Appearances Can Be Deceiving; Or, Just Because You Saw a Celebrity Doing It Does Not Mean You Can, or They Should

Observation and emulation is the most natural way of finding your own style. The subtle danger lies in the fact that not all things that initially appear cool actually are. And us nerds, many of whom are sartorially naive, are vulnerable to duplicating things that may make them look bad, sloppy, or worst of all, like a tool. (IE. Don’t take style advice from Bret Michaels.)

Sticking with the Bret Michaels thing, a good first rule of thumb, one that should be obvious, is to avoid anything that is or remotely looks like Ed Hardy clothing. This rule should be unnecessary, but just in case anyone is in the dark on where Ed Hardy falls in the world of style, there it is. Big thumbs down.

Second, no flip-flops. Exception: If you are currently at the beach. This one is more difficult for me, because I live in a beach town, and it’s a lot easier to justify wearing flip flops as you leave the house if there is a remote possibility to of going to the beach later that day. You just never know when your friend might call you up and say, “WE ARE GOING TO THE BEACH NOW. NO TIME TO GO HOME AND CHANGE INTO FLIP FLOPS.” But I trust most of you don’t have the immediate lure of a nearby beach, and for you it can safely be said: If you’re going summer casual, get some docksiders. Nobody wants to see your toes. And for the confident nerd, espadrilles may also be acceptable, but are harder to pull off.

*extra note: Vibram Fivefingers belong in the Ed Hardy category of styleless awfulness. Unless if you are currently running in them, and seriously endorse barefoot running as a healthy alternative to running shoes, they should not be on your feet.

Third, no cell phone clips. Ever. Put it in your pocket or your awesome new bag.

Lastly, leather jackets. This is the one article of clothing that has the most potential to look amazing, but also to look unbelievable terrible. Before purchasing one, ask yourself, is this me? Does it fit my personality? Am I really just kidding myself? Have I ever been on a motorcycle in my life or do I have immediate plans to be? If you answered yes, yes, no, no, you may proceed with caution. Buy one that fits. It should be almost tight. Think Marlon Brando in The Wild One or Brad Pitt in Benjamin Button. And consider shelling out for a nice one. It’ll make all the difference.

The issue of leather jackets touches on an important element of developing your style: it’s yours. It’s good to notice what other people are doing and take notes, but it doesn’t always mean that what works for them will work for you, and what works for you may not work for them as well. Above all have confidence, and in time you’ll have developed a style all your own.

35 Years of computing time utterly defeats Rubik’s Cube

Morley Davidson, John Dethridge, Herbert Kociemba, and Tomas Rokicki have officially conquered the Rubik’s Cube officially proving man greater then machine (man meaning brains telling supercomputers what to do, and machine being a small plastic toy). They also mathematically proved that…

Every position of Rubik’s Cube™ can be solved in twenty moves or less.
With about 35 CPU-years of idle computer time donated by Google, a team of researchers has essentially solved every position of the Rubik’s Cube™, and shown that no position requires more than twenty moves.

“Okay”, You think to yourself, “I’m mildly impressed. I’ve never actually solved one of those before (although I tell my children that I have). But really, how hard could it be?”

“We partitioned the positions into 2,217,093,120 sets of 19,508,428,800 positions each.
We reduced the count of sets we needed to solve to 55,882,296 using symmetry and set covering.
We did not find optimal solutions to each position, but instead only solutions of length 20 or less.
We wrote a program that solved a single set in about 20 seconds.
We used about 35 CPU years to find solutions to all of the positions in each of the 55,882,296 sets.”

If you want to feel “stupider”, er, “more stupid”, checkout cube20.org.

Here’s a bonus. This tutorial will get you started to solve your own Rubik’s Cubes.
Hey, we won’t tell your kids you had to cheat.

If you’re still not sick of Rubik’s Cubes, checkout its history here.

Getting materialistic, Apple buys LiquidMetal patents

Apple has always experimented with different materials in their product pipeline, and it looks like they may stay ahead of their competitors a little longer. Earlier today it was announced that Apple purchased worldwide exclusive rights to LiquidMetal’s patent portfolio.

