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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!
http://www.burningman.com
you will not be disappointed
Twin Falls, Idaho is a technoplogy SINKHOLE! in fact, it might be a good idea to avoid Idaho completely, unless you're interested in Micron, the company behind Crucial Memory, which is in Boise, Idaho. but stay AWAY from Twin Falls! there's nothing but HICKS here!
grey wolf
LET FORTRAN DIE!
Of course, there are many, many other places to see, but I'm a space program nut and highly recommend seeing NASA, and do your best to time your arrival during a launch (of course, they launch may not happen, but you can check in "Florida Today" to see when the next launch is due).
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...
At Washington DC, it's the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. See them now before they go away completely.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
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.
What you want to see if Fry's Electronics. They have them in Texas and California and a few states in between. Imagine something the size of that big desert you guys call Australia, and imagine it full of electronics at a decent price. It's not quite so big as the great aussie desert, I guess, but Fry's is huge. I'm not ashamed to admit I shed tears of joy on my first visit to this mecca of geekdom.
when I find myself you'll be the first to know.
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.
Why is it that Australians seem touchy about Steve Irwin?
Many Americans like his show (myself included), but that doesn't mean that we think of Steve Irwin as the prototypical Australian, no more than Paul Hogan, or Russel Crowe, etc.
I would hate for other to judge all Americans by, say, George W. Bush.
-----
How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?
Come visit Cedra Point ! The mecca of roller-coasters with many of the biggest ones in the world ! Very nerdy stuff.
Whatever you do, do NOT, I repeat, do NOT forget to bring along the most important piece of equipment.
...
a towel!
Game Overdrive - Gaming News
Plus nice beaches on the Cape, although it is kind of crowded sometimes. Whale watching is fun too.
-- ac at work
Powells Books in Portland, OR. Allegedly the second largest bookstore in the world.
That is always a favorite of mine. But if you just look for what you are talking about, you will be missing most of America's real treasures. The Grand Canyon, Yosemite park (however you spell it). Niagra Falls, Blue Ridge mountains etc. So many places and so little time!
Oh and on the techie side, don't forget NASA in Houston.
-- Many men would appreciate a woman's mind more if they could fondle it
In Portland, you need to visit Powell's Bookstore. It is huge (a couple of city blocks in downtown) and has all kinds of cheap used books to read on your travels. Portland is also generally a cool place to visit, and if you're in the Northwest anyway it would be a good time.
the All-American Geek tour begins and ends at a single, broadband-connected computer.
His own.
Oh, with a year's supply of microwave meals.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
A must-go. Even though now it is a shadow of its former self and a lot of abandoned buildings mark its high-water mark during the dot-com boom.
Intel has a museum in Santa Clara, The Tech museum in San Jose is a must-visit, and the Apple Store in Cupertino is a place people who aren't Apple staff can visit to pay respects to the first true success story of the area.
Mod this post -1 Obvious. ^_~
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
on I-94 in Detroit. 'nuff said.
creation science book
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.
Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash
35 Broad St
Red Bank, NJ
May I suggest the many fine establishments located in Nevada.
Very geek friendly.
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.
Two definitely geeky things to check out in New Mexico.
The Very Large Array - Gigantic Radio Astronomy installation
The Trinity Test Site. Only open a few times a year, your chance to see where the first atomic bomb was tested.
'ARRGH! Pirate Designers of the Internet, we be!'
Although you don't have to visit there, make sure you give the people at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump a call while you're going through Alberta. The area is neat in a National Park kinda way, but it's great to have someone answer the phone with "Head smashed in, how may I help you?".
Plus you might learn something new about Native Americans.
I read the internet for the articles.
There's a small but very cool technology museum at MIT that even most people in Boston don't seem to know about. It has all kinds of very neat things, like an exhibit about MIT's research into robotic walking, an amazing collection of moving sculptures by Arthur Ganson, a very good hologram exhibit, and a lot more.
I don't know if you're looking for this sort of thing, but it was personally for me one of the best museum visits ever.
