Ryan Byrd’s Ramblings

Are you a nerd? If you are, you might know the late Dr Seuss made up the word back in the 50’s.  Dr. Seuss’ story, If I Ran the Zoo, stars a boy named Gerald McGrew who makes extravagant claims of how’d he act were he in charge of the zoo. First, he would bring in a Nerd (a creature from Ka-Troo.)  Says Gerald:

And then, just to show them, I’ll sail to Ka-Troo And Bring Back an IT-KUTCH a PREEP and a PROO a NERKLE a NERD and a SEERSUCKER, too!

Just like the odd looking Seussian nerd, the modern nerd is a different breed. I know some of you are half way through an email to me expounding on the differences between nerds and geeks. Send it, if you must, but know I don’t care. When I write nerd, I’m thinking of the movie “Revenge of the Nerds.” The term geek seems an awkward attempt to popularize and socialize nerds. I embrace my nerddom, so should you. So what makes a nerd? Well social obliviousness (or indifference) is a good indicator, but the primary characteristic is passionate curiosity coupled with scientific rigor.

Let’s take as an example a certain Mr. Hans F. A lot of us use the microwave oven (I happen to heat nearly all my meals in mine.) Hans is no different in that regard. But one day, perhaps while waiting for a delicious TV dinner to thaw, he began thinking about magnetrons. The magnetron, you might know, is the device that zaps your food and warms it up by making the water molecules dance. Hans happened to know that the magnetron inside of microwave ovens does not change power– it’s either on or off. So how does the oven adjust the perceived output power? By duty cycle, that is, by switching the magnetron on and off. Says Hans*,

In a bout of curiosity I sat down with my microwave today and figured out exactly what those duty cycles are (you can hear when the magnetron switches on and off). My microwave apparently has a cycle period of 32 seconds. High is power level 100 and the magnetron is on all the time. Power level 50 is on 18 seconds and off 14 seconds. Power level 40 is on 16 and off 16 (which I would have guessed would be the case for power level 50). Power level 10 (the lowest setting) is on for 6 seconds and off for 26 seconds.

That’s a very nerdy thing to do, but Hans didn’t stop there. He GRAPHED his results and then BLOGGED about it. Hans is a nerd. A HUGE nerd.

In sum, nerds apply the scientific method to everyday life and though that generally refers to computers, it’s not exclusively so. And while the accompanying social abrasiveness can be mitigated by a girlfriend or a wife (if ever we manage to find a either…), there seems to always run an undercurrent of social maladroitness.

How much of  a nerd are you?

As much as Carolus Linnaeus and I would like to clearly classify people with simple labels, people are complicated and so few people are 100% nerdy. That’s why we need a system to gauge nerdiness.  Here’s what I’ve got so far:

The Expanded Byrd Nerd Scale (EBNS)

• Socially Challenged (1-25) [form follows function, utilitarian,% un-well-rounded]
• Passionate (1-25) [willing to forgo food & hygiene, overwhelming desire to create things]
• Curious (1-25) [constantly asking why, how & why not]
• Scientific (1-25) [mathematically oriented, scientific method based]

Some quick nerd litmus questions: Can you count in hexadecimal? Do you know what a “reverse polish notation” calculator is? Have you ever used the word “asymptotic”? Can you convert between Celsius and Fahrenheit? Celsius and Kelvin? Do you know how fast light travels, in miles per second?

Nerds, they ain’t just Wonka candy anymore.

src: http://www.eldacur.com/~brons/NerdCorner/nerd.html
src: http://www.armory.com/tests/nerd500.html

* you should know that pressing your ear against a microwave oven to count the magnetron clicks is a good way to give yourself brain cancer…

My brother is something of a high adventure risk seeker and recently while attempting to catch some high air (jumping boat wakes) at Lake Mead*, he crashed and jacked up his leg. He has been limping ever since. Yesterday, he went an got an MRI. Sure enough, the scan revealed that he had broken his leg and torn a bunch of ligaments (subcortical compaction fraction…extensive soft tissue edema, swelling, and abnormal signal with discontinuity, consistent with a lateral ligament tear, type II, etc, etc.)

If there is a funny part to this anecdote, under CLINICAL HISTORY, the MRI should have said “wakeboarding accident.” You’ll have to click the image link to discover what was typed instead. Evidently my brother is a terrorist.

* that the boat was filled with attractive women might have provided additional incentive for his showing off.

Related: NPR and CurrentTV have reported on a new, disturbing exhibit at Coney Island. You might remember we’ve talked about Guantanamo Bay before.

Two funny amazon.com book reviews (from “Discover Your Inner Economist“)

Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer

This book is one of the worst books I have ever read. I got to about page 3-4.

William Golding’s Lord of the Flies

I am obsessed with Survivor, so I thought it would be fun. WRONG!!! It is incredibly boring and disgusting. I was very much disturbed when I found young children killing each other. I think that anyone with a conscience would agree with me.

Good time of day. You are disturbed by the charitable company Redd Cross of Slovenia. We have the business offer for you. We can offer to you of earnings, thus your salary will make from 1000$ to 2000$ per one month, at an incomplete working day. Your earnings can be and higher. The more and forces you will give time, the there will be your salary more.If it is interesting to you, you write on the address of e-mail of our agent: manager_on_connections@yahoo.com he will contact you within 24 hours and will throw off to you all details, and will answer you on all your questions. Thank you for attention Redd Cross of Slovenia!

