The Geeks' Guide to World Domination

by Garth Sundem

  MEXICAN UFO INCIDENT

  On March 5, 2004, a Mexican Air Force Merlin C-26A was scanning the skies of Campeche state for drug-smuggling airplanes. The plane's dome-mounted IR system recorded at least eleven very hot spheres traveling irregularly. The plane pursued. The plane's commander described chasing the lights, which disappeared only when the plane stopped chasing (playful aliens?). Video footage is available online.

  HEIGHT 611 UFO INCIDENT

  In Dalnegorsk, as in most of the USSR on the night of January 20, 1986, it was really fricking cold. That night, a red ball of fire cruised through Dalnegorsk at about 15 m/s and a height of about 700 m. The ball hovered and finally landed on Mount Iz-vestkovaya, also known as Height 611. The next day, investigators found a burned landing zone of about two meters square, lead deposits, and a “black film” covering much of the mountaintop.

  THE CASH-LANDRUM INCIDENT

  On the night of December 29, 1980, Betty Cash and Vickie Lan-drum were driving home from dinner in Cash's Oldsmobile Cutlass. Little did they know they were about to be (nearly) melted into flesh puddles by a diamond-shaped UFO blazing from its underside like a massive gas broiler (“That's Jesus,” said Vickie Lan-drum at the time. “He won't hurt us.”) Soon after, they claim, the UFO was surrounded by at least twenty-three army helicopters, which escorted it away. Both women later required hospital-ization for radiation poisoning, which they blamed on the government and for which they have subsequently sued.

  STARTING PAY BY COLLEGE MAJOR

  More proof that geeks rule the earth—the Top 10:

  Chemical Engineering—$55,900

  Computer Engineering—$54,877

  Electrical/Electronics/ Communications Engineering—$52,899

  Mechanical Engineering—$50,672

  Computer Science—$50,046

  Accounting—$45,723

  Economics/Finance/ Banking—$45,191

  Civil Engineering—$44,999

  Business Administration/ Management—$39,850

  Marketing/Marketing Management/Marketing Research—$36,260

  Other Popular Majors:

  Music—$35,610

  English—$31,169

  Biology—$29,750

  Elementary Education—$27,317

  Journalism—$27,646

  Psychology—$25,032

  THE MYSTERIOUS NUMBER PHI

  What do Greek architecture, the seashell, and the proportions of the human body have to do with the Fibonacci sequence (… 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, etc.)? Each yields the number phi, or approximately 1.618. The Fibonacci connection is fairly obvious: Just divide any number in the sequence by its predecessor and you end up with an approximation of phi. In Greek architecture, phi defines the proportions of temple base to height, length to width of frieze panels, and columns to overall height; in many seashells, phi defines the ratio of one curl to the next; in the human body, it is the ratio of your thumb to your first finger, below your belly button to above it, and the width of your shoulders to your torso (among many others). Da Vinci applied the “golden rectangle” of phi proportions to the human face (as seen in the drawing on page 107). Phi is also the ratio of length to width of a credit card. Mathematically, phi is defined by the line segments a and b in which a + b is to a as a is to b. Is the prevalence of phi ratios a massive evolutionary and aesthetic coincidence? Maybe.

  THE 121 CURRENT BOY SCOUT MERIT BADGES FROM MOST TO LEAST GEEKY

  After exploring the list below, use the rankings to compute your Boy Scout Geek Ranking (BSGR): Subtract the numbers of your merit badges from 121 and then add all your scores. Any BSGR greater than 500 implies high danger of becoming a Rotarian in middle age.

