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Geek Christmas Ideas
Its that time of year again kids, and shopping for geeks is, as any non-geek is happy to tell me, a royal pain in the arse. So Slashdot is here to help. Let's talk Geek Christmas ideas. Post your best gift ideas. Try to include links and prices. And try to moderate the good ones. That way we all send families the URL to this story instead of making a list.
Oh sure, it may not be exciting like that vibrating doll you've always wanted, but EVERYBODY wants books. For example:
:) Books can be cheap or expensive, visit a local used book shop for a great bargain, (for those of us who don't have much money to buy people gifts)
:)
W. Richard Steven's networking tomes! (Always classics - puts shakespeare to shame) The cryptonomicon, the "Alvin Maker" series by Orson Scott Card, The Art Of Computer Programming by Donald Knuth, The Camel Book, (well OK insert ALL O'Reilly titles here except those books on NT adminstration) The Dragonbone Chair series by Tad Williams and on and on and on.
Books are better than candy, (and sweeter) last longer than clothes or geek toys, never get obsoleted by books with faster processors, books get you chicks, (if they don't, then you were looking for the wrong kind of chick anyway
Do you know any geek that doesn't like to read? Does that person use linux? I don't have any idea how on earth somebody could be using linux without at least not *minding* reading. I shudder to think how many HOWTOs I've read.
So, let's review. Books are awesome, they can be quite cheap, they last a long time, they get you chicks, they convey righteous knowledge without the associated eye strain from reading too many Gutenberg e-texts, they make you look thin, and if you eat them, they're high in fiber. Geeks love getting them, and some can even be had cheaply! Even new, they're a bargain. Imagine paying a measly $80.00 to get one volume of Donald Knuth. You can bet your ass that the time he spent in getting that information for himself and recording it was worth a lot more than $80.00 by several factors of 10. But you get it for $80.00. What a steal.
I am geek, and I WANT BOOKS FOR CHRISTMAS DAMMIT. I'm also a geek, and I'll be giving quite a few books for christmas. Of course all of this assumes that your'e into that whole christian thing - I'm sure there are quite a few of us who aren't but just go along with the cultural charade. But if that charade gets me books, bring it on!
Feed your need to read. (Don't I sound like a library commercial now) That's what I want for Christmas, and that's what I'm going to give for christmas. The only crappy thing about books is that it's very hard to give them to people in a package where it's not totally obvious that they're getting a book.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
I'm the first to suggest it, so you all have to obey. Everyone reading this chips in a pound (or dollar, but more than a lira), and you can buy me one of these...
/. It's dog slow today for some reason.
1. Andover Shares. Lots of 'em.
2. Aibo. Actually, two so they can play football.
3. Twiddler
4. World peace
5. A trip to Mars (though I'll settle for Earth orbit)
6. A faster connection to
7. A job at nasa. Imagine; there are people out there with the titles of Space Commander and Planetary Protection Officer. I want to be Supreme Commander of the Solar System.
8. There's more, but no-one but my girlfriend will find out what.
This is slightly offtopic, but I'm sure very helpful for some of the geeks/geek's families out there.. these are some good coupon codes for different online stores.
office max.com has a $20 off a purchaseo f$20 deal, click Here and use the code YES1CFNH2H
Barnes and Nobel (bn.com) has these $10 off $10 codes: CZVRCH7, CBN2222, COSHARE, and CTREATS.
Amazon.com has these $10 off $25: FIRSTGIFT and AMZNPRESENT2
CDNow has these $10 off $14.99 codes: here and here
Last but not lease (see links below for more) Buy.com has $20 off for first time customers. Click Here to get it.
If you're looking for other coupon sites visit these places:
My Coupons.com Message board
Funtasia's Coupons
Another coupon message board
#include <beer.h>
I just looked at the NFB (National Film Board of Canada http://www.nfb.ca) website.
In their online shopping section they've got collections of some AMAZING award winning animation shorts. Most people that grew up here in the Great White North will remember ones like these:
How Dinosaurs Learned to Fly
The Cat Came Back
The Log Drivers Waltz
and the all time classic
The Sweater
They also have "Bob's Birthday", the short that launched the Bob and Margaret series.
Not especially geeky stuff, but very high quality.
------- Mark
Edmund Scientifics is the ultimate geek toy store as far as my family is concerned... I can't even be specific about which items because they have SO MUCH cool stuff. Knock yourselves out.
