The Geeks' Guide to World Domination

by Garth Sundem

  This pyramid scheme doesn't even pretend there is a tangible product behind the “investment.” Simply, the more people who pay into the system, the more the people higher up the food chain benefit. Of course, the people at the bottom of the chain mail don't get paid. Oh, and it's considered gambling, and by sending money through the USPS you are in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1302, the Postal Lottery Statute (nothing but the facts, ma'am).

  Modern Ponzi schemes abound: In 2007, the Second Life bank, Ginko Financial, promised 40–60 percent returns, prompting immediate, massive investment of Linden Dollars. Investors were Ponzied out of about $750,000, prompting calls for a Linden SEC.

  POKERBOTS

  The premise behind the pokerbot is simple: There are many, many bad players in online, low-limit poker games, and thus by playing a tight, mistake-free strategy, you will win over time. Unfortunately, because the worst players are in low-limit games and because Joe from Topeka takes his allotted thirty seconds every time he's confronted with a nickel raise, you might make a better hourly wage mowing lawns, flip-ping burgers, or participating in medical trials, even if you play multiple tables at once (see “Internet Poker: By the Numbers,” page 44).

  Enter the pokerbot: instead of doing the drudgery of playing mechanical, low-limit poker yourself, why not use a program to do it for you. Better yet, use many programs, each taking in a little money at a time.

  There are many popular pokerbots available for immediate download. Simply search, click, pay, install, and go. Or, if you like, input your own formula set, teaching the bot how to play your way before setting it loose on the competition. Or better yet, get down with C/C++ and either write your own bot or tweak an existing one. Some bots allow you to automatically collude with other players at the table running the same software, further increasing your chances of winning.

  Now, the question is, how long you can run your bot without your poker site of choice detecting it? (Even in the impersonal world of online gaming, there are ways to break your kneecaps, including freezing and/or appropriating your account.) There's an arms race between security and bots: Poker sites keep tabs on length of play, so pokerbots have evolved to frequently switch tables. Poker sites scan hard drives for common pokerbot software, so people now operate pokerbots from remote computers. Still, the most effective method of discovering a bot stems from the fact that bots can't chat. If you fear you may be playing against a Terminator, try striking up a friendly conversation.

  NINE KNOCK-KNOCK JOKES LIKELY ORIGINATING IN WISCONSIN

  THE FIVE CANONS OF RHETORIC

  Generally speaking, you want people to do what you tell them to do. In practice, this can be as simple as the Jedi mind trick (“These are not the droids you're looking for”) or can be as difficult as arguing before the Supreme Court (“These are not the Florid-ian votes you're looking for”). No matter the situation, the ancient Greeks have got your back. Follow the five rules below to reduce the target of your persuasion to a malleable puddle of slobbering agreeability:

  Invention: discover or invent creative arguments.

  Arrangement: present these arguments in an organized manner.

  Style: the rhetoric itself—make your argument sound good.

  Memory: get your nose out of your notes.

  Delivery: what would “friends, Romans, countrymen!” be without a sweep ofthe arm?

  Wiseman of the University of Hertfordshire may or may not be funny. However, he is the world's foremost authority on what is universally funny His 2001 study called LaughLab, encouraged people from around the world to submit jokes and rate others, gathering more than 1.5 million opinions of what is and what is not funny. According to LaughLab, the universally funniest joke is as follows:

  Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps, “My friend is dead! What can do?” The operator says, “Calm down. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead.” There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says, “OK, now what?”

  CATCHPHRASES FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF EMERGENCY SITUATIONS

  Warning: improperly performing the actions below can lead to discomfort and/or death. Fortunately, Good Samaritan laws make it extremely difficult to prosecute any well-meaning lifesaving attempts, so feel free to experiment! Also note the CDC'S recommendation to wash your hands after any major disaster (printable “Clean Hands Save Lives” flyers, stickers, slide sets, and handout cards are available online).

  HOW TO CREATE A DUNGEONS & DRAGONS CHARACTER

  Long before you go waving Yarkuch's Greatsword through the tangled passages of Torremor, the lair of the Obyrith Lord Pazuzu, you need to create a level I character. First, you will need a character sheet—either search the Web for a printable version (recommended) or make your own (but why?).

  Now it's time to roll the dice. Despite your eagerness to untie your jingling pouch of multifaced dice, all it takes to determine your character's basic abilities for strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, charisma, and wisdom is a set of four good old d6 (six-sided dice). Roll 4d6 and drop the lowest score. Add the remaining three to get a score from 3 to 18. Do this six times and then choose to which attributes you will allocate these six scores. Don't cheat. Perhaps this is best done in the presence of your Dungeon Master, who will keep you honest.

  Now choose a race. Depending on your attribute scores, certain races may or may not be available. For example you may only be an elf if your dexterity is more than 6, your constitution more than 7, and your intelligence and charisma more than 8 (find the full chart online or in the Player's Handbook). The race you choose will also modify your attributes.

  Choose a character class: rogue, druid, cleric, paladin, ranger, wizard, sorcerer, bard, barbarian, or fighter. Again, your attributes may limit your choices, and your choice will modify your attributes.

