How to date a geek girl (my #barcampevn11 presentation)

This is the presentation and slide notes for my BarCamp EVN'11 talk.

A certain person, who considers himself as ‘definitely not a geek’, inspired me to start writing a blog post about this, which was never finalized and published before this… but while i was trying to chose a presentation topic for this barcamp, and had two serious topics in mind, well… 2 days ago i had this “tadaaa” moment and that was it :) i’m here.
So .. well.. i have to say.. I’m a geek. A tech-savvy, gadgets dependent, spending tremendous amount of time being connected. There’s also a term – wired.

So i’ll be telling some insights on this topic from my own experience… a little bit spiced, however ;)
Just one thing before i start – you have to promise not to use any of these tips against me, okay?


These tips might be particularly useful for non-geeks as they give some perspective from an actual geek girl.
They will particularly work if the girl has some initial interest in you, or at least nothing against.

1. Subscribe and Follow

Geek girls, probably not everyone, but of the type i’m gonna tell you about, are quite accessible. Meaning, they are easily reachable via some social networks, have quite a noticeable online presence. Like if you google their name, you’ll get at least couple of pages of results for her profiles, blog posts, comments etc.

One of the first things you should do is - if she has a blog – definitely subscribe to it. Find her on social networks, get on to the messenger she’s using and start friending.. but not in all places at once. Note: if you’re not on any of those popular networks, you should seriously consider signing up for them, that will significantly ease the job ;)

Start exploring her online personality.. her likes and dislikes.. chances are, you’ll get pretty much informed on how she spends her days, what does she do in life, etc.. 

If you’re still interested in her after discovering her online personality… then you should start... interacting.

2. Interact

Write comments. Carefully pick when and where to comment so that you don’t annoy. Learn the netiquette and some basic ethics of online communicaton in those networks.. that’s why it’s important to observe a little bit before you act. .. so my advice here is.. don’t like or comment her every post :) or write messages like these:

3. Find her

Ok third.. find her. I mean find out where she hangs out. If you’re lucky enough to be mutually friended with her in Foursquare, then you’ll know when she hangs out in the evenings, her favorite spots.. you’ll find the good time to join her. If you’re lucky to be authorised to see her location any moment via google latitude.. that means wow.. she must really like you. You get bonus points for that :)

So basically, she'll appreciate a msg like- "r u still in Segafredo? can i join you? of course if i won't disturb".

And again here, you have to know the limits.. you’ll learn them from her reaction actually.

..and by the way, couple of words about privacy. If you find out that she has started being online for you in Facebook chat, that must be that she added you to her some kind of “online for chat” friends list. By the things that are accessible for you in her profile, you can guess how much she trusts you.. if she’s a real geek, she has to have multiple friends lists with custom privacy settings, so if you see all pictures she’s tagged in, all her wall posts, profile info.. you have pretty good chances ;)

4. Be nice

Find things that you can do that make her happy. Geek girls are not that kind of ones you can achieve by sending the standard flowers, inviting for a classic café dates.. if you notice that she’s very picky for details.. try not to do spelling mistakes when typing. That can annoy her :)

You can send her offline messages by the way.. and long emails are still trendy :)

Just don’t be too sticky.

5. Don't be always on

While you might be refreshing her wall once in every hour, checking her tweets and statuses in messengers, don’t show that you’re constantly dying to get a message from her. Make her miss you and she’ll be contacting you herself. But don’t also make her feel so it’s just her that always writes first :)

6. Be informed

Try to discuss the latest tech news with her.. like facebook’s new feature, or google… but try not to argue much :)

If you know that she’s an Android-er.. chances are that she hates everything about the “fruit” company and iPhones. Don’t bring that neverending “Android vs. iPhone” topic up :) 

If you made a gadget/app choice because of her advice – let her know about it. You’ll get your plus points :)

7. Don't play too much

You know what games i mean :) don’t leave her uncertain about your feelings and intentons for a long while. She might get pissed and take some steps. Like writing a kinda pissedoff letter, then publishing it in her blog :)

I know this list is not comprehensive and there’s still a lot to say and a geek girls can be very different… so in the end i want to give some bonus advices in case things don’t work with her after all :) or maybe you weren't meant to be together actually.

