Nerdy Stuff

Back in the day, if something was "nerdy", it was usually pretty bad. The only good nerds came from Willy Wonka. These days, nerdy stuff is more common and can fill the whole spectrum of nerdy-cool to uber-nerdy. I recently ran across these nerdy items from various blogs, but I didn't feel each one would warrant a single post for you folks to read.

The first is an satellite photo of the big even of the day, Pres. Obama's inauguration. It's cool (in a nerdy way) to see how technology captured the event (streaming video, live audio/video on TV, blogs, twitter, etc). It's also cool to see so many people involved in re-shaping the country.

(courtesy of boingboing.net)

The second is a video of an interesting "toy" based on a mathematical feat of engineering. It's called a Yoshimoto Cube, but don't ask me how it works, I suck at math. It's fun to see how everything fits together. It's like a transformer...only nerdier.

(courtesy of boingboing.net again)

Which brings me to my final entry, a much more sad affair. This reaches into the dark end of the nerd spectrum...It's a contest in Japan to see who can use a calculator the fastest. It's sad that they even have a contest like this. It's sadder that 263 contestants showed up to battle it out. And it's even sadder that this is the 12th such contest. Is there really a demand for this kind of thing? What kind of sponsors do they have? What kind of prize is there for the winner? (My guess: a calculator watch)
While the video is in Japanese, seeing and hearing all the tension (and calculator key presses) is a universal language.

(courtesy of tokyomango.com)