Archive for July, 2010

Nerds in the News: Webchallenge garners award for philanthropy

While we don’t organize and helm the Overnight Website Challenge for awards, it’s nice to get recognized.

The Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal recently announced that we received The Jefferson Award for Public Service in recognition of our record for spurring volunteerism among our nerds and throughout the web development community with the webchallenge. In the first three years of The Nerdery Overnight Website Challenge, volunteers have donated approximately a million dollars worth of professional services to 39 nonprofits.

The Jefferson Award was created in 1962 by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Senator Robert Taft, Jr., and Sam Beard as a “Nobel Prize for public service.”

We promise not to let it go to our heads. Non-subscribers, you can read the whole article right here.

Friday Links: free iPhone 4 cases & stereotyping people by their favorite websites

• The big Apple press conference? Free iPhone 4 cases for everyone!
• In case you missed it: Improv Everywhere’s StarWars subway.
• 6 ways Sci-Fi lied.
• Hacking the Price is Right.
• What Makes a Good Creative Director?
• I’m a softy, but this letter to Patrick Stewart from the parent of a Star Trek fan made my eyes well up with tears.
• 10 technological advances marketers can’t live without.
• Stereotyping people by their favorite websites.
• The 9 Stupidest Superhero Identities.
• Origins of the world’s most important typefaces.

If you only watch one movie trailer today, make it this one

I’m not sure how they made a movie about the creation of Facebook look so dramatic and almost creepy, but they did. Maybe it’s the odd cover of Radiohead’s “Creep.”

Great Moments in Nerdery: Blogging the Periodic Table of Elements

As you know, at The Nerdery we really dig the periodic table, just take a peek at our About Us page. So you can understand why we’re really pumped about Sam Kean’s Slate project Blogging the Periodic Table of Elements. He’s just started the project so you need only catch up on Antimony, Hydrogen, Selenium, Vanadium, Copernicium, Nitrogen & Phosphorus, and Lithium. And you should! It’s really fascinating trivia.

“Despite its obscurity, probably no element on the periodic table has as colorful a history as antimony. Money, madness, poison, linguistics, charlatanism, sex—pretty much every theme that runs through the periodic table can be found in Element 51.”

Open House musical (instrumental mix)

Nerdery Open House from The Nerdery on Vimeo.

If you missed our open house geared at recruiting you, here’s what it looked and sounded like. We had more than 60 interested parties at ours – which is about the same number of jobseekers we had at last November’s shindig. Look, we’ll keep doing this if we have to, or, you could at long last succumb to your inner nerd and join us so we can finally focus on throwing the toga party we’ve always dreamed of. Toga! Toga! Am I chanting alone? Again? Find your calling at http://www.nerdery.com/jobs.

Agency Primer Notes: HTML5, CSS3 & You

If you missed out on our Agency Primer about the future, there’s no need to fear, Agency Primer Notes are here!

Nerdery Agency Primers: HTML5 and CSS3 from The Nerdery on Vimeo.

Friday Links: Nerds love the outdoors

• Don’t forget, today is The Nerdery Open House. Come on down!
• The evolution of the logo.
• You were doing it wrong, an awesome thread on Ask MetaFilter.
• Birthplace of the web found.
• You can buy FarmVille groceries at 7-11.
• Check out this dude’s strange Lego tattoo.
• Star Trek in the Park, it’s like Shakespeare in the Park but with more Klingons.
• Pickup lines from Mad Men.
• The Girl Scouts get a new logo.
• Sidewalk Super Mario Bros.
• 11 Apple stores from around the world (and the winner of the most depressing Apple store goes to. . . .)

Don’t forget, tomorrow is The Nerdery’s Open House

According to Matt, our @the_nerdery twitterer, there are three things you can do at tomorrow’s Open House (3-6 p.m. make sure to RSVP).

1. Play Tron
2. Play Chess
3. Get a cool job

If that’s not enough, you can read about The Nerdery’s Culture to find out how awesome it is to work here.

I kissed a nerd

The only way to follow up that CONvergence post is with this.

CONvergence: Independence Day

While most of the country spent the long weekend celebrating our nation’s birthday, there was one small pocket of Minnesota where the words “Independence Day” were spoken almost exclusively in sentences that also included the words “Jeff Goldblum.”

Inspecting the Bloomington Sheraton parking lot on Saturday there were subtle clues to the uninitiated that something was afoot. The woman in blood spattered scrubs rummaging through her trunk, the smoking porch filled with people discussing the new Captain America costume, the fact that the mud spattered Bronco had a vaguely threatening, but pleasantly sing-songy poem about car hygiene signed “Bad Horse” in lieu of the traditional “clean me.”

To those in the know, these were all omens pointing towards Minnesota’s biggest scifi nerd mecca, CONvergence.

This was my first time at CONvergence, so I’m going to leave the in-depth dissections of the panels, flame wars over costumes, and general fanboyism to the professionals (check out #cvg2010 on twitter). But I will say that it was a remarkable experience and one that had to be seen to be believed. While the full four-day experience may be too much for all but the most committed of nerds, it’s worth checking out when it rolls around again about this time next year.

My two favorite photos from the event:

Pictured from L to R: some girl, Chewbacca, Bountyhunter Leia (background), Jesus.

Wolfman curls up with a good book in the reading lounge on the 22nd floor.