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A Geek's Tour Of North America?
PlanetThoughtful writes "Later this year I'm taking advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to backpack around the U.S. and Canada (Sept 2003 to whenever I have to come home again). Being a lifelong Australian geek (think of Steve Irwin and then stop, because I'm nothing like that and neither is anyone else, Steve Irwin included) I'm desperately curious: what would make it to the travel itinerary of Slashdot's all-time geek-tour of North America? Think electronics, architecture, astronomy, enlightenment! Think gadgets, bookstores, software, comics, The Library Of Congress, The Smithsonian, Wanting To See Really Amazing Things! Think travelling on a budget, then forget about that if it's a 'You Must See This Before You Die' sort of suggestion. And then stop thinking about these things, and actually tell me!"
You must go to graceland/Memphis. There are so many neat things to see there.. not really a techie mecca, but it will give you ideas on what to spend your money on... make a waterfall in your tv room!
You absoloutely have to come to the Bay Area, this is a technology haven, AND its a beautiful place in its own right. One of my most favorite places is the Golden Gate Bridge. Cross the bridge and head to the Sausilto side, then take a uturn right away, and you'll be heading back towards the bridge, but take the first right turn that goes up. And just keep going up, and up, and up and the top has one of the most spectacular views I've seen! Definitly don't miss it...
Be prepared to spend LOTS of time in this city. The museums alone can take weeks to really get through well. I'm kinda partial to Cleveland as well, but that's because i'm from there. The Rock Hall is quite interesting to go through, and the Great Lakes science center is next door.
You could spend a whole year just in Washington alone. But if you only have a short time there, go to the Air & Space Museum first. I've been there three times now (I'm from Canada, don't get to DC much) and every time it just blows my mind.
My law firm had a dinner there one evening last year in the great foyer hall, under all the oribters and rockets and planes, and we got hours of uninterrupted time in the museum. I've never been happier with my job, not ever.
Come visit Cedra Point ! The mecca of roller-coasters with many of the biggest ones in the world ! Very nerdy stuff.
Powells Books in Portland, OR. Allegedly the second largest bookstore in the world.
Alamo Drafthouse In Austin, Texas. It's been mentioned a couple times on /., but it's an awesome movie theater where you can sit & watch your movie while enjoying a cool one and a tasty alfredo chicken pizza. They are quite geek friendly there, what with the 802.11b access, and the frequent live performances from the Mr. Sinus crew. They are like Mystery Science Theater 3000, but with movies like Top Gun & the Terminator.
It's one of the coolest hands-on science museums out there. The fact that it's in San Francisco is an added bonus. The US also has some cool nature--the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and Yellostone should be on everyone's must see list.
If you go through South Dakota, wander through the badlands and then head up to Wall Drug and get your free glass of cold water.
If you can make it to Portland, Oregon, you simply have to go to Powell's Books. A full city block of bookstore, used and new on the shelf side by side, somewhere between 4 and 5 floors of books, books, books. Huge SF collection. Only bookstore I've ever been in where a greeter hands you a Map to help you find what you are looking for.
The food in the cafe is less than inspirational.
"Where am I going, and what am I doing in this handbasket?"
Great fun in Chicago, and often overlooked in lieu of NY or LA. You can also hit the Art Institute of Chicago and the Adler Planetarium, and why not go up in the Sears Tower while you're at it? There are a ton of fun, geek, cheap things to do in Chicago.
Who needs technology, we have beer and deep dish pizza!
Ever heard of CERN and a guy called Tim Berners-Lee?
Someone mentioned the Museum of Science and industry, but also check out the Sears Tower (where I'm writing from), and the Art Institute for a touch of culture.
Let me know if you need a Chicago tour guide!
- drfs_rich -- that, @yahoo.com
PS - Don't forget your towel!
There's not much left of the Computer Museum anymore - some of it moved over to the Museum of Science, but most of the good stuff was packed up and sent out to a new Computing History museum out in California. What's left of the Computer Museum at this point is pretty sad, as of the last time I was there a couple of years ago.
The facility itself closed in 1999, and the adjacent Children's Museum expanded into at least some of the space. It's pretty cool, too, however. And the Museum of Science is terrific.
Up here on the North Shore where I live, there's a pretty neat exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum up in Salem. A Chinese house from the provinces was dismantled and re-assembled inside the museum as an tourable exhibit. There's all kinds of stuff about construction techniques used, the design and the simple utility of the building that's documented as part of the whole exhibit. Not technology-related (except vaguely by 16th century standards), but tremendously geeky.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
If your in Ottawa you have to see this. It was decomissioned in the 90's and is now a museum.