  THE NINE TAXONS USED TO CLASSIFY ALL LIVING THINGS

  By the early eighteenth century, the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus realized the field of biology needed a precise system to classify living things. (Pre-Linnaeus conversation: Biologist I says, “The little green bug?” Biologist II replies, “No, the really little green bug.” Biologist I says, “The one with the legs?” Biologist II replies, “No, the one with the wings, dumbass.” Biologist I coldcocks Biologist II, setting back aphid research by years.) In Linnaeus's system, an organism is described to increasing degrees of specificity by naming its kingdom, phylum, class, infraclass, order, suborder, family, genus, and species. For example, the California sea slug is classified as Animalia Mollusca, Gastropoda, Orthogastropoda Heterobranchia, Opistobrachia, Anaspidea, Aplysiidae, Aply-sia californica. The bettong (see “Nine Australian Animals That Most People Think Are Fake,” page 20) is: Animalia, Chordata, Mammalia, Marsupialia, Diproto-dontia, Macropodiformes, Potor-oidae Caloprymnus potorous.

  A SAM LOYD PICTURE PUZZLE

  Can you find the star in the jumbled shapes below?

  FIVE VERY GOOD PLACES TO EAT PIE (THE DESSERT)

  DUTCH MOTHER'S RESTAURANT—LYNDEN, WA

  If your budget doesn't allow a trip to Holland, Dutch Mother's Restaurant in Lynden, Washington, is an acceptable alternative. In fact, the pie here is so good that some have claimed out-of-body experiences. (Perhaps secret ingredients flown straight from Amsterdam?) Try the raspberry.

  KITCHENETTE— NEW YORK, NY

  It's hard to maintain the air of disaffected Weltschmerz required of Greenwich Village in this down-home diner, complete with pies you wish your grandma had made.

  THE CRAZY MOUNTAIN INN—MARTINSDALE, MT

  Do not snap your fingers at the waitress, or you risk being shot by six-gun-wielding locals. Despite the location (central Nowhere), once you go Crazy, you'll never go back.

  NOON MARK DINER—KEENE VALLEY, NY

  The pies bake early and thus at about 7:00 A.M. a line of hikers, anglers, climbers, and other hoary-faced roustabouts forms outside the door, drawn from their tents by the smell of berry pies.

  BLUE OWL RESTAURANT AND BAKERY— KIMMSWICK, MO

  Is quantity quality? You won't go away hungry from the Blue Owl. Try the caramel apple pecan pie (Rachael Ray recommends it too!).

  ESSENTIAL EQUATIONS: DETERMINING THE ALCOHOL CONTENT OF HOME BREW

  Ah sweet, sweet yeast feces! As though turning lead to gold, these blessed little alchemist martyrs transform unexciting sugar into thrilling alcohol, finally dying in their own waste (thereby making the Super Bowl what it is today, and making Oktoberfests possible across the world). But how potent is your homemade potable? (If you got that reference, it's time for a Jeopardy! holiday.) Rather than depending on your friends’ recollections of your depravity and then calculating alcohol content based on your behavior, try one of the equations below.

  WITH HYDROMETER

  OG = specific gravity of wort at 60°F (before adding yeast)

  FG = specific gravity after fermentation

  %ABW = percentage of alcohol by weight

  %ABV = percentage of alcohol by volume

  WITHOUT HYDROMETER

  S = weight of sugar in kg

  M = weight of malt extract in kg

  W = volume of wort in gallons

  MAX%ABV is the potential percentage of alcohol by volume, assuming you allow all sugar to ferment.

  HEIGHT/WEIGHT CHART

  Despite helping to develop superior finger-eye coordination and leading to overuse injuries that allow you to sue major electronics companies, playing Halo III for every available waking hour has not yet been demonstrated to help one achieve healthy body mass index (BMI, not to be confused with the recording company of same initials, home of, among others, Hannah Montana and Willie Nelson). The chart below is the malicious handiwork of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, but what do they know?

  A FILM-CANISTER CANNON NEARLY GUARANTEED TO REMOVE EYEBROWS AND/OR BLOW OFF FINGERS

  Do you ever feel like annihilating the world in a massive nuclear flash? If so, perhaps it's time to start seeing a therapist. Or better yet, vent your barely repressed rage through somewhat less destructive forms of pyromania, like this nifty cannon, capable of blasting a
film canister (film, n.: a thin, translucent strip of cellulose coated with emulsion sensitive to light, used until the early twenty-first century in cameras) nearly thirty feet in the air—and the accompanying blast of flame does away with the need for costly electrolysis!

