*Which, as “chatroulette,” for some reason brings to mind the word “charlatan.” Also, it took me a while to realize it was not a French-sounding “CHA-troulette.”

1. My replacement Logitech Trackman mouse arrived in a timely fashion and has enabled me to return to the world of Scrolling. Without having to buy a new mouse!
2. I ate a surprisingly delicious BBQ pulled pork sandwich on ciabatta bread from the UVU cafeteria for lunch.
3. My husband and I are retarded for each other.

Inspired by a Julia (a very lovely Canadian and fellow Sundance Film Festival volunteer)’s blog, 3 for 365. Thanks, Julia!

Huh, I thought to myself while browsing through the couple hundred comments. Just imagine how much nicer this would all be if the test weren’t outdated.

There are little bumps in traffic here and there as fresh-faced geeks discover the Geek Test, but traffic has been pretty steady for a few years. Blogging regularly seems to have helped a little. Visitors at this point I think are mostly checking back now and then for an updated version of the test that I keep promising. I mean really, what’s my problem? I’ve developed a pretty nifty cycle of guilt, energized motivation, and paralyzed action about the whole update thing. It stresses me out and at this point it’s quite embarrassing. When I tell people about the Geek Test, I do so sheepishly with qualifiers and apologies in advance for its spiderwebs and creaky joints.

Well, that’s going to end on Sunday.

I’m not promising a huge revision of the test or a revamp of the site. I’m going to publish a minor update that will mostly just prune the out-of-date references and fix some glaring omissions. But you know what? It’s going to lift a weight off my shoulders and reduce my anxiety about  The Big Update.

There’s still time to weigh in on what Geek Movies you would add or remove from the list. I may open another section up to discussion before Sunday, but for the most part I’m going to tackle this minor update it with the resources I already have. And when I say minor update, it really doesn’t sound scary at all!

I feel like I’m channeling Delerium* right now: Isn’t there a word for this sort of thing? For seeing a smile in a garbage can and some dishes on the counter, or for seeing a rabbit in a cloud, or for seeing shapes in tea dregs at the bottom of a cup?

It’s like found art, but different. A found smile?

*referring to a character from The Sandman series of graphic novels by my favorite author, Neil Gaiman. I’m not actually a huge fan of the Sandman artwork—it’s too garish and early 90’s for my tastes—but the story and writing are OMNOMNOMNOMamazing.

*Edit to add that I am talking about Rube Goldberg machines here. Thanks for the reminder, Zeph!

Anyway, the reason I am once again gushing about my personal love for this Trackman mouse (and don’t forget my 5-star review of the Imak Ergobeads) is because… hold on, I’m getting verklempt… it developed a problem. It wasn’t anything personal, I know. But one day, a couple weeks ago, the scroll wheel stopped working.

You don’t know how much you depend something until it’s gone, of course.

I followed the natural problem-solving course for this type of thing: curse, restart the computer; test a different USB port, curse when that doesn’t make a difference, but ultimately be thankful for not having a USB port problem; uninstall/reinstall the Logitech software driver thingy, curse some more. Then, moving on: deny that there is a actually a problem; wake up angry the next morning, curse; bargain with the devil (which only leads to developing a terrible cold, btw); get depressed and actually think to onseself there’s nothing on the internet today; and, eventually… accept the loss of a functioning scroll wheel. And mutter one final curse before looking up the warranty information—you know, just in case.

Five year warranty, the internet said. I did the math and decided that I was cutting it pretty close—but I filled out the form on Logitech’s website anyway. Logitech’s return email, received within one day, was this:

Dear Yvette,

Thank you for contacting Logitech Customer Care. We, the technical support team, have a specific department to work on issues in regards with Macintosh. For further assistance with this issue, kindly contact our MAC support team using the number below:

Logitech MAC Support Team
Phone #: 646-454-3200

Instructions:
1. Press 1 to proceed with product support
2. Press 2 for MAC

Forgive us for the inconvenience. If you have any technical issues we would be glad to help you resolve them or you can visit our website at www.Logitech.com.

Thank you for choosing Logitech and have a nice day.

Sincerely,
Klarizza
Logitech Technical Support
Website: www.logitech.com/support
United States: +1-646-454-3200
Canada: +1-866-934-5644

Business Hour:
Monday to Friday, 6:00am to 6:00pm PST
Saturday to Sunday, 7:00am to 5:00pm PST

At first I was impressed because they acknowledged certain problems with their products and Macs. Then I was like, uh, I have to call? During Business Hour? Inconvenient, hello! So of course I put it on my to do list and didn’t do it. But get this: after a few days, they sent me a polite reminder email because the ticket was still open. If the ticket has not already been resolved, it said, just respond to this email to keep it open for another 120 hours. I did that twice before finally getting around to calling.

When I did call, I had an excellent customer service experience. The guy I talked to was definitely Canadian (“I’ve got a weird thing for [guys] who say ‘aboot.’”) and only asked me to reinstall the mouse software and restart my computer before deciding to send me a brand new mouse. Because all of the numbers on the base of the mouse determined that my mouse is still within the warranty period! Hooray!

My new mouse shipped the next day, and I should receive it early this week via UPS. My corded trackball mouse is only $3o retail (cheaper than when I bought it, I think), but still. That’s $30 I don’t have to spend! Er… $50 I don’t have to spend, if I had decided to upgrade to the cordless model. Or $69 if I’d decided to buy an Apple Magic Mouse. Except the Magic Mouse is not comfortable, let alone ergonomically suitable. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the swiping action of the multi-touch trackpad on my MacBook Pro. But when I’m plugged in at my workstation, I need everything to be sustainably ergonomic for long hours of browsing teh interweb working.

