Way OT: What's your geek?
With only a few weeks left, and football news coming in still pretty slow, I'd like to start one of the last OT threads of the summer.
The Mgoblog community is a diverse, intelligent community, with lots of great interests. So my question, what is your geeky thing you are into? Can be games, books, movies, cars, historic timeframe, some collectible you are into.
Here are some of mine;
I played D&D growing up with friends and brothers. I actually highly recommend any parents with kids support this, as there is lots of story telling and character development in this gameplay. We actually were able to play some last year.
X-wing miniatures: Is a table top game with models where you simulate a dog fight between Star Wars space ships. I've recently gotten into this, and I'm currently obsessed
Reading: I've read a lot of books, but are probably not considered as nerdy or geeky as the popularity has grown. Ender's Game, X-wing series, A Song of Ice and Fire series (GoT), Harry Potter.
This can also apply to Michigan Football, as I'd consider WolverineDevotee, Mathlete, WolverineHistorian to have taken their fandom to geek status with the amount of knowledge and devotion they've made to their hobby.
August 13th, 2015 at 10:54 AM ^
vb.net is dying, but i've always enjoyed playing with wounded animals
August 13th, 2015 at 10:56 AM ^
I wonder if the other response was because you like playing with dying animals or because of the connotation of "expert" and ".NET" used together in the same sentence <-- that was my first reaction to the reply.
August 13th, 2015 at 11:05 AM ^
**self-proclaimed
August 13th, 2015 at 11:33 AM ^
Okay... I'll spell it out for you...
It isn't the fact that you're an "expert". I'm sure you are. Well done for acquiring that skill and having the determination to do it on your own.
The problem is .NET. It's a fucking joke from a CS perspective.
August 13th, 2015 at 11:43 AM ^
I certainly understand the disdain for .NET, but when clients want to pay us multiple millions of dollars to develop in, well, usually C#, we don't say "hey you're dumb for wanting to build on this technology stack", we say "okay, this is how much it will cost you"
As for aquiring that skill on my own...I was paid to do it. Maybe (read: almost assuredly) I will never be a ground-breaking developer living in Silicon Valley, but I work on a flexible schedule that allows me to keep the lifestyle that I enjoy, I get paid more money than I spend, and I enjoy the people I work with.
I respect your right to have whatever feelings about .NET, but I am not looking to cure cancer here. I'm currently on a multi-year, multi-million dollar project for a non-profit whose cause I can get behind, and if they wanted me to write in PASCAL then by golly, I would learn PASCAL for them.
GOTO endrant
August 13th, 2015 at 12:39 PM ^
Good Lord you keep digging a hole...
Your clients tell you what platform to develop on?!?!
What client gives a shit? It's not like anyone is going to Oracle and saying, "I really like your RDBMS but I think the language is all wrong."
Clients should give requirements. The vendor takes those requirement and makes technical implementations based upon meeting those requirements and performance considerations.
I'm not a anti-.NET snob, I've had to use C# in the past on maintenance projects, and I'm not picking on you per se but your post is a case study of why IT is so fucked up these days and software projects are a bitch to manage.
and "GOTO" seriously? Nothing like using procedural code on an OOish platform! But there are some who would say .NET is really more just like a scripting language anyway.
August 13th, 2015 at 1:51 PM ^
outside my pay grade buddy -- my clients don't tell me what to write on, my boss does. part of the reason we were able to land the contract is because everyone kept telling them not to use VB.NET and their IT director was insistent on it.
Scenario {
Customer: "I'd like 3 million dollars worth of arugula."
Consultant: "Well, what you really want is Iceberg Lettuce or Romaine Lettuce."
Customer: "But I want arugula."
Consultant: "You will be making a mistake. All leafy greens are better than arugula."
Customer: "I have read good things about arugula, and that is what I want, and I want 3 million dollars of it."
Consultant: "Arugula is limited. You will not get what you want."
Customer: "Wrong. What I want is arugula. I will give my 3 million dollars to someone else."
Consultant's Boss: "Consultant, you're fired."
}
One of the requirements of the customer/client was VB.NET, do you think telling them no would be in the best interest of anyone within my organization?
August 13th, 2015 at 2:45 PM ^
Yes, I regularly tell clients my opinion (and how to protect them from themselves). I frame it in a manner which makes it look like they came up with the ideas/decision.
I haven't lost a single client. Ever!
Such discussions regularly lead to additional revenue streams.
Negging you on this one.
August 13th, 2015 at 3:17 PM ^
I've run/lead/managed everything from one man 90 day projects to 30+ people on projects that lasted over seven years, one is still going strong 10 years after I turned responsibilites over to the client's employees who I trained. The simple fact is that sometimes a client has mandatory requirements that are a technical mistake but, for other reasons, must be adhered to. In that case either you take their money and do the job they demand or you walk away.