  Choose your alignment: How do you look at the world? Are you good or evil? This is a two-part descriptor using lawful/neutral/ chaotic and good/neutral/evil (for example, you could be “chaotic evil” or “lawful good”).

  Determine your hit points. Consult the Player's Handbook to find your character class's hit die.

  Name your character. If you're stuck, search “character name generator” and let the online tool spit out a name for you. Fill in your character's remaining background, including gold pieces, skills, feats, spells, equipment, height, weight, and appearance. The more detailed your character and the more you understand him or her, the more realistic your adventures will be.

  A SAM LOYD MATHEMATICS PUZZLE

  When the hour and minute hands are at equal distance from the six hour, what time will it be exactly?

  SOMEWHAT ESOTERIC MACINTOSH KEYSTROKES

  FIVE NOT-TO- BE-MISSED TECH CONVENTIONS

  A strong colony of Coptotermes formosanus, the Formosan subterranean termite, will produce over seventy thousand alates—winged females—which, for one brief night every year, swarm the skies together in search of mates. The diamondback rattlesnake, while primarily a rather antisocial species, spends winters in massive snake balls of a hundred or more individuals.

  Similarly, geeks gather at the following yearly conventions:

  CES: The VCR, Commodore 64, DVD player, and Atari's Pong console were all released in Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show. Really, every geek needs to make a pilgrimage to the CES at least once in his or her lifetime.

  O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference: The Web materials state that, “O'Reilly conferences bring alpha geeks and forward-thinking business leaders together to shape the revolutionary ideas that spark new industry.” Yum.

  ICSE: You might have to travel for the International Conference on Software Engineering, but oh baby, is it worth it.

  NextFest: Organized by Wired magazine, NextFest is the Disneyland of emerging technology. At this annual conference
, playing with cool stuff takes the front seat.

  Interop: What happens in Vegas affects the way the world experiences information. There are a handful of worldwide Interop IT conferences, but anybody who's anybody shows up at Interop's Vegas conference, usually near the end of April or the beginning of May.

  MAP: RECORDED FINDINGS OF GIANT SQUID

  Believe it or not, there are both giant squid (eight species) and colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni), which reach lengths of up to forty-six feet, the giant squid being only fractionally shorter. Giant squid are found in all the world's oceans and the majority of its seas, and are known to eat fish and other squid as well as fictional ships and submarines (the latter of which offer only fictional nutrition, and little if any of that to the leviathans, as literacy rates among giant squid are very, very low).

  THE BASICS OF NUCLEAR ENERGY

  The equation E = mc2, with c equaling the speed of light, means that contained within a little bit of mass (m) is lots of energy (E). During nuclear fission, one unstable nucleus splits into two lighter ones, with any difference in total starting and finishing mass being expressed as energy. For example, an isotope of uranium, U-235, commonly absorbs one freewheeling neutron, making the very unstable isotope U-236, which then immediately decays into Kr-92 and Ba-141, releasing much energy and all sorts of other cool by-products. One of these by-products is more neutrons, which are absorbed by more U-235, which continues to go boom. In nuclear power plants, this chain reaction is controlled; in nuclear weapons, it is not. Nuclear power plants use the energy from this controlled chain reaction to heat water into steam, driving turbines and thus creating electrical power; nuclear weapons allow this heat (and radioactive by-products) to be released into the surroundings with massively destructive consequences. (A similar reaction can be engineered using plutonium-239.)

  The crux (or, at least, one crux) is in obtaining U-235, as most naturally occurring uranium is the more stable U-238. Boosting the percentage of U-235 is known as enriching. Also crucial for those hoping to seriously blow stuff up is keeping the initial reaction contained until it has had the opportunity to chain-react into something big enough to do major damage. Even more difficulty is presented by slowing down the “freewheeling” neutrons to a speed at which they can be absorbed by the U-235 (this is often done by using heavy water, which despite its name is actually D2O).

  THE DEWEY DECIMAL SYSTEM

  Most geeks are content to let Google do it for them. However, at very high levels of specialization, geeks may still be forced to sift through the stacks, in which case it's good to know a thing or two about Melville Dewey's famous system. Basically, the Dewey decimal system is a massive subject index, organized in ever-increasing levels of specificity. All of human knowledge is divided into the ten categories of General (000), Philosophy or Psychology (100), Religion (200), Social Sciences (300), Language (400), Science (500), Technology (600), Arts and Recreation (700), Literature (800), and History and Geography (900). Within each of these categories are ten more subdivisions and within these subdivisions are ten more. Because decimals could string on forever, you could theoretically move to ever more specific levels of subject categorization until every book had its own unique number. This isn't done—instead librarians know when to say when, and use the author's last name to distinguish within microcategories. After the first three digits, there is a decimal point, after which comes the real nitty-gritty of subject identification. For example, the book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman is classified within Science (500) and Physics (530) and continuing until 530.0924 (which also includes the thrillers Michael Faraday and the Dynamo and The Ultimate Einstein and The Mysterious Rays: Marie Curie's World).

