by Garth Sundem
• Zenith: Very similar to GE.
SINUS INFECTION, BEGONE!
When mired in a sinus infection, haven't you wondered about the possibility of attaching a small-craft bilge pump to your face and sucking everything free? It turns out your face comes pre-equipped with a natural bilge pump—the vomer bone—which acts as the keystone of your sinus system. Unfortunately, the vomer bone is buried under the cartilage of your septum, making it a bit difficult to operate the pump handle. Instead, alternately push your tongue to the top of your mouth and press with one finger between your eyebrows. Keep at it. After twenty seconds, your congestion will loosen and stream out your nose (keep a bowl or other receptacle handy).
YE OLDE WEB ACRONYMS
• CGI: The Common Gateway Interface processes data you submit, allowing you to interact with Web content. Commonly used in search boxes.
• FTP: File Transfer Protocol allows you to quickly transfer large files from one computer to another (commonly used to upload material to the Web).
• HTML: Hypertext Markup Language is the common programming language behind the Web pages you view (as interpreted by your browser).
• IP Address: Your Internet Protocol address is your computer's unique online ID number.
• ISP: Internet Service Providers sling connections via modem.
• RSS Feed: Embedding a site's Really Simple Syndication feed on your site allows you to access your target site's content from the comfort of your own page. It also alerts you immediately to new content and is thus commonly used to monitor news sites.
• TCP/IP: The software that spawned the Internet.
• URL: Every Web page has a unique Uniform Resource Locator, which includes its domain name.
• XML: Watered down HTML, useful for databases and other sites that require standardized pieces that reappear in many places.
THE WORLDS OF NORSE MYTHOLOGY
Much of what we know of Norse mythology comes from the works of Snorri Sturluson (1178-1241). And we thought Snorri was that uncle who tried to get kids to drink aquavit at holiday gatherings or the bass player on the Stan and Doug Yust Go Nuts at Christmas album. Tolkien, eat your heart out.
• Asgard: land of the Æsir or spirits/gods.
• Vanaheimr: land of the Vanir, or minor gods (also a Norwegian metal band).
• Midgard: land of the humans (literally “middle enclosure,” or to Tolkien “Middle-earth”).
• Muspelheim: realm of fire, the fire giants, and their master Sutr, whom you would not like to meet in a dark alley or, say, during Ragnarok, when Sutr will rush forth to burn almost everything, including the gods.
• Niflheim: land of ice and mist. Later, Niflheim became known as Hel, the resting place for those who had not died heroic deaths (also a Swedish speed-metal band).
• Álfheimr: world of the elves. Álfheimr is also the ancient name of the Swedish province now known as Bohuslän, where during the summer months elves can still be seen harvesting the region's official flower, the wild honeysuckle.
• Svartálfaheim: the underground home of the Norse dwarfs. In Svartálfaheim, dwarfs combine the sound of a cat's footfall, a woman's beard, the roots of a mountain, the sinews of a bear, the breath of a fish, and the spittle of a bird to craft the silken gleipnir that binds the mighty wolf Fenrisulfr (who, at Ragnarok, will burst free of the gleipnir to devour Odin).
• Jötunheimr: world of the giants. Pyrmr, king of the giants, stole Thor's hammer. This proved a mistake—in retribution, Thor killed not only Pyrmr, but also the entirety of his giant lineage.
• Johnjacobjingleheimr: world of the never-ending family road trip.
ARCH PHYSICS
Imagine a vertical tower of blocks placed on a table. The weight of the blocks pushes straight down and is balanced by blocks below pushing straight up (and eventually by the table, floor, and Earth pushing up to balance the force of the blocks; if forces didn't balance, the blocks would either sink down or float up). The same is true of an arch: The forces balance, only it is as if you bent your block tower over like a slinky. This bending of your block tower into the shape of an arch leads to slightly more complex directional forces (vectors), with one force vector pointing directly down as each voussoir (aka “block”) is pulled toward Earth, one pointing down and out as blocks are pushed from above, and the balancing vector of lower blocks pushing up and in. Everything is in balance, grasshopper. As you can see in this diagram, each voussoir is pushed from above and pushes on a voussoir below; in contrast, the keystone pushes outward in both directions to balance the forces of both voussoir half-arches. If you ever doubt the organic power of the arch (shame on you!), visit Utah.
HOW TO TAP A MAPLE TREE AND CONDENSE SYRUP
According to a bulletin produced by the University of Maine, you first need to find a maple tree at least ten inches in diameter, measured four and a half feet from the ground. After purchasing a commercial tap, use a sharp bit to drill the appropriate size hole (at a slight upward angle, allowing the sap to run downward). Do so when the temperature is above freezing to minimize the risk of splitting the tree. Hang your covered bucket to collect sap. When you have collected the desired amount of sap, boil it to condense—working outdoors is recommended. As sap boils down, add more, always keeping at least a couple inches in the pan. Use a hydrometer to measure the syrup density: Between 66 and 67 percent sugar is optimal. Filter the syrup through cheesecloth into sterilized canning jars.
