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Although... Some LARPers build some very nice equipment. Maybe some folks had modded their Nerf guns so they looked more realistic - repainted them or something.

True. There are some toy guns that might appear dangerous at first sight. A toy gun should always look like a toy. I got one of these and it's pretty fun to play with, and it looks like a toy. Although this version of the same gun looks really cool, it's too ambiguous for me to be comfortable with, and someone with an untrained eye could get scared at first sight.

Although... Some LARPers build some very nice equipment. Maybe some folks had modded their Nerf guns so they looked more realistic - repainted them or something.

True. There are some toy guns that might appear dangerous at first sight. A toy gun should always look like a toy. I got one of these and it's pretty fun to play with, and it looks like a toy. Although this version of the same gun looks really cool, it's too ambiguous for me to be comfortable with, and someone with an untrained eye could get scared at first sight.

Doesn't every cube worker know that there's a wide range of special products for 'cube warfare' available? ;)

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/warfare/

with a Laser Guided Missile Launcher. You might need to do a bit of hacking to get it to figure when to fire and where to aim, but that should be fairly straightforward. I think this is the simplest solution to your problem.

The Annoy-a-tron generates a short (but very annoying, hence the name) beep every few minutes. Your unsuspecting target will have a hard time 'timing' the location of the sound because the beeps will vary in intervals ranging from 2 to 8 minutes. The 2kHz sound is generically annoying enough, but if you really really want to aggravate somebody, select the 12 kHz sound. Trust us. The higher frequency and slight 'electronic noise' built into that soundbyte will make a full-grown Admin wonder where his packets are.

I didn't know. http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/rc/9df0/

I was expecting something more like this: http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/generic/9080/

...link to our favorite retailer: http://www.thinkgeek.com/caffeine/accessories/5a65/

Well, it's not under the skin, but this USB Watch from ThinkGeek, http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/watches/9771/, is the next best thing. 2G encrypted with TrueCrypt on your wrist with you all the time. And it even tells you what time it is! What more could you want?

Or even better, buy a PowerSquid.

Ok, 12 rotating power outlets and surge protection for $120.00 US....

Or I could just get 3 of these: http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/travelpower/81f6/

for less than that, still have surge protection, and get 3 MORE outlets to work with.

How the hell does this garbage rate Slashdot front page status?

The Power Squid or PowerSquid Surge are better, since you can get the same amount of outlets for cheaper, and they can be plugged into larger wall-warts easier. Even better is that you can often get the Power Squid for free from ThinkGeek through the geekpoints program.

This /. advertisement is just silly, this isn't news, and is barely stuff that matters.

The Power Squid or PowerSquid Surge are better, since you can get the same amount of outlets for cheaper, and they can be plugged into larger wall-warts easier. Even better is that you can often get the Power Squid for free from ThinkGeek through the geekpoints program.

This /. advertisement is just silly, this isn't news, and is barely stuff that matters.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/security/91a2/
excerpt

The Mandylion Password Manager is a secure, convenient and cost-effective device built specifically for generating and protecting your passwords. Tested and matured for 3 years in real warfare environments, it is now available for commercial use. Built as a small keyring device, it can securely manage up to 50 logins, safe combinations, security codes, etc. that can be individually generated to meet the composition requirements of any login policy. Passwords can be any length up to 14 characters or namespaces. It can create passwords based on your settings for various criteria (such as length, alpha-numeric, special characters, etc.) and prompt you to change your passwords at preset time intervals (90 days, 1 year, etc.) Also, all data is stored in permanent memory, so it is unaffected by battery life or loss of power. Tamper-resistant features have been employed both inside and out, making the device a superior choice to storing passwords on your PDA, PC or worse, writing them down.

EarthLED Light Bulbs which are more efficient, last longer, use less energy, and are greener to produce than even CFLs (which are greener than incans).

Yes!

Yes! I own two (would own more but see price). etc. etc. Read the page, it answers your questions. They are dimmable, etc. etc.

No, but this will: http://www.thinkgeek.com/caffeine/candy/6b77/



What? No one yet wrote a comment about how In soviet russia cables untangle you?

Good luck getting geeks to move to Barksdale Louisiana - nearest major town is Shreveport, and it's about 3 hours from Dallas, 5-6 from New Orleans. They may be building a big shiny building, but if they want to hire geeks, they'd have a lot better luck locating this at Livermore Labs or Moffett Field or somewhere around Boston or NYC.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/frustrations/31fb/

Look, IPv6 is all well and good, but apart from typing 1:: for localhost, how am I going remember my outside IP?

Oh, and the line "There's no place like 1::" just don't sound right. http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/generic/5d6a/

Well, I'm a scientist and I don't seem to have any burning desire to do any harm to people,... unless, of course, you steal my prized Red Swingline Stapler. Then, I might just have set the building on fire,... [walks away, mumbling more obscenities about Mr. Lumberg],. . . ;-)

Anyone have one of these r2d2 voice-activated r2d2 robots yet?