Any takers?

My sister shared this one with me over the weekend, so if you hate it, she’s to blame!

There once was a man from the sticks
Who liked to write limericks.
But he failed at the sport,
Because he wrote them too short.

Steve, a former roommate of mine was driving with his friend, Destin, in the early evening when they saw two young, attractive women in red convertible stopped at a light ahead. Steve dared Destin, saying, “I’ll give you five dollars if you can get their telephone numbers.” The two guys pulled up to the light and Destin thought for a moment before rolling down his window, leaning out and asking, “How would you two girls like to make some money?“

The girls, horrified, quickly sped off. Destin was puzzled. “I don’t understand.” I was going to split the five dollars with them…“

In case you haven’t seen it already…

Delta, in a bold cost-cutting move, has not only eliminated meal service, but they now show the same mediocre movie on both legs of a round-trip flight. (Currently showing: Stardust.)

Fortunately, they also provide shrink wrapped, blue, complementary blankets, which are soft to the touch, yet-somehow still uncomfortable, and so thin, you can crumple one into a fist-sized ball.

What can you do with that blue airline blanket?!?

UPDATE: For even more fun, you can try the airplane snacks balancing act!

• Iron/Ironing Board– heavy, pointed, filled with boiling water, irons feature a burning hot surface, and are perched atop a rickety stand with thin metal legs. Add electricity and a toddler-accessible cord, and you’re ready for disaster. To boot, says comedian Brian Regan, “every iron board I’ve ever opened sounds like a witch being boiled in oil.”
• Internal combustion powered vehicle– just like electric vehicles, except gas cars deplete natural resources, contribute to air pollution, require constant maintenance, and rely on foreign oil (which costs are ever mounting.)
• Trick or treating– teach your kids to accept food from strangers. Also, dress your daughters like working girls.
• US measuring system– With no consistent relationship between increasing units, a complex conversion to the metric system, and adopted by only a handful of countries, it’s hard to see why everyone doesn’t use feet and inches.
• QWERTY keyboard– here’s an idea, let’s scramble the keys to confuse typists and induce carpal tunnel!
• Airplane intercom system– require a system to sound like a staticy CB radio, even though the pilot is only 30 feet in front of you? We have just what you need.
• Side-view automobile mirrors (where objects appear farther than they actually are)– who wants accurate representation when traveling at 75MPH?
• Shuffle skirt– who prefers walking unimpeded? Slow locomotion to a jerky gait with these starch-stiff, jean, ankle-length skirts with no kick slits. They make a great gifts for the fast women in your life.
• Salt canister opening– each top sports a screeching, razor-sharp metal lid eager to slice a finger so salt can pour into your wound. (thx Brian Regan)

This year my day-job company encouraged employees to come to work in costume. Now, there are costumes and then there are super-costumes. I’m all about the latter. For the past five years I’ve been collecting pieces of Roman armor (What? you have a better hobby?) They’re great for “armor of god” lessons in church. Finally, this past week, I obtained the remaining parts to my Roman soldier super-costume and I wore it to work on Friday. Some thoughts on the experience:

When Mormons asked who I was, I told them Captain Moroni. Otherwise, I said Julius Caesar.

I managed to get the costume on all by myself (quite the effort in the parking lot.) I worked all day long dressed like this. It felt anachronistic to be debugging database problems when I should have been fighting Goths and Vandals or beating down a peasant insurrection.

Tunics are like mini-skirts– they don’t leave much to the imagination, particularly when you sit down. Fortunately I wore a pair of red shorts to preserve a bit of dignity and modesty.

Authentic Roman leather sandals look cool, but the raw leather quickly began to scrape skin off from my feet, causing considerable pain. Maybe socks with sandals isn’t such a bad idea after all?!?

Very Noisy. This might be obvious, what with the metal and all, but it came as a surprise to me. The armor makes a lot of noise clanking and rattling around. There were no sneak attacks for the Romans. If ever you hear a story that goes, “and then this Roman soldier snuck up behind me,” don’t believe it.

The armor is heavy. Extremely heavy. As the day wore on, my shoulders began to ache and I began to slump forward under the pressure. Also, the collar of the segmented plates chaffed and bruised my neck. No wonder Roman soldiers were so barbarous– all that chaffing!

The sandal treads are many small rivet heads which probably work great on dirt but provide the same traction as 100 greased air hockey pucks when on office tile.

People kept asking if I was a Spartan. No. Spartans are from Sparta. Sparta is a city in Greece. Spartans are Greek, not Roman. You’all have been watching too much 300. Gosh.

Armor is hard to put on by yourself. I needed the Roman equivalent of a squire or page. It’s even hard to tie your sandals in full armor. It’s even more difficult when you have on the metal shin guards (not pictured.) Again, a squire would have been nice.

Conversation with my mom

me: [showing her the super-costume]

mom:”You look just like those bad soldiers who were mean to Jesus in the church movies.”

me: “Well Mom, to be accurate, the Jews were the ones who delivered Jesus to the Romans…”