gothbench4: FAQ List

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions list)

This FAQ list was created to provide more in-depth information about Gothbench, for anyone who cares enough to read. Please read before emailing me; your question or problem might be answered here. (Although, comments good or bad, or a simple hello are always appreciated.)

1. Can I use the background patterns on my Web site?
2. How did you create the patterns?
3. What is a "Goth?"
4. What is a "bench?"
5. Why is it so... dark?
6. Are you really as pretentious as the dark.enterprises site suggests?
7. What happened to Gothbench I?

1. Can I use the background patterns on my Web site?

This is by far the most frequently asked question. You may, as long as the site or page does not make you money in any way. This includes pages with X-cents-a-click banners, online catalogs, and online commercials. (Er, business websites, rather.)

I appreciate an e-mail with the URL, but this isn't required.

If your site is commercial and you must use one or more patterns, I'm sure we can come to a reasonable agreement...

2. How did you create the patterns?

During my short stint at an art college, I was designing patterns for my Amiga desktop using an excellent paint program called DeluxePaint IV. I bought some image processing software (ImageFX) and obtained fairly good results by using DPaint to lay the basic groundwork, and processing that image to death. I found the tiling function quite handy. Now I'm using a PC, and I use the Amiga emulator UAE to archive and test out the Amiga version. I'd tell more, but then it would no longer be a secret.

3. What is a "Goth?"

I prefer not to answer this question, but I'll try anyway. "Goth" is, you might have guessed, short for "gothic." The definition depends on who you ask. Common definitions involve quiet, somewhat introspective outcasts with a taste for the dark, morbid, and romantic, who wear a lot of black or dark-coloured clothes and tall, 300-eyelet boots.

Styles of clothing and makeup are a strange brew. (Both sexes sometimes wear vampiric-looking makeup.) Influences include the Victorian era, Gothic horror, sometimes the punk "movement", and even the ancient Egyptians. Goths generally don't like to be taken for Marilyn Manson wannabes ("spooky kids"), Satanists (although a few Goths are Satanists), LARP-ers, or people who think they're vampires (again, ahem, there a few.) This can be a source of irritation or amusement.

Why? Basically, if you gotta ask, you'll never know.

4. What is a "bench?"

The "bench" part of the name comes from Workbench, the Amiga's desktop software.

5. Why is it so... dark?

Because so many desktop patterns available on the net are way too bright-and-happy for my tastes. And a dark screen can help preserve that healthy pallor by reducing the effects of CRT tanning. [There is no scientific or clinical proof of this. - Ed.]

(Also, some of the patterns have gamma problems. I may or may not be motivated to fix this in the umpteen releases someday.)

6. Are you really as pretentious as this site suggests?

This one's multiple choice. Pick the answer you like the best:

Well, other than sleeping in a coffin, quoting Mary Shelly and Bram Stoker all the time, and driving a used black hearse to my job as head DJ at the Batcave, no.
No, actually, I'm not. I just figured the site would be more entertaining that way. It was meant to be taken with more than a grain of salt.
Who's pretending?

For those who still wonder: The real answer is number two.

7. What happened to Gothbench I?

If you really want to know, try reading my article on the subject.

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