A safe bet for any toy-lovin' geek remains the Lego Mindstorms kit and accessories. The basic kit is a bit pricey ($219 US), but well worth it. And if your geek has the basic kit already, there are expansion packs ($49.99 US), an upgrade ($24.95 US), additional RCX ($129.99 US), remote controls ($19.99) and touch, light, temperature and rotation sensors ($9.99 - $19.99 US) as well as additional motors ($18.25 US).
All these elements are available at Lego World Shop.
If your geek is the kind of geek who has all the Lego Mindstorms stuff already, there's a book from O'Reilly on Mindstorms ($24.95 US), which will provide advanced tips for design and programming. It was reviewed on Slashdot.
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
Lots of good ideas so far.
1) I like the Books suggestion but it needs to be a gift certificate. The last thing I want is Aunt Alice getting me the Internet for Dummies guide because I'm "into computers". Besides, none of my gift givers know my technical library and it'll still change between now and Christmas.
2) Lego Mindstorms. Which part of "some assembly required" don't you understand?
3) Any hardware that comes with it's own cryogenic cooling. We can deduct the cost off the house heating bill.
4) any neat hardware toy that only has beta drivers available for it. Open source preferred.
5) Any hardware that requires opening the case several times for optimum installation. If we break something else in setting it up, we get a free upgrade! 8^)
Take for instance what I asked for at my birthday, when my mom was bugging me--
Ties. (Star Wars, Cirque du Soleil, Wolverine, etc.)
However, I'm in the process of changing jobs, so I don't know if I'll be required to wear a tie at my next job, so this isn't on my list.
When in doubt, the best choice are 'gift cards', from somewhere you know the person shops--
Best Buy, Tower Records, etc.
Of course, one of the biggest problems with buying things over the internet is the problem with returns. I have no problem ordering stuff for myself over the internet, but if I have even the slightest thought that someone may possibly want to return something, chances are, I'll order through Border Books or Barnes and Noble over Amazon.
So, to restate the whole point -- there is no 'one perfect gift'. (even cash may not qualify, if there's someone who never leaves the house, and so, would need for you to handle direct deposit instead, so they could make use of it)
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Hmmm, if we're dreaming, I have a few ideas....
I'll stay away from the usual "HARDWARE, HARDWARE, MORE HARDWARE!!!" wish list. I'm sure that one's going to be quite busy. ;) These are more...experiential.
1) Zero-G Parabolic Flight.
Sure, you have to go to Star City, Russia to do 'em (along with floating around in an old Il-76), but that's a small price to pay to float around in a non-chemically-induced experience.
Price: $4980
2) All-expense paid holiday party at the Tech Museum of Innovation, San Jose CA. :)
Where else can you pilot an MMU toward a satellite with a beer in your hand? Play with robots! See how all this nifty computer stuff gets made in the factory! They also have good catering.
Cost? Don't ask....
3) Dogfights. Aerobatics. Nomex.
Try a visit to Air Combat USA -- normally I'd recommend another company, but I hear they had a mishap. Anyway, Air Combat can hook you up with a parachute, a helmet, and an opponent in another Real Airplane, for your shootin' pleasure. The bullets are simulated, but the adrenaline is real. Sweet.
Price: Starting at $795 per person...
4) Liberty Bell 7 Restoration Crew T-Shirt ;)
Yes, they're aerospace oriented. I'm a space geek.Don't go forgetting the Right Stuff during the holidays... Anyone can find a huge boat under a couple thousand feet of water. It takes real skill to find a space capsule in over ten thousand feet of water over an uncertain surface area.
Cost: $25
A human being is the best computer available...the only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor. - Wernher v
Dear Santa,
First of all, thanks for all of the wonderful presents that you gave me last year. They were all appreciated, but I had a few problems:
1 - Every geek likes more RAM, but you brought me a SIMM instead of a DIMM. It wasn't much use to me, so I traded it for a six-pack and a pizza. Please don't bring me any memory this year.
2 - The CD full of screen savers was nice, but I don't run Windows 95. Maybe you should skip software this year, also.
3 - The copy of Windows 98 was broken. When I installed it, it kept crashing. I called Microsoft and they said this was perfectly normal. Steer clear of this company if you don't mind.
4 - I love video games as much as the next geek, but I had difficulty installing 'Postman III: Stamp This!' under Linux. See #2.
5 - The 56k modem didn't work. It said 'Winmodem' on the box, but I still feel like I lost.
