Slackstory posted a list of blogs and the characteristics of those who like them. You’ve bought food from ThinkGeek? Are we really that geeky? I didn’t even know ThinkGeek sold food (I tend to get my candy from the NeatoShop). There are plenty of other blogs listed, with even more in the comments, and you might get a kick out of what they say. Link

(YouTube Link)

This epic musical geek creation is called the gAtari-a musical instrument which uses the extremely limited sound capabilities of the Atari 2600 to make the kind of music hardcore gamers will love, and parents will classify as noise.

I don’t fully understand how the device works, but here the creator cTrix attempts to explain how, and why, he came up with it:

The “gAtari” was my excuse to do something a little silly after I discovered that the Atari 2600 was more limiting than I realized! (31 pitches, minimal waveforms and only 2 channels!) I needed an EQ which could take a high voltage and drop it down to line level (Boss bass EQ) plus a way to hold loops between tracks and parts (Boss delay). So rather than have it “DJ” style config, I thought I make something a little more creative.

I hope the gAtari sparks a new trend in club music, doesn’t the sweet sounds coming out of this thing make you wanna get up and shake your rump?

–via GeeksAreSexy

Illustrator Becca Whitaker has just finished her Geek’s 12 Days Of Christmas, a series in which she released one illustration a day for the last twelve days on her blog, and I love the image she chose to end the series!

These adorable illustrations would make a great coloring book, maybe something to think about for next year Becca? You can see the rest of the illustrations in the series at her site Becca’s Bombshells, where there is no shortage of geek love.

Link –via DesignTAXI

As part of a continuing series, Geeks Are Sexy posted a roundup of tattoos sent in by their readers. Kristina contributed her tattoo of Nikola Tesla. There are lots more, including many that are so geeky I don’t recognize them, but you might! Link

Do you have a LEGO Death Star hanging from your tree? Or a LEGO Millennium Falcon? You could, you know, because the web has instructions for putting these together from LEGO bricks you already have! They are part of a roundup Jill Harness put together on The 20 Geekiest Christmas Decorations Ever at Rue The Day. Some are handcrafted, some are available in the NeatoShop, and some, like these, will have your own personal touch. Link

Scientists are no exception, and they’ve joined the geek nation in adorning themselves with symbols of their passions in life, choosing imagery with a scientific edge in their body art compositions.

Check out the particularly good examples at the Popsci gallery link below, maybe you’ll be inspired to get some ink of your own.

Link –image from SCIENCE INK by Carl Zimmer. Published by Sterling Publishing © 2011

Geek Ball – $7.95

Are you a geek in need of some cosmic advice? You need the Geek ball from the NeatoShop. This great little magic ball is fluent in geekish. Just ask it a yes or no question and be prepared to get a truly geeky response. Responses include things like: 404 Error, FAIL, Meh, and LOL.

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more Office and Desk fun!

Link

Game of Thrones

This fantasy epic is filled with so many delicious food and drink ideas that there is already more than one blog out there dedicated to creating the tasty treats in real life. Inn At The Crossroads is the best known of these blogs and the site even has a cookbook coming out soon.

For those looking to spice up their Thanksgiving with some kingly delights, may I recommend the Rack of Lamb in a Crust of Garlic and Herbs served with a cup of Salladhor Saans Hot Wine. If you’d like something a little more exotic for your main course though, the Grilled Snake, served with a spicy mustard sauce, looks rather delightful.

Dune

If you’re familiar with Dune, then you know that it is all about the spices. That being said, the two best recipes from this story are both beverages. Whether you prefer Spice Beer or Spice Coffee, I’m sure either one would make a great contribution to your Thanksgiving menu. Grumpy Frenchman suggests adding cinnamon to your beer for Spice Beer, but he also warns that that makes the foam go crazy, so pour accordingly. Meanwhile, GeekChill has a fantastic recipe for Spice Coffee that blends Chai tea, coffee and cinnamon –yum!

Lord of the Rings/ The Hobbit

Middle Earth is awash with great food and drink, but because most of Tolkien’s stories take place on the road, we tend to hear about the ones that are good for travel…which are not necessarily the most delicious treats around. That being said, while the hobbits seem to tire of Lembas bread, it is certainly the most delicious travel-friendly bread around and The Geeky Chef has a great recipe to make your own.

As for The Hobbit, the many mentions of seed cake seem to indicate that it is certainly one of Bilbo’s favorite foods and Historical Foods has an excellent recipe based on the time period for which Tolkien based the setting for his classic tales. That means, this seed cake is about as close to what Bilbo would eat as possible.

Harry Potter

Between the butterbeer, chocolate frogs and cauldron cakes, wizards and witches have quite a selection of tasty treats for any time of year. Of course, if there are any geek recipes that would actually go great with an otherwise traditional Thanksgiving feast, they would most certainly be Pumpkin Juice or Pumpkin Pasties. HarryPotterRecipes.Net has an absolutely delightful recipe for making your own Pumpkin Juice, sweetened with pineapple juice and spiced with a touch of nutmeg and allspice.

For your Pumpkin Pasties fix, stop by The Geeky Chef and try out this delicious recipe that imagines them as a sort of pumpkin-filled pastry…like pumpkin pie turnovers.

Star Wars

These films contain very few references to food. Even when the characters eat or drink, they never really seem to bring attention to what, exactly, they are putting in their mouths. That being said, Wookiee-Ookies are specifically mentioned in the Star Wars Holiday Special. Although they are best known for being a Christmas treat, they can undoubtedly still be served for Thanksgiving, just like eggnog.

You can find the recipe for these treats over on the website dedicated exclusively to the special, inventively called The Star Wars Holiday Special, and culled from The Star Wars Cookbook.

Firefly

Like Star Wars, while the characters on Firefly do eat and drink on screen, they rarely explain what it is they are actually eating. We know they get most of their vitamins through nutrient bars that can provide a month’s worth of nutrition to someone although they still need to drink water and ingest  calories, but aside from that, few foods are actually mentioned. A few exceptions are Mudder’s Milk, which is enjoyed in large quantities on Higgin’s Moon in the episode “Jaynestown,” and Ice Planets, which River Tam has difficulty eating in the episode “The Message.”

You can find a non-alcoholic version of Mudder’s Milk on the Firefly Wikia and learn how to make your own Ice Planet (essentially ice cream on a string) over on Tasty Planner.

Star Trek

Of course, geek Thanksgivings don’t have to ignore the turkey entirely. After all, in the Star Trek episode “Charlie X,” Captain Kirk is upset because he wants to celebrate Thanksgiving properly with a turkey, but there were none on board. Instead, the crew was going to have to eat meatloaf.