It's one of the most technologically packed areas in the USA. The whole park's monitored and run very efficiently. It's also a whole lot of fun. But last time I went, I was more interested in how much effort goes into making sure that paying customers are set up for the best time that is possible in a family-friendly environment. (Bring your own drugs, sadly they don't supply EVERYTHING!) The Disney Corporation owns such a vast amount of land that you're on their property before you even realize that you've entered Disney World.
Also, check out Downtown Disney, they have an excellent arcade there, where you pay ~$15 and you can play until it closes. Plus you can design and ride this cool virtual rollercoaster that rivals the real coasters there, if you make a point of making a very extreme virtual coaster. The guys manning the area can give you some pointers. Make sure you hit Epcot and MGM, you can speed through the Magic Kingdom (too much little kid stuff).
Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, Yosemite are some of the real highlights. They're not geek spots, but DAMN, they're gorgeous.
c fm so you can hit the ones you'll be near.
See also http://www.nps.gov/. Looks like they have a good interactive map at http://data2.itc.nps.gov/parksearch/state/usamap.
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.
At least, this is what my friends in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco tell me. It must be true, because they're the elite of America.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
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?"
backpacking has about as little to do with hiking through the wilderness as television ratings have to do with quality programming.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
The NRAO in Greenbank, WV is an interesting visit if you're in the area. (I'm thinking about the Hiking part, and there is some great hiking in that area).
It has several HUGE antennas for radio astronomy, and they give the tour in an old 1950s diesel bus. Modern cars can only come within a certain distance, as they have too many electronics, and mess up the observations.
Very cool, although short, tour.
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.
Also remember Portland is one of the most un-wired cities around. Check out PersonalTelCo for info and hotspots.
Definately check out Powells as the parent post mentioned. But make sure you check Powell's Technical Bookstore located 8 blocks or so away. Computer stuff, math stuf, history of science stuff, just crazy fun nerdy stuff. Must see.
Take a look at Wacky Willys too. Just plain nerdy weird stuff. Like McGyver's play house.
Check out Hawthorne street for some good hostels and also interesting and typical portland life. Fun shops, good eats, interesting people.
And if you're here in the summer time, a little secret- the women around here are extremely easy to look at.
Above all, if you're backpacking around Oregon, welcome to one of the coolest outdoor states around. Take your pick, and within 2-3 hours (drive) you got mountains, ocean, forests, desert, and just some fun adventure potential.
And since I'm here, let me mention that if you're interested at all in white water kayaking, check out pdxkayaker.org. An incrediblely fun groups of alcoholics with a kayaking problem.
Jason
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.
...is located at 2066 Crist Avenue, Los Altos, CA
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 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
Well, everyone should read that book, but you in particular might enjoy it, since it's chock full of bizarre touristy attractions that you might enjoy.
Boston, Massachusetts and its environs are filled with incredibly geeky things. Boston is the home of the Free Software Foundation, Ximian, and OSDN. Just across the river, Cambridge is the home of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, undeniably a geek Mecca. Next door to MIT is Harvard University (as the MIT t-shirts say, "Harvard: Because not everybody can get in to MIT"). Plus we've got the Big Dig, which despite its infamy for budget overruns, corruption, and defacement of the city landscape, is also home to some incredibly geeky marvels of engineering! And of course, many other geeks of note live and work in and around Boston.
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.
We have a lot of strip clubs. I suggest you "Chez Pare". There's some fine honeys up in that place.
Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.
okay here's the skinny on a few southern towns from an American who travels city to city a few years at a time:
;)
Oklahoma - Route 66 (old dusty cross country road that holds mystique for car buffs who love gas gussling classics) runs through Oklahoma City, home of the Shopping Cart, and the Parking Meter. Also, AWACS, Seagate (CHEAP HUGE HARDDRIVES!!!), fossils GALORE in the eastern mountain ranges, and more astronauts come from Oklahoma, so I suppose you could go see their graves or something..