More importantly, has anyone ever hacked one?

Taken from thinkgeek's http://www.thinkgeek.com/about-us/

A month or so later we were Slashdotted. Promptly thereafter, ThinkGeek was acquired by the good folks at Andover.Net who through an acquisition and a couple of name changes, is now known as SourceForge, Inc. So we're part of a cool gaggle of sites including slashdot.org, sourceforge.net, linux.com, and freshmeat.net. Pretty nice company to be amongst, eh? We're pretty proud of it!

So yeah, go to thinkgeek and support slashdot

I've been meaning to order one of these suckers. Shamelessly ripped from thinkgeek's page:

You mean like the laser keyboard, on a larger display scale?

True, it's possible. But -- without being too obvious here -- most changes don't result in the end of society. I'm expecting something far less dramatic. There'll be a gap, more money will be put into achieving tech goals, and it will essentially buy a good attitude out of people who hate their jobs. I'm personally more concerned with the failings of science and proper education in the US.

And if it all does go downhill, at least I've already ordered my pocketknife with built in flint: http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/tools/7f02/

Win!

They can sound better if you have a good turntable with a good cartridge, a good preamp and amp, and good speakers that are capable of resolving the differences between digital and analog audio.

The ones I laugh at are the ones who get a USB turntable because they don't like digital sound and want the analog experiance.

They get better sound simply because most vinyl isn't in the loudness war to kill the dynamic range. A CD with about 96 DB of dynamic range should sould better than the about 65 DB dynamic range of a turntable. Unfortunately the advantage of the CD format is often engineered out to sound louder.

The irony is a USB analog turntable outputs a digital signal on the USB cable. Often the sample rate is the same as a CD. Even more often they are sold to the clueless without even listing the sample rate or bits. Quick, can you tell me if this is an 8 bit, 16 bit, 24 bit, sample size at 16K, 44.1, 48, 96, 128 Ksamples/sec?
http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/mp3/90a0/
They advertise it on a geek website without posting the important specs.. Guys, what's the wow & flutter and rumble levels?

For me, I'm sticking to my 1980's moving coil linear track turntable with a good reciever plugged into a quality mixer (to set levels) which is then fed into a pro USB a/d converter. I capture at 96KHZ 24bit and downconvert to CD quality to burn CD's. It works for me.

Here is another USB turntable with no specs listed.
http://www.amazon.com/Ion-iTTUSB-Turntable-USB-Record/dp/B000BUEMOO
and another;
http://www.amazon.com/Numark-TTUSB-Turntable-with-USB/dp/B000G3FNVM

Here is one that is reviewed and the A/D stats are known..
The sound quality was as good as can be expected from old, scratchy records. The built-in audio card records 16-bit at 44.1khz
http://reviews.cnet.com/turntables/stanton-t-90-usb/4505-7860_7-32417457.html
Wow, no better than CD quality...

Some of these turntables get poor marks for their conversion to digital quality.
"The TTUSB10 as a Turntable
After my disappointing experience with the TTUSB10 USB turntable's recorded sound quality, I plugged it into the phono input in my stereo, hoping for some sweeter sounds. This time around, the TTUSB10 did not let me down: smooth, rich audio came through the speakers and my test headphones without a trace of the harsh digital noise that plagued my test recordings. It would be a bit of a waste of money just to buy it as a standard turntable, but if nothing else, the TTUSB10 makes for an excellent unit for playing your vinyl music collection on your stereo system."
  http://www.everythingusb.com/ion_ttusb10_usb_turntable_13231.html

I think the Gizmodo guy was actually using this. The one you linked to requires you to hold mute first, wait for it to mute the TV so it's 'programmed' for it, and THEN you can turn it off. With this one, all you do hold down the button until every TV around you turns off.

Which actually in itself responds to everyone who's asking why he didn't have the coertesy of turning it back on. I don't believe it has that ability to begin with.

I think the Gizmodo guy was actually using this. The one you linked to requires you to hold mute first, wait for it to mute the TV so it's 'programmed' for it, and THEN you can turn it off. With this one, all you do hold down the button until every TV around you turns off.

Which actually in itself responds to everyone who's asking why he didn't have the coertesy of turning it back on. I don't believe it has that ability to begin with.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/9a06/
Given away for free if you buy enough things at ThinkGeek, endless fun for places where the TV just doesn't go off:
(Doctors office, Best Buy, Automotive repair, hospital, etc.).

The real questions are: How did he get caught, and why didn't he do the courtesy of turning them back on?

You used "either" which does not grammatically work with "ten." It does grammatically work with "two" and 10 in binary is "two."

It's a common joke, see for example:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/frustrations/5aa9/

The most humorous thing was a day later finding out she had her lighter in her jacket pocket the entire flight home, so even on the connecting flight up from Florida it was on her and she didn't know and no one checked for it.