It's the client's money. You have a professional responsibility to give your analysis of the upsides and downsides of their choice. Beyond that it's their call and it's your choice whether or not to accept the contract.
There are alot of legacy systems out there. Sometimes an approach that would be indefensible in an ideal world, is the only solution in the real world. Your instincts are good, but sometimes the client's knowledge about their business is more important than technical tradeoffs.
August 13th, 2015 at 4:18 PM ^
ooh, supposed to be a reply to the one above. But yes. and we aren't even talking about a legacy system! Another plain as day situation:
Guy at bar: I'll take an Evan Williams Green Label and coke, please.
Bartender: Jack Daniels is the same price today, and it is better whiskey.
Guy at bar: no thanks, I prefer evan williams.
Bartender: are you sure? It is jack daniels. The evan williams brand is way inferior to jack daniels.
Guy at bar: please, I want Evan Williams. My father drank evan williams, as did his father, and it is what i am wanting to drink.
Bartender: Did you know that jack daniels is preferred by 90% of people over evan williams?
Manager: Bartender, you're fired.
August 13th, 2015 at 4:11 PM ^
ouch, my feelings! Oh how it sucks to have a project manager, architect, lead consultant as well as a business analyst dictating to me what programming language I have to use.
You just don't get it.
1) Not my decision
2) You may have "never lost a client ever", but you would have lost this one when they said "we want this application to be written with VB.NET"
You can give tell your clients your opinions all you want. I regularly share mine as well. Tell me, how are you going to reframe this one to look like it was their decision:
"I have two requirements: 1: .NET technology stack. 2: See rule '1'"
August 13th, 2015 at 11:01 AM ^
doubly posty
August 13th, 2015 at 10:54 AM ^
Beat me to it.
August 13th, 2015 at 10:15 AM ^
August 13th, 2015 at 10:15 AM ^
August 13th, 2015 at 10:30 AM ^
August 13th, 2015 at 10:16 AM ^
August 13th, 2015 at 10:17 AM ^
August 13th, 2015 at 10:17 AM ^
Camping, hiking and outdoor activities.
And comic books. Spiderman got me into it long ago. My peak was college when my best friend loved them as well.
August 13th, 2015 at 10:53 AM ^
Camping, hiking and outdoor activities are not "geek"... whereas even Sheldon Cooper would say damn at the breadth of the OP's nerdness.
August 13th, 2015 at 10:17 AM ^
August 13th, 2015 at 11:42 AM ^
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August 13th, 2015 at 12:05 PM ^
August 13th, 2015 at 10:20 AM ^
Hunting, fishing, being outside and unplugging as much/often as possible.
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August 13th, 2015 at 2:53 PM ^
August 13th, 2015 at 10:22 AM ^
Beer - To the point where I decided to get a part-time job with a local brewery. Also working on a mug list at a local beer bar. Also did over 1,200 miles of driving last week in PA and NJ to visit 8 breweries in 5 days. I need to get over this one.
Sports - This was a lot more intense before.
Others:
DBT/Isbell
Comedy (Bill Burr, Louis CK, etc)
I probably could have named some TV shows here before but they're all over.
August 13th, 2015 at 10:31 AM ^
Beer is good, too.
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August 13th, 2015 at 10:44 AM ^
Both are incredible live. I've seen Isbell three times this year. I saw DBT 3 times last year. I'm messed up.
I really can't wait for the DBT live album coming later this year.
August 13th, 2015 at 10:53 AM ^
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August 13th, 2015 at 10:23 AM ^
2. Backpacking
3. Telescopes pointed at the center of the Milky Way.
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August 13th, 2015 at 10:27 AM ^
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August 13th, 2015 at 10:27 AM ^
I recently learned of the Missoula Floods which eroded large portions of Idaho, Washington, and Oregon with a series of massive inundations. During the end of the ice age, fingering glaciers dammed a large river on the boarder of Idaho and Montana, creating a lake that took up to years to fill. When the glacier and dammed water reached a critical balance point, the dam would collapse sending an estimated 2 mile high wall of water, scouring out the beautiful Columbia River Gorge and depositing huge Montana granite boulders some 700 miles downstream! This is exactly what we will be seeing this year as the glacier dam that held us back, DB, has finally broke and a two mile high destructive wall of water, Harbaugh, will literally move mountains.
And I didn't play D&D when I was young. I played AD&D.
August 13th, 2015 at 10:30 AM ^
Making electronic music in general, but specifically programming virtual synthesizers has become an incredibly fun hobby.
I mostly work with NI's Massive, but also have played around with LennarDigital's Sylenth1, and of course Ableton's Operator is a great virtual synth as well.
