Most geeky thing you've done recently.

[Username4242]

I'm in the process of watching BBC's 'Walking with X' series in evolutionarily chronological order.

Walking With Monsters---> Walking With Dinosaurs---> Walking With Beasts.

[Interactive Civilian]

Almost everything I do is considered in some way "geeky" by most normal folks...

But to name a few, I recently read some interesting papers on areology, specifically two giving more support to the hypothesis that the northern hemisphere of Mars is actually a giant impact basin (one paper showing physical features that fit, and the other using computer modeling to show the feasibility). I read a completely unrelated paper about the hydrodynamics of how spinner dolphins initiate their aerial spins.

I do that. I read scientific papers for fun. *shrug*

On the more practical side, I've taken the knowledge I've gained about hydrodynamics from the various papers on marine mammal hydrodynamics that I've read, and I've applied it to my own swimming to make myself more efficient in the water and more controlled and maneuverable when scuba diving.

That the kind of thing you are looking for?

[Gears]

Played runescape (I am bored!)
But seriously, I read a book called "4000 things you should know" and I... knew it all.

[Username4242]

For sure, those're great.

Because my specialty lies in Dinosaurian ecosystem reconstruction and large vertebrate interactions, I watch and study a lot of Zoology-related youtube videos--predator/prey relationships, water-source conflicts, things like that.

Though behavior is fairly limited through the fossil record, there are still a decent number of ways to infer how the creatures acted based on their habitat and periodically on clues through the fossils themselves (bone placement if they were rapidly buried, trackways, bite marks, breaks, etc.).

[fwlbg]

Spending ages learning how to program random crap in Python is "geeky", right?

[Charlie!]

So I'm working on this procedural techno generator...

[Gojoe]

So I went to work, then jumped on to this forum...

[Link]

I designed an RF tracker for my cat. Haven't ordered the parts to build it yet, though.

[runa]

Does getting up in the middle of the night to check my email count? That and check to see if my blog had any new comments (which it didn't).

[Notch]

I started working on a clone of Infiniminer. That's pretty geeky. =D

[Squid Tamer]

Not mega-geeky, but I spent some time reading Emacs documentation last night. I want to learn how to use that darn thing!

[sgt york]

Not counting work (that just wouldn't be fair)....

I built the phase 2 scale model of my bigass trebuchet. I'm at 25% right now, and the throwing arm is 3' long. Works like a charm; It can sling rocks a good 30-40 feet down the street, but I think I can tweak that up a bit. That was a few weeks ago. Ultimate goal: Build something that can throw a tennis ball further than I can, and then use it to play fetch with my dog at the park.

I tweaked my beetlebot robot (simple robot that avoids obstacles). I had to put in a few resistors to slow the guy down. Let it run more than a few feet and it wouldn't be able to turn in time. Robot carnage. It was harder than I thought it would be. I finished that last weekend. But I'm not quite satisfied yet...

Oh, and I'm going to be gone all next week, so I'm taking the day off with my wife tomorrow. For our special day together, I organized a series of geocaches to go find. Of course, they are all on my PDA. Paper is for people without electricity.

[Velifer]

For our special day together, I organized a series of geocaches to go find. Of course, they are all on my PDA. Paper is for people without electricity.

Ok, the person who goes geocaching with a compass and a USGS quarter quad gets my respect. Orienteering with a handheld GPS is flat out cheating.

Geeky things in the last week:
Work.
Dual booting Ubuntu and Vista on my new machine.

Huh. I failed pretty spectacularly at geek this week. Went boating, fixed a tractor. I better go to a gaming con soon, or they'll revoke my geek card.

[Jourdy289]

Joined this forum
I'm watching Firefly
Hmm, a couple years ago I was head engineer on my LEGO robotics team, and for some reason, I couldn't make it for a couple weeks to work on our robot. Finally, the day before the competition, I make a couple adjustments, and the day of the competition, robot still isn't perfect. I plug a number into it for a certain time delay, right in between the range we were trying. Lo and behold, not only did it work, we won. Nobody else got theirs to.

[shieldforyoureyes]

So I'm working on this procedural techno generator...

The guy responsable for the "Postmodern Generator" (http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/) wrote one of those.

[justaman]

Teaching myself LaTeX, amplifying and cloning the coding sequence + adding a tag to my gene of interest, setting up a wiki, and confocal microscopy.... all within the past week.

[sgt york]

Teaching myself LaTeX, amplifying and cloning the coding sequence + adding a tag to my gene of interest, setting up a wiki, and confocal microscopy.... all within the past week.

what a coincidence....

Just to amplify the geek in the room, I went to a seminar today about XBP-1. Check out the cover of JBC this June (I think it's the second round in June...I know it's the cover).

[YendorMej]

Well, today alone I:

• Fired a mini gauss gun that I built myself,
• Froze an onion with liquid nitrogen, then smashed it with a hammer
• Supervised the construction and firing of three small trebuchets

I love being a science camp instructor.