The four level underground bunker would have housed government leaders, Gold, a radio station, and more in the event that we were ever attacked with nuclear weapons.
Check the site out it is very cool. I don't know anywhere elese you would be able to tour something similar.
I am a geek who grew up in the DC area.
... it has all sorts of signs around it reasuring visitors that it is not "radioactive." The natural history museum is pretty cool too ... just don't take a serious girlfriend there ... they have some MASSIVE diamonds for her to droool over, it makes anything you have/will give her seem kind of paltry. Check out: http://www.si.edu/museums/ for more info, and remember all the museums are free! Also, while in DC you could visit all the usual spots: the White House, the Washington penis^h^h^h^h^h monument, and several sundry memorials. Personally I have never tried going to the Library of Congress so I cannot recomend either way for or against it.
;).
I would highly recomend taking a day (or even a week) to work your way through all the smithsonian museums you are interested in. My favorite is the air and space museum which has such things as the Spirit of St. Louis and one of the planes that dropped an A-Bomb on Japan
Also, while in the dc area you could drive ~ 10 miles out to college park and see if you could sneak in to see D.root-servers.net (I think it is either in the Computer and Space Sciences building or the A. V. Williams Building) I went there for 4 years and never could get a straight answer as to where it is.
hmmm, maybe visiting all the DNS root servers would provide for an interesting place to start planning your trip
Thoughts on tech, Software Engineering, and stuff
Then hop across the country to New York and check out the best of the Barne's and Nobles, the one in downtown Manhattan. Not what you are thinking. This isn't just some big bookstore like every other big bookstore. This is the one that caters to the university students, and they have every textbook imaginable through the annexes. A very geeky way to spend your afternoon.
Then wander down to 13th and Broadway to see Forbidden Planet comics shop, or really any of these comic shops in New York to get your comic jones. While in New York, you might as well check out all the tourist things anyway, cuz you know you will. And when you do, being Aussie and all, you'll want to hit the bar scene at night. Lots of good bar-hopping in Manhattan in the East 70s on 2nd and 1st Avenues.
Computers, books, comics, beer -- what more could a geek ask for. Have fun, mate!
Well, If you want Geeksih how about this:
Palamar Telescope.
Then again there is Cal Tech in Pasadena.
Next you can stop at JPL.
There is also Mt. Wilson above Los Angeles.
Of course you could also goto Griffith Observatory but it's closed for a renovation.
All these are in the San Diego/Los Angeles area.
Heck, if you are into art/old books/old stuff there is the Getty.
And of course the Huntington with their copy of the Guttenburg bible.
We also have Edwards Airforce Base which is where the shuttle use to land, but they put on a heck of an air show.
And when traveling to the LA area you need to fly into the Burbank airport. They built the SR-71, the F117 and several other toys right there...
When you are done with Los Angeles area head on up to the San Fransisco area and check out the Valley. I'm sure a couple more people here can fill you in on those spots.
MAn I think I'm going to love looking at this thread!
Fantasy remains a human right; we make in our measure and in our derivative mode... -- JRR Tolkien
I haven't been there in a while, but if you find yourself in the Midwest (which has some beautiful places, so long as you avoid winter!), the $3 admission is definitely worth the stop. It's located in Chippewa Falls, WI.
There are so many cool things to look at in NYC, I don't even know where to start, but here are a few I kinda like:
Canal Street: the closest thing New York has to a technological flea market. All sorts of weird tech stores there -- but they're heavily industrial, not consumer-oriented. Motors, rotors, 4'x8' sheets of lexan, ancient keyboards for obsolete mainframe terminals, you name it. And, the Trader! Possibly one of the coolest army/navy stores ever. I once saw the heads up display and targeting system from a Huey Cobra on sale there for 1500.00. Foot-and-a-half wide IR spotlight and all, ready to mount to your VW!
Any of a number of museums around NYC, but some really good ones are:
* The metropolitan museum of art
* the museum of natural history and Hayden planetarium
* the museum of modern art
* (way, way uptown -- get a cab) The cloisters, which are an absolute MUST SEE. The man who built this museum actually acquired a number of real monasteries from Europe and flew them to New York stone by stone, rebuilding them into a huge complex which houses a collection of medaeval art that just has to be seen to be believed. During the summer, the cloisters for which this museum is named are in bloom, and you can hang out in them (cloisters are small meditation gardens that were maintained by monks, usually with an arrangement of pillars around a central clearing).
Check out the subways, but stick to the downtown and midtown areas. If you get off at West 4th station, you can hang out in the village! Lotsa fun. Great bars on Bleecker street. I mean GREAT.