Strangely, while the meatloaf was cooking in the ovens, it suddenly transformed into turkey. It turns out that this was caused by Charles Evans, a young boy the crew recently brought on board, who has incredible powers. On the downside, he later uses those powers against everyone on board and tries to take over the ship, but hey, at least they got a nice Thanksgiving meal out of the ordeal. (For the record, yes, I know that is Picard and the Next Generation crew in the image, it was just the most holiday appropriate shot available.)

While you can always serve turkey as your main course and just reference this episode, you can also try blending the storyline in a little more and serve turkey meatloaf that has been cooked in a turkey-shaped baking pan.

What are your guy’s plans for Thanksgiving dinner? Are you planning to go traditional or do you guys like to mix things up a little more? Do any of you want to actually incorporate something from this article into your meal?

(YouTube Link)

How’s this for a collaboration-Neil Gaiman, his wife and member of the Dresden Dolls Amanda Palmer, electronic guru Moby and Stephin Merritt from The Magnetic Fields stop by the Late Late Show and played Science Fiction Double Feature from the Rocky Horror Picture Show!

–via ComicsAlliance

]]> http://www.neatorama.com/2011/11/03/ultimate-geek-jam-neil-gaiman-does-rocky-horror/feed/ 9 http://www.neatorama.com/2011/08/10/geek-wisdom-the-sacred-teachings-of-nerd-culture/ http://www.neatorama.com/2011/08/10/geek-wisdom-the-sacred-teachings-of-nerd-culture/#comments Wed, 10 Aug 2011 12:13:22 +0000 Alex http://www.neatorama.com/?p=50960 If the Industrial Age was ruled by industrialists and the Atomic Age was epitomized by nuclear scientists working in secret government installations, then the Information Age we live in today is surely the era of the geek.

Just take a look at the titans of industries (computer nerds), Hollywood blockbusters (comic book superheroes), and pop culture (Interweb memes) - they're all geeky! But in order to live under the reign of our new geek overlords, one must learn to speak like one.

Stephen H. Segal (no, not that one) is our guide in learning geekspeak. He has compiled and edited some 200 of the most powerful and oft-cited quotes from geek culture. His book, Geek Wisdom: The Sacred Teaching of Nerd Culture by Quirk Books, is not only an invaluable guide into geekdom (or is it geekhood? Help me out here, nerds!), it's also indispensable if you have to go undercover and penetrate a secret geek society.

For example:

"Fear leads to anger; Anger leads to hate; Hate leads to suffering." - Yoda, The Phantom Menace

Yoda was paraphrasing the first great African American geek, George Washington Carver, who said a century ago: "Fear of something is at the root of hate for others, and hate within will eventually destroy the hater."

Carver, a scientist plying his trade in a time when the intellectual inferiority of black people was simply assumed, knew something about suffering. Born into slavery, kidnapped as an infant, threatened repeatedly with lynching throughout his life, and rejected from school after school due to his race, Carver eventually went on to become one of the best-known American researchers in the biological and agricultural sciences.

Widely rumored to be gay, Carver spent his life confronting and overcoming the fears of others, earning an iconic place in geek history. Yoda might be the fictional guru we like to quote, but Carver is the real one whose life reverberates through our culture.

"The spice must flow." - Dune

Economic systems are bigger than people. That's why distribution of the precious mind-expanding spice, mélange, that is the lifeblood of galactic society in Frank Herbert's Dune must continue unimpeded. That's why, when Paul Atreides - the young nobleman who finds himself hailed as a prophesied savior - asserts his messianic will over the hitherto-powerless throngs of poor wretches living amid the spice mines of Arrakis, he causes commerce to grind to a standstill across a thousand planets, bringing the entire universe to heel.

Just as the spice is Herbert's thinly veiled stand-in for oil, gold, or any commodity that greases the wheels of earthly progress, its necessity highlights the inherent danger of linking any one such commodity with the maintenance of a particular status quo - whether cheap gas for our cars or cheap clothes at Wal-Mart.

"He who controls the spice controls the universe," says the evil Baron Harkonnen elsewhere in Herbert's epic, and it's a lesson that Paul takes to heart, bringing an entire monolithic structure of ingrained corruption down on the heads of those whose only real job was maintaining it.

Economic systems are bigger than people ... except when they're not.

"This is an imaginary story. But then, aren't they all?" - Alan Moore, Superman: Whatever Happened To The Man of Tomorrow?

From the 1950s through the 1980s, DC Comics would occasionally publish Superman stories based on offbeat scenarios that weren't part of the ongoing continuity of the regular monthly serial. The editors distinguished these fun hypothetical tales (President Superman! Superman's bratty kid! Superman and Batman as adopted brothers!) by noting on the cover: "An Imaginary Story" - as opposed to the "Real" continuing saga of the familiar Superman.

Yet this terminology begs the obvious question, which DC finally allowed postmodern comics pioneer Alan Moore to pose in the introduction to Superman #423. Yes, indeed, they are all imaginary stories - a fact that can get lost sometimes by the devoted fan of any serial set in a long-running, carefully consistent fictional world.

DC, its rival Marvel Comics, the Star Trek franchise: all these massive narrative constructs created fans who frequently loved cataloging and cross-referencing the details of the world as much as they loved the characters themselves. That's one big reason why geeks often get so upset at the news that their favorite fictional property is going to be "rebooted" for a new audience.

But the thing is, that's precisely how a legend grows and endures - by being retold again and again. Would anyone remember Hercules today if the Greek storyteller who first spun his tale insisted on maintaining creative control? If the fifteenth-century balladeer who sang rhymes about Robin Hood had been able to force all those who came after him to refrain from spinning their own variations, would Maid Marian or Richard the Lionheart have ever shown up?

As hard as it may be to look at a long-running quasi-epic and admit, "You know, this was awesome, but I'm bored - let's start over and do it differently," there's probably no better way to take a regular old good story and elevate it to the realm of timeless myth.

"I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit." - Ripley, Aliens

Movie logic frustrates most geeks. It just doesn't make sense for the people in a horror film to go one by one to investigate that strange noise in the dark - that didn't work out so well for the last five people, did it? It's stupid for the evil overlord to capture the intrepid hero and then leave him alone in a room full of convenient tools; any overlord with a brain would just kill the guy right off. All too often, Hollywood characters choose the more dramatic path through hardship rather than the smart one.

This was why the Alien films were such a breath of fresh air. Ripley, faced with a planetary colony full to overflowing with unstoppably murderous alien beasts, actually understood what she was up against. Never mind tryinng to safely capture an alien - it wasn't going to happen. Ripley pushed instead for the Occam's Razor method of problem-solving: simple, overwhelming, effective.