Logitech Trackman mouse, I love you. Sorry for exceeding your maximum scroll allowance.

(Luckily we were communicating in English. I know enough French to understand the Geekfest website, but speaking or writing it c’est trés difficile.)

I’m looking forward to hearing about how it all went and who the Geek du Geek ends up being. I’ve promised to profile him or her on this very blog, so hopefully I’ll get that up this week. And hopefully they’ll have another Geekfest next year so that I can at least dream of going! It’s about time I finally visited my dad’s ancestral homeland, anyway. Where I will make a point of trying poutine.

My maternal grandfather was red-green colorblind, as was his brother. I don’t know if either of his parents were colorblind, but since the gene expresses itself only on the X chromosome* and is therefore only inheritable to men via their mothers, my great-grandmother was a carrier of the gene if not colorblind herself. If she were only a carrier, each of her boys had a 50% chance of inheriting the gene.

Genetic probability is like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in my family: absurd, but not impossible. My grandfather had nine daughters and my great-uncle had four daughters.

So all of my aunts and their first cousins inherited a color-deficient X chromosome from their fathers. At least two of my male first cousins are colorblind, and who knows how many of us females are carrying the gene since none of us have children yet. But it turns out that my great-uncle’s wife was also a carrier of the gene—and one of her four daughters is colorblind (0.5% incidence rate in women). Both of her sons are colorblind.

Another thing I find very interesting in my family is the statistically high number of colorblind men whom my aunts have married. If only 5-8% of men in the general population are colorblind, it’s absurd, but not impossible, that a third of my married-into-the-family uncles are colorblind. (Maybe it has something to do with a genetically predisposed attraction to men who wear mismatched socks.)

I wonder if there’s a correlation between color blindness and eye color? It seems like there should be some sort of science already done on that sort of thing. I’m guessing not, since eye color is determined by a completely different set of genes. Wouldn’t it’s be cool, though, if people who were colorblind had, ironically, one green eye and one red eye? Yes, I’m also fascinated by heterochromia (each eye a different color: think David Bowie), though that doesn’t run in the family. Well, technically my hazel eyes are an example of central heterochromia (two different colors in the same iris) but that’s just not as cool. (Well, I do have a trick lazy eye that’s kind of cool. I can control it and easily weird out Ben anytime I please. Heh heh.)

So what have I learned from all of this? That I am easily fascinated.

Semi-related: At the next family reunion, I want to take close-up photos of everyone’s eyes (blood-related and not), then ask people to guess whose eyes they all are. It’ll be interesting to see how similar (or different?) they all look.

*You can learn more about the details and probability of inheritance from Causes and Incidences of Colorblindness

I remembered coming across the Vischeck website a few years ago and experiencing their algorithmic simulation of what it’s like to be color blind. There are a few different types of color blindness, but the majority of color blind people have a red-green deficiency. I didn’t realize that there was also a rare blue-yellow deficiency, but that made for an interesting triple-punch comparison of colors using this photo of colored Tsuga transparent pitchers.

Another neat feature of the Vischeck website that I didn’t remember was the capability to convert a whole web page into colorblind simulation. I found this pitcher picture on a ColourLovers.com web page along with a lot of other colorful kitchen-related photos, and I think my simulations were definitely worth the time they took to load. Here are shortcuts to the rendered pages so you don’t have to wait: [edit: Vischeck won't let me link directly to the rendered pages. You'll have to plug in the article URL directly here.]

Original with full color spectrum: Cooking Inspiration: The Colorful Kitchen

Deuteranope and Protanope, as simulated with two different forms of red-green colorblind

Tritanope, as simulated with the rare form of yellow-blue colorblindness (that turns everything pink!)

Cool, huh? Though I am not a fan of the sickly gold-green color that those bright red spatulas turn into with red-green color deficiencies. I love having red accents in my kitchen, so if you come to my house and are colorblind, let me know ahead of time and I’ll direct you straight to the living room.

The Geek Test as seen by someone who is red-green colorblind took me a little by surprise… it changed the lime on black color scheme to amber on black—its alter-ego from the olden days! Crazy. As in, crazy cool. I wonder if the creators of amber on black terminals were colorblind and originally thought that they were just going with the flow.

I have more to say on the color blind people in my family, but that will have wait until tomorrow. My perception of color is draining out of my sinuses and I need to go to bed. So go play with that awesome algorithm until then!

*I tried being a biology major during College 1.0, but it didn’t work out, so my interest in scientific research is mostly satisfied by watching cable TV programming and living vicariously through my sister the nerdoscientist.

Second, please leave a comment with which haiku you like best and/or write one of your own. I will read them all through the thick, watery film that is covering my eyes. And then I will laugh-cough until I crumple into a muscle-weakened pile on the floor. Wherein I will hopefully recuperate. And possibly be a little less dramatic about it all.

I Have a Bad Cold – 1

viral consciousness
threatens to disintegrate
into fevered dreams

I Have a Bad Cold – 2

thick, watery eyes
head a runny, stuffy mess
bite my ass, virus

I Have a Bad Cold – 3

runny, stuffy mess
bite my shiny metal ass
you stupid virus

I Have a Bad Cold – 4

littering room with
virus-laden used tissues
for the sexy win

Virally=