So “how to remove someone from your (digital) life” (without burning bridges, going brutal like unfriending) 

1. Limit the accesses - -put her in limited profile friends list, so that they don’t see your activities etc, and also hide them from your newsfeed as well. The less you get reminded of the failure, the faster you get over it.
2. Untag from the pics that had you once connected..
3. Disable notifications for checkins in Foursquare
4. Hide/remove/block from messengers
5. Filter the emails (so they are marked as read and archived)
6. Delete her number from quick contacts, or just remove from contact lists at all, in case you get drunk and want to text..
7. … if all this doesn't work – simply do the inevitable:

• Delete all old emails and get rid of their email address (clear it from the "autofill" in your email)
• Delete their number out of your phone
• Unfriend them on all social networking sites
• Block/Delete them on your messengers

Good luck! :)

Here's the presentation file:

 

p.s. a tip from @netcrash - buy her a domain name if she doesn't have one already :)

if you have comments or more tips, write here in the comments, i'll update the post with them :)

update 1: Lusine Barseghyan has translated my post into Russian, thanks, Lusine! :)
update 2: My presentation went viral and became top presentation of the day/week and most tweeted on Slideshare! THANKS everyone! :)))

Victor Ambartsumyan's legacy and my trip to Byurakan Observatory

I have already told about my passion for astronomy in my blog more than 2 years ago. This April 16 has been a very remarkable day for me. I had a tour in the Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory. It was a press trip organized by the Armenian Astronomical Society (ArAS); a step for promoting science and journalists came for help :) [note: i'm not a journalist currently, but how could i resist not to go there, with the excuse that i work for a news organization... and am a blogger? :)]

here i'm actually outside (on the balcony) the biggest (2.6 m) telescope

The trip included several presentations about the Obeservatory and Victor Ambartsumyan, contemporary issues of astronomy, science journalism and more. They were held by Areg Mickaelian - the man who organized the trip (co-president of the ArAS) and Hayk Harutyunyan - the director of Byurakan Observatory.

We learnt some amazing facts (Gayane Mirzoyan has outlined some of them in her blog (Russian) about the observatory, the telescopes etc. Here's my pick:

• When first installed in 1976, the 2.6m telescope was the 7th in the world, now it's 45th... 
• Couple of years ago a small observatory was set up for educational purposes in Stepanakert, Artsakh Republic.
• A number of international astronomic conferences were held in Armenia throughout these years, 
• In 1964 and 1971 conferences on extraterrestrial civilizations were held in Byurakan Observatory. The meeting of 1971 was the first international symposium on the problem of Extraterrestrial Civilizations and Communication with Them.  Many prominent scientists, including astronomers, physicists, chemists, biologists, philosophers, and specialists of other related fields participated in the symposium.
• Victor Ambartsumyan has been promoting Armenian language within the science academy institutions and in his will he even wrote that "everybody, regardless the percentage of Armenian genes in their blood, should study and master the Armenian language" (source in Armenian).

Areg Mickaelian, Leading Scientist and Head of research group at the  BAO

Hayk Harutyunyan, director of the BAO

There were also talks about astronomy and astrology (turns out even some journalists didn't know the difference!).. For those who don't know me well -- I absolutely hate everything connected with astrology and get frustrated to hear people confusing it with astronomy! 

Here are some pics from the Ambartsumyan's worplace: 

Victor Ambartsumyan's desk

the amazing portrait by my former colleague William

After the presentations we had a tour in Ambartsumyan's house, which is now a museum. Then we went to see the pride of the observatory - the 2.6m telescope. I've been there couple of times by night and never seen it in the daylight. Turns out it was possible to get out to the balcony.

2.6m telescope. pride of the observatory

here is it - the largest telescope of the observatory

the control panel of the telescope

me and Gayane, to whom I am grateful for learning about the press tour

the group of the press tour

...........

This week I watched The Contact again. I have almost forgotten how I loved that movie. And the next day I read in the news that SETI suspends its search for alien life :(

.. and I just finished translating the first Armenian TED speaker - Garik Israelian's talk about the spectroscopy and search for extraterrestrial life. Soon the Armenian subtitles will be published here. Here's the talk:

Organizing the Foursquare day meetup in Yerevan #4sqday

When writing this post about a year ago, I could never imagine that I'll become one of the "ambassadors" of Foursquare in Armenia. Being an early adopter and a geek willing to try everything new, I'm somehow influential in the tech-related things among my friends and they often consult with me for new services and gadgets (like Kindle, Android phones, apps, tablets, geolocation services, etc).
Throughout last year, I made a presentation on Geolocation services and Foursquare during the BarCamp Yerevan 2010, appeared on Yerevan.ru promoting Foursquare, and Banadzev production's Interactive program, then my own PanARMENIAN.Net interviewed me about the meetup.

