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Non-Geeky Gifts for Tech Geeks
An anonymous reader writes "FiringSquad.com has just put out another holiday gift guide. They've gathered together, along with the usual video cards and whatnot, several non-techie toys with a techie slant. With the exception of an mp3 and a digital camera, everything else they recommend is stuff I haven't seen on any list before. They have things ranging from $10 to $7500. My favorite has to be the Blendtec blender. 2 horsepower motor. Turns hockey pucks into mulch."
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Gee, that helps!
get all the bitz? You know how it goes, there's always a piece of rock hard crap in the bottom somewhere!
http://www.gibby.net.au
While I have no problems with them recommending an iPod - they're okay machines and all - I do sort of wonder why they would make it on their gift list, which would presumably to suggest things one *hasn't* already considered. Can anyone honestly say the thought of giving an mp3 player to someone hasn't occurred to them?
I was also sort of wondering about the subs - nice recommendations, I must say, but doesn't it make something of an awkward gift? Maybe it's more of a "stuff we thought was neato" list. Certainly the cutlery discussion seemed to wend that way, though even non-chefs could appreciate the novelty of owning a knife that ridiculously fine.
I am the one true god. However, as an atheist, I don't believe in myself. I guess I have a self-esteem problem.
Great, another web-site that requires you to enable cookies in order to get beyond the advertising. Yet not a word of warning as to all the ways enabling cookies allows anti-consumer 'services' like doubleclick to track your every move and build up all kinds of privacy invasive databases.
Ordinarily, I would just use a smart cookie manager like CookieSafe but this is suppossed to be a place I can send my non-geek friends to -- people who can't go all ubergeek and know the ins and outs of cookie abuse and cookie counter-measures.
A bit pricey, no? $300 for a flashlight? A $3600 capaccino machine?
Maybe I'm just poor or cheap, but most of these are outrageous. Who is their target audience? Fortune 500 execs?
...is a list with less than 5 page views.
These are nice and all that. But the best gift this season, at least for me, is Ground School. Gaining my private pilots license is a dream, and the ground school part is a great way to begin. It's relatively cheap compared to the hours of flight time. And it allows for the dreamer (me) to decide quickly whether or not they have the commitment to the dream or not.
www.jmagar.com
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The author is impressed with the expense of the items he has chosen and not their utility. Couldn't get through the whole article because the f**kin ads were just too annoying.
... But does it run Linux so we can develop a Beowulf of Soviet Russian Blender based overlords. Step 3: Profit!
Yeah, I really have nothing to do at work at the moment.
Some good gifts:
* GUI C++ Programming Guide
* Hex/socket set
* Leatherman
* Vernier caliper
* Dremel or Rotozip set
If you were a true geek you wouldn't be so concerned with the blender. The barista in a box over there is a gift from the gods, as coffee is the nectar of the gods, as all true geeks know. I wish that I had $3,600 for a coffee maker that is that simple to use, yet squirts out such delicious looking coffee.
Non-geeky gifts for geeks? Why bother? They're geeks for a reason - they like geeky stuff! It's like getting a pair of socks for xmas... you don't want them, you don't need them, and you'd rather something that plugs into your PC. USB socks, there's a gift...
I have to say that Blendtec blender is just unbelievable!
Take a look for yourself:
http://www.willitblend.com/
it's full of ads!
ACK NAK RST
Yet another website that destroys perfectly playable videos by wrapping them in crappy proprietary Flash.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Yeah, that's fine if you intend to get your daily fibre from nearby trees. If you'd prefer something with a bit more taste a Hinari Genie can grind, blend and juice.
Deleted
Really, if you are a gamer and are quite content with the virtual shoot em up world contained on a screen, don't bother, move on to the next post about the latest videocard or whatever, but if you aren't afraid to go out to the big room with the big yellow light and desire a little FPS action off screen, you could do worse than to drop a hint or gift yourself with this thing. Checkout this vid! The Xtrema, the machine, and one guy who can handle it *well*.
3 0308006678
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-67504586
A big bottle of J&B (Justerini & Brooks) Scotch rare 12 years old whisky.
Simple enough!!
The subs and the Core 2 Duo are fairly geeky things to want, I would think.
... Unicomp keyboards with buckling spring technology -- the true heirs of the IBM Model M. Because squishy plastic junk just won't do.
Circumcision is child abuse.
...is what I'd like to see. Well, if not the glass jug then at least the base part with motor and electronics.
Yet another god-damned
One
Item
Per
Page
List
You know what? I don't think I can stand the internet anymore.
sic transit gloria mundi
THIS is a blender.
I just saw a blocked flash ad. Clicked "Skip ad", and got to another blocked flash ad. Clicked "Skip ad" again. Still the same page. I don't mind ads on websites. Full-page ads that require flash, javascript and cookies to get past, and I do draw the line.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Every item on that list was geeky--most just didn't happen to be geeky in a computer-centric fashion.
A few points here:
1) Pod espresso machines are NEVER as good as you can make with really fresh, properly ground coffee, in a good machine, with some significant practice. At the same time, they're probably not as bad as most people are likely to get, since people are lazy. On the other hand, espresso geekery is absolutely first-rate.
