Of the 56 geeks pictured here, I think I can lay claim to having elements of at least seven of them (obviously some are more overt than others):
All cartoons by ExtraLife, from the 56 Geeks Poster.
Michael Hanscom
Best Xmas Commercials (So Far)
It’s only a top two, rather than a top ten or top three or any such thing (mostly because it’s so rare that commercials are actually fun that it’d be nearly impossible to get a list longer than two). However, here for your amusement are the top two commercials of this Christmas season, as chosen by Prairie and me.
In second place: the Staples Easy Button.
And…(the envelope, please)…in first place…(riiiiip): Verizon’s Pony!
Prairie can’t even think about the pony commercial without giggling, let alone watch it.
One Hundred and Forty Peeps
So far, I’m a little unimpressed with the leading contender for a collective noun for ‘those people I follow/am following on Twitter,’ which appears to be ‘tweeple‘. To my ears, it’s rather silly, and a rather glaringly obvious portmanteau.
Myself, I’d much rather reappropriate an already existing bit of slang, and mash together ‘people’ and ‘tweet’ into ‘peeps‘. It’s already culturally (more or less) accepted slang, is already being used to denote a group of people (“my peeps”), and as a nice little bonus, is also onomatopoeia for the chirp (or tweet) of a smallish bird, so it fits right in with the general theme of Twitter.
So you all can go on with your bad selves and your ‘tweeple.’ Me, I’m going to be hanging with my peeps!
(And on a slight tangent: I’d be amused if, since Twitter imposes a limit of 140 characters for tweets, they also imposed a 140 ‘character’ limit for your contacts. Not sure if that should work out as 140 followers and 140 followees [280 total contacts in both directions], or 70 each, or perhaps just 140 total allowed and spread them out however you wish. Realistically, best would be a limit to only following 140 ‘characters’, but allowing for an unlimited number of followers [so that organizational Twitter accounts like Twitterific or high-profile personalities like Wil Wheaton can still be followed by all those who want to]. Of course, this version of the 140 character limit won’t happen, but it works in my head. Really, how many individuals can most people really keep track of full-time?)
Six Billion Gallons
That’s approximately how much water has fallen over the Seattle area in the past few days, according to the Seattle PI. Flooding all over the place, bridges and roads washed out, I-5 is closed between Seattle and Portland forcing a detour through Yakima…crazy stuff.
Outside of leaks taking out a few ceiling tiles at my store in the mall, neither Prairie nor I have personally seen any of the more dramatic effects of the storm. Apparently we got off fairly lucky — the PI mentions a few people in our area of town that didn’t fare so well.
“It felt like we were on the Titanic,” said Randy Carter, who awoke at 4 a.m. Monday to lights from utility trucks and the realization that his apartment in the Jackson Greens complex in North Seattle was flooded to evacuation levels with 3 feet of water.
[…]
In Seattle, where rescue crews were forced to carry people from hard-hit homes in the Northgate area and then shelter them on Metro buses, Mayor Greg Nickels said flatly that the city’s infrastructure had been unable to cope with the deluge.
“The systems that this city was built around — the draining systems, the transportation systems — simply were not built to handle this kind of rainfall,” he said.
By late afternoon Monday, nearly 6 billion gallons of rain — the rough equivalent of six Green Lakes — had fallen.
Four apartment buildings, housing some 50 people and their pets near Midvale Avenue North and North 107th Street were evacuated and another four were similarly affected, Seattle Fire Department spokeswoman Helen Fitzpatrick said.
“The flooding is up to 10 feet deep in some areas,” she said.
In one building, the parking garage was almost completely under water, cars were nearly floating with rain up to their windshields and firefighters were carrying residents out.
The PI has a photo gallery of some of the effects around town.
(photo by Liembo)
Wishlistr
Flying full-bore into the Season of Greed, I’m playing around with Wishlistr, a clean and simple site for tracking all those little (and, me being me, not-so-little) “I want” bits that pop up.