Thus "take off and nuke the site from orbit" has become geek shorthand for putting a decisive end to any dangerously messy problem. Overkill? Maybe. But sometimes you just have to be sure.

"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play." - Joshua, War Games

There is a word, a concept, in Zen Buddhism that doesn't quite translate perfectly into the English language: Mu.

Mu is the response given by a Zen monk to a question that cannot be meaningfully answered. It suggest that the question's premises are not real, that there is a state of emptiness that lies beyond yes and no, that the asker should unask the question - indeed, that anyone who would ask such a question in the first place might well to question his entire perspective on life.

Though the word was never uttered in the 1984's seminal teen-computer-hacker-political-thriller War Games, the idea lies at the heart of the conflict that fuels the movie: a new Pentagon supercomputer that controls the nation's nuclear codes is caught up in a relentless war-game simulation trying to answer the question, "How can the United States win a nuclear war?"

We all know it's a flawed question - the whole point of the Cold War arms-race theory of "mutual assured destruction" was that, in a world of opposing superpowers, the sheer volume of weaponry is meant to deter the use of any nukes at all. But back in 1984, when computer networks were new and exotic, it seemed entirely reasonable to worry that an artificial intelligence might start firing missiles based on the inhuman outcome of an algorithm. Of course, the computer finally found its Zen.

What about you - can you tell when it's time to remove yourself from a defective board game?

Geek Wisdom: The Sacred Teachings of Nerd Culture

(Video Link)

The Kings of Geek Metal, Powerglove, are back with another Batman related redux. This time around, they’re tackling the theme song to the animated series, and rocking it harder than it’s ever been rocked before! Check out the video, complete with classic video game graphics and the guys decked out in their most metal attire. It’s hilarious, and worthy of headbanging along to, but be warned-listening to Powerglove may lead to embarrassing moments in your own rock history!

Link

Space Intruders Multi-Tool Keychain – $15.95

Are you a Geek in need of a new keychain?  Why settle for ordinary when you can have an out of this world Space Intruders Multi-Tool Keychain from the NeatoShop. This fantastic keychain has phillips and flat head screwdrivers and also functions as a bottle opener.  You know you want one!

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Keychains & Key Covers!

Link

The latest do-it-yourself project from Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories is this footstool made in the shape of a 555 timer chip. It’s a heavy-duty design, made from plywood, glue, and paint. Link -via Laughing Squid

I have the right to be taken seriously for my interests and not be accused of getting into video gaming, comic books, science, or other traditionally male-dominated geek interests to impress a guy.

I have the right to enjoy non-geeky things without losing geek cred.

I have the right to send angry emails to retailers that only offer geeky shirts in men’s styles and sizes.

I have the right to bare arms, abs, and legs. I can dress as any superhero I want to without being touched, harassed, or being accused of inviting sexual advances. I also understand that dressing provocatively will draw attention, and I will deal with unwanted but harmless attention with class and dignity.

Oh yes, there’s more, which you can read at the post. Link

This parody of the song “Born This Way” was inspired by the movie X-Men: First Class. -via The Daily What Geek

Many popular students approach graduation day with bittersweet nostalgia: excitement for the future is tempered by fear of lost status. But as cap-and-gown season nears, let’s also stop to consider the outcasts, students for whom finishing high school feels like liberation from a state-imposed sentence.

In seven years of reporting from American middle and high schools, I’ve seen repeatedly that the differences that cause a student to be excluded in high school are often the same traits or skills that will serve him or her well after graduation.

Examples abound: Taylor Swift’s classmates left the lunch table as soon as she sat down because they disdained her taste for country music. Last year, the Grammy winner was the nation’s top-selling recording artist.

Students mocked Tim Gunn’s love of making things; now he is a fashion icon with the recognizable catchphrase "Make it work."

J.K. Rowling, author of the bestselling "Harry Potter" series, has described herself as a bullied child "who lived mostly in books and daydreams." It’s no wonder she went on to write books populated with kids she describes as "outcasts and comfortable with being so."

Link

(Yes, the title is inspired from the It Gets Better Project, which lets LGBT kids and teens know that things will get better … if they can just get through their teen years. Here’s a fascinating story about the project over at NPR)

Do you have trouble convincing people that you are a geek?  Try the Bug Eyes Geek Chic Toy Glasses from the NeatoShop.  Embracing a stereotype has never been so easy.

If you love the Bug Eyes Geek Chic Toy Glasses you will also love the Klutzo and Nerdtastic glasses.

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fabulous Gag Gifts & Pranks!

TV Shows:

Fans of the British series The IT Crowd will instantly recognize Flickr user a440’s depiction of the the characters from the show’s intro, as well as Roy’s catchphrase, “Have you tried turning it on and off again?”

Craftster’s forums are always filled with excellent examples of geeky crafting, but when user Jessii shared two years of projects, it was hard to choose the best of all of her works. While her pieces featuring characters from Rocko’s Modern Life, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Futurama and Cowboy Beebop are my favorite, but I highly recommend clicking on the link to check out the whole post.

Over on the Sprite Stitch forums, user Liquid Karma (aka Deviant Art user Karma Pudding) shared a huge collection of her past projects which include the Megaman project seen in the videogame stitching post, along with these depicting characters from Futurama, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Full Metal Alchemist and the Star Wars inspired “Come To The Darkside We Have Cookies” (if you like that one, be sure to check out the similar shirt in the Neatoshop).

Sprite Stitch user Bamiyan is yet another Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fan and his Donatello cross stitch is yet another great take on the characters.

While this piece by The Autumn Society looks like it might belong in the videogames post, Rainbow Brite and Strawberry Shortcake are most certainly cartoon characters. There’s also a similar piece on the post with two Care Bears fighting it out.

If you like Pokemon, you’re sure to enjoy the cross stitching works of Deviant Art user Skyregabbro. There are plenty more at the link, but I chose Pikachu to display since he’s my favorite character.

Computer and Internet:

If you’re familiar with the song, then just seeing this “Peanut Butter Jelly Time” cross stitch seen on Steotch is certain to get it stuck in your head. These guys also did a great job turning the TSA protester “if you touch my junk I’ll have you arrested” meme into a nice wall hanging, and they also seem to have trolled their own family Thanksgiving dinner by leaving out a Pedobear cross stitch with all of the unsuspecting relatives around. If you had any doubts, the husband-wife team at Steotch do seem to be the masters of the cross stitch meme.

If you love Keyboard Cat then you’re certain to appreciate this great depiction of him by Julie of Subversive Cross Stitch.

