentimental reasons. [↩]
- Sign-up with the promo code PROTOCOL7 and get a free domain registration with your account, and support this site in the process! [↩]
- This site is based on the 12-column grid template courtesy of 960 grid system. [↩]