It somehow happened that I became the organizer of the annual Foursquare Day meetup in Yerevan (4sq Day).

Celebrated on April 16 of each year, Foursquare Day (4sqDay /4 squared = 16, hence 4/16!) is a chance to get out and connect with others in your neighborhood and around the world. 

I began following the official 4sqDay twitter, read the blog and howto's for organizers to make the most out of the meetup. I created a Facebook event, since it was easier to promote than the meetup page, in our case. I submitted the information about our meetup in the local meetups database. I also set up a Twitter account for coordination of our Foursquare activities in Yerevan - @4sqYerevan.
I also filled a form to request a swag from Foursquare, even though in order to receive it, we had to have 50 confirmed participants on the meetup.com page by April 4.
Couple of days ago parents called me in the afternoon to say that I've got a package delivery home from Fedex. Turns out it was full of Foursquare goodness! A huge banner, stickers, badges as buttons and other stuff.

By the way, Foursquare has been encouraging the meetup organizers to approach our city mayors and ask them to proclaim the April 16 an official Foursquare Day in our cities.
Today we learned that mayor Bloomberg Proclaims 4/16 as Foursquare Day in NYC!
Somehow we thought that it won't be possible in our case.. and could take forever to reach our mayor, but maybe we should try next year? ;)

In case you are interested to learn more about the Foursquare, there's no better chance than coming to the meetup on Saturday, April 16, 19:00 near Cascade.
71 people are already "Attending" according to the FB event and 38 people confirmed participation on Meetup page.

If at least 50 people check in at the same place around the same time, everybody will get the "Swarm" badge for the first time in Armenia! and of course, the special 4sq day 2011 badge too.

• Confirm your participation on the meetup page: http://www.meetup.com/foursquare/Yerevan-AM/88180/
• RVSP on the FB event: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=200849073282283
• Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/4sqYerevan and the hashtag #4sqDay.

there were 2 "4SQ Day" t-shirts in the package and i reserved one for myself:) who wants the 2nd one?

story of one personal letter

I've got 10 theories. Pick one or more that suit you and the reality the most.

1. you're an ass, that's it. a big fat ass and nothing more
2. you hate me and try all the small stupid tricks just to let me know about it
3. I'm just a dumb little thing making a big story out of that just one unreplied email, one stupid Sunday evening, one clearly harmless "missing in action" thing from that day in the cafe and a stupid chat message on the stupid March 8 day and I've annoyed the hell out of you already!
4. you're awfully too busy to drop me a line that you are, in fact, busy, and we may reschedule the things we needed to discuss for next month/year
5. you heard somewhere that i bite and kick asses of men and decided that you better ignore me than be beaten up by some geek chick
6. you feel that you've been an ass not to notify me that you are busy when you were supposed to, then you had a sorta guilt feeling and decided to avoid me and the topic whatsoever until we both remember it when we accidentally meet again in few years
7. you had a strange dream and woke up feeling that I have some hots for you,  and I'll be chasing you all around and decided that you better avoid the whole story in a gentle ignoring way since you're just not into me
8. you know that you were supposed to let me know that you're not coming and you were kinda sorta very busy these couple of weeks and were actually going to write me.. just now! but I was quicker..
9. you feel oppressed and miserable when talking to me since I'm so much informed in some things that it makes you feel like a loser. and unless i dye my hair blonde and erase half of my brain's hard drive, I will you make feel like some douchebag everytime you communicate with me
10. you are reading this thinking WTF! since you've sent me several text messages, called few times, wrote on FB, commented on my foursquare checkins and got not response. must be that it's me ignoring you.