6 - Do you have any idea how many promotional mouse pads I already have? I've taken to stuffing them into the walls to sound-proof my house.
Maybe this year you should pretend I am a normal person, and bring me some socks, or a membership in the beer of the month club, or a book (not computer related!), or a shoe polisher, or just a George Forman grill.
Merry Christmas, and a Happy Y2K.
Victorinox, makers of the original Swiss Army Knife, have vome out with two new models they are call the Cyber Tool. They come in a 27 and 34 blade model. I just got mine. (my birthday present to myself). I won't go into detail here, but you can see it and read the specs here. Corrado Cutlery also had it USD$5.00 cheaper than anyone else selling them over the web. Availability is tight, they are probably backordered (Mine was, for about two weeks). The other distinctive feature about the CT is that the covers are not opaque red plastic, but the IMac style transparent red. They look very cool!
We're through being cool! Eliminate the ninnies and the twits! -Devo
I have a suggestion for people buying for geeks... DONT BUY US TECHNOLOGY. I know, it sounds counter intuitive. The fact is, we know a lot more about it than most other people buying for us. Most times people have tried to buy me hardware, or tech, it was either the wrong thing, wrong size, or just didn't work. SO, if you want to buy tech, get an EXACT description of it first. However, if you decided to ignore my sage advice, Here are the things every geek wantes this year: * Portable MP3 players. We gotta have `em. * Better digital cameras * CD writers * Always need more hard disk space... Outsude of technology, there are some things even geeks enjoy: * Books. Obviously. * Gift certificates. Being such practical minded people, geeks take NO offense at being given a gift certificate. Its practical, safe, and thoughtful. Expecially to Best Buy, where we can get what we want. We're going to be spending there anyway. * Junk food. (really.) *Imported, Italian motorcycles.
The slashdot article: http://slashdot.org/articles/99 /10/07/1442218.shtml
Features:
See the Cybertool.
Corrado Cutlery on Yahoo has the Cybertool for $60.00 US + shipping:
http://store.yahoo.com/corra docutlery/cybertool34.html
slashdot broke my sig
Forget "A CRAY", how about Cray? Price is dropping ... :*)
"One Ring to rule them all,
One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all,
And in the darkness bind them."
Sterling silver: US$89
Gold: US$590
Mithril: Currently on back order.
http://www.badalijewelry.com/tolkien.htm
Dealcatcher.com has a large database of deals like this.
http://www.despair.com/demotivators/year20cal.h
$14.95, with volume discounts available.
I received this as an early Christmas present, and have since bought a dozen for other friends.
The 12 new "Demotivational poster" designs are really funny and beautiful (esp. "Burnout" and "Idiocy"), but even cooler are the 120+ historical dates of idiocy, despair and failure in this calendar. I can't tell you how hard I laughed at some of the weird-ass dates they included in this thing.
You be the judge. Here are my favorites:
Keep in mind that there are 10x as many dates in this thing as I've included above- and they are all hysterical or cool or interesting. I just picked my geekier favorites.
Everyone keeps trying to steal mine- so I know its a keeper. Check it out.
Smirkleton.
http://www.ruputer.com/ is the home page for a Seiko made watch that runs a flavor of DOS, and has a publicly available SDK based on gcc. The truly geeky will just decode the Japanese home page, but if you want it the easy way: http://www.ruputer.com/english/ is the english language version of the site, and their U.S. distributer is http://www.onhandpc.com/ The ruputer has a speaker, and an IrDA compatible infrared port.
Now I know you live at the South Pole and you probably have penguins coming out your ears and need to get rid of them - I bet they make a cheap gift - but please, please not this year ...... mind you I hear that Bill Gates guy ... he really likes penguins, trust me .... and he's got a real big house right on the water ....
PS: we'd like another kitty
An AudioRequest would be cool, though a PC preconfigured to do the same thing would be even cooler.
The ArcadePC MAME Cabinet is pretty sweet. So is the Arcade2000 cabinet.
Everybody loves BRAINS. And MORE BRAINS!!
For the audiophile in your life, perhaps you should consider an $80 steel brick or a $20 green pen.
Oh, I would also like someone to find me a missile silo home, but it has to be within ten miles of San Francisco (the Presidio or the Marin Headlands would be acceptable locations.)
But I need the feedback loop that tells me someone has already bought something off my list when I impulse buy it while I'm out geeking some real world store. Besides, you think my (gawd I hope it isn't another tie) relatives are online.