[Sungura]

I spun when I turned on the centrifuge. I couldn't spin as fast as it went though.

[lu6cifer]

Spending ages learning how to program random crap in Python is "geeky", right?

Ha! I'm actually in the process of making a radian timekeeper with python---The program displays the hour as it is, and then the minutes and seconds are in terms of wraps of the unit circle.

[cowsinthongs]

Not counting work (that just wouldn't be fair)....

I built the phase 2 scale model of my bigass trebuchet. I'm at 25% right now, and the throwing arm is 3' long. Works like a charm; It can sling rocks a good 30-40 feet down the street, but I think I can tweak that up a bit. That was a few weeks ago. Ultimate goal: Build something that can throw a tennis ball further than I can, and then use it to play fetch with my dog at the park.

I tweaked my beetlebot robot (simple robot that avoids obstacles). I had to put in a few resistors to slow the guy down. Let it run more than a few feet and it wouldn't be able to turn in time. Robot carnage. It was harder than I thought it would be. I finished that last weekend. But I'm not quite satisfied yet...

Oh, and I'm going to be gone all next week, so I'm taking the day off with my wife tomorrow. For our special day together, I organized a series of geocaches to go find. Of course, they are all on my PDA. Paper is for people without electricity.

Have you seen the TV commercial with the robot that fires off tennis balls for the dog? I can't remember the company behind it (advertising at its best).

Checked out a Cisco book on network security + Superorganism by Wilson and Holldobler. Pretty low on the scale.

[Baza210]

Watched the live NASA stream on my smartphone :l

[afarnen]

I've been watching Leonard Susskind's lectures on Special Relativity, General Relativity, and Quantum Entanglement on youtube. In the context of the xkcd forum, not so geeky. But to people in real life, pretty geeky. Especially when I neglect school duties to watch them.

[ajg]

Not much... lied and said I was sick so I could stay home and read instead of going to the movies?

Have you seen the TV commercial with the robot that fires off tennis balls for the dog? I can't remember the company behind it (advertising at its best).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryJwz3z-qpM ...?

[scikidus]

I reoptimized my evolution simulator, began to learn processing, and I'm bringing my trebuchet (which does throw farther than I can) to school next week.

[sgt york]

my trebuchet (which does throw farther than I can)

Yeah...well...that's just.....um....that's just because you can't throw as far as I can. Yeah.

Yeah! That's it.

Geek pissing contest: My trebuchet/railgun/coilgun/crossbow can throw harder than yours can!

Spoiler:

_{P.S. what did you use for the pivot on the throwing arm?}

[scikidus]

Yeah...well...that's just.....um....that's just because you can't throw as far as I can. Yeah.

Yeah! That's it.

Geek pissing contest: My trebuchet/railgun/coilgun/crossbow can throw harder than yours can!

Spoiler:

_{P.S. what did you use for the pivot on the throwing arm?}

1/2 inch steel rod.

Tip: Use pennies for the counterweight. They're dense and in their rolls easy to add or subtract to find optimal weight ratio.

[The Binkster]

All the music on my MP3 player (about 15000 songs) is now sorted in chronological order by artist and grouped by place of origin...

[asad137]

Built this:

Spoiler:

[Zeroignite]

Planned a more thermally optimized, smaller ATX-compliant computer chassis. Designed such in CAD. Will build soon.

[Brwagur]

In my ceramics class, started building the Unit Circle in a slab of clay.

[infallibleone]

Watching people disassemble, adjust the tension of, and lube their Rubik's cubes at lunch.
Myself? Writing some Lisp that obfuscates/makes-unnecessarily-complex other Lisp, and then turning it on itself. That was fun...

[bjackman]

So I'm working on this procedural techno generator...

sigged. you, my friend, are a genius.

[MarshyMarsh]

Had a competition with a friend to see who could get the highest r value using are own set of numbers (with no limit) without hitting 1 (or -1).

[meat.paste]

I spent a few hours last night learning something about celestial mechanics so I could find out how much energy would be required to change Earth's orbit to 1) fix global warming and 2) make a year exactly 366 days.

[Mr. Bill]

I just beat the Elite 4 on Pokemon Blue without using a single revive. Now I'm on a mission to beat the Yellow version and catch all 150.

[skeptical scientist]

Probably it was being excited because a professor came to visit my university, but it may have been reading some math papers for fun, depending on your point of view.

[Username4242]

Paleo papers for me!

[Sungura]

I sang "we're off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of oz..." as I was going to get the rats from the animal facility yesterday.

Also every time I wash a plate or the wash steps while doing a Western I get the urge (and usually sing) "splish splash I was taken a bath long about a Saturday night. A rub dub, just relaxing in the tub thinking everything was alright..."

[Macbi]

I found the most anagramable word. Turns out it's "spear" and its 11 other anagrams.