Action Items

• if you feel that theories #1, #2 are more like you, then you should probably just ignore this message as well and we'll both live happily ever after and hopefully never see each other again.
• if you feel that #5, #9 are closer to the truth then you have some clear problems with confidence and your feminine hormones are just overwhelming you right now and I better leave you alone dealing with this, not to make it worse. just forget, ok?
• you're convinced that #3 is the case and oh, I'm a drama queen ya know.. I think I need some assistance here.. any chance you know a good shrink? [let's rule PMS out, not the case :)]
• If #4 and #6 are close to reality, then it's better that we really flush all this story out to the toilet and go back to the day when you added me on foursquare or I friended you on FB and leave it as it was before. no reply needed to this obviously stupid message.
• #7 Here I'd only say - "Duuuude, you're so not my type.. so calm down, it's just business and maybe I was that stupid to suppose that we could somehow be friends", well sorry to disappoint you then. I'd recommend you reading the following 'cry of my heart'.
• if you feel that theories #8 and #10 are more like you, then you can come and talk to me this Sunday, 2pm at *****. no need to write a reply or anything.  

**If you feel that I've gotten too far writing this smartass message and forgot to mention THE OBVIOUS, which shows you completely guilt-free and me (and my imagination) the sole reason for everything, then again you should probably come join me on Sunday and make me blush and cry and beg your pardon on my knees.

What was this?
my friend got an Android phone and is slowly becoming a geek. there has been some social media miscommunication between us since then. of course social networks made it easier to reconnect, however between all the Likes, Comments, Check-ins, comments on Check-ins, text messages, chat conversations, etcetera we kind of lost contact and it was actually harder to keep in touch :-D

at some point I got confused, as I didn't hear from him for a while. Since i had no clue what was happening with him and I was worried, i decided to let him know about it and at least get his attention :)
* I'm publishing the letter with some modification and with his permission :)


So, if you were him, would you go? :)

my astronaut's diploma

Նրանք, ովքեր այցելել են մեր տուն վերջին մի տասը տարվա ընթացքում, գրասեղանիս վերևում տեսել են այս դիպլոմը: Իսկ մնացածը կարող են տեսնել այստեղ`

Ի հեճուկս Արթուր Պողոսյանի, այս մեկն իրական է, ստացել եմ Նիդեռլանդներում, որտեղ 9 տարեկանում մի ամիս ապրում էի: Հա, ու ես էլ մանկուց աստղագիտություն շատ էի սիրում ու Գագարինը իմ հերոսն էր :)

on friends and needs

Winter has gone for good and seems like I've survived it! The sun was turned ON as the calendar spring started on March 1 and me, the solar-battery-powered being, has been recharging quite successfully these days.

Finally had some thoughts I decided to share with my blog's readers...

I've been thinking that it would be good to have more people around me that actually care for me rather than needing my knowledge, connections or stuff like that. Every day I get emails/messages/calls asking for information or some kind of assistance and I'm gladly satisfying them within my capacity. I'm one of those pathetic beings that have hard time saying "no" and tend to put others' interests above own convenience and needs. That's how I'm programmed and I can't do anything with that. It's being very stressful, however, to notice how some people take advantage of it, sometimes maybe unwillingly.
Sometimes, with this struggle to help those who need me for business, I neglect those who truly need me in a more emotional kind of way. There might be people who need to talk to me, share and discuss things, just see me... they might think I'm so busy that I can't be spending time with them and so never approach me for that less serious stuff. If you identified yourself with this - I'm truly sorry.

I do really really really need to feel that there are people who like me and care for me and could just call in the middle of the night to hear my voice. Or just ask for a meeting just for the sake of seeing each other, and not discussing business.

Sometimes I'm meeting people whom I need in this emotional kind of way because obviously there are things that bother me and I'd like to tell them to someone and ask opinions.. It occasionally happens that I'm meeting a new person and I feel I could tell my life's story to them, but what happens in reality is that I can't even get a chance to meet them in person.
Here I'm usually becoming a victim of those "games we play"  and stereotypes and can't just explain people why I need them, because what it's turning to be according to them is - that I'm fallen for them :) this kinda sucks.

I want more people sharing their knowledge, discussing things and daily learning with me.

I need more smart, meaningful and beautiful people around me, because that actually affects me, what I'm becoming!

I don't want you to have an impression that I have lack of friends or that I have any kind of problems with them :) I do have many friends and I love them all. Even those whom I haven't communicated to for ages and those who usually need me for fixing their computer related problems.