LiquidMetal’s video (seen above) of 3 balls bouncing on various metal surfaces recently went viral. For those wondering what they LiquidMetal actually does, checkout a quote from their site.

First, they have an “amorphous” atomic structure, which is unprecedented for structural metals. Second, they include a multi-component chemical composition, which can be optimized for various properties and processes. Finally, they lend themselves to process technology similar to that possessed by plastics.

I don’t think we’re going to be bouncing iPhones anytime soon, but this sort of engineering seems perfect for Jobs and company.

The Bag

Geeks, more than any other stereotype, need a bag to carry all their crap (except for maybe your mom). Most geeks are not aware of this, and stuff their pockets so full of technology that when they’re required to empty them for airport security you’d think on first glance they were Inspector Gadget. Anyone remember Docker’s short-lived mobile pants?

The first order of business is the bag itself, and there are a lot of good options out there. You want some clean, simple, and classic, something that you can keep for a couple decades and it will only look better with age. Here are a few ideas.

Casual – Makr Tote

Believe it or not, it is now acceptable for men to carry tote bags. While this is casual, it will take the more confident geek to pull off. I have not completely jumped on the tote bag bandwagon, but black on black canvas and leather is about the manliest you’re going to get.

Business – Mismo M/S

You could throw this thing off a cliff and it would still look amazing. Just take your laptop out first.

Either – J.Crew Leather Postal

This simple leather messenger is the ideal choice to toe the line between business and casual. It’s easy to pull of, will look good anywhere, and the leather will only look more badass as it gets worn in.

The iPad: First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you…

I stumbled across a few articles covering the iPad, and it reminded me of one of my favorite Ghandi quotes.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” – Mahatma Gandhi

Obviously Ghandi was working with things more important then tech, but the overlap is uncanny to the iPad’s situation.

“First they ignore you…” Microsoft’s strategy regarding the iPad.

“then they laugh at you” Microsoft talking about Apple’s platform.

“Then they fight you” Steve Balmer introducing the “Slate”. video embedded below.

“Then you win” Balmer quote on Apple selling a million iPads a month.

Ballmer said, “they’ve sold certainly more than I’d like them to have sold.”

Ballmer is on borrowed time at Microsoft.

Nerds rejoice: Settlers of Catan on Microsoft Surface

If you like Settlers of Catan, you’re probably a nerd. If you have Microsoft Surface, you are unquestionably one. This quickly explains why Settlers is one of my favorite games.

From the look of it, I would still prefer the board game. However, I love that they are trying to innovate such an “analog” space.

Keep calm and carry on – The Reddit Story

This is a fabulous read for those interested in startups. Alexis Ohanian (one of the founders of Reddit) talks about some of the life challenges on entrepreneurship.

Steve and I spent every waking hour (and some dreaming, no doubt) after graduation with reddit somewhere on our minds. The time we spent working on it together only reinforced the marriage metaphor everyone uses about cofounders.

My life — and thus Steve’s — was dramatically changed during those startup months for reasons beyond my control. I’ve lived a ridiculously fortunate life, so I knew it was only a matter of time before something was going to knock things a bit off course; I just didn’t think it’d happen like this.

Just a month after we started working on reddit, Steve and I were wrapping up a game of WoW around 4am. I’d only been asleep for an hour when my cellphone rang.

Read the whole article here.

Ballmer doesn’t get it: ‘The Operating System Is Called Windows’

Ballmer tells analysts that Microsoft’s answer to the iPad is Windows 7 running on tablets (or, in his parlance, slates). On its face, if he means this in the obvious way, their efforts are doomed. The iPad would not be a phenomenon if it ran Mac OS X — and Mac OS X is better-suited than Windows for this sort of thing.

Excellent analysis by John Gruber. Make sure you read the whole article here.

On a related note, Engadget linked to this video today of a touch interfaced running on top of Windows 7.

Truth be told this doesn’t look terrible, but the UI does seem sluggish. More importantly, users are going to have to deal with the typical Windows headaches (Spyware, Viruses, etc). What makes the iPad a great computer is that it doesn’t act like a computer. You treat it exactly like you would a microwave. You press what you want, and out come the results you desire. You don’t have to fiddle with software screaming to get your attention, you just press and go.