Okay, I'm in. Research scientist, read science for fun sometimes, big Star Trek Fan. (And Jazzpants, yes, most of my life we have preferred Trekkers, not Trekkies. And Patrick Stewart is hot!)

__________________
August 22, back on the ice!

Wow! There are a lot science-math minded people here!

(And I'm definitely not one of them! Husband tries to engage me in physics conversations, but my brain cannot comprehend. I'm more of a history, languages and literature nerd.)

OF COURSE GUYS COUNT!

__________________
Dianne
(A.O.S.S.? Got it BAD! )

I'm geekier than your average skater, but not so geeky as many of you. I took Fortran (offered before class in the AM, no credit, just for fun) in high school, majored in geology in college and spent 30+ years in various aspects of IT (programming, project management, disaster recovery...). I still have a ton of punch cards, high school slide rule, and hard copies of the filk two of our project members wrote on my first big project (great bunch of geeks and assorted oddballs on that one). I read science fiction and science as in the occasional Scientific American, various books on physics and other sciences, the Science Times, the BBC science/nature site, etc. I just can't seem to connect skating with it though. Maybe it's because I was a skater as a kid and got my tech explanations then, so it's more intuitive now.

__________________

Another lifelong nerd here . . . majored in pre-med; earned my Ph.D. in neuropharmacology and did research before leaving the lab for the joys (?) of being an executive for a pharmaceutical manufacturer. But once a geek, always a geek. One of my fondest dreams is to one day see "Childhood's End" (Clarke's best IMHO) made into a movie (but if they ever try, I'm sure they'll manage to screw it up somehow).

montanarose

Oh, just thought of something - practical and effective geeking!

Where I live (WAY out in the back country) we all had dial-up Internet - like 10K thruput on a good day, 8 or 9 disconnects just trying to check your mail - so I got P.O.ed! The phone company refuse to clean up their lines and my ISP shrugged their shoulds and said "Nothing we can do." There ARE solutions!

I did a little research and found there are at least 4 Service Providers who have wireless sites between 12 and 20 miles away. Ran a path profile and determined that I SHOULD be able to get connectivity with enough height so I put up a 68 foot tower. Today the I.S.P.'s installer and I put up a 900 MHz radio on the tower and I now have 1,200 KB connectivity

I have the equipment to set up an access point and distribute some of that bandwidth to my neighbours (on a co-op basis) so now I am busy learning router and access point programming.

GEEK POWER!

__________________
Dianne
(A.O.S.S.? Got it BAD! )

I agree...I think things are more natural for me and don't need much technical explanation because I skated as a kid...

Rusty Blades:

(And yes, I remember the days of 300 bit/s Hayes modems too. I'm not THAT young!!!)

__________________
Cheers,
jazzpants

11-04-2006: Shredded "Pre-Bronze FS for Life" Club Membership card!!!
Silver Moves is the next "Mission Impossible"
(Dare I try for Championship Adult Gold someday???)

Thank you for the support, you guys!!!

Rusty Blades, reminds me of the way people way out in Siberia send text messages by wireless phones. They don't have a connection there, but if they throw the telephone way high, it's high up in the air exactly long enough to send a text message. They do it on a hay staple so the telephone won't break if they fail to catch it. Takes some practice but apparently works.
I've always been wondering why they didn't use a pole and raise the telephone by a rope like a flag.

[QUOTE=kander;345103
Have you ever made the ultimate fan trek to Las Vegas for the big convention they have at the Hilton?
[/QUOTE]

Sessy, you win in terms of makeup (the most I've done is Trill makeup-- insanely simple).

Kevin, Vegas seems almost overwhelming! I'll stick to the smaller local cons (I went to cons years ago and, it's funny how the "face" of Trek has changed with some of us Enterprise fans. Very heavy on the # of female fans, esp those of us in, admittedly, snugger clothes. And especially on the days when any of the guys, esp Connor Trineer are slated to be there. I did get to speak to him for a short period of time, and what a sweetie!)

And, RustyBlades . You win the overall geek skater award. I still remember how you said that you laid out your programs on CAD (that was you, right?)

__________________
When asked what his "secret" to success was, Wayne Gretsky said: "Skate to where the puck is going and not to where it has been."
Is the figure skating version of this: Skate as if you're doing an axel and not just learning how to hop?

Still do. The coaches think I have some big-time professional choreographer doing my programs

__________________
Dianne
(A.O.S.S.? Got it BAD! )

As in, AutoCad?

You be'cha.

One layer for NHL size rink (with markings), one of Olympic, and layers for different parts of the program (so it doesn't get too confusing), layers for "presentation notes", music cues & time, element descriptions, etc. Then I can turn on specific layers for each plot and most 2 to 3 minute routines fit on 2 or 3 sheets.