  THE FINE ART OF THUMB TWIDDLING

  While many pursue thumb twiddling only in hopes of increasing their text message WPM, it is in itself a surprisingly complex discipline, requiring technique, complex muscle memory, and patience. The best twiddlers count it a step toward Zen-like enlightenment (though the husbands/wives/partners of many top twiddlers report concerns about OCD). Consider: will your thumbs touch or not? If they touch, will you keep them in constant contact or will they merely bump during each rotation? How deep will you twiddle? Thumbnail? First knuckle? The full length of the thumb? Do you allow a dominant rotational direction or strive for equality between front-and back-twiddling? Could you twiddle one thumb toward your fingers (front-twiddle) and the other away (back-twiddle)? What about your practice regimen? Are you open to partner twiddling? If so, will you contribute the right or the left hand? Are you a speed twiddler, attempting to increase your RPM, an endurance twiddler, looking to boost your hours, or a technique twiddler, hoping to develop the perfect twiddle rotation? How and at what depth will you interlock your fingers, forming the twiddle cradle?

  While it didn't make Beijing and (as of writing) is unlikely to be considered as a winter sport for Vancouver (last-minute negotiations to include the twiddle as a perfunctory skating figure broke down), many enthusiasts hold out hope for London 2012.

  THUMBS II: WRESTLING CHEATS AND THE TWF

  If you haven't seen Thumb Wrestling Federation shorts on the Nicktoons Network, you haven't really lived. (For those without access to Nicktoons—shame on you. But luckily you can find the TWF online, too.) While most TWF takedowns follow the standard format of one thumb pinned under another, for better or for worse the association has also helped popularize alternate forms of pinning. Specifically, Senator Skull and his evil Sinistras are known for “buddy” play using the first finger (or less commonly the wraparound pinky) to snare unsuspecting opponents. Beware the quick count, both at the match's outset and while counting the pin; also beware arm twisting and distraction tactics. Proponents of thumb wrestling fair play include the English footballer Frank Lampard, a stalwart of the Chelsea Blue and frequent player on England's national squad—search “Frank Lampard thumb wrestling” for video evidence.

  HOW TO MAKE CHAIN-MAILARMOR

  Making chain mail is industrial knitting at its most tedious. But, a finished hauberk, pair of chaussures, or hooded coif will guard you against attack by bladed weapons as well as rudimentary projectiles—useful in home, office, and recreation. Consider watching period battle movies as you knit, both for technical inspiration and to stem the tide of boredom.

  As you can see in this photograph (and as you probably already knew), chain-mail armor is made from many interlocking metal rings. Thus the first step in making chain mail is supplying yourself with these rings. You can buy precut rings online, or you can make your own. To make your own, buy a coil of steel wire—16 gauge is the strongest commonly used, but is hard to bend; for easier and quicker work, consider 18 or 20 gauge steel wire. Roll this wire around a mandrel, pipe, or other rod of desired circumference, creating a long, springlike coil. Pull the ends of your coil to slightly spread the links and then cut the length of your coil using tin snips or a hacksaw.

  Now you will need to knit your mail. Use two pairs of pliers—one to hold your developing mail and the other to twist on new rings (curved needle-nose pliers work well; be sure to pad your hands or the handle, as you will be spending many hours crimping). Like historical European mail, consider using a four-to-one pattern, in which each link is clipped to four others (but unlike historical mail, you needn't rivet your rings together). Start by feeding four closed links onto an open one and then crimping the central ring shut. Be careful to fully close links, otherwise not only will they twist free, but they will also catch in your clothing and hair. From here, attach another open ring to two of the “free-floating” closed ones, also adding two more closed rings to this new open ring to continue the pattern of four to one.

  You will need to experiment to find your ideal knitting system. One successful strategy is to create long, three-wide “ropes” of mail with a center row of links closed around upper and lower rows. Then, once you have created many “ropes,” use additional links to stitch them together. Look online for mail
garment patterns.

  MORSE CODE

  MECHANICS OF THE THEATRICAL FLY SYSTEM

  In the theater, you cannot splice tape. You also can't depend on your audience to wait half an hour for a scene change (with the exception of intermission, which depends on Chardonnay to pacify the impatient proletariat). Thus the stage needs to function as a quick-change artist, with scenery, drops, scrims, and sometimes actors flying on and off stage. This requires very, very cool pulleys, which sometimes extend upward of seventy feet in a narrow, vertical fly space behind the stage.

  The theater standard is the counterweight fly system, which functions similarly to most cable-and-pulley exercise machines: a stack of weights balances force on the other side of the wire—if the weight is heavier than the force pulling on it, it stays put; if the force is heavier, the weight is raised. The goal is to balance the weight of the desired curtains or scenery with counterweights such that one person's strength is enough to raise or lower it.

  This picture shows the components of a common counterweight fly system. A are the hoisting cables, which lead up to pulleys at the top of the fly tower. B are the turnbuckles, which attach to D, the arbor, which holds the weight stack (E) and the counterweights themselves (F). At the base of the system is an anchored pulley (I) under which the purchase line (C) runs. Controlling the movement of the purchase line is a lever brake (H) attached securely with a locking safety ring (G). Thus the system is one giant loop—if the control lever is released, the weights can move up or down, allowing the purchase line to move up or down.