I don't remember the exact location, but I think Sony maintains a technology visitor's center with all sorts of interesting displays. It should be in the phone book, I think it's in midtown.
Definitely check out a few cybercafes, and you'll want to see the huge recreation center they built on the West side, on 12th Avenue.
You should check out the statue of liberty if you can, and Ellis Island as well; the ferry rides are wonderful.
And, just to see what it's like, take the Staten Island Ferry. It's huge, weirdly colored, and a nice ride. Don't wander around Staten Island, though. It's, ah, what's the word I'm looking for? SEEDY. And, there's a chance you'll get mugged, especially later on in the day. Hang out on the dock until the Ferry goes back to Manhattan.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
The Bay area also has:
The best electronics store with the worst sales staff possible. But a hardware geek paradise. Don't ask the employees for help..the customers are more savvy.
Also the new Computer History Museum is great (Mountain View) at http://www.computerhistory.org/
The Tech Museum www.thetech.org for cool hands on science stuff.
The Winchester Mystery House (for a physical incarnation of eccentricity)
The MIT museum in Boston. I forget the exact location, I just know I was walking around MIT campus and stumbled across it. I'm sure any information source about MIT can point you at it. They have it set up in an old academic building. There was a section devoted to MIT "hacks" (things like the "breast of knowledge" made from the great dome, and other odd things like a cow and a cop car put up on top of the dome, as well as other stuff. But more impressively, there was a section devoted to the kinetic sculpture done by "this one guy" (sorry, I'm not doing him justice) that was all exceedingly cool. Basically they were all little mechanisms run either from small motors or hand cranks that did amusing, puzzling, and eventually basically useless stuff, but still looked interesting and were cool to play with and/or look at. I would highly recommend it.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Atlanta's Gold Club.
Blah.
The Sundowner in Niagara Falls, Ontario!
Last month I've been to the Bay Area for 10 days, and wondered where I could find "Geek Tour" recommendations. I even asked slashdot, but it haven't been posted. Anyway, I found the two following links, which have some good recomendations: Geek Tour and The Geek Guide to Sillicon Valley. Enjoy.
(1) Like nature? Big sky? Try Dolly Sods in West Virginia.
(2) Like caves? Not really into spelunking? Find out some local walk-in natural caves in your area. I know in Virginia, there are lots. You need to get permission from whatever farmer owns the land, and you need a Nat. Geological Survey map [try the nearest university library], and you need a friend.
That's it.
(3) Here's something really cool, one-in-a-world. If you like it, fine. If you don't, then skip it. But it's Tide Spring. There's a river that flows out of a spring, every *other* thirty minutes. Then for thirty minutes, it's dry. If you want to know where it is, ask Dr. Rudmin at the Physics department at James Madison University. By my memory, it's about 20 minutes to the west of Harrisonburg, VA.
(4) Go see a Shipbuilding company, or alternatively the space shuttle repair facility, or one of the coal strip mines. Any of those will have some really big equipment.
(5) Go fossil hunting. Contact the geology department at a local university, and find out what there is. We used to hunt trilobytes (read cockroach sculpture), and found a number of them.
(6) Tour CEBAF/TJNAF. Get someone who works there to show you around.
(7) Learn about the plant life you see, as you go. For example, wild parsnip can give you a bad sunburn, when you contact the leaves, and then are exposed to X-rays. But find out what you can eat, and can't, and then (1) find it (2) pick it (3) check it with someone who really does know (4) try it. Just not mushrooms. Although the False Morel contains rocket fuel, and is very geeky, it should be noted that it can cause a very painful drawn-out death via liver/kidney/renal failure.
(8) Spend a week or a month working on an old-order (Amish, mennonite, etc.) farm. Find out how food is really made. Then find out how we do such things as homogenize or pasteurize milk.
(9) Find an old hill-fort (the indians and earliest colonists both used to build 3-sided earthen forts) and use cheap architectural tools to map it out.
(10) Hunt for indian arrowheads and musketballs in an old battlefield.
There, that's ten. For a geek, I really think that the important part is that you come back with some interesting bit of information that you never would have found out before. For example, I just discovered in my town an old hill-fort, 75 feet by 100 feet, with a good kilometer of earthen wall in front of it. Nobody knew it was there: they assumed that the craters had been from WWII bombs. But it is there. (I should note that in this country, the size of W. Va, there are 450 others. It isn't unusual here.)
But I really think that finding out unusual stuff is extremely geeky.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
There are a lot of nerdy attactions in the San Francisco Bay Area, so you may want to go there.
Possibly the attraction of the greatest interest to the astronomically inclined in the SF Bay Area is the Lick Observatory, and in the summer months they allow the public to look through their 36" refracting and 40" reflecting telescopes.
