I’m a nerd/geek and damn proud of it.
Nov0
Somethings don’t change. And that is just fine with me. In the last few days, I’ve remembered something: be who you really are. If others don’t like you, tough shit for them. Of course, I don’t mean that you can be an asshole and get away with it. The context of this is within the bounds of being a ‘nerd’.
I’m a nerd, a geek, a computer/sci-fi/engineering/crazy cycling dude, whatever. I’m pretty damn awesome. I embrace my nerdyness (nerdiness?) and if you don’t like it. Tough luck.
I remember the days when I tried to just “fit in” in with a crowd. Not really my style. I’ve always been different — always been that quiet brainiac in the corner studying away and not really going out to social events. I like math, engineering, stuff that has to do with tech. I was comfortable with the textbook, a 0.5mm lead mechanical pencil and a pad of engineering paper. Really. Yes, really. I played computer games, like WarCraft (didn’t ever get into WoW though), StarCraft, SimCity, DnD, and if you go back further there were the days of the modem and bulletin board systems, I played a bit of major mudd. Mario is still cool. Also spent a lot of time on the computer surfing the web for random factoids.
At times, I’ve wondered how things would have turned out if I can do this all over again. But seeing how we haven’t invented the ability to time travel, or a way to deal with the associated paradoxes, that may be an issue. Of course, theoretically speaking, there could be a parallel universe with an alter-ego of myself that could be a horribly bad evil scientist. Who knows. See what I’m talking about? I’m fine with this.
As I noted in previous posts, I like love Sci-fi, and original independent works that support the geekdom. I’m a huge Firefly fan (though I must admit I only discovered this show/movie a few months ago), as well as the Stargate franchise. My new addiction now is The Guild that is written by and stars Felicia Day (who was also in Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog). I guess even nerdier is the “(Do you want to date my) Avatar” song and music video that was released prior to the beginning of Season 3 of The Guild. I think The Guild is one of the better examples of what you can do. If you have an idea, go with it, you’ll find an audience somewhere. Who knows, it might become something big.
::rant:: While I’m at it… this popped into my head: who the fuck decided the stereotypical male and female are superbuff and insanely thin? Why do we have a higher value on looks than intelligence? And why are shows like America’s Next Top Model even on the air? Is this what the majority of us think? That’s just gross. Seriously, what is worth more to you? Your intelligence, or just looks? ::/end rant::
The point being: support people for who they are, and are proud of displaying it for the world to see. If you can’t accept that, too bad.
Enjoy.
-T 
What makes time travel possible?
Feb0
Just awesome!
Uyen: what makes time travel possible?
Thomas: 1) the Flux Capacitor, and 2) 88mph.
Uyen: hahaha yay!
Cost of text messaging vs E-mail.
Sep0
So I just got a text messaging plan after having a cell phone for the last 8 years. Being nerdy, I calculated the cost of texting vs just using internet e-mail. Let’s assume that there is no protocol overhead for e-mailing or texting and that what you only send is pure text.
My Comcast bill is approximately $55/month. Comcast recently announced that one can use a total aggregate bandwidth of 250GB per month before reaching their monthly limit. At this rate, the price per character is $2.05 x 10^-10 (that’s $2.05 billionth of a dollar per *character*… a very very small number.)
The math:
($55.00 month / 250GB) * (1GB / 2^30 bytes) = $0.000000000205 / byte.
(1 byte = one 8-bit ASCII character – e.g. A-Z, 0-9 and punctuation)
On the other hand, my text messaging service costs $5.00 / month. You get 400 *total* text messages, with 140 characters each. Lets assume that every text message that you send and receive is 140 characters long… even though the average text message is much shorter. At this rate, the price per character is $0.0000893.
The math:
($5.00 month / 400 messages) * (1 message / 140 bytes) = $0.0000893 / byte.
(1 byte = one 8-bit ASCII character – e.g. A-Z, 0-9 and punctuation)
So, if Comcast charges the same amount as your phone carrier for the same amount of service, it would cost you $23,971,286 per month.
The math:
($0.0000893 / byte) * (1 byte / [1/2^30] GB) * 250GB = $23,971,286.
Yes … almost $24 MILLION dollars a month.
Solved Rubik’s Cube – in under 3 minutes
Jan0
I solved the Rubik’s cube in 3 minutes. Its nowhere near the records of sub 30 seconds, but hey, I solved it! Click on the “read on” link to view the YouTube video!