2) Knife hardness != knife sharpness.
3) Subwoofers should be purchased with the speakers, and should be designed together.
4) Actually, I'm going to stop. This was just a crappy article all 'round.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
2)Maglight is the Microsoft of flashlights - they use lawsuits to prevent a LOT of competition
Maglite has principles - they manufacture their lights in the United States because they haven't been seduced by the "globalization" trap. They use every tool available to keep some asian company from creating low-quality look-alikes of Maglite's designs. This is simple business sense - no company will last for long if they let a competitor destroy their reputation with "cheap shit".
Traitors have taken over the U.S. government, which has enabled the present war on the middle class (look for a torrent of Noam Chomsky's Class War talk). The housing bubble has already popped, and an old-fashioned economic collapse is scheduled for 2007. America will be forced to re-industrialize, and if you want to have a job early in the reconstruction, I suggest that you buy a maglite now, on general principle.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
Kitchen appliances/gadgets seem to go over well with geeks and non-geeks alike. They're certainly popular with the kitchen hackers in our house.
Also, Heston Blumenthal and other proponents of molecular gastronomy have taken cooking to a seriously geeky level. Heston Blumenthal has written several books that would make excellent gifts to get non-geeks to question how they think about cooking.
you can always use it to blend your unwanted presents.
Sex toys but realized they'd be used in some hacked gadget or other.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
Amen! I'm always amused at "gift guides" that are composed of items that are hundreds of dollars. Just how the hell much money do these people think my family is worth at Christmas? A really expensive Christmas gift to me is around $50. If I were married, I'd probably spring for $100 or so for my wife.
Yet I see guides like this, hear radio ads telling me to by diamonds that cost hundreds or thousands of dollars, or even to do something stupid like buy a new car for my hypothetical wife. A new car? Do these people honestly think I would make such a huge decision without the knowledge, full acceptance, and blessing of my wife?
Am I just the world's biggest cheapskate?
Wait, no, I think I know what's going on here. They want me to think I'm a cheapskate if I don't buy hundreds of dollars worth of crap for my family for Christmas.
Well, I'm sorry, the joke's on them. I think that along with the lesser-expensive gifts I give to my family, a really nice one is not begging them for money the rest of the year because I'd be in debt beyond my imagination for burning through money like that. And call me crazy, but I also think that a really nice gift for one's spouse instead of earrings or a new car that you don't need is—gasp!—a realistic plan for retiring some day so that we can spend wonderful decades together without having to work our asses off for useless junk like, well, a $300 flashlight or a $3600 cappuccino maker!
Honestly, $300 for a fucking flashlight? If someone game me one of those, I wouldn't be grateful, I'd be extremely condescending. "You spend $300 for a fucking flashlight? Did you win the lottery, or are you just too damned stupid to know that you can get a really good one at Target for less than $10?"
What scares this geek is that there are obviously people out there who actually buy this junk. What's doubly scary is that they're pitching it to my friends and family as if I actually would want any of this crap. God, I hope they're not that stupid.
would anyone use a 1.5 kW bomb-proof blender in a home kitchen? I mean, the ability to disintegrate solid objects is fun, but most foodstuffs succumb well enough to a non-overkill appliance. I don't use a chainsaw to slice bread, either.
link to single page print-ready version, so you don't have to click through page after page of minimal text and maximal ads.
e nt_section=Features&fs_article_id=2069
http://www.firingsquad.com/print_article.asp?curr
-Styopa
parent is astroturf
Well, you could try leeners.com make-your-own hotsauce kits. The glorius capascin molecule is certainly a geek icon, and really, who doesn't like hotsauce? It's my gift de-jour this holliday season
Are you kidding? I was a star. I could blend a hockey puck at any speed. 30,000 RPM, 32,000 RPM, you name it. 31... But I couldn't go on living once I found out what the mulch was for.
What for?Kitty litter.
... and then they built the supercollider.
These people have done no research and have no idea of what's good in every category. How could they mention point and shoot cameras without even touching on Leica's entry into the market. This is Leica people, as in best lenses in the world. They talk about speakers as if all that's important is a subwoofer, this list is not for slashdot, it's for suckers.
gourmand vs. gourmet:
For the gourmand on your list who's not into wine, a good alternative is the gift of precision cutlery.
In other words:
For the person who is devoted to eating and drinking to excess on your list who's not into wine, a good alternative is the gift of precision cutlery.
For those Geeks who dont take showers or change their clothes daily.
The only flashlight you will ever need to buy
For those of you who want variety...
It doesn't matter that your $50k in debt--as long as you can make the minimum monthly payment!
What national debt problem?
"Flashlight technology over the past few years has shifted towards LEDs and with complex voltage regulation circuitry. This means that your lights will be much more efficient than before, and make the most of your batteries." Wish I had that long lasting flashlight in Half Life 2. Then again $300??
These things are great as backup if you have an additional device (like a camera) that uses SD cards. Here's another one. Are there other makers of these thumb drive-sized USB adapter/readers?
Even cooler would be a micro-SD card inside an SD adapter inside a thumb drive reader - matryoshka-ish!
The scary part is that not only are many people that stupid, but that they also vote too!
Libertas in infinitum