Texas - If you can just transport yourself to Austin Texas, somehow, it is well worth it. There you will find plenty of cyber cafes, vineyards, water sports (either variety), climbing, great food, wi-fi hot spots galore, a surviving tech industry, independent arts, the first known photograph and a gutenburg bible (univ. texas), live music, a large hacker community, and 6th street. I don't think there's much else in the rest of Texas.
Louisiana - Skip the rest of it and go straight to New Orleans. There you find beer. I can't remember much else of wh.. oh yes, history, jazz, culture, archaic rules and venues, colorful plants, smelly smells and.. wow.. just about a bit of everything. One can truly escape in New Orleans. Beware, as equipment tends to get wet and pots tend to get dirty in NO. Also, check out Grand Isle State Park.. it looks and smells like the garden of eden. its just an hour or so south of new orleans. The beach is beautful, you can camp there, and there's even lots of porpoise swimming about.
California - Skip everything and go straight to San Diego. Hit the 5 north or south to the 8.. head west to the beaches.. follow it into Ocean Beach via the Sunset cliffs blvd exit. Ocean Beach is the only place in san diego that time forgot. There is a mixed demographic makeup, rich in home owning ex and current hippies, along with every other facet of live available, including street life. There's even a wi-fi star bucks a block from the beach. just beware, ob'ceans HATE starbucks. You might get dirty looks on your way to the surf. Try the Hoodads for burger and a beer, and then head downtown to the San Diego Computer History museum. After that get some cheap wine (it's california) and settle into a fireworks show from Sea World.
-p
** "It's not my job to stand between the people talking to me, and the ones listening to me." -- Pego the Jerk
I've actually been to Holland several times, but this was before there was a slashdot. I know Cmdr Taco would hate having tons of people knocking on his door everyday, but it would be cool for about 15 seconds to see him in action. Then it would be time to visit the wooden shoe factory.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
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
"gadgets, bookstores, software, comics,"
Chuck that stuff and cut loose. TAKE A VACATION FROM BEING A GEEK!
Sure the Smithsonian etc. wouuld be great, but I would suggest a non geek vacation... who knows, maybe you'll find something more enjoyable than a 20 hour codeing marathon or a weekend of watching SciFi network.
Go to Yellowstone National Park in September when all the school kids and boy scout troops are gone.
Spend some time biking in Moab (Southern Utah). While you're their check out Zion, Bryce and Arches National Park then jaunt over to Colorado and check out Mesa Verde NP.
Check out local festivals in the midwest. I know in my state ever other town seems to have a "Strawberry/Corn/Dairy/Watermellon days" frestival.
Find out if you like fly fishing, hikeing, rowing, swimming, running, boating, water skiing, or basket weaving. GO CLIMB A TREE!
Read some Thoreau at Walden Pond.
Go to Canada and visit their national parks (Banff is an INTERNATIONAL treasure). Go to some the the AWESOME festivals in Edmonton.
But please... turn off you cell phone. If I hear it ring while I'm watching a wolf pack in near Yellowstone this fall I'll be very upset.
~Z
The greatest thing a geek who likes the outdoors can do is go Geocaching!
:-)
You go to the website, enter a ZIP code, or city, or similar, and you'll get a list of hidden "geocaches." You put some coordinates into your GPSr, print out a map (and sometimes some hints) from the website, and see if you can find one. From experience, I can tell you that it's pretty easy to get within 10 feet of the cache . . . it's those last 10 feet that are tough.
It's incredibly fun, and here in my hometown of Los Angeles there is a geocache at Cal Tech, so you can take out two geeky birds with one stone. (It's easy to spot the geeky birds -- they have tape on their beaks.)
Nearly all the monuments and museums in Washington DC are free to the public. Some require waiting in line for tickets, but again those tickets are generally free, they're just used to limit the number of visitors per day. Plan to spend at least a few full days in the DC area, to see everything. Natural and American History museums, various Art museums, war memorials, the Air and Space museum, Air and Space II out in Dulles, VA (a 30-45 minute drive from downtown DC), and much, much more. Northern VA also has the Spy Museum, which might be fun if you're into cryptography and the like. I think they even have a hands-on exhibit of the Enigma machine.