HOJUJITSU ROPE RESTRAINT
Once you have successfully opened a can of jujitsu whoopass on would-be assailant X, you will need to somehow restrain him/ her until the cops arrive to cart him/her away. Enter the traditional Japanese martial art of hojujitsu, or tying into restraints (not to be confused with shibari, its erotic cousin). Traditionally, samurais applied this hojujitsu restraint in the field to accused but not convicted prisoners, and thus the technique allows a prisoner to be bound securely, but without the humiliating use of knots. (Note: it is not recommended that you search the Internet in the presence of minors for further information on this subject.)
WHISTLE PHYSICS AND AIRPLANE WINGS
Our ears pick up vibrations, and thus the crux of creating any musical sound is in inducing air to vibrate. In a saxophone, the vibration is produced by a buzzing reed; in a trumpet, your lips buzz; on a piano, strings vibrate. In a flute or whistle, the vibration is caused when the air you blow into the mouthpiece (1), is split by the sharp edge of the labium (“lip”) (2), creating an oscillation in the voicing mouth (3), which sets the whole sucker a-vibrating (6). The longer the tube allowed by the plunger (4), the longer the resonant wavelength of the tube and thus the lower the tone produced. (The harder you blow, the higher the sound's amplitude, but the wavelength, and thus the pitch, doesn't change).
On an airplane, the leading edge of the wing acts like the la-bium, splitting the airstream into two paths—one that travels over the wing and one that travels under. Due to the curved shape of the wing's top, the air above must travel farther than does the air below to rejoin at the same point at the back of the wing. As this airstream has to rejoin simultaneously (to avoid leaving a vacuum), the air on top has to travel a bit faster than the air below. Faster air leaves low pressure (thank you, Daniel Bernoulli), and with lower pressure on top of the wing than below it, the wing lifts up. Interestingly, near the speed of sound, Bernoulli goes screwy and thus vibrations à la the tin whistle threaten to tear apart supersonic jets (if not designed by very experienced aeronautical geeks). Note: outside the wind tunnel, rarely do geeks perform firsthand tests of supersonic planes, for obvious reasons.
Perhaps, instead of the illogical and draconian practice of forcing airline passengers to turn off cell phones and laptops, the FAA should investigate the idea of dewhistling passengers prior to takeoff.
SPECIES IN D&D, MIDDLE-EARTH, WINNIE-THE-POOH, AND MAGIC: THE GATHERING
Can you sort these fantasy species by the world that spawned them?
>
abishai
Balrog
Barrow-wight
beholder
blink dog
bugbear
chaos beast
doppelgänger
drow
eladrin
Ent
fell beast
frost worm
great spiders
heffalump
hell hound
Hobbit
Myr
Nazgûl
phasm
purple worm
Saproling
Skulk
Thrull
Uruk-hai
Valar
winter wolf
yugoloth
PIMP YOUR CUBICLE: FIVE MUST-HAVE GADGETS*
• Sun jar: this nifty LED light recharges when placed in the sun, allowing you to bring (a replica) of actual sunlight into your cave-like geek domain, thus periodically reminding you of the existence of an outside world.
• Binary clock: rather than expending the time and effort needed to convert decimal-based digital clocks to information you can understand, go right to the source.
• Desktop personal air conditioner: your coworkers—sweaty and profane; you—cool and collected.
• USB webcam rocket launcher: not only can you fire rockets over cubicle walls deep into enemy territory, but if you are chatting with someone who also owns a launcher, you can remotely control said launcher, co-opting and firing your enemy's own rockets from close range.
• Shock ball: bringing hot potato to a new, more painful level.
* All gadgets accessed on thinkgeek.com.
THE RUBE GOLDBERG MACHINE
While this book intentionally skirts mention of fraternities (for reasons that should be obvious), the good gentlemen of Purdue's Phi Chapter of Theta Tau deserve an exemption. (Their motto is “the nation's oldest, and still foremost, Fraternity for Engineers.”) Among their officers are the positions “Local Rube Goldberg” and “Nat'l Rube Goldberg.” These two hardy and intrepid souls are in charge of organizing the annual machine competition, which has grown since its inception in 1983 to become Purdue's largest non-sports media event. The seemingly mundane tasks in this engineering contest have included squeezing orange juice, shredding paper, and making a cup of coffee. However, the machines that accomplish these tasks can be half-room behemoths of multitiered mechanical gadgetry, utilizing seemingly countless inane steps to accomplish the task. This, in accordance with the design ideals of Rube Goldberg, whose namesake machines were first defined in Webster's Third New International Dictionary as “accomplishing by extremely complex, roundabout means what actually or seemingly could be done simply.” Included here is a modern-day example of a Goldberg-inspired machine.