What kind of lighter was it? As long as it was not a Torch Lighter TSA has allowed lighters since April of last year so unless she flew before then it would not have been a problem. You can read more about TSA's lighter guidelines here and here

Off-topic: for anyone that has played with the Q20, what are some interesting things you got it too guess? It doesn't seem to do well with risque things (think of the children!). I'll give you a hint ... Q20 guessed 'toy'. My reply: Yes, sometimes that is how they are marketed.

Wireless Extension Cords

OMG, Ponies!!!

I know certain other geeks who run around looking for unsecured wifi access ports and use them as they are driving. its weird how many people do not have a secure access point. one of my friends even has a tie that buzzes when he is around an unsecured access point...its rather creepy and funny at the same time. also, for those in the superspy business, http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/watches/9313/ has a watch that can detect wifi points...perfect for the discrete wifi thief

Not turning any surface into a speaker.

For that you need something like these speakers from Thinkgeek, which stick on to any surface and make that surface the speaker.

He would have been much better off just planting an Annoy-o-Tron in the server room somewhere before leaving.

Why a cellphone? so that everyone can see who's calling me? I see a lot of other cool possibilities, perhaps a new market for personal portable media.

What about adding this projector to portable videoplayers/camera's or a (video) iPod (iPhone as well)
Or build it into a car / (portable) gps navigation system so you can use your cars windscreen as a transparent heads up display!
Another cool application could be a replacement of the virtual laser keyboard creating a virtual optimus with dynamic keys :)

I would love to try out that bluetooth laser keyboard.

So why don't you try it out and report back to us on it?

they don't need to use real SAM's just one of these
SkyTag
http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/tracker.shtml

You want to combine this with a projected keyboard (http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/8193/). And possibly a wiimote-based multitouch interface instead of a mouse. Add a bit of cackling and you'll look like a mad wizard!

You know what, I think the 21st century has arrived at last!

Or one of those laser keyboards. Like this. http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/8193/ Get some reasonably powerful device, add the two of those and maybe some kind of location sensing finger ring for a mouse... voilà, now you have a justifiable reason for Linux on your cell phone. Not that you needed one.

While I'm sure the original price tag will be steep, this product could actually have some pretty sweet applications.

Imagine a singular device, the size of a cell phone, that could be a wholly working portable computer. You set it down and it projects a screen wherever you need it. Imagine that projector with something like this, and some sort of mouse replacement, and you'd have all your IO needs on the go. Instead of being restricted to tiny screens and keyboards, your portable device could be competition for your main desktop (which seems to be the route that consumer electronics are heading).

I know I can't wait for the day when I carry around one wallet sized (or smaller) device that is an audio player, a cell phone, and feature complete computer, capable of being used for the same applications my laptop is for, but with far less weight and size. Hopefully with devices like this, I won't have to wait until I'm near dead to enjoy such luxuries.

ThinkGeek.com has been selling RFID blocking wallets and passport holders for a while. I already own the wallet. It contains a Faraday cage that blocks signals from reading RFID credit cards or in my case my building security card. I've been putting off getting a passport, but I will most likely need on so I will be making yet another purchase from ThinkGeek.com. They already get most of my extra money every month.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/brain/whereisit.cgi?t=RFID&x=0&y=0

I have a couple major ways to get music onto my computer. The first is to buy (or steal) Compact Discs (or those old vinyl records if I had something to play them with) and copy the music onto my computer from there. The second is to download the music, which could be either legally purchased or found being given away illegally by someone. And now the music industry tells me the first option is out.

Given the trends in the way music is listened to these days, which involves a spectrum from listening to huge collections stored on a computer to listening via small portable devices, the compact disk itself, for more and more people, is nothing more than the "purchase medium" in much the same way most commercial software is legally purchased. But if the music industry says "no" to using the Compact Disc to get our music, then I guess we have to quit buying those. Of course there will be some exceptions such as those available from places like CD Baby and Magnatune.

If the music industry thinks I'm going to listen to my music by actually playing the CD on some big clunky mechanical device, they are totally out of touch. But then, we've known that for a few years, already. It seems the music industry itself will drive the CD into oblivion even before the public was going to.

I have a couple major ways to get music onto my computer. The first is to buy (or steal) Compact Discs (or those old vinyl records if I had something to play them with) and copy the music onto my computer from there. The second is to download the music, which could be either legally purchased or found being given away illegally by someone. And now the music industry tells me the first option is out.

Given the trends in the way music is listened to these days, which involves a spectrum from listening to huge collections stored on a computer to listening via small portable devices, the compact disk itself, for more and more people, is nothing more than the "purchase medium" in much the same way most commercial software is legally purchased. But if the music industry says "no" to using the Compact Disc to get our music, then I guess we have to quit buying those. Of course there will be some exceptions such as those available from places like CD Baby and Magnatune.

If the music industry thinks I'm going to listen to my music by actually playing the CD on some big clunky mechanical device, they are totally out of touch. But then, we've known that for a few years, already. It seems the music industry itself will drive the CD into oblivion even before the public was going to.

USB would be nice, so I could use my George Foreman USB iGrill in flight.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/looflirpa/igrill.shtml