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.
Book your reservation now, before its too late!!
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
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?
Punkin' Chunkin' festival in delware around Halloween every year. Get to see pneumatic cannons launch pumpkins close to a mile and marvel at the physics behind the Centrifugal devices. Gives new meaning to BFG!
Rice University Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology- "Engineering the freaks of tomorrow"
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
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.
How to have the Burning Man experience from the comfort of your own home:
Pay an escort of your affectional preference subset to not bathe for five days, cover themselves in glitter, dust, and sunscreen, wear a skanky neon wig, dance close naked, then say they have a lover back home at the end of the night.
Tear down your house. Put it in a truck. Drive 10 hours in any direction. Put the house back together. Invite everyone you meet to come over and party. When everyone leaves, follow them back to their homes, drink all their booze, and break things.
Buy a new set of expensive camping gear. Break it.
Stack all your fans in one corner of your living room. Put on your most fabulous outfit. Turn the fans on full blast. Dump a vacuum cleaner bag in front of them.
Pitch your tent next to the wall of speakers in a crowded, noisy club. Go to sleep. Wake up 2 hours later in a 110+ degree tent.
Only use the toilet in a house that is at least 3 blocks away. Drain all the water from the toilet. Only flush it every 4 days. Hide all the toilet paper.
Visit a restaurant and pay them to let you alternate lying in the walk-in freezer and sitting in the oven.
Don't sleep for 5 days. Take a wide variety of hallucinogenic/emotion altering drugs. Pick a fight with your boyfriend/girlfriend.
Cut, burn, electrocute, bruise, and sunburn various parts of your body. Forget how you did it. Don't go to a doctor.
Buy a new pair of favorite shoes. Throw one shoe away.
Spend a whole year rummaging through thrift stores for the perfect, most outrageous costume. Forget to pack it.
Listen to music you hate for 168 hours straight, or until you think you are going to scream. Scream. Realize you'll love the music for the rest of your life.
Get so drunk you can't recognize your own house. Walk slowly around the block for 5 hours.
Sprinkle dirty sand in all your food.
Mail $200 to the Reno casino of your choice.
Go to a museum. Find one of Salvador Dali's more disturbing but beautiful paintings. Climb inside it.
Spend thousands of dollars on a deeply personal art work. Hide it in a funhouse on the edge of the city. Blow it up.
Set up a DJ system downwind of a three alarm fire. Play a short loop of drum'n'bass until the embers are cold.
Have a 3 a.m. soul baring conversation with a drag nun in platforms, a crocodile, and Bugs Bunny. Be unable to tell if you're hallucinating.
Your first stop is San Francisco's Exploratorium, an absolutely amazing hands-on museum dedicated to "science, art, and human perception." Exhibits range from the fun and simple to the complex and educational. Look at live chicken embryos; build a catenary arch; mess with your depth perception; stick your (gloved) hand into a mulch pit to feel the heat; explore crystal formation; spin like a top! Nothing beats this place - my wife and I even had our wedding reception there.
Your second stop will be the main branch of the New York Pubilc Library, a gorgeous 19th/early 20th century building that simply looks like a library should. If anyone gives you trouble, this is the right place to use the line, "Back off man - I'm a scientist."
*******
"What good is science if no one gets hurt?!" - Professor Chromedome
The Royal Tyrell Museum of Paleontology in Drumheller, Alberta, Canada is one of the most exceptional museums I have ever been to. It truly feels like you are stepping back millions of years, and is a world-class facility.
While you're out there, check out the Banff-Jasper corridor of the Rocky Mountains, particularly the Columbia Icefields and Johnston Canyon. Spectacular geographic features of North America can be found there, and the glaciers date back to the last ice age!
