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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.
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!
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."
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
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.
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.
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."
In Boston, check out the Computer History Museum
In Chicago
In the Bay Area there is
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."
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
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.