Details here.
You might also want to see NRAO's Very Large Array between Datil and Socorro New Mexico. It is also out in the middle of nowhere, great for hiking.
Get yourself to Colorado Springs, CO and ask a local how to get to Manatou Springs. Your looking for the Barr Trailhead. Leave 9 hours for the ascent. There is no technical climbing here, but you will start at ~6000ft above sea level and end at 14,110ft - a mile and a half up and ~14 miles of walking.
There is a gift shop up there but you lowlanders won't be interested in the trinkets. You'll want to head straight to the back and into the EMS station for some oxygen. Then go have some food.
Bring cash. You won't have the daylight to hike back down to the car so you'll want to take the cog railway down. Unless you are into taking your time.
Just a couple of miles up the trailhead is a campground. Leave the RV, this is by foot only. You can stock up on water here.
Half way up, at the tree line, is an A-frame that will provide good shelter. There is a clean stream there that feeds the black flies and provides home to Giardia, so bring bug spray if you stay the night and filter or treat any water you take from the stream. There should be some firewood stacked nearby for the fireplace in the A-frame. It may be 90 F in the city but it will be cold at 10,000ft. (Pilots use oxygen at 10,000ft.)
From the A-frame you have completed the easy half of the hike. From here everything is uphill and rocky. The mountian looks like velvet from the city but the rocks are half the size of minivans. Watch for Yellow-Bellied Marmots. They are like giant ground squirrels. Cute and funny, the present no danger.
Eat some small snacks along the way, but don't give in to any hunger. Hypoxia is nothing to mess with and it's all the harder on a full stomach.
The last 200ft before summit is stepped - called the Golden Stairway. Stop halfway up these, turn around and sit down. This is the summit you are hoping for. The true summit with it's cog-railway and vehicle access is touristy and detracts from the elation and beauty of the days work. The people up there will ask if you hiked. You'll say yes and they will look at you funny. Just look back and smile. To them this is a check mark on a vacation list. To you it's a lifetime achievement to summit a Fourteener.
There are other trails that spur off of Barr Trail. If you wanted to make a week of the area this is a good way to do it.
Also in town (north end) is the Air Force Acadamy. Worth the tour. Peterson Air Force Base (east, near the airport) is also worth the tour if you can get it.
If you are planning a year ahead you can arrange to have a tour of Norad under Cheyenne Mountain, the next peak south of Pike's Peak. You'll see it coming in to town, it's the one with all the antennas on top.
If you want any info on the trail, what to look out for and where to find resources, contact the AdAmAn Club
--- "1.21 Jigawatts!" -Doc
Yes, shuttles land in Cape Canaveral. They very rarely land at Edwards Air Force Base in CA because of the price of flying the shuttle back to Florida.
Any Geek tour of America should include the following sites:
The NSA National Cryptologic Musuem
The INEEL nuclear labs in Idaho - Home of the world's first nuclear power generation facility.
Tour of the Hanford Site near Richland, Washington. Home of the worlds first large-scale nuclear reactor for production of weapons grade plutonium. Nuclear reactors, Plutonium Generation plants, lots of nuclear waste,... a must see!
Grand Coulee Dam, The largest hydroelectric dam in North America and one of the largest in the world.
If you're in the area you might also want to visit one of the various lower Dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers, which feature huge locks for transporting boats and barges above the dams.
If your into Natural Disasters and biological recovery, visit Mount St. Helens, the volcano that erupted in 1980.
If it happens to take you four days to hitchhike from Saginaw (Simon & Garfunkle reference) perhaps you can stop in Dearborn and check out The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village. Sure, its an historical preservationists nightmare, as most of the buildings in GV are completely out of context, and out of their original state or country for that matter. But you get to see Edison's orgininal lab and Webster's home where he wrote his dictionary. In the museum you can see Lincoln's Ford Theater chair and JFK's Dallas limo. And some really freakin' huge steam engines and locomotives.
What?
The Kennedy Space Center offers two bus tours:
:)
- The "regular" bus tour which rides around some launch pads, gets you within a mile of the Shuttle launch facility. 45-60 minutes long
- The "space geek" premium bus tour. My wife and I took this April of last year, and I recommend it. Costs an extra $25 each per person, but you get a couple out in the launch area, drive within 1/4 mile of the Shuttle launch pad, and several hundred feet from the giant Shuttle housing building (if you're lucky, you might see part of one of the shuttles itself). Those things are HUGE!