Courtesy of Stephen VanDyke.
ELEVEN WAYS TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE
Online storefront. Sell anything, using a website as a catalog. If you would rather not deal with shipping, inventory, etc., consider using your storefront to point to another storefront that does the actual order fulfillment.
Market second-party products. Sites like Amazon will pay you to market for them (Amazon affiliates program). Build a book widget and stick it on your site. If your site visitors click the widget and buy from Amazon, you get a cut.
Charge to post, à la Monster.com, Craigslist, or the many other sites that charge users a small fee for the privilege of posting their information.
Sell ads. Once you have a massively successful site of any kind (judged by page-views per month), you can sell space to big-name advertisers. Until then, consider adding Adsense and tweaking your content until the automatic ads become relevant.
Freelance. Offer a service: Either use your own website to troll for clients, or search and complete listed online freelance jobs. Consider offering online support for semiobscure open-source software or opening an online brokerage.
Subscriptions. Create content or service that people will actually pay for. You wanna play World of Warcraft? Pay your monthly fee.
Sell photos. Stock photography sites are booming. Add your pix to the mix and earn cash automatically every time someone downloads them.
Flip Web addresses. Speculation in the domain-name game can cost less than $5 a pop. Know of an upcoming movie title? Buy it quick, then sell to a movie studio for profit.
Blog for pay. This is a paid job, like any other paid job, but you can do it in your boxers. Frequently, sites pay for reviews.
Virtual economy. Work in Lindenbucks, World of Warcraft gold, or another virtual commodity with real-world value.
Gamble. See the sections on pokerbots (page 125), the Iowa futures market (page 97), and the economics of Internet poker (page 44).
A MASSIVELY COOL DIAGRAM OF A SYNAPSE
A SAM LOYD SLIDING-TILE PUZZLE
In how many moves can you transpose the whisky bottle and the scrubbing brush?
PANGRAMS IN MANY LANGUAGES
A pangram is a sentence that uses every letter of the alphabet at least once. First, a couple in English: (1) Junk MTV quiz graced by fox whelps. (2) Waltz bad nymphs, for quick jigs vex. (3) How quickly daft jumping zebras vex!
DATING TELLS
It's true—to be successful in the free-market environment of the singles bar, male geeks may require the edge afforded by a little extra information of the sort herein provided.
If things are going well, she will:
• Increase her angle of incidence off vertical as her upper body leans in your direction.
• Mirror your movements—for example, responding in kind as you reach for a drink, cross your legs, or rest your head on your hand.
• Lower drink from initial defensive posture.
• Refrain from fidgeting.
• Point feet and body toward you like a solar array catching sunlight.
• Allow her pupils to widen, leading to increased blink rate.
• Engage actively in conversation, asking questions and paying compliments.
• Touch body parts—hers or yours.
THE QUOTABLE FUTURAMA
FRY: Full price for gum!? That dog won't hunt, Monsignor.
FRY: Ugh, it's like there's a party in my mouth and everyone is throwing up!
that song? The one that goes da-da-Daa-da? Too bad you don't remember the title, artist, words, or, really, anything other than half a bar of catchy melody. Never fear! Technology will save you!- www.midomi.com will match your singing, whistling, or playing to a database of millions of songs.
BENDER: My life, and by extension everyone else's, is meaningless.
BENDER: Comedy's a dead art form. Now tragedy, that's funny.
LEELA: Look, Fry, you're a man and I'm a woman. We're just too different.
PROFESSOR: Everyone's always in favor of saving Hitler's brain. But when you put it in the body of a great white shark, ooohh! Suddenly you've gone too far!
ZOIDBERG: Stop! Stop! If you interrupt the mating dance, the male will become enraged and maul us with his fearsome gonad!
ZOIDBERG: … And that's how I got my new shell. It looks just like the shell I threw out yesterday, and I found it in the same Dumpster, but this one had a live raccoon inside.
HERMES: What's that you're hacking off? Is it my torso? It is! My precious torso!
ZAPP: The best way into a girl's bed is through her parents. Have sex with them, and you're in.
SPECIES COUNTERPOINT
The theory of Western tonal music offers rules for writing more than one note at once. Obey the rules and things sound good; disobey them and your composition can sound like a middle-school band warming up. Like Einstein's theory of general relativity having its genesis hundreds of years earlier when humans noticed that things fall toward Earth, so too did the music of Wagner evolve in a direct line from the one-line chant music of composers such as Palestrina. In the samples on the previous page, an example of this one-line chant is included as the bottom line or cantus firmus (CF). To the CF are added successively co
mplex accompaniments. The consensus Grand Pooh-Bah of counterpoint is Bach.