  DIRECTIONS:

  Remove igniter from fireplace lighter or other electronic lighter.

  Solder or otherwise attach a short copper wire to each igniter element.

  Push wire ends through slits in loose top of film canister so the exposed ends are close but not touching (an electrical charge should jump from one to the other). Secure.

  Spray one hit of Binaca or a short blast of hair spray into film canister and quickly close the wire-rigged lid.

  Place film canister lid-down on the ground (or mount the whole contraption).

  Press igniter element button.

  Seek medical attention.

  COMMON PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES

  JAVA

  Java is the Man, in the big-brother-is-watching sense of the word, the juggernaut that threatens to homogenize the programming world—or would be, if it weren't for programmers’ inherent skepticism of the Man and the compounding realization that Java lacks features. Still, if for some reason you happen to have time to learn only one programming language, Java is one of your best (and fairly simple) options.

  C

  While primarily used for system programming (coding operating systems), C can also be used for applications. Unfortunately, C can be a bit unwieldy for the amateur programmer. That is, it can be hard to get what you want and easy to get what you don't, but this also results in minimal constraints.

  VISUAL BASIC

  Are you late to jump on the Linux train or still unimpressed by Mac gadgetry? Still doggedly running Windows? If so, Visual Basic might be for you. Keep your eyes peeled for VisualBasic.net, up soon. Maybe the update will solve the memory management issues. For now, Visual Basic is one of the big four (with Java, C++, and C). It's known for quick and easy use.

  PHP

  Born of the web, PHP is used mainly for server-side scripting (by Golem-like hackers starting to lose inessential body functions, like speech and hearing, while accentuating finger length and gluteal padding). With your PHP account, you can take over the world but might have difficulty writing traditional applications to manage it.

  C++

  C++ is another likely choice “if you're going to learn only one language.” It is flexible, portable, efficient, and perhaps a bit more intuitive than others. Though beware of C++‘s flexibility—it allows cool stuff but also allows you to make mistakes.

  PYTHON

  Python is less controlled by the Man and depends rather on the Python community for development (Python is to Java as GIMP is to Photoshop). However, this isn't to minimize the role of Guido van Rossum, Python's founder and continuing principal architect, known to Pythonists as Benevolent Dictator for Life. Python is the principal coding language of YouTube and lotsa other Web 2.0 stuff.

  FORTRAN

  Developed by IBM in the 1950s, Fortran is still used sporadically by somewhat crusty scientists and engineers. Fortran was notable for its useful update to the classic 8 × 8 grid Star Trek game, originally programmed in BASIC.

  examples of programming languages, visit 99-bottles-of-beer. net, whose database includes programs that generate the bottles-of-beer lyrics in (as of this writing) 1,145 languages, including Beatnik, Turing Machine, and Cow.

  FAMOUS SWORDS OF HISTORY, MYTH, AND LEGEND

  THE THREE MOST COMPREHENSIBLE IRRATIONAL NUMBERS

  1. When a circle's diameter is 1, its circumference is pi (π) or approximately 3.14159265358979. As such, it is also the ratio of any circle's circumference to its diameter. Pi is an irrational number (a nonrepeating, infinite decimal) and has contributed to many a mathematician's descent into irrationality. If you find patterns in pi, you will be a god among mortals.

  2. Second only to pi in most mathematicians’ pantheon of irrational numbers is the number e, approximately equal to 2.7182818284. The natural logarithm (eln(x) = x) is applicable to problems ranging from compound interest to probability theory to asymptotics to derangements (see mathematicians’ descent into irrationality as described above). Very generally, e describes exponential decay and growth in the natural world.