Here’s a cross stitch a lot of geeks will find unbelievably useful. Just hang it above your desk and whenever someone bothers you about a computer issue, just point to the beautifully stitched sign. If it looks a bit familar, that’s because Flickr user vonkrankipantzen was inspired by a similar shirt found on Think Geek.

Movies:

Where there is geekery, there is Star Wars and bombastitch’s “Han Shot First” cross stitch pattern is a perfect way to start your own geeky cross stitch project.

If you prefer a good Han quote over a quote about Han, then this project by Craftster forum user Zhad_Squad might be more up your alley.

When you like to mash up your science fiction favorites, this R2D2/Dalek love scene by Flickr user Krupp is the ultimate in robot crossovers.

Flickr user Stitchfight’s xSTITCH collection has a great collection of movie and comic inspired projects including this glow-in-the dark Iron Man, Alex from Clockwork Orange, and Rorschach.

While there are a lot of talented cross stitchers in this article, this Logan’s Run pillow by Flickr user Kiddy Amunda is probably one of the most intricate. Even if you don’t care for the film, it’s hard to ignore the skills needed to complete this masterpiece.

Classic Cross Stitch Themes:

If you like cross stitches with the classic Serenity Prayer but still wish they had more flare, then choose your side: Star Wars or Star Trek. Both pieces are by our meme-loving friends at Steotch.

If you prefer the old classic “home is where the heart is” projects, but your heart is a little more geek-oriented than most than perhaps you’d prefer the Xbox controller version by The Domesticated Scientist or the Lego version by Flickr user Softsarah.

Cross Stitch Art Projects:

Flickr user Pichu71 created this QR code for her brother-in-law’s birthday. It reads “Joyeux anniversaire Hatim,” which means “Happy birthday Hatim.”

By now you’ve seen plenty of awesome cross stitches on the blog, but none are quite as unique as this cross stitch animation by Holly Klein.

Maggie and Mildred from Holly Klein on Vimeo.

Now it’s you turn guys. Share any projects you’ve made or get cracking on your own geeky crafts for National Craft Month. I can’t wait to see what you’ve got.

Those who spend most of their time programming in a certain language may find that it’s hard to shift gears to write a paper in English (or some other language non-geeks understand) for a class. “When you write your essays in programming languages, you really can’t have any typos.” See the rest of eight programming languages at Something of That Ilk.  Link -via Geeks Are Sexy

Yan Fortin, the webmaster at Geeks Are Sexy, has been working on a secret project for the past nine months and today unveiled …his new clone! No, we can’t leave it at that, because his mama deserves credit as well. Here’s the little storm trooper coming home in that big helmet he’s going to grow into. Congratulations from your friends at Neatorama! Link

One of the great things about the internet is that designers and manufacturers can find a specialized clientele, and consumers can find specialized items that locals stores cannot afford to stock. Case in point: jewelry that reflects your interest in the geeky worlds of technology, video games, science fiction, and other hobbies. Check out some awesome jewelry items in this list at Oddee, like these circuit board earrings. Link

For those of you who grew up at least in part in the eighties, you know that it wasn’t all about Molly Ringwald and Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Though not all cinematic masterpieces, there were a lot of really fun movies that glorified the geeks of the day.  Here are a few you could pick up for nostalgia’s sake – or especially if you missed the eighties, make sure you’ve seen these if you haven’t!

It’s all there -science, space, robotics, computers, and of course, socially awkward teenagers. Link

Look! Even Bobba Fett is in the Christmas spirit, with a wrapped gift ready for Jabba the Hutt! This strange Christmas figurine also comes in a snow globe version. It’s part of a collection of 20 Geeky Christmas Decorations To Nerd Up Your Holidays at Oddee. Link

Google has a new tool in which you can search the books that Google has digitized for a keyword and get statistics from as far back as the 16th century. The Google Book Ngram Viewer gives you data you can use to track the popularity of …just about anything. For example, Geeks Are Sexy looked as terms like “geek”, “computer geek”, and “computer hacker” to ascertain that geeks are indeed, gaining in popularity. Link

Micro-Max 19-in-1 (with snazzy metal gift box) $16.95

Utili-Key XT 8-in-1 ($9.95) and Screwpop 4-in-1 Keychain Tool ($4.95)

Credit Card Survival Tool ($3.95)

More Geeky Tools, Gift for Geeks, and Stocking Stuffers over at the NeatoShop

Sure, you can buy ornaments right outside of a box. And that’s easy enough. But if you’re like me, you’d rather your tree represents what you value. You know, ornaments painted like the Death Star or a Cylon. If you go over to Michael’s or any other big name craft store, you’ll find a plethora of round, unpainted, ornaments. Use some acrylic paint (the stuff you use to paint your Warhammer 40K army should work fine, if you’ve got some of that about). This year, since we’ve got a major tree upgrade, I’m planning on making Death Stars, Cylons, Sauron Eyes, and Eyes of Kilrogg.

They’ve also got advice on lights, and don’t miss the Menger sponge gingerbread house. Link

If you want to really bring a smile to the face of the geek in your family, select a Christmas gift from a list compiled by geeks for geeks. In this guide from Geeks Are Sexy, you’ll find books that have passed the test -they stimulate the mind as well as entertain it! Link

4) Cthulhu

Created by H.P. Lovecraft, Cthulhu is a humongous cosmic entity resembling a blend of an octopus, dragon and humanoid. Bordering on a ridiculous mishmash that would be found laughable in today’s horror scene, Cthulhu is still widely-known and loved amongst literature buffs and geeks the world over.

* The Mystery: Probably doesn’t need a list of common mispronunciations, but it’s safe to say every letter in the name other than the “l” can be pronounced one way or another.
* The Answer: Wikipedia says H.P. Lovecraft once transcribed the pronunciation as “Khlûl-hloo,” though didn’t pronounce it that way at other times. Now commonplace, the accepted pronunciation is “ka-thoo-loo;” that is, if you accept a pronunciation from a source other than the creator of the word. Lovecraft didn’t seem to have any consistent way of pronouncing it though, so we’re all better off settling on the common way described above.

You’ll also want to check out the best way to pronounce FAQ, Ubuntu, and meme, among others. Link

(Image credit: the NeatoShop)

No matter how much effort you put into a costume, it goes south when you find you are one of ten Batmen at a party -or even worse, a costume contest. Geeks Are Sexy has some ideas for costumes taken from movies, games, and literature that will be recognized by other geeks, but you’re almost guaranteed to have the only one of its kind. Pictured is an appropriate literary costume most of you will recognize right off. Link

Yeah, this is another one of those Caligornia Girls parodies… but this one is really, really cool. Apart from starring the four sexy geekettes from Team Unicorn, the video also features a rapping Seth Green, Battlestar Galactica’s Katee Sackhoff, and legendary comic book writer Stan Lee.