For anyone looking to get into it, I would recommend downloading a free trial of Ableton, and playing with some of the preset synths. If you enjoy it, The Dance Music Manual is a great reference for how to make music with synthesizers (the first chapter of the book is an intro on the physics behind how they work).
Here's a remix I made in Ableton using only virtual synthesizers (and a little recorded guitar).
August 13th, 2015 at 10:28 AM ^
August 13th, 2015 at 10:31 AM ^
Mma-been obsessed with the sport for around 12 years. I know the fighters present and past with an almost WD like devotion.
Michigan football-grew up with it its my first sporting memories and it came full circle once I was accepted at the university.
August 13th, 2015 at 10:33 AM ^
I read a ton, at least 4 books a week. I set a goal for myself last fall to read the entire Star Wars expanded universe, which is 150 novels, before the movie comes out. I've got 19 novels to go. I'm also really big on the Expanse series by James S.A. Corey, which is 5 books and counting so far, I highly recommend that series. It's being adapted for TV coming to SyFy this December and it looks great. Other favorite authors include Mira Grant, Ann Leckie, George RR Martin, Clive Cussler, Stephen King, David Baldacci, & John Sandford, amongst many others.
I watch a lot of movies too, have seen well over 1700 now (I vote on everything I watch on IMDB so I can keep track). I'm also extremely good at the game 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon because of my good memory and movie watching history.
I used to blog extensively but haven't had time this year, so my blog has kind of withered but I used to review everything I watched on there.
Watch some 20-30 TV shows currently as well. GoT, Arrow, The Americans, Orphan Black, & the Flash are my current favorites of stuff that's airing.
I used to play Magic the Gathering but stopped a few years back as I couldn't afford to keep playing. I sold the majority of my collection a few years ago but kept my best 8 decks to someday use for casual play in the future when I have time, or to pass on to my son.
Basically I consume pop culture media like others consume food.
August 13th, 2015 at 3:35 PM ^
August 13th, 2015 at 10:35 AM ^
Most history, but especially military history. Europe of Napoleon through WWII (along with the American Civil War) has been my wheelhouse since age 9 (I'm 33). In the last five years, since leaving the Army, I've gotten very into numerous disciplines of martial arts. No, I don't do it for any kind of competitive or "badass" reason, it's just that I've always hated running and once freed from having to do it I needed an alternative, and combat is the best cardio workout around. Since getting into that, I've developed an interest in all things "Eastern", so military history of Asia is now a major affinity as well.
Apart from that, I too am quite the Star Wars and programming geek.
August 13th, 2015 at 10:35 AM ^
Design stuff... starting to nerd out super hard in motion graphics too.
M football is bad... since most of my friends here are not even big college football fans. It's weird to them.
Ping pong
Sci Fi and fantasy books
Lord of the Rings
August 13th, 2015 at 10:44 AM ^
such as football, hockey, golf, brewing beer, drugs, working on cars and grilling. I like to try out new marinades and rubs on pork tenderloins, briskets etc.
I do have a couple nerdy ones I used to do back when I had time for such frivolities. Video games (World of Warcraft, Call of Duty) primarily.
I do enjoy History/Discovery/NatGeo channels because I just like to learn things. Especially history. And anything scientific (biology primarily) though I do too much of that at work. I have a trove of unusable (at least in the real world) tidbits stored away in my head.
August 13th, 2015 at 10:42 AM ^
Baseball cards
Zombies / TWD
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August 13th, 2015 at 10:48 AM ^
don't find science a "nerdy" thing. I think most "sciences" are complex and take a great deal of intelligence and devotion to the field, and therefore, not nerdy in my book.
EDIT: Disclaimer - I am a toxicologist after getting PhD in Molecular and Cell Biology with my thesis on naturally occurring compounds and potential effects on reproductive cancers (prostate and breast cancers primarily).
August 13th, 2015 at 12:29 PM ^
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August 13th, 2015 at 10:42 AM ^
Video games are my primary vice, particularly JRPGs. Let's just say I get a lot of use out of my PS Vita.
I'm also a foodie, and a decent cook as well.
I've debating getting into D&D, though I'm a complete noob and haven't found a group around here (Royal Oak) yet. Also considering picking up FF14, which appears to be the most schedule-friendly MMO out there.
August 13th, 2015 at 10:42 AM ^
Cooking and super smash bros. I love anything to do with Mario video games.
August 13th, 2015 at 10:43 AM ^
I like finding, collecting and playing retro video games. All of it.. Nes, Super Nes, Sega, Colecovision, Turbografx 16, gameboy etc.. pretty much anything original playstation and older. Between that and this blog... my wife pretty much hates me.
August 13th, 2015 at 10:50 AM ^
NBA Jams on Sega Genesis.
August 13th, 2015 at 2:04 PM ^
Heeeeee's heating up!
August 13th, 2015 at 10:52 AM ^