Flavors of Geek

The name of this blog was derived from yours truly's personal tendencies. I am a computer geek having spent close to 30 years working with these odd little machines that have come to rule our lives. (Best Buy's so called Geek Squad is a successful marketing device but in my book most would not be even an adequate trainee.)

The term geek originally referred to sideshow performers often noted for biting the heads off chickens, snakes or bats. So I guess Ozzy may qualify. I'm thankfully missing from this sect.

But I'm as much a geek in other ways. Science, history, politics and just general trivia consume much of my reading and tv watching. To my friend's chagrin I often come up with facts on topics from left field and while I'm sure they are interesting to some they may often fall to the Cliff Claven, what the hell are you talkin about? school of bar talk.

Well I have a whole new source and by god it's a damn good one.

http://www.damninteresting.com/

So much great reading. WOW!

"Holy shit."

Inside the cockpit of the cruising airliner, Captain Bob Pearson was understandably alarmed at the out-of-the-ordinary beeps that were chiming from his flight computer. On the control panel, an amber low fuel pressure warning lamp lit up to punctuate the audio alarm.

First Officer Maurice Quintal, copilot of Air Canada Flight 143, checked the indicator light to determine the cause of the computer's complaints. "Something's wrong with the fuel pump," he reported.

The mustachioed Captain Pearson pulled out the trusty Boeing handbook, his fingers dashing through the pages to find the specifics of the warning. To his relief, the troubleshooting chart indicated that the situation was not as perilous as it might seem: the fuel pump in the left wing tank was signaling a problem, a minor issue considering that gravity would continue to feed the engines even if the pump failed.

"You know," he commented to Copilot Quintal, "I would not take this air…" He trailed off as the computer blurted out another four beeps, and the indicator panel lit up like a Christmas tree decorated with bad news. "Oh fuck," Pearson lamented, "we've got to go to Winnipeg."

http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=744#more-744

And just so you know - here is the Wikipedia entry defining Geek.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geek