Link

Not all GeekMoms are married to GeekDads. And GeekDad-ism, like many things, exists on a continuum from “enjoyed the first Star Wars movie” to “named his first daughter Leia.” Even though my husband falls somewhere in-between, his latent GeekDad tendencies are obvious. Here’s my Top 10 Ways to Know You’re Married to a GeekDad:

5. The ornaments on your Christmas tree consist of Romulan Warbirds, shuttlecraft, and Borg cubes. [...]

7. He’ll patiently spend an hour building a tower for your four-year-old Superman to break down – and then comfort him when it collapses prematurely.

9. Your kids’ college fund consists of a trunkful of first issues of his favorite comic books.

Link

Geeks Are Sexy blog has got this one covered in Patrick Biz’ post about the 10 Must-Read Books for Geeks. The two part series began with a bang:

iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It

If you want to understand how the Apple fairy tale began in the seventies, then iWoz is a must read. This is the personal story of Steve Wozniak, inventor of the Apple computer. This book explains the long process that led Wozniak to create the first affordable computer, how he met Steve Jobs, and how they founded the Apple empire. This easy-to-read book reveals a captivating story aimed at everyone interested by the debut of personal computing.

Link

That’s the conclusion of a new study of the psychological profile of iPad owners and iPad critics:

Consumer research firm MyType conducted the study, in which opinions of 20,000 people were analyzed between March and May. The firm’s conclusion was that iPad owners tend to be wealthy, sophisticated, highly educated and disproportionately interested in business and finance, while they scored terribly in the areas of altruism and kindness. In other words, “selfish elites.”

They are six times more likely to be “wealthy, well-educated, power-hungry, over-achieving, sophisticated, unkind and non-altruistic 30-50 year olds,” MyType’s Tim Koelkebeck told Wired.com.

96 percent those most likely to criticize the iPad, on the other hand, don’t even own one, although as geeks, they were slightly more likely to do so than the average population — and far more likely to have an opinion about the device one way or the other (updated). This group tends to be “self-directed young people who look down on conformity and are interested in videogames, computers, electronics, science and the internet,” said Koelkebeck.

Link

Geekspeak is an essential tool that will help you exercise your brain and solve the unsolvable, make you sound intelligent so you can impress your friends, and enable you to better understand the fascinating world in which we live in ways never thought possible before.

This is one of those books that makes being a geek fun (which geeks already knew) and makes real-world math accessible to those who might avoid it otherwise. To give you a taste of Geekspeak, we have obtained permission to reprint a chapter for your perusal. Fly Wheels looks at measuring biological power in mechanical terms in order to compare the two.

One of the key technologies for personal transportation is a way of storing energy in something that doesn’t weigh very much. A gallon of gas will keep your car going for about an hour, with the engine developing an average power of, say, 30hp (20kW). The gas effectively stores 20 kilowatt-hours of energy in each gallon.

Gasoline is an amazingly compact way of carrying a lot of energy. A gallon of it weighs only about 6 pounds. A figure of merit for gasoline as a portable fuel might be the amount of useful energy for each pound of fuel-its energy density. On this count gasoline is rated at nearly 2 kilowatt-hours per pound (kWh/pound).

I once made an electric bike powered by a pair of lead-acid car batteries carried in baskets. Together they weighed about 50 pounds and could deliver a total energy of only 2kWh. That’s a puny energy density of 0.04kWh/lb, just one-fiftieth as effective as gasoline.

This, of course, is the curse of electric cars. There is no cheap battery technology that allows anywhere near as much energy to be stored per pound of battery as per pound of gas.

Pedaling the bike, plus its 50 pounds of batteries, back from work yet another day when the charge had run out, I made a calculation: 2 pounds of sugar digested by a human would give more muscle energy than both batteries combined.

The energy in a 2-pound bag of sugar is almost 4kWh. Muscles can convert that energy into mechanical work with an efficiency of up to 20 percent. That’s an output energy density of 0.4kWh/lb-not as good as gasoline, but, amazingly, in the same ballpark.

A muscle engine in a car would be a winner; the emissions would be just carbon dioxide, water, and maybe a bit of wind, depending on the food of the engine. And this may not be just the science-fiction dream that it sounds. There is a lot of academic research into so-called molecular motors, the power source of our muscles.

The molecular motors inside your body are built from a particular kind of protein molecule, the shape of which can be distorted, rather like scrunching up a piece of rubber band in your fist. The scrunching is done by a chemical called adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is supplied to the muscle in the bloodstream. ATP is itself synthesized from the sugars in your food.

At a signal from your brain, the chemical fist of the ATP is unclenched-the molecule rearranges its shape into a more relaxed form, providing mechanical force as it goes. There are billions of these molecules acting together, making the muscle pull. Synthetic proteins, which act in a similar way, might provide the basis of future power plants.

Flying insects can do even better. They use similar molecular motors to make the wing beat repetitively with a very high energy efficiency, up to 40 percent. But could harnessing the power of houseflies be the way forward for car travel? If so, how many would you need to pull your car along at, say, a respectable 40 miles per hour?

First you need an idea of how much power a single fly can generate. A very rough estimate of 1 fly-power can be made if you know the fly’s weight and how long it takes to rise a certain distance into the air after taking off from a tabletop.

When the fly takes off, it uses energy to lift its weight. Some of that energy is used to accelerate its body and lift it into the air, and some will go into heating its body and warming the air. But as the fly rises, it also increases its energy in another way. This newly acquired energy is called potential energy. The higher the fly flies, the more potential energy it gains.

The energy is “potential” because it doesn’t come into play until something happens. If a fly stopped moving its wings, its potential energy would change into speed energy as it fell back down and would finally be released as a small amount of heat energy when it crash-landed on the table.

It’s a fair approximation to say that the energy expended by the fly in rising to its cruising height is the same as the potential energy it will have once it’s there. (It’s actually a bit more, but for the purpose of our armchair arithmetic we can let that go.) So if we can work out our fly’s potential energy, we can work out the value of 1 fly-power. We just need to divide this energy by the time it takes the fly to reach cruising height, and we have its power in watts.

The formula for potential energy is this:

Energy = g x Mass x Height

The g here is the acceleration due to gravity: the rate at which the speed of a falling object increases. Its value is 9.81 meters per second per second. Call it 10 to make life easier.

