geekyAll things considered, it's probably not a surprise that when I was offered the chance to blurb Michael Underwood's Geekomancy, I said "sure, why not." A magic system based on and powered by the geeky joys that run my universe? Yes, please. And to no one's shock or amazement, I adored it. It's fun, it's peppy, it's about people I recognize, because they're the kind of people I voluntarily surround myself with every day of my life. The sequel, Celebromancy, came out recently, and is even more fun.
But here's the thing: these books are e-only, which means they miss out on bookstore browsers and surprise eyes, and too many of the awesome geeky people I know haven't encountered them or had the opportunity to give them a try. So I asked Michael's editor if I could do an e-book giveaway for the first book, to get people hooked on the series, and he said sure (after he finished blinking at me a great deal). And so I now present...
SEANAN GIVES AWAY SOMEONE ELSE'S BOOKS FOR A CHANGE!
This giveaway is for three electronic copies of Geekomancy by Michael Underwood. The limitations:
1. You will need to get the book through a specific channel (the publisher's website), because what I have are download codes.
2. The book is not going to be "Kindle ready," and may not be transferable onto a Kindle without evil magic.
To enter, leave a comment with your geekiest moment. No geek is too great! I, and the Random Number Generator, will select three winners on Friday, June 28th. Open to US residents only (sorry), please leave your comment on the entry itself; comments on comments will not be eligible to win.
Game on!
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June 25 2013, 03:18:21 UTC 4 years ago
June 25 2013, 03:29:06 UTC 4 years ago
June 25 2013, 04:56:47 UTC 4 years ago
June 25 2013, 10:17:28 UTC 4 years ago Edited: June 25 2013, 10:18:45 UTC
My husband's a programmer; I'm not any sort of computer professional, just a technophile, technician, tinkerer, and lifelong science fiction lover. My husband is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery, or ACM. He hardly ever goes to the monthly meetings, but on one occasion the speaker was announced to be Bill Cheswick, whose book on how to build a hacker-proof firewall had just come out. My husband was interested, because part of what he was working on at the time involved a firewall. Cheswick is also known for creating a map of the internet, which interested me, so I asked my husband to bring me along as his guest.
Cheswick talked about the material in his book, using his laptop to show a PowerPoint presentation. He then digressed, talking about a graphics program he was working on that would help people visualize complicated objects. When he asked for questions, I stood up and asked him if his program could be animated, so the user could rotate the object in various directions (I used the word "grok" in the question, without conscious intent). He said, "That's a very good question! In order to answer it, I have to bring up the program..." He closed Windows and attempted to boot his machine into Linux, and the first attempt failed; I said "Hey, I crashed the presenter!", and he laughed. He demonstrated his project, and took a number of other questions. Then he said, "I brought along a few internet maps with me. They're for sale, but you" (pointing a rolled-up map at me) "asked the most interesting question, so I'll give you one." It's hanging on the wall beside me right now :-)
Small-scale geekiness:
My computer's name is NCC-1701-X
:-D
June 25 2013, 11:28:43 UTC 4 years ago
June 25 2013, 13:42:50 UTC 4 years ago
June 25 2013, 13:45:04 UTC 4 years ago
Geekiest moment... hard to say. My life description pretty much alternates between "holy shit that's boring" and "holy shit is that person for real". Oh, but baby geekery is always cute, right? When I was thirteen or fourteen, something like that, I snuck out of bed at 5 AM during summer break to 1) copy a computer game onto a USB drive so I could play it on the laptop, whose wireless connection didn't require a confiscateable network adapter, 2) copy it onto a CD so I could sneak it to my friends without them having to download it officially and get caught by their equally strict parents, and of course 3) play the game.
June 25 2013, 14:40:30 UTC 4 years ago
At SDCC a couple of years ago, my awesometastic friend Priscilla Spencer (herself the right-hand person of Jim Butcher, beta reader to Jim and Our Illustrious Hostess Here, mapmaker extraordinaire for a rapidly growing number of amazing fantasy series and generally spiffy person) was dressed as the Maeve character from Jim's DRESDEN FILES books... and anyone who doesn't know Priscilla is blown away by her OMGINCREDIBLE cosplay work, so it was a helluva costume. She was waiting in line for Nathan Fillion's signing with Jim and Cam Banks (who is an author, RPG godking and all-around killa Kiwi). Fillion spied her, his eyes grew wide (we've ALL seen that look on him)... and HE asked to have a picture taken with HER. So she passed her armloads of stuff to Jim and Cam and sidled up to Fillion for said picture on HIS phone.