The people who take the premium tour are very geeky. When we saw the left rocket and the giant fuel canister of one of the shuttles, people were hooting and hollering and clawing all over the bus to get a glance. Like birders who saw the super endangered blue-tufft penguin for the first time. Very funny
The premium tour doesn't happen during times of heightened security, and only runs a few times a day, so plan ahead. It was closed from Sept 11 - Mid April 2002. My wife and I were on one of the first dozen tours of 2002.
If the tour is running that day, consider yourself lucky, and jump at the opportunity. It's worth it.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
...and White Sands Missile Range. There's the Missile Park with all sorts of missiles and related machinery. Next to it is a museum with lots of information, pictures, equipment, specimens (such as look-a-like Trinitium [sp?]), a model of the Trinity site, and more. You really get a feel for the progression of missile technology by visiting here.
The Trinity site is open twice a year. I read about it and it seems more like a tourist-trap fest than anything else.
The VLA is pretty cool. There's a museum explaining it, plus other telescopes (like the Very Large Baseline something or other), and a walking tour that goes by the base of a telescope, the computer room, and more.
Finally, there's Los Alamos. Nice museum there.
John Kerry is a Joke!
In Boston, check out the Computer History Museum
In Chicago
In the Bay Area there is
You've got everything. The archetecture of Chicago is amazingly diverse. The Sears Tower and Hancock building are so amazingly huge your mind will boggle. Standing next to the ST and looking up is a little bit like what I imagine being in the Total Perspective Vortex must be like. Then there's the Adler Planetarium, the Field museum, the Museum of Science and Industry...and you need to go to the Art Museum and examine the Seurat up close. AMAZING.
Cape Canaveral is on the East Coast of Florida. Edwards AFB in the South-central desert area of California. The shuttle usually lands at Cape Canaveral, and very rarely lands at Edwards (Hasn't for more then a decade, if I remember).
The shuttle has never landed at Vandenberg. They had a shuttle launch facility once, but Florida was cheaper. And no earthquakes to damage your nice buildings.
Vandenberg is located on the California Central Coast (North of Santa Barbara). They have a zillion rocket pads. I think more spacecraft have launched from Vandenberg then at Cape Canaveral, so there is quite a bit of history at Vandenberg.
I grew up near Vandenberg AFB, and in Boy Scouts got special tours of the Base. We were even allowed to camp on the Vandenberg grounds. I grew up thinking that everyone got to see rockets launching into space, got to touch an ICBM (No warhead), and had regular nuclear emergency drills (From Diablo Nuclear Power Plant) in the mid-80s.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Ok, like, don't go really far out of your way to do this. There's nothing really to see or do, other than walk the same streets that were walked by Thomas Edison, Nicola Tesla, Charles Stienmetz and Hans Bethe.
The same streets were also walked by Geo. Washington and LaFeyette. Stories such as The Last of the Mohicans and Drums Along the Mohawk took place here. It's smack dab in the middle of old colonial America.
And I guess thats part of the point too. Don't forget to see America while you're here. NY State isn't NY City. Get out into the millions of acres that are still forest inhabited by lions, bobcats and bears. Places where the American equivilent of Steve Irwin ( and Red Green) actually exist "in the wild."
See the country, not just the cities and bars.
KFG
My suggestion would be Cape Breton, which is on the east coast of Canada. You wouldn't want to come here unless it were the summer, because the museums aren't open until the summer. But you could visit the Alexander Grahm Bell museum (you know, they guy with the phone) and the Marconi Museum. In Glace Bay (small small harbour town, nicest people on the face of the earth) you can visit the site of the first wireless broadcasts across the atlantic, and you can also see where the first broadcast of live music ever took place from. And there's all kinds of fishing and mining museums, and the fishing culture and all. There's also the Cabbot trail, which is possibly the most scenic route around the island that you could imagine. That's just my $2.00 x 10^-2
Wow, I might just go to that. Sounds like a dream come true. :)
That reminds me of something else:
The Blue Man Group
http://www.blueman.com/
Basically, it's a group of really cool percussion, all orchestrated in amazingly unique and inventive ways. There's a lot of science in their music, which is quite fantastic - especially if you're into percussion at all.
As far as other things to not miss: the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum is a perrenial favorite of mine. If you're in NYC, I really enjoy the Museum of New York City (which chronicles the history of the place as it grew - interesting if you're into futuristic city building schemes such as archologies, etc.).
It's hard to tell what you're after, really. Cool architecture? I really enjoy going through the various tunnels connecting Jersey and Manhattan. I find it fascinating to see the train yards of Detroit from the air, which are right near the airport. There are also sights such as Mount Rushmore, which are traditional tourist sights, but are fairly marvelous in their creation, too.