  3. Pythagoras knew the length of the hypotenuse of a right triangle with sides 1 and 1 was the square root of 2, or approximately 1.41421. In fact, by 1800 B.C., the Babylonians had the square root of two nailed to about six decimal places. This isn't surprising, as the number is a virtual necessity for anyone hoping to build a structure with a square base.

  NICKTOONS AND CARTOON NETWORK SHOWS THAT ARE PERHAPS BEST APPRECIATED BY ADULTS

  I AM WEASEL

  This is one of the only shows on this list that doesn't depend on nostalgia for inclusion. Simply put, I Am Weasel rocks. Like Stephen Colbert, I Am Weasel got its start as a segment on another, better known show, namely Cow and Chicken (also on Cartoon Network and also very good). We can only hope the warped mind of David Feiss continues to offer quirky gems.

  SUPER FRIENDS

  Superman, Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman “fight injustice, right that which is wrong, and serve all mankind.” And their slogan is grammatically correct, too.

  REN & STIMPY

  One of the first post-Bullwinkle shows to be truly twisted. While it's old enough to have lost some of its shock-value cachet, no geek's quote library is complete without the R&S references. (Ren: “What EEZ it, man?” Powdered Toast Man: “Quick, man! Cling tenaciously to my buttocks!” Ren: “Psst, hey Guido. It's all so clear to me now. I'm the keeper of the cheese and you're the lemon merchant, you get it? And he knows it. That's why he's gonna kill us. So we got to beat it, ya, before he lets loose the marmosets on us.”) For a conceptually related spin-off, check out the show CatDog.

  SPACE GHOST

  A precursor of today's dark su-perheroes as well as tech-themed manga spin-offs, the classic Space Ghost episodes still retain their counterculture mystique, which was in direct opposition to the cheery boy-and-girl scouts of Justice League and Super Friends.

  TOM & JERRY

  Like your revenge served bloody? The original is only a small step more pacifistic than the Simpsons parody Itchy and Scratchy.

  SECRET SQUIRREL

  Mel Blanc's voice (Daffy Duck, Barney Rubble, Bugs Bunny, Yo -semite Sam, etc.) resonates deeply in the psyche of most modern geeks, and Blanc's Secret Squirrel is no exception. It's impossible not to love the 007 squirrel and Morocco Mole, his fez-wearing sidekick. Inspector Gadget, eat your heart out.

  CALCULATING MONTHLY MORTGAGE PAYMENTS AND FUTURE INVESTMENT WORTH

  Exploring monthly payments on a loan is as easy as searching “mortgage calculator” and picking one of the many returned links. But what does this magic equation do? What, really, does it mean?

  Calculating a monthly mortgage payment uses the same mechanics as discovering what your investments might be worth in the future, only, in the case of a mortgage, you are paying interest in exchange for immediate use of a large sum of money, and in the case of an investment, you are earning interest in exchange for allowing institutions to use your money. Below is a simple equation to determine how much your investment will be worth in the future:

  FutureValue = PresentValue

  (1 + i)n

  where i is the interest rate expressed as a decimal (5% = .05) and n is the number of periods (usually years).

  Below is the equation used by online calculators to determine your monthly payments (Mp) based on loan amount (L), term in months (T), and yearly interest rate (I) in decimal format.

  Mp = L [I / 12 (1 + I / 12)T] / [(1 + I / 12)T − 1]

  DECIMAL, BINARY, AND HEXADECIMAL

  We have ten fingers and ten toes (or, most of us do. Exceptions include the noted alpinist Reinhold Messner, who has only three toes and seven fingers. Luckily, this leaves him with ten total digits and thus Me
ssner presumably has few inherent, morphological diffi-culties with the decimal system). Because of our built-in base-10 bias and the fascism of our system of mathematics education, we humans have come to view the decimal system as the only logical way to count. We count to nine, and then as we raise our second thumb, we stick a placeholder in the next column to the left.