My wishlist is rather small at the moment, with an odd mix of trivialities and big-ticket items that will never actually randomly fall into my lap…but, as always, that’s the point of a wishlist, right?
Badass Bible Verses
Cracked has a list of the top nine ‘badass’ bible verses. Just for fun, I’ll list the verse citations here. Any guesses at what stories they’re referring to (before looking at the linked article or clicking through to the linked NIV versions, of course)?
Zoom
- 1957: Cosmic View: The Universe in 40 Jumps, by Kees Boeke.
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1968: Cosmic Zoom, a Canadian animated short film inspired by Boeke’s book.
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1977: Powers of Ten, a short film by Charles and Ray Eames, inspired by the prior two pieces. This is the most commonly known version of this presentation.
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2004: The Simpsons parody version (10.3 Mb .mov file), as the couch gag for The Ziff Who Came to Dinner
All links via Kottke.
Schedule? What Schedule?
Two more days without posting. It’s official — trying to enforce a daily posting routine just didn’t work for me this year. Perhaps it will later on, when things aren’t quite as busy as they are now. Still, I gave it a good shot, and I still want to keep up a more regular post rate than once every week or two.
It may not actually happen, of course…but I’ll give it a shot. :)
Meme: The ’80’s Movie Scientist Test
Your Score: Jordan Cochran
140 Heart, 138 Genius, 157 Cool, 144 Excitability
Jordan Cochran — (Michelle Meyrink)
Real Genius (1985)
You’re Jordan Cochran, the adorable fast-talking GIRL scientist of all things. While she may not be up there with the other super-geniuses of the ’80s, her awesome mechanical aptitude and geek-girl cuteness have made her the sweetheart of nerds for over 20 years.
“I never sleep, I don’t know why. I had a roommate and I drove her nuts, I mean really nuts, they had to take her away in an ambulance and everything. But she’s okay now, but she had to transfer to an easier school, but I don’t know if that had anything to do with being my fault. But listen, if you ever need to talk or you need help studying just let me know, ’cause I’m just a couple doors down from you guys and I never sleep, okay?”
Other scientific possibilities: Gary Wallace, Wyatt Donnelly, Peter Venkman, Jordan Cochran, Egon Spengler, Doc Brown, Newton Crosby, Paul Stephens, Ben Crandall, Wayne Szalinkski, Winston Zeddemore, Ben Jabituya, Lazlo Hollyfeld, Ray Stantz, Buckaroo Banzai, Chris Knight
Link: The Which 80s Movie Scientist Test
Amusing side note: Jordan is one of the first movie character crushes I ever had when I was growing up. :)
Historical side note: Jordan was based on a real Caltech student:
And, yes, Jordan of Real Genius was based, at least in part, on me. My class’s president and social organizers decided to ask me in on an interview being done by the movies producers and so there I was in one of the fanciest restaurants in Pasadena wrapped in a slightly oversized sweater that I’d knit myself one night when I was cold, talking blithly about life at Caltech without, from what folks say, a single breath. One of the most amusing things in my life was, fifteen years later, seeing that movie with a roomful of my friends from Temple Square and, the minute Jordan introduces herself in a long string of breathless sidetrains having the entire room turn to just look at me afterwards. That was most amusing. As Cera says, she has my voice.
I’ve learned about commas since. Also about breathing. And, finally, yes, I’ve also learned to finally sleep once in a while, though that took staying up 72 hours for a project while I was doing my MSEE at the University of Washington and having my body literally fall asleep on me before it shut down completely to really bring that lesson home.
Hm. I should put in here, also, that I’m the only Caltech woman that I knew was actually interviewed for source material; but I tried for a whole perspective about the female experience at the school. Not just me. It was an ME friend of mine that did the scuba gear testing in the pool, and while all the physically possible things that Jordan did were done by some Caltech woman, it wasn’t necessarily me. I’m also very sure that Dave Marvit and the other Caltech consultants for the movie all contributed some of what they knew about the females of the school to Jordan’s character as well. So I’m pretty sure she’s a composit of the others who were there at that time. Personally, I was just glad that they got her right.