I find it less confusing and easier to read than hand-scribbled diagrams.

__________________
Dianne
(A.O.S.S.? Got it BAD! )

Wow! I'm jealous.

I'm supposed to put another programme together myself so I downloaded video's of skaters from youtube, cut pieces of their programmes I liked, put it in a video file and put on different musics I liked to see which would work with it. Not sure if it's gonna work that well thought.

Wow, this thread has made me realise how normal I am!
I do completely ordinary stuff, like...
- love sci-fi and fantasy novels
- find organic chemistry extremely interesting!
- have a BA and an MS in Math - would have done a PhD but... its a complicated story
- work as an operations research analyst
- program excel to optimise points for the IJS
- explain the concept of CG, trajectories & Newton's Third Law to my students (skating students, that is) though I really don't know how much of that they absorbed.

Oh and I have been trying to teach my baby-to-be how to count, add and multiply. DH says she will pop out with a 3-line solution to Fermat's Last Theorem!

~ Chow

__________________
~~~~~
Blog: http://chowskates.blogspot.com

Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/chowskates
~~~~~

And for the Star Wars fans... this is brilliant!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-gi4Nt_xxg

__________________
~~~~~
Blog: http://chowskates.blogspot.com

Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/chowskates
~~~~~

I can't ever hear that song without replacing his lyrics with this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y8G4s1yxi0

I found it amusing, my mom just didn't get it.

LOL! I was talking to a lab assistent who worked at the morgue just yesterday, we were discussing the possibilities of having some people who drink and drive wake up in the morgue between some real bodies.

Is it just me or are people who work in morgues usually kinda disturbed? And do they get that way before, or after?

I guess I have to be counted in this category also.

I'm currently the Director of Software Development at a small software company, which means I'm the chief programmer. I have a Masters in Industrial Engineering.

I mostly read non-fiction or fantasy - not a lot in between except when combined like Michael Crichton.

I watch most of the geek shows on TV: Bones, Numbers, and Big Bang Theory.

I highly recommend the last for the true geeks. One of the discussions in the pilot episode was whether you'd be upset if you donated sperm to create a child that didn't know whether to use differential or integral calculus to find the area under a curve!

Rob

__________________
Geriatric Figure Skating Crew - President for Life!
Georgia Figure Skating Club - President (again)
Facebook
____________________________________________
"I'm too old to die young, and too smart to be happy" - Kinky Friedman, The Mile High Club

2010 Adult Nationals - earning a gold - "Priceless"
2009 Adult Nationals - competing with a cold is not much fun.
2008 Adult Nationals - Too little sleep, too much vodka!

Count me in... BS in computer engineering, MS in electrical, been in the computer biz for 22 years almost (eek!). Collect old computers but had to part with many of them in my last move, so I'm down to 25 or 30.

I'm very analytical in my skating and it sometimes drives my coach nuts, but she's very patient. Still, I tend to think it often gets in the way, it's hard to just relax and skate sometimes.

__________________
Gordon Zaft
http://sk8rboi.blogspot.com
School figures are skating's equivalent of the Latin Mass.

Also, if you catch The IT Crowd - it is hilarious!

__________________
~~~~~
Blog: http://chowskates.blogspot.com

Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/chowskates
~~~~~

And I thought titanium screws were where it was at.

I'm guilty of prompting this discussion by making a post with a little too much physics:

http://skatingforums.com/showpost.ph...1&postcount=10

But you Real Nerds have it all over me. I burned out in college, somehow scraped by with a BA in physics. They said you need another 6 years in grad school and a few more as a post-doc, to get a physics job. Yuk. So I copped out and became a computer geek.

I wrote code for data acquisition and control, optical simulation, ground data processing, orbits, data compression and decompression, lidar, Synthetic Aperture Radar, hyperspectral optical work, and such like. Used various dialects of FORTRAN, Assembly, BASIC, FORTH, APL, IDL, PV-WAVE, and C. Got my name on a few papers - but I was always just writing code.

Some of my stuff ran on ships, airplanes, balloons, blimps and a satellite, so that should make me just as spacey as the Trekkies.

To top off my insanity, I do things a nerd should know better than to try, like skating. Fool! Wish I was good enough to teach it for money. What a great part time job!

Now I'm unemployed. Gotta learn web design to pay the bills. Most of the money that used to pay for "scientific programmers", and scientific research in general, is going to The Current Crusade, which I want nothing to do with.

Unless anyone knows a scientific programming job (part time is fine - more time to skate, etc.) that stays away from that?