I have several amazing people around me that are always there for me and this I appreciate greatly.
Most of these people receive long emails from me from time to time (usually on new years eve) and sometimes I can't keep it to myself how I love each of them. I put aside my shyness and turn the sincereness mode on the maximum level and use my writing skills to tell what I can't express otherwise.

Fight Club. my feelings about the book, quotes and some kinetic typography

While I was reviewing my 2010, I happily concluded that the Kindle was one of my best acquisitions of the year. Thanks to it, I read so many books, I wouldn't normally read due to my stirring life. However with some geeky touch - it became possible!

One of the most notable books I've read during summer was the "Fight Club" by Chuck Palahniuk. It was an awesome read.

Actually, I've been hesitating whether I should confess this embarrassing fact, but to be fair I will. I hadn't seen the movie... till last month. But I love the fact that I saw it after reading the book and that the movie was cooler than the book. Even the author Palahniuk has stated that he found the film to be an improvement on his novel.

At first, I was unsure if it was a right choice for me to read this book. I'm generally against violence and I hate watching that kind of movies, and especially reading about it. I prefer to get some positive emotions from those things I occupy myself to give my brain some rest. But the book got me thinking about lots of stuff and even affected some of my beliefs. This is a cult movie indeed. It contained a great amount of notable quotes that were carefully copied with my Kindle's "Notes" feature :) Here are my favorite ones. I'd bold almost every quote here.

this 'warning' flashes in the DVD version of the movie before the FBI warning

"This is how it is with insomnia. Everything is so far away, a copy of a copy of a copy. The insomnia distance of everything, you can't touch anything and nothing can touch you."

I loved the part when the author was describing why they were attending the various support groups.

"I never went back to the doctor. I never chewed the valerian root. This was freedom. Losing all hope was freedom. If I didn't say anything, people in a group assumed the worst. They cried harder. I cried harder. Look up into the stars and you're gone."

...

"Marla's eyes narrow. She never dreamed she could feel so 'smarvelous. She actually felt alive. Her skin was clearing up. All her life, she never saw a dead person. There was no real sense of life because she had nothing to contrast it with. Oh, but now there was dying and death and loss and grief. Weeping and shuddering, terror and remorse. Now that she knows where we're all going, Marla feels every moment of her life."

"Marla's philosophy of life, she told me, is that she can die at any moment. The tragedy of her life is that she doesn't".

About perfection

"Sometimes, you wake up and have to ask where you are. What Tyler had created was the shadow of a giant hand. Only now the fingers were Nosferatu-long and the thumb was too short, but he said how at exactly four-thirty the hand was perfect. The giant shadow hand was perfect for one minute, and for one perfect minute Tyler had sat in the palm of a perfection he'd created himself. You wake up and you're nowhere. One minute was enough, Tyler said, a person had to work hard for it. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection. You wake up, and that's enough."

...

"I just don't want to die without a few scars. I say. It's nothing anymore to have a beautiful stock body. You see those cars that are completely stock cherry, right out of a dealer's showroom in 1955, I always think, what a waste."

...

"At the time, my life just seemed too complete, and maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves."

...

"If you don't know what you want, you end up with a lot you don't
May I never be complete.
May I never be content.
May I never be perfect."

...

"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all a part of the same compost pile."

...

"Nothing was solved when the fight was over, but nothing mattered."

...

"I'm breaking my attachment to physical power and possessions, because only through destroying myself can I discover the greater power of my spirit".

...

"Its only when you've lost everything, that your free to do anything."

by ~theWickeDesign

I was thrilled by the scene with the supermarket guy (in the book it was in a bus). Here's the big quote from the book, better to read it entirely or watch the scene from the movie see below)

"Raymond K. K. Hessel, your dinner is going to taste better than any meal you’ve ever eaten, and tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of your entire life."

Here is the actual movie scene in Italian, in case ))

My sweetheart Jared Leto has a small role as "Angel Face". His character gets terribly beaten by the "Narrator" and the following line just made me think. A lot.

I felt like destroying something beautiful. 

Here are some wonderful animations - kinetic typography videos made with some epic moments from the Fight Club.

“Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who’ve ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.” — Tyler Durden

Yeah, and I have to mention that I'm now pretty terrified after realizing how restaurant waiters can mess with the food :(

in case you want more quotes. Here's a fair collection on wikiquotes.