Needles Highway, in the Black Hills of South Dakota is also an amazing place to drive about.
Then there's Vegas, for the Ricer in you: florescence.
The Golden Gate in San Franscisco is nifty.
Large buildings such as teh Empire State Building might also be nice, who knows.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Burning Man is fucking incredible. Tesla coils, 100-ft high fireballs, light scupture like you wouldn't believe, robots, dancing, fire. Lots of fun.
It also has it's downside:
- The desert is as harsh as any Austrailian Outback. Be sure to read the website about survival thoroughly.
- Many of the events are dangerous. This is part of the excitement, but people get hurt every year. There's usually a stupid/drunk/high person who dies every event. That said, it's a miracle that more people haven't died, or that their hasn't been a catastrophe killing a dozen people. Once again, part of the excitement.
- Don't go alone, or you're going to be really lonely. Go with a group. Despite the seemingly easy nature of BM, most people are pretentious as hell. They're also stoned off their gourd. Hard to make real friends that way.
- Bring props, tents, costumes, and stuff to dress up with. If you dress in 'normal' clothes, the pretentious people will pick on you.
- Be very aware of the sex, drugs and rock & roll nature of the event. 90% of the attendees are drunk or stoned half the time. Sex is rampant. Be VERY careful if you have a partner/spouse. I know more then one couple who got divorced after BM.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
You can't get to any of the good stuff, like the actual collections.
Are we all too grown up to mention a kid's museum?
As far as I am concerned, the Exploratorium is one of the best science museums in the country. It was started by Frank Oppenheimer - Communist and assistant to brother J. Robert on the Manhattan project. There is a show up currently on light and vision that is awesome. And The Tactile Dome is a crazy/fun experience.
Not only that, The Exploratorium is located at historically significant and beautiful location - the Palace of Fine Arts
Chemical enhancement is recommended....
aside from the typical california perks (weather, diversity, rad food, etc) this is where you can see lots of companies that make cool shit and museums that show cool shit. there are several hostels in the area, and public transportation is decent, although renting a car for a day or two might be advisable if you're trekking out to business park country. a quick google search turns up a decent article on geeky destinations around the valley, worth checking out for the list at the end. there are some guide sites out there tha cover lots of this stuff: let the big g be your friend.
you could do the super mega geeky thing, of course, and get pictures of yourself in front of company signs around they valley - we're riddled with them from san jose to san mateo. give corporate people a holler via email far enough ahead of time and you might even score a tour or the location of a museum. email SGI and ask if tours/demos are available for the Reality Center. visit fry's electronics for a geek-mecca epiphany (i suggest the cavenous san jose location); but beware, traveler, for to ask for help of a sales associate at fry's is to ask satan to take a little piece of your soul. this is also the time of your journey where you'll be asking "i wonder how much money i have, and how much it would cost to ship some hardware home..."
san francisco is beautiful and cool and yadda yadda; check out the museums, the parks and the nightlife. the exploratorium is big and WAY FREAKIN' COOL. make sure to get a good afternoon for just that and the nice area around it. check out the SFMOMA and the whole area around there - right across the street is the geeky-cool Sony Metreon with a sony store that has pretty much everything they carry in north america, plus big expensive video games and theaters. san francisco is also the terminal for many green tortoise bus tours that take you to beautiful parks around the west coast (quickly cementing your preference for it, trust me). they also have a hostel and buses that take you to seattle, portland and los angeles.
other things to do in california... rent a car and drive the coast on hwy 1 - if you can, from san francisco to los angeles! it is quite solidly some of the most beautiful coastline in the world, from smooth white beaches in the south to how-the-hell-did-they-wrap-a-road-around-that sharp rocks in the north. skip disneyland in southern california and go to six flags or universal studios. do all the usual touristy stuff, and check out venice beach, i'm sure you'll run into some crazy aussies there, plus there's a hostel nearby. visit a national park (do this on green tortoise, probably). get clam chowder at the jenner inn in jenner, ca. avoid the central valley (the "midwest" of the united states pretty much starts 60 miles inland california).
also, you'll be sorely disappointed to find that 99% of the country thinks that fosters is what all aussies drink. some well stocked british or hipster pubs might have VB, as well as the occasional aussie pub. bring your own marmite/vegemite/donteverconfuseitfornutellamite, because you australians are just freaky. no one knows what a "cone" is, we call them "bowls." if you're a crazy eastern aussie, like all the others i've met, people will probably love you and buy you drinks and tell you about the great fosters commercials you've been missing. the chicks (guys?) will dig you. if you're from the west... i don't know.
good luck!