But what about mass-what does a fly weigh? Think of something of a similar weight that you can conveniently measure. For example, suppose that a housefly weighs about the same as a grain of rice. It could be half as much, or twice as much, but it is unlikely to be either a tenth, or ten times as much. A grain of rice will do nicely.

Count how many grains of rice you can scoop up with a teaspoon, and put ten teaspoonfuls of rice onto the kitchen scales. Divide the weight by ten, and then by the number of grains per teaspoonful. You now have the weight of one rice grain-and the approximate weight of a fly. It’ll come out as about 50 mg. That’s fifty-thousandths of a gram, which is the same as fifty-millionths of a kilogram.

Next, have a look at some flies as they take off. How long do they take to rise to their cruising height? That’s a tricky one.

You can make several rough timings and average them to get a more accurate final value. But even one timing is hard, because the time is so short. One way if to hold a ticking clock against your ear as you watch the flies rise. Older clocks have a tick-tock time of one second, but the ticks on some modern clocks are much more rapid. Count the number of ticks per second from your clock to calibrate your “audio timer”.

My clock does five ticks per second, and the fly rises to about 1 meter in the time of one tick-that’s one-fifth of a second. Now the fly-power can be calculated. So, to put into the formula above we have values 10 (for g), 0.00005 kg and 1 meter:

Energy = 10 x 0.00005 x 1 = 0.0005 joules

Power is energy per second, and our fly has taken 0.2 seconds to rise 1 meter, so its power is 0.0005 divided by 0.2. That makes 0.0001 watts-one-tenth of a milliwatt. That’s enough to make an LED glow dimly in the dark. A small battery-powered torch gives out about 1 watt-that’s 10,000 fly-power. Flies aren’t very bright.

A typical car engine running on the flat at 40 mph will be generating around 20,000 watts, or 200 million fly-power. So 200 million flies, attached by silken threads to the front of your car and suitably trained, could pull it along at up to 40 mph. Whether that’s a green alternative depends on the flies.

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Geekspeak is available from publisher HarperCollins, at Amazon, and at a bookstore near you.

Geeks Are Sexy presents the ABCs of geekdom, illustrating each of the 26 letters with Creative Commons photography. And when you read them all together, they make a really geeky poem! Link

(image credits: a, Mild Mannered Photographer and b, jpstanley)

Most Neatoramanauts know all about Ken Denmead’s Geek Dad blog over on Wired.com. But did you know Ken has a book coming out? Yep, in just a couple days you’ll be able to curl up with a pantload of geeky projects perfect for you and your kids.  Some are ripped right from the posts you’ve come to love on the blog, but most are brand-spankin’ new. Ever think about flying a kite at night, rigged with lights? Or making a comic strip out of Lego pieces? Or constructing a fortress – out of cake?

Those are just some of the cool projects you’ll discover in the Geek Dad book, an easy to read,  adroitly written craft book. And because Ken is himself a Neatoramanaut, he’s been kind enough to give us three, no more, no less, four we did not get, neither two, five is right out. But three, being the third number, is the number of books we have to give away in our contest! (We’ll leave the contest open until the book is officially published on May 4th!)

Want to win a copy? Here’s what you need to do:

1. Read the interview below!

2. Click the link at the end of the interview and answer the question you find waiting for you.

3.  E-mail me the answer to the question (e-mail address found on the linked page).

4. That’s it! We’ll pick three random winners and send out your very own copies!

Enough rat-a-tat! On with the interview…

DI: Toward the front of the book, there’s a lot of discussion about the very word geek, how it has morphed over time, and the variations and various subsets. It got me thinking: When I was in high school, I was a band geek and a computer geek. Yet I also scored an extra part in Revenge of the Nerds 2, so some people called me a big ‘ol nerd. Yet I also infamously scored two points for the other team in a basketball game, so I fit right in with the dweebs who were picked last in gym. My question to you is this: Can a person be a geek, a nerd, and a dweeb? Is it like astrology where I’m really a geek dad (for those who don’t know, I have a toddler), but have a nerd rising? Shine some light, if you would…

KD: The point I make in the book is that the difference between geek and nerd if self-awareness about the anti-social nature of obsession over a hobby or pursuit. Obviously real people are far more complex that the labels that get broadly applied to them, and it’s perfectly realistic that you could be an overall geek (aware of your nerdish tendencies, but able to either embrace them with vim, or mitigate them through careful behavior), and yet be more nerdish or dweebish in certain circumstances or when pursuing specific hobbies.

DI: At what point in YOUR life did you come to the conclusion that you were a geek? Certainly before daddom, I’d imagine? Or…

KD: Oh, in high school certainly. I was a music geek, theater geek, I played D&D at lunch with my friends from AP Physics, and wrote science fiction stories during free periods.

DI: In the book you talk about how more and more females are categorizing themselves as geeks—that it’s obviously not just for a label for dudes anymore. Did you wind up finding a fem-geek to settle down with and, if so, would that make your kids über-geeks? Or do two geeks cancel each other out and produce jocks and politicians?

KD: My wife is a total geek, with a strong passion for science fiction movies and TV shows, and we love traveling to conventions now and buying each other show props. We’ve been very careful not to push our tendencies on the kids, though – and luckily they are absorbing them instead. Actually, our older son, who played baseball and basketball, but also loves D&D and video games, called himself a “gock” – half geek, half jock.

DI: The sub-head of the book is “Awesomely Geeky Projects and Activities for Dads and Kids to Share” – and some of the projects that stand out to me, the ones I can’t wait to try with my son, are: Build a Binary Calendar, Portable Electronic Flash Cards, Fly a Kite at Night, and Model Building with a Cake. Of course, some of these projects you already wrote up on the blog, but many were new for the book. Are there one or two in particular that you really enjoyed creating and writing about?

KD: Flying the video camera on a string of balloons was great to do because there was science and engineering required to sort it out; figuring out the volume of helium needed to provide sufficient lift for the camera package and then devising the best way to string them together.

DI: If you could have lunch with any geek dad from history, who would it be?

KD: That’s a tough question. My first instinct would be J.R.R. Tolkien, because he started the rich creations of Middle Earth as something for his kids. But he probably wouldn’t have considered himself a geek (indeed, at the time the word would have been an insult). So I’d settle on Gene Roddenberry. His influence on geek culture cannot be understated.

DI: Of some of the more famous fictional geek dad-figures, who was cooler? Or who would you rather spend time with? Dr. Emmett Brown or Dr. Newton Crosby?

KD: Naw, give me Doctor Quest, Reed Richards, or Mr. Incredible!

DI: Of all the geek-gadgets you own, which one would you take to the proverbial desert island if you only could take one?

