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You can’t win the cubical wars without this.
Gifts for Your Favorite Quant.
ThinkGeek won’t work for all quants, but if you’re buying for a geek—or if you’re one yourself—you’re going to think you’ve died and gone to heaven. I made major points with my geek/engineer/son when I got him the remote controlled helicopter you can see on the left.Also, coffee mugs with graphic representations of the caffeine molecule, water powered clocks, hydrodynamic building sets, levitating desktop globes, abusive rubber stamps, puzzles for the super-intelligent and lots of other cool stuff.
Bizarrely, ThinkGeek does not have one of the single geekiest items of all, better than a propeller beanie, better than a pocket protector; a slide rule tie bar.If you’re a suit or you’re too young to have ever seen one of these before, a slide rule is a mechanical pre-calculator device that allows you to turn a multiplication or division problem into an addition or subtraction problem.You can buy one of these things on ebay for twenty or thirty dollars.Completely superfluous.Seriously cool.
You'll need this when the mainframe breaks down.
Your great, great, great grandfather's laptop. Complete with windup key.
If you’re willing to spend a few thousand dollars on your geek’s present, you might want to consider getting him or her a steampunk laptop, such as the one pictured on the left. Steampunk is a science fiction sub-genre, which reimagines Victorian England if technology has zigged instead of zagged. No one I know of makes these things commercially, which means you will have to commission one and you are going to have to start now.Judging by the links I’ve looked at, these people are lousy businessmen.I would start with Richard R. Nagy, who built the one on the left. If he doesn’t work out, try one of the links on his site.Don’t tell any of them you read about it here and you will probably get a hell of a bargain.
Don't let your geek leave home without one of these!
Finally, propeller beanies; cheap and stupid. You can get these on ebay, too. Also, probably, pocket protectors.
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"If your mother says she loves you, check it out." --Old reporters' motto; also our motto. Copyright (C) 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 Fred Gehm. All rights reserved.