Recap: Imagine yourself. Biggest geekfest in the world. In the company of two geek idols, at the signing for perhaps one of the biggest geek idols. Said biggest geek idol wants a pic with YOU, so you hand your swag to the aforementioned geek idols while pic is taken. GEEK DIVINITY ACHIEVED.
June 25 2013, 15:07:22 UTC 4 years ago
1983: I program my Tandy Micro-10 computer to teach my 3 -year-old daughter math. (1+1=? correct answer gave fireworks!) There's a picture somewhere; I should scan it someday.
2008: At our wedding, the husband & I cut our cake (supposed to look like a castle, with dragon toppers) with a bat'leth. We're still playing an on-again, off-again game of Warhammer (Fantasy, not 40K) that's been going for 20 years. And the entire family, even the daughters who hate science fiction and tech stuff, are all rabid Doctor Who fans.
Between 1983 & 2008? I worked as a programmer, help desk person, computer technician, QA tester, and anything in between. I wrote my first Web page in 1994, with Notepad. I got CompTIA certified back in the 90s, and taught A+ classes to displaced auto workers. I was the first woman hired in the IT department of a bunch of places, including the State of Ohio's Lottery division. And a million other geeky things I can't remember, because I AM a geek. Not a nerd. There's a difference - nerds wear their pocket protectors even after work.
June 25 2013, 15:13:27 UTC 4 years ago
June 25 2013, 17:02:55 UTC 4 years ago
June 25 2013, 17:04:12 UTC 4 years ago
June 25 2013, 17:22:33 UTC 4 years ago
In 4th grade, I went to a con dressed as close as I could manage to the Fourth Doctor. My sister helped me acquire costume parts.
I met Mercedes Lackey through an MMO, and ended up gophering for her and Larry Dixon at Baycon 2010 (as they'd missed 2009 due to illness). In fact, I stood in for Larry at his art table while he attended a panel on raptors. Lee Moyer christened me "stunt Larry."
Yeah. That's the best I can do. :D
June 25 2013, 17:56:49 UTC 4 years ago
The first happened at one of the malls here in Louisville. One of the Catholic high schools had an informational exhibit this one day, and one of the girls manning the exhibit (presumably one of the school's students) was holding a sign that said "Ask Me."
I went up to her and asked, "Do you know the value of pi to 35 decimal places?" I got blank stares from the girl holding the sign, and another girl who was standing nearby. After a couple of seconds, I said, "It's 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288." The blank stares turned more than a little goggle-eyed as I walked away.
The second happened a couple of years earlier, at Wonderfest, a modeling convention held here in Louisville. One of the guests that year was Marta Kristen of Lost In Space, and she was accompanied by the webmaster of her website. During a conversation with them, the song "Jenny (867-5309)" came up, and I mentioned how the chorus could be used as a mnemonic for memorizing pi, and I proceeded to demonstrate by singing, "Three point one four one five nine, two six five three five eight nine . . . " I then mentioned another mnemonic for memorizing pi: "How I want a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics." Count the letters in each word, and you have the value of pi to 14 decimal places -- 3.14159265358979.
The webmaster just looked at me and said, "I hand my geek crown over to you."
June 25 2013, 22:17:28 UTC 4 years ago
June 25 2013, 22:23:36 UTC 4 years ago
June 26 2013, 00:42:52 UTC 4 years ago
Well, there was one time that I dressed up as Sora from Kingdom Hearts and met up with two different Doctors in front of a TARDIS that was giving the victory sign. (Yes, I do have a picture to prove it)
June 26 2013, 02:28:26 UTC 4 years ago
June 26 2013, 03:16:29 UTC 4 years ago
June 26 2013, 06:52:34 UTC 4 years ago
June 26 2013, 08:01:51 UTC 4 years ago
Then he yells, "Green Lantern!"
And I go, "Is a DC character, I win."
Him, mouth opening and closing like a fish: "But . . . wait, no . . ."
Me, decisive: "Founding member of the Justice League, I WIN!"
Then I got to shout "I WIN YOU NAMED A DC CHARACTER I WIN!" as I spun on my heel and strode away down the hall.
June 26 2013, 19:45:30 UTC 4 years ago
June 26 2013, 19:50:56 UTC 4 years ago
June 27 2013, 00:25:26 UTC 4 years ago
June 27 2013, 18:08:02 UTC 4 years ago
I won't talk about greeting Walter Koenig in my tropical whites and how I reminded him that I used to be the counter person at McDonalds to whom he'd know to go to get his Sunday morning breakfasts for almost a year (oops!, I just did!).
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