This Week in Geek 2011/11/20

Quick note: Posting a bit late this Sunday because my weekend was consumed by the awesomeness of Anime USA. I'll have a post about it later in the week so if you're checking out DC Geeks to find my photos of your awesome costume, they should be up by Thursday.

A showcase of this week's finest geek and geek related activities for the week. Mark your calendars.

Fibonacci: The reason there's a math lecture
with every nautilus. (via Jitze Couperus)

Wednesday

• Holiday - Fibonacci Day - Especially around 5:08 
• I love the Fibonacci sequence. Not because of some love of music or math or art or shells, and certainly not because I read some Dan Brown airplane book and saw the eyes of God or some nonsense. But because for years of classes, I had something to jot down in the margins of my notes that was more interesting than filling in a black square for every 5 minutes that passed.

Thursday

• Holiday - Thanksgiving - at omnomnomnom tired now.
• If you're lucky enough to be hosting the big day, here are 10 Ways to Geek Up Your Thanksgiving (Confuse parents, but delight nephews and nieces). Cook that turkey like a fire hazard bawse geek. I recommend Googling or crowdsourcing your "I'm thankful for" speech to maximize effectiveness, because you know your cousin's going to steal whatever speech Lifehacker writes up.

"It is traditional, when loading wire trolleys, to put the most fragile
items at the bottom." - Pratchett, Reaper Man (via Kevin Spencer)

Friday

• Anti-Holiday - Black Friday - starts at 10:00PM Thursday night.
  For those of you who will be boarding up your windows, pulling the shades and curling up with the warm glow of your monitors against the horrors of Black Friday: Here's a quick link round up of some sites to check for deals. Although keep in mind many of these sites may be saving the best for "Cyber Monday."
• Black Friday has a Twitter account, stay updated @blackfriday.
• GameStop's weekly ad is here.
• Best Buy, for when you want to be able to pick up something more than just used Gameboy games.
• Newegg helps you keep your machine fast enough to play all those games.
• For generic gifts for non-geeks, there's always Walmart and Target. (Keep it classy.)
• Skip the bath supplies, stock up on Nerf siege weaponry at Toys R Us (or ponies *cough*).
  Be warned: these Hasbro sites have auto-playing videos. Your boss will be within earshot for the MLP theme song.
• Amazon has a head start. I think their Black Friday sales started a week ago.
• There's always that other non-Amazon way of getting your books.
• Make tells me that RadioShack has awesome DIY supplies.
• I'm not sure if ThinkGeek, Shirt Woot, or Alienware have Black Friday sales.
• Activism - Buy Nothing Day - Anywhere there isn't a Black Friday sale.
• Before you even pull the credit cards out of your wallets, consider checking out Adbuster's Buy Nothing Day campaign page. For those unfamiliar, Adbusters is the group that originally inspired Occupy Wall Street. Buy Nothing Day has been pushing back against the manipulation of Black Friday for 20 years. You may want to consider waiting a day or so before rushing in to dump money on things, especially since sales aren't always real. Besides, isn't there that huge Minecraft project you've been meaning to build?

I want this as a door hanger for when I go to cons. (via Luigi Rosa)

Saturday

• Event - Scavenger Hunt of the Smithsonians - Washington, DC - 11:30AM-4:30PM
• Show up, split up into (randomly assigned?) teams with lists of items to retrieve, pictures to take, or answers to get. So none of that "oh I'll just look it up on Google" nonsense. Are you the best at museums? Now's the chance to prove it. Bonus: All attendees will get free admission to a TTD party.
• Movie - Redditors Meetup to Watch the Muppets - Washington, DC - 6:00PM
• Reddit is awesome. The Muppets are awesome. Ok Go is awesome, although I'm not sure if they're in the movie. For those of you who are Redditors, there is a DC Geeks Reddit. Enjoy the usual gifs of Kermit freaking out.
• Music - Jonathan Coulton and They Might Be Giants - Washington, DC - 8:00PM
• Edit: I had to rush back in and add this event. The 9:30 Club has JoCo and TMBG this weekend. [Lots of excited swearing removed.] I saw this event coming up and had assumed it was sold out by now, but it doesn't appear to be. To use a Neil Gaiman-ism: I am mind-crogglingly excited!

An exciting week! Get to it! Other weekly reoccurring events are listed on our website (such as Rocky, CCG tournaments, crazy themed happy hours). For more information, check out the calendars at DC Geeks.