- emilio
neurostyle dot net - it's all in your head
Not - Walt Disney World falls under the jurisdiction of the the Orange and Osceola County Sheriff's Offices, as well as the Florida Highway Patrol, and does not have its own police presence. Any crime or other incident that requires a police response gets reported just like anything else.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
I'd also strongly recommend the Banff/Lake Louise and Jasper areas in Alberta if you like mountain scenery and hiking.
Chicago also has some of the best architecture in the country, all packed into about three square miles. There's a boat tour of Chicago architecture that's so cool my girlfriend's grandmother didn't complain once the whole 3 1/2 hour tour- which made it worth the price alone. There are dozens of buildings by prominent architects in different styles covering the last hundred years or so. Also, in the west burbs there are half a dozen Frank Llyod Wright houses, which are also incredible. I could go on... But if you are interested in architecture, Chicago is THE place, on top of having four of the top six museums in the country.
Eagles may fly, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
More importantly, go to Silicon Valley and check out Halted Specialties (surplus electronics), Weird Stuff Warehouse, Fry's, the old HQ of Atari, Rooster T. Feathers on El Camino (today a comedy club, but formerly the site of Andy Capp's tavern, where the first PONG machine was rolled out), etc.
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
LOL... what is Burning Man... It's like explaining to a blind person what the color teal green is without using the colors blue and green.
However I have found one statement to be true for almost everyone you speak with in the community.
Burningman IS what you make it.
Is it a music festival? Maybe, there are a lot of neat bands out there and some really interesting musicians.
Is it a Crazy art festival with lots of nekkid people? Maybe, if you wish to be clothing optional yourself and see lots of neat art you can do that too!
It's much easier to answer what Burning Man is NOT.
Burning Man is NOT a festival where you go to see nekkid people, that's what Marty Gra is for.
Burning Man is NOT about buying and selling trinkits. Gifts have no price.
Burning Man is NOT a place where you can just show up and hope to pay X number of dollars to get a bed, some food and watch the whole thing. We WILL laugh and make fun of you at the gate if you try this, and we have.
Participate )'(
---- Fight to protect your right to keep and arm bears! ummmm... ya I think that's right....
Let me be the first to welcome you to Canada (considering you're not here yet, I _assume_ I'm the first at least :) ).
First things first. Canada is a REALLY BIG PLACE. You do not backpack across Canada. I know that Australia is a big place (a whole continent in fact...), and the US has a decent size, but Canada is in a whole different ballpark. Think of Australia. Now think of another 1/5 of Australia. Stick them together, and you get a bit closer to Canada's size. Canada is nearly 10 /million/ square kilometres of land, sprawling across 7 seperate time zones. It's a big place to walk across :).
As such, a good geek travel system to your trip would probably to take the train from coast to coast, getting off in major cities of interest.
Once you've figured out how to get around, where to go? Some good suggestions include (in no particular order, and probably leaving out all sorts of funky places in between...):
Well, that's what I can think of off
Hi,
Sorry. Not too many geek-related suggestions here. But, here are a few suggestions of nice things to see in Canada while you're there (off the top of my head):
- Vancouver, Victoria ==> many touristy things to see/do (nothing that specifically stands out as "geeky", but they're two cities well worth investigating)
- Banff and Jasper, British Columbia ==> very beautiful, be sure to ride up Sulphur Mountain in Banff, and between Banff & Jasper, visit the Columbia Ice Fields
- Niagara Falls, Ontario ==> A little touristy, but nice if it's your first time
- Drumheller, Alberta ==> Royal Tyrell museum, if you're into dinosaurs/paleontology
- Toronto, Ontario ==> CN Tower, Royal Ontario Museum, science centre (though the latter is geared more to younger audiences)
- Ottawa, Ontario ==> Parliament buildings, National Art Gallery
- Quebec city and Montreal ==> lots of interesting old architecture (especially Notre Dame Basilica, etc)
- a number of East-coast Canadian sites (la Roche Percee, for example, in Percee, Quebec), or Peggy's Cove, Newfoundland
There are many other places across Canada, without a doubt. These are just a few that came to me briefly.
Actually twice per year, once in April, and the next time is October 4, 2003....perfect for the backpacking tour...
Also worth checking out: the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia has the highest tides in the world (up to 16 meters!) -http://www.valleyweb.com/fundytides/ - and they've got a tidal power plant running there (in Annapolis Royal) that runs off the tides in both directions.
Can't beat the rockies for nature-geeking type activities during summer, or skiing in winter. Northern lights are a must-see if you haven't caught them before. If you're willing to go up as far as the Yukon/Alaska, you might catch a 24-hour sunset/sunrise party. I've always thought that'd be the perfect place for a demoparty or rave or something, because your body is totally fooled as to what time it is.