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
Make sure to stop at the Halton County Radial Railway Museum -- this place is rather amazing. They have a private track loop and operate electric rail cars (ex TTC and ex Inter Urban Transit) as well as the restoration shops and the most amazing collection of partially complete cars for parts. You're free to wander around, take a few rides on some vintage technology, and marvel at the fact that Ontario had a commuter rail system that was just as expansive as the current diesel one almost a hundred years ago that ran from clean, renewable hydro electric power from Niagara Falls. Well worth the drive to Rockwood (don't stop in Acton, the leather is cheap and shoddy and the people are creepy). Since you're backpacking, there is decent camping about 5kms from the site (look on the website's map for Rockwood Conservation Area) and there is a commuter bus that runs along Hwy 7 from Toronto to Guelph stopping fairly often at the conservation area entrance.
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
So, let me see if I've got this right. You have an indeterminant amount of time to spend in the US. You can go anywhere you want to go and do anything you want to do. And you want to spend it in computer museums, big bookstores, and the Smithsonian? Granted, these are all neat places to visit, but why do you want to geek up a perfectly good vacation?
My advice? Ditch the nerd stuff and do something outside.
Learn to kayak in Colorado.
Hike in one of the last beautiful places on Earth.
Play in the water at a beautiful beach in Florida.
Or go to one of the best beaches in Mexico.
Slide around on snow on purpose.
Go to one of the last truly wild places.
There is so much to see in North America. Please don't spend your whole trip at Frys.
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog, its too dark to read.
Vulcan Alberta
h tm
http://www.town.vulcan.ab.ca/
The Worlds First UFO landing pad
http://members.mcsnet.ca/chamber/ufolanding.
Particle Accelerator in Vancouver B.C.
http://www.triumf.ca/
the CN Tower
http://www.cntower.ca/
thats all for now
--meh--
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
While in Arizona you can check the Titan missile museum, which has the Titan intercontinantal missiles of the cold war, and in Oracle you can visit the biosphere 2 lab. Just for real nerds.
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.
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.
We WILL laugh and make fun of you at the gate if you try this, and we have.
Who was it that said burning man is for pretentious faggots? Oh god. After this post I am going to end up getting another one of these:
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Burning Man is where all the real assholes go every year to hone their skills at being even bigger, greater, assholes.
Like everything else in this god forsaken country it's something that was good when it started, but then got ruined by pretentious suburbanites. It's so fucked up that the only original people there are the ones wearing normal clothes. Everyone else is just a sad representation of each other. It's an fuck fest of the worst kind of American herd mentality you'll ever see.
Don't go.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
A geek's tour just would not be complete without a visit to this place.
United States Courthouse
Room 3035
280 South First Street
San Jose, CA 95113-3099
This is the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California, formerly known as Silicon Valley. Spend a day here and learn all about the new economy the hard way.
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
I'm not kidding about being the BMG: there are camps that'll airbrush you blue, or any other color you want. There are percussive sculpture for you to play. You can animate yourself with el-wire (what they used for that animated desert). You can dance under strobelights.
But beyond that you can be the "Blue Women with Flamethrowers" group. You can be "the entirely blue Tiki bar towed by a lobster" group. Like another poster said, Burning Man is whatever you want it to be. Sure, you can be boring and do the drugs and drunk thing, but I think this is less common that others have said- you'd miss out on so much.
A beautiful redwood forest 30 minutes north of the Golden Gate Bridge. Easily one of the most beautiful spots on earth.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
Rip the rear bumper off your rented RV
Find out the sewage drainage line on your rented RV has a leak in it.
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.
Strand Books in New York City is really huge, which is impressive being in the middle of of a big city. It's a used bookstore with decend prices and a gigantic selection, including old books and a nice supply of art picture books.
City Lights in San Francisco is a great bookstore with a lot of history during the Beat Poet era.
If you're heading all over, I'd recommend both, as I'd recommend both San Francisco and New York to anyone visiting the United States.
I toured WWVH years back... big fun looking at the GIANT tubes that provide transmission power as well as the HUGE monopole antennas for the lower frequencies. I presume that WWV in Colorado Springs, CO has a similar tour.
"You might as well get your son a ticket to hell as give him a five string banjo." -unknown minister
Where else can you get drunk and fight Klingons and Romulans legally?
"I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to the universe. It hates me, you know"
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.