The deeply geeky gift list
by Laura ScottWhat to get that deeply geeky special someone? Yes, we geekettes can be quite particular about our entertainments and enjoyments. What to do? Here are some possible tips:
- Geeky t-shirt
Most people won't get it, and that's the point, isn't it? Cafe Press has quite an assortment.Price: $23.99
Charge your gadgets while you walk.
The revolutionary thin and flexible solar charging system that charges all your iPods, Cell Phones, GPS, Cameras, etc. It's as easy as charging your phone in the car!
And all seams are stitched "to military specifications" -- which, one hopes, means they're good, right? Comes in black, yellow and a hot crimson red.
Price: $250
Okay, what I really want is a BMW 335xi to drive the mountain roads of Colorado, but for tooling about the town and (flat) highway, the Honda Prius is the economical way to go. What with gas prices pushing ever upward, those 44 miles per gallon start to look pretty good!
Don't like the style? Go with the Camry hybrid. More comfort for the same mileage!
Price: starts at $20,950 (the BMW runs from $40,800 and up)
Costs only a few bucks, but boy oh boy does this nifty gadget come in handy! Whether you're crawling under your desk to plug a new external drive into your computer or peering into your mailbox after dark, having a hand-held mini-spotlight is just the ticket. There are any number of suppliers, so don't you settle for the mundane now!
Price: $3-$20.
It's light. It's stylish. It's thin. It's light (well, 5.4 pounds is fairly light). It's the machine I'm coveting. Maybe your special someone covets it, too? Get it all tricked out, with the 2.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4 gigs of RAM, the 200GB 7200 hard drive, the XBRITE-HiColor screen, and the extended battery. The NVIDIA® GeForce® video card, 802.11n and Bluetooth® come with it.
Price: about $3,000
For the computer artist, this is the way to go. No more drawing on a blank slate while looking away at a screen. Now you can draw write on the screen. Awesome!
Price: $999 (and only $2,499 for the Cintiq 21UX!)
Yes, that Ohm's Law! This deeply geeky timepiece doesn't have numbers, it has formulas.
Yes, rather than seeing a bunch of easy-to-read numbers, you'll be faced with all the formulas that relate power, current, voltage and resistance, which would never get old, I'm sure.
You could get this for your kid if you really, really want them to learn these formulas, but unless your kid is really stupid they'll be able to figure out what time it is just based on where the hands are without doing any math, I'm sorry to say. So I guess you'll need to find some other sneaky, stupid way of getting them to learn.
Yeah, but it's sure to get a good laugh.
Price: $19.99
You may want to hold off getting that someone special OSX Leopard, or you may simply want to avoid buying anything Mac at all, given the seemingly increasingly unreliable hardware and not-quite-Mensa-level "genius" support, but seriously, this keyboard is pretty darned cool! Those old Mac keyboards worked the fingers hard, but with this switch-key baby the touch is light, yet not mushy, vague or trigger happy.
Price: $49 (USB), $79 (Bluetooth)
For the geeky Hannukah experience, this open source gizmo is the ultimate celebration of light. The eco-friendly LEDs are light on the energy needs ... and they last!
Our mini-LED Hanukkah menorah is a modern update of the traditional hanukkiyah, the nine-armed Hanukkah candelabrum. Two candles are lit on the first night of Hanukkah (one "real" candle plus the uppity lighter candle, or shamash which apparently doesn't count), three on the second night, right up to nine on the eighth night. That's (2+9)*(8/2)=44 candles all together, for those of you keeping score.
Ours works pretty much the same way, but uses less wax. When you turn it on, it steadily (without blinking or animation) displays the correct configuration of LED "candles" for a given night of Hanukkah. Each time that it is switched off and back on, it displays one more light than it did the previous time that you turned it on-- unless it showed all nine last time.
Price: $10
Some items are must-haves for any science fiction fan (and aren't all geeks and geekettes to some extent sci-fi fans?). We already know that Battlestar Galactica is the best show on television. Now we can celebrate not just this fabulous show in high-definition video, but those shows and movies that led to its creation (according to me -- Ron Moore may have different ideas).
Let's start at the top:
- Battlestar Galactica - Season One [HD DVD]
If you've stumbled across the show broadcast in HDTV on the UHD cable channel, you know that Galactica is really something else when you can see all the detail.
Price: $69.95
- Blade Runner (Five-Disc Complete Collector's Edition) [Blu-ray]
Caprica Six, meet your cinematic ancestors -- the angry existentialist Ray, the touchy Leon, the cheerfully desperate Pris and the ass-kicking Zora. And, of course, Rachel. (I couldn't be offering a spoiler on this 1977 movie, could I?) You have to wonder if we'd have Battlestar Galactica if we didn't have Blade Runner. Remastered, re-edited by Ridley Scott, this is the definitive edition.
Price: $27.95 for the 5-disc Blu-ray set, $66.95 for the Blade Runner (Five-Disc Ultimate Collector's Edition)
(aka the special edition with dead tree material added)
- Firefly - The Complete Series
The mood of Galactica wouldn't be possible if it weren't for Firefly, which aired a few years before. This sci-fi classic series was ill-treated by the television, but lives on in gorgeous DVD video that upconverts very nicely, thank you.
If you haven't seen Firefly, you're in for a treat. These characters you will love -- they will be your friends for life. I swear!
Price: $39.99
- Cowboy Bebop Remix, Volume 1
You couldn't have Firefly without Cowboy Bebop. This anime series manages to surprise you. And the music is pretty cool, too.
Price: $17.49
Happy Holidays, Space Cowboy!
Laura Scott blogs on pingVision and rare pattern.
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Comments
Love the list!
I love this list, Laura. Particularly the Reware stuff (hadn't seen that before). I just wanted to offer that I got a new Apple keyboard and after a week of use opted to go back to the old style. I just couldn't get used to it, and it made my wrists hurt. :( It is nice-looking, though. (I swapped it to my husband, who types less and is less bothered by it.)
--
Mir Kamin
(BlogHer Mommy & Family contributing editor)
Personal: Woulda Coulda Shoulda
Having it all with less: Want Not
Thanks! The Reware bags are
Thanks! The Reware bags are what I think are the cutest of quite a few different kinds of solar-cell bags out there. Nobody else has that rich red, anyway!
I do a lot of typing. The keyboard takes some getting used to, yes, but the old-style ones would get so sticky and stiff I'd get tendinitis in my hands!
Laura Scott
BlogHer Contributing Editor for Technology & Web
design, snap, blog