KD: Assuming (as any good geek would have to), that there was free power and wi-fi available on this desert island, my iPad!

DI: What’s the worst thing about being a geek?

KD: Being socially outcast; really, having to live in an environment where no one “gets” you.

DI: Your day job is in civil engineering. What’s a typical day for you?

KD: In broad brush-strokes, just like anyone else. Up early, help get the kids ready for school, and head to work (stop and get coffee on the way). Work, work, work – sad to say, civil engineering isn’t as glamorous as everything thinks! Pick up the kids from school, get home, and do family stuff. And all in there, keep an eye on the blog.

DI: It’s 2120—is geek still in our vernacular? What’s the future hold for the geek as AI becomes more and more sophisticated in the future?

KD: By the evolved definition of the word I like to use, absolutely. Geeks aren’t just about technology. Of course, techie geeks will still be with us, because technology is driving our culture more these days than ever before, and the people who are obsessive about the creation and use of technology will always be needed. Just, by then, the geeks will be moving planets around.

DI: Let’s not even look down the road that far, what’s Ken Denmead doing 25 years from now?

KD: Semi-retired, overseeing the GeekDad media empire and working part-time at Disneyworld.

DI: Other than the blog, are you working on anything now you want to tell us about?

KD: There’s always the hope that the book will do well enough to spawn another. I’m involved in the development of a NPR radio show for dads that will hopefully get picked up. And we want to keep building GeekDad as a property. The great thing is that new opportunities pop up when you least expect them!

DI: Will there be any book signings or speaking engagements? Where can people find you after the book comes out?

KD: There certainly will, and I’m keeping track of all that kind of thing on the website we’ve built for the book: www.geekdadbook.com. I’m always lurking on Twitter, as well (@fitzwillie).

DI: Lastly, anything you wish I’d asked?

KD: “What’s the airspeed of an unladen swallow?”

N.B. – Please do NOT leave answers to our contest question in the comments below. We will delete your comment. Thanks for understanding! However, we DO want you to send us your answer, the details of which can be found, along with the contest question, right here! Good luck to one and all.

Special thanks to Ken, who jammed on turning around the Q&A within 24 hours so we could present the interview/give-a-way in a timely manner. As Crush, dad-turlte said so eloquently to his son Squirt in the Pixar film Finding Nemo: You SO totally rock dude!

We all know about the major holidays, and most of us celebrate at least a few of them. But, underneath those happy holidays that we all share, there lurks a mass of lesser known holidays that beg for our attention.

As it would happen, there exists a segment of our population that closely mirror these unsung holidays. These people work under the radar, providng society with the technology to keep life interesting. These hardworking and dedicated people, that we affectionately refer to as geeks, should get their own holiday.

Well, we’ve found some that seems to celebrate the geekiness in all of us. So, we offer these holidays in tribute to those socially crippled huddled masses that keep life advancing forward.

National Clean Up Your Computer Month – January

The geek in all of us (including you Facebookers out there) can appreciate this holiday. This is the time to take a look at our computers and give them the attention they so desperately need. We can check disk space, remove old programs, finally empty the trash, and even clean up around the computer itself. A great holiday for geeks everywhere.

Macintosh Computer Day – January 25

The Apple geeks in the crowd get to have a double computer holiday this month as January 25th is Macintosh Computer Day. If you haven’t already this month (see above), spend some time cleaning up your Macbook, MiniMac, or iMac. This would also be a great day to dig out those Apple stickers in any product boxes lying about and proudly display them. You are an Apple Geek, show it!

World Thinking Day – February 22

I did not realize there was a day dedicated to thinking. I personally believe that every day should be a day dedicated to thinking, at least on some level and at some point during said day. However, there is such a holiday, and what better day to dedicate to our ever thinking friends than World Thinking Day.

24-Hour Global Marathon for, By and About Women in Engineering and Technology – March 10-11

Geeks are not just guys – there is a very strong and dedicated segment of the population that do have double X chromosomes. The geek gals have proven to be an equal and capable group, so they definitely deserve a special holiday for themselves. What can be better than a two-day global holiday blowout that celebrates women in engineering and technology?!

Morse Code Day – April 27 (or May 24)

Geeks everywhere have heard about Morse code. Even though that has been superseded by ASCII code in most memorized tables, a tribute to the original geek code seems like a fitting way to celebrate the classic geek. From the telegraph to the cell phone, geeks have influenced our lives and given us new ways to play together online.

Geek Pride Day – May 25

It is everyone’s right to be a geek, and Geek Pride Day celebrates this on one of the most important dates in geek history, the opening day of the original “Star Wars” movie. The holiday even comes with its own geek Bill of Rights (meant to not be taken seriously, of course):

1. The right to be even geekier
2. The right to not leave your house
3. The right to not have a significant other and to be a virgin
4. The right to not like football or any other sport
5. The right to associate with other nerds
6. The right to have few friends (or none at all)
7. The right to have all the geeky friends that you want
8. The right to not be “in-style”
9. The right to be overweight and have poor eyesight
10. The right to show off your geekiness
11. The right to take over the world

Of particular interest is the last item, which just may happen at some point. (I guess it is a good thing that we are giving geeks their holidays now, it can’t hurt to be on their good side…)

Ball Point Pen Day – June 10

Pocket protectors everywhere, rejoice! Without the ubiquitous ball point pen, then geeks everywhere would have no need of the pocket protector. It would be like Superman without his cape, or Batman without his utility belt. So, I think we should really take note of this day, and everyone out there write an email to pass the word – even if ironically the emails hasten in a small way the eventual demise of the ball point pen.

Take Your Webmaster to Lunch Day – July 6

When you get up on a chilly winter morning and check your favorite news site and weather for the day, you should thank a geek for making sure that the server is up and running. The specialized geek responsible for doing this, is known as a webmaster, and they work tirelessly (more or less) to keep the web communicating. So, celebrate this day by taking your favorite webmaster geek to lunch. And please, keep all jokes about “downloading lunch” to a minimum.

Embrace Your Geekness Day – July 13

Some people are ashamed of their inner geek – they are afraid to be stereotyped as anti-social, and have an innate fear of fixing things for others. But on this day you can cast away your fears and embrace your desire to defrag your computer drive. Who knows, by the end of the day, you too may have an appreciation for the geek culture.

National Inventor’s Month – August

Where would we be without the geeks known as inventors? From the automobile to the TV, from the typewriter to the internet, inventors have given us ways to make our lives better and more interesting. During the month of August we can pay tribute to those inventive folks who saw the need and a way to fulfill it.