I'm of course biased towards my home state, but I'd recommend Kitt Peak in Arizona, you can actually take a tour inside the large solar observitory, and some of the smaller domes. Also Mt. Lemmon is very pretty during the spring, lots of nice desert wild flowers. The solar observitory is also facinating, very big, very neat.
Or if your more into history, go to the Lowell Observitory on Mars Hill in flagstaff, where Percival Lowell discovered pluto, and where he mapped the 'canals' of mars. Also a small meseum where you can vew all sorts of tech from astronomy of the period (1900s). And on certain nights you can do viewing through Lowells old telescope, the one her fist spotted Pluto through. Also very pretty during spring, up in the pines.
I'd also reccoment the Smithsonian, of course, both the Natural History museum, and the Air and Space museum. And the Chicago Museum of Science and Technology.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Another great location, depending on your particular interests, is the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park area. Until December 31, 2003, they have an exhibit of skulls that is amazing. A friend of mine saw it recently, and he said it is very impressive. I hope to go see it as well.
-Z
You might also want to see NRAO's Very Large Array between Datil and Socorro New Mexico. It is also out in the middle of nowhere, great for hiking.
Well... great for driving, maybe. From Socorro, you've got 30 miles of serious desert before the Village of Magdalena, then close to thirty more before you hit the VLA.
People do die out here, folks, from walking in the desert without enough water.
Remember, Trinity Site and the VLA are only open to the public during certain times of the year, mostly pretty hot ones, so if you come out here check the durned schedules online first. And on your way through Socorro, stop off at Martha's Black Dog (a coffeeshop) and say hello.
I don't know enough about what Canada has to offer, so this is limited to the U.S.
When folks around here say they're "going backpacking" they usually mean they'll be hiking in the wildnerness with just what they can carry on their back. Such trips rarely include visits to bookstores, musea, and other geek centers. Such trips are best in mountainous areas -- I can't imagine backpacking in North Dakota, for instance -- and can be done on a pretty low daily budget (but make sure you invest in high quality boots, tents, etc.). Some folks have mentioned the Appalachian Trail, which spans from Vermont to Georgia. On the other side of the country are lots of swell backpacking areas from the Rocky Mountains west. The national parks in Utah and Arizona (Canyonlands, Staircase, Zion, Grand Canyon, etc.) are especially popular for such trips, though if you've spent much time in the outback you may be sick of such a climate (though the terrain here is more impressive). Almost any national park or national forest is a good backpacking experience, and entrance fees (especially if you get a year-long pass) are astonishingly cheap.
Unfortunately, you'll be arriving at the tail end of good backpacking season. Beginning in late September you can't trust in a lack of snow anywhere inland in the northern two thirds of the country, though places like southern Arizona are quite enjoyable. Unless you're staying until late next spring, you should hit any outdoor areas in the north first and work your way south.
Unfortunatey, U.S. public transportaion leaves much to be desired. There's nothing like a Eurail pass, and Amtrak stops mostly in larger cities, which is sad, because trains played such a large part in building America. Greyhound has excellent coverage and fairly reasonable rates, but if you're going to a lot of places, your pocketbook could take a big hit. Finally, hitchhiking across the country is probably no longer a viable plan, but it may be invaluable in a pinch. Hitchhikers are, generally, assumed to be dangerous until proven otherwise. On the plus side, most cities have a bus system decent enough for tourists to enjoy the town.
Unless you have access to a car, my advice is to pick a handfull of (relatively small) areas you want to visit and then figure out what all the great things to do there are.
Some geeky things in my neck of the woods (Boulder, Colorado): National Institute of Standards and Technology (home of the most accurate clock in this hemisphere) is right next to a branch of National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association and a beautiful two-hour mountain hike away from the National Center for Atmospheric Research. They've all got free tours and such, though I haven't taken one since security got tightened after 9/11/01. About 10 miles south of town is the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and more beautiful mountain hike areas. 30 miles or so to the north west is Rocky Mountain National Park, which gets pretty cold in September and later. Denver, CO has Forney Museum of Tranportation and also the nation's only major airport built in the last 20 years, so it's full of neat engineering bits.
Your post sounds quite ambitious, and there's no way you can really experience all of what's neat in America in even a year, so find some of it and enjoy the hell out of that! Cheerio!
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Fremont Ohio is one of the many small towns in America. It is the home of Ruthford B Hayes and Roger Young. My personal favorite place to visit there is Rupps Comics and Cards, one of the nicest comic book stores. Not huge, but it draws signings from the biggests artists due to the personality of the owner, Chris Rupp.