IBM PC Day – August 12

The IBM PC has probably had one of the biggest impacts on early computing than any other product, and its influence is still felt to today. Generations of geeks have cut their computing teeth on IBM PC clones, and Microsoft would not be as big as it is if it were not for the IBM PC. Geeks everywhere, wave a lighter in the air for IBM PC Day.

Google Commemoration Day – September 7

Google is everywhere, and apparently all types of geeks love (and built) Google. So it seems natural that a day celebrating Google-ness would also be a tribute to geek-ness.

Techie’s Day – October 3

Where would we be without those techie geeks that keep our office computers humming along? Without them we would soon be reduced to pen and paper, and getting a fax or email would literally take days. This October 3rd take time to appreciate your local techie geek, and give them their day by trying to avoid breaking things until at least after lunch that day.

Computer Security Day – November 30

Geeks everywhere, take note – there are such things as evil tech people, and they want to enslave your computer for their nefarious uses. Take this day to celebrate the comfort of knowing that you have taken steps to keep your computer safe. And if you need help, go find a computer geek!

International Shareware Day – December 11

Rounding out our geek holidays for the year is International Shareware Day. Shareware was created (or at least named) by uber geek Bob Wallace, and the premise is simple – try it before you buy it. This concept thrives today, where computer users everywhere download programs on a wide variety of topics daily. It just goes to show – geeks know business.

Hopefully this list of holidays will give our geeks a reason to celebrate being what they are. Without them, the world is a slower, uncommunicative, and boring place (no video games). More importantly, we all have a little geek inside of us, so we in turn celebrate ourselves.

(image credits: Flickr users Sidereal, mr.beaver, and x-ray delta one)

Though Shakespeare’s influence tends to be thought of in the context of academics and books, he’s also had a steady influence on geekdom. After the jump, five geeky ways you can bring in the Bard’s birthday:

1. Watch Star Trek.

If you watch closely, Shakespeare has an enormous influence over Star Trek: Star Trek wiki Memory Alpha has a very comprehensive list of influences over the years. Lots of Trek titles are Shakespeare references, Captain Picard loved to recite The Bard, and oh — William Shatner is a classically trained Shakespearean actor.

Link

Original photo by Paul. Who gave Wil the shirt as a fun gift. Now, it’s a fun GIF!

About 45 days later, I finally picked it up. I opened it in my office, saw myself looking back at me from infinity, and couldn’t believe that I’d waited so long to pick it up. (On the other hand, it was a wonderful reward for completing the first draft of my keynote.)

I called Anne into my office, and revealed it in the usual manner, by slowly lifting it up to my chin and showing it off.

“Oh my god,” Anne said. “It’s you … and you … and you … and you …”

“All the way to infinity,” I said.

We shared a Sci-Five, to commemorate the occasion. You know, like you do.

The Recursive Wheaton (also known as the Wheaton Singularity) is an Infini-tee, created by Scott Meyer, who also creates an amazing and wonderful webcomic called Basic Instructions.

Sci-Five also wins. Much lurv for WW. See also: Recursion Google

(via TwistedSifter)

This is a guest post from D. Salmons over at TestFreaks - website for real geeks, where you can find everything from dvd players to wii games

One of the ways of getting your business (or yourself) out there to the masses is with business cards. Whether you're passing them out at conventions, conferences or business lunches, your business card can make a great first impression.

Some of the most innovative, creative business cards just so happen to be the geekiest. So check out these 10 geeky business cards that are sure to leave a lasting impression:

Pop Up Geeky

Source: Geekologie

Source: Gina Trapani's Harvard Business Review Blog

Source: Cardonizer

Source: A Cape Town Blog by Chris M

Source: Abhinav Dapke's Coroflot Portfolio

Source: Neville Hobson

Source: Guardian

Saving my favorite for last. Bringing out the child in all of us are the Lego employee's business cards. A little miniature Lego of yourself - how awesome is that?!?!

If these business cards don't inspire you to create a unique and, well... geeky business card, I'm not sure what will. Just have fun with it. No one will soon forget you, I'm sure.

Rather than a formal taxonomy, this diagram by Ibrahim Evsan divides geek culture into activities, obsessions, social communities, terms, idols, and types. Its primary flaw is that it does not take cross-breeding into account. Larger version at the link.

Link via Fast Company

1. Munroe’s Law: A person in a geeky argument who can quote xkcd to support his position automatically wins the argument. This law supersedes Godwin, so that even if the quote is about Hitler, the quoter still wins.

2. Lucas’s Law: There is no movie so beloved that a “special edition,” prequel or sequel cannot trample and forever stain its memory. [...]

8. Wilbur’s Law: Bacon makes everything better.

Link

Yep, a t-shirt with a fully functional graphic equalizer embedded on the front. It changes with the music around you, and even reacts to conversation! $39.99 from Think Geek. Link -via Everlasting Blort

Only the geekiest of papercraft projects made the cut for this excellent list from oobject. Take a look at what happened when geeks get their hands on construction paper:

Whether a novice or a paper-folding master, papercraft is a hobby that anyone can enjoy. It involves printing out a custom schematic with instructions and folding the paper to create a unique work of art. The papercraft you see here keep central with the theme of geekiness and quite possibly, nerdiness.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by vveneziani.

26. Boot a computer off a thumb drive.
40. Transcode a DVD to play on a portable device.
71. Explain that the colours in a rainbow are roygbiv.
84. Know where your towel is and why it is important.
96. Have a documented plan on what to do during a zombie or robot uprising.
100. Get something on the front page of Digg.

What is your geek quotient? What would you add to the list?

Link

Cameron Murray, a leather jacket-wearing 20-year-old from Cleveland, estimates that the gender ratio is one woman in a billion (it’s actually 1 in 20). What’s more, he complains, the women at Neumont "are more like dudes with long hair," which hurts the dating scene.

Eager to flirt, he and eight other members of a student group known as the Gentlemen’s Order moseyed down to a mall recently and split into teams to see who could get the most phone numbers from women. The eager Lotharios wandered from food court to department store and back again, spending an afternoon in search of potential dates.

The sum total of their efforts: a single number.

"We got shot down as hell — it was horrible," Murray said.

Alana Semuels of the Los Angeles Times’ Column One has the story, that for many of us, I’m sure, hit close to home. Too close. Link (Photo: Wally Skalij / LA Times)

Geeks Are Sexy Blog has a neat round-up of some of the geekiest T-shirts on the Net. They’re mostly oldies but goodies, and I think you can get them over at ThinkGeek or maybe do a search on Teenormous (I wish they were linked to the sellers): Link – Thanks Yan!