geek

Updated 7.28am PST Saturday, following requests from readers, with details of the dead man and the full picture of the computer.

I wonder how many of you already know where you would like your ashes to live in perpetuity.

In a Cupertino parking lot, perhaps? Or strewn on the steps of a certain academy of sciences?

I only ask because it seems that a geeky man called Alan seems not to have wondered about this. With the result that his eternally powdered life is now being spent inside a SPARCstation computer.

One assumes this is what they call a SPARC of respect.

A Flickr member called Sam 3.14, who appears to be Alan's brother, explained on the site that it was he who decided to place Alan's ashes inside one of the most precious creations under the Sun.

Sam described it thusly on his Flickr page: "I kept the floppy drive cover but for space reasons removed the floppy drive, hard drive, and most of the power supply. I left behind the motherboard and power switch and plugs to keep all openings covered."

Which seems like a wise and brotherly gesture.

Sam continued: "The case worked quite well at his memorial party. His friends and family were able to leave their final good-byes on post-it notes. Anyone who wanted to keep their words private could just slip their note into the case through the floppy slot."… Read more

Now that I've moved into a new mouseless apartment, I can finally settle down and live the dream of digital cable television. First things first, though: I need a new TV. Since it's been eights years since I've even considered buying a new box, needless to say I need all the help I can get. Luckily I've got Jeff, Wilson, and CNET's HDTV World to help me decide on a size, resolution, and brand! Feel free to send me your shopping advice or hot deals at the404(at)cnet(dot)com or @the404 on Twitter.

Everyone's talking about the latest gossip: Attack of the Show stole our show motto! In light of this controversy, our buddy Blake Stevenson drafted the amazing fight announcement poster you see to the left.

With so many awesome fans like Blake on our side, we're sure to win this Battle for the Brow. And if you think that Kevin Pereira and Olivia Munn can even occupy the same air as our low brow-itude, you're on the wrong side of the ring. D-Topping, pearl necklaces, bean bag chairs, buzz-outlouding!? We DARE Attack of the Show to step to us and find out what happens when you mess with the Nerdy Dirty (please don't steal that one).

Jeff brings a great first story to the table about Best Buy's Geek Squad charging $130 to set up a PlayStation 3! This story is so ridiculous that it actually prompts Jeff to bring back the classic "ARE YOU KIDDIN' ME!?" and sadly...they aren't. Neither Best Buy nor Geek Squad have the best customer service reputation, but this might as well be a crime. We understand that there are some fairly techno-inept folks out there, but setting up a PS3 literally requires one plug. Save your $130 and buy some games.

Finally, much thanks to Brian from Pittsburgh--the first winner of our "Take-a-photo-of-yourself-in-a-hockey-rink-with-a-404-sign" competition! Click on the thumbnail over yonder to see him in all his hockey-garb glory. A copy of NHL 10 is on its way to your doorstep, Brian! There's still time left to submit YOUR photo to the404(at)cnet(dot)com, so don't sleep on your chance to win!

I know many of you think we bloggers are pimple-faced, bloated nerds who live in our mother's basement and survive on Fritos and Mountain Dew. While that is certainly true for some of us (Hi, Devin!), it's not the case for all of us. In fact, many tech bloggers, myself included, are socially well-behaved people. Who drink beer. A lot of beer.

And sometimes we have occasion to swap our T-shirts for button-downs and ties. But as geeks, we prefer that everything, including clothing, has a utilitarian angle. Thus, the After Office Tie by Argentinian design house Sinapsis.

It's a regular black tie for wearing to conventions, meetings, interviews, parole hearings, and other things bloggers need to attend. But unbutton your jacket and you see the magic: a bottle opener integrated into the tip of the tie. Imagine, no more church keys taking up precious room on your key ring where an eighth USB drive could be clipped!

Sadly, the After Office Tie--an entrant to a Designboom competition whose winner will be announced October 4--is just a concept at this point. Until then, we can wear the ThinkGeek Power Tie. Also, more photos of this handsome be-mulleted man after the jump.… Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--The world of Web 2.0 has been criticized for being too much about the nifty ideas and not enough about raking in the dough. So there were likely more than a few sets of ears in the audience on Monday at TechCrunch50 that perked up at the start of the third batch of start-ups presenting: "New Advertising & Monetization Platforms."

The judges included such Silicon Valley marquee names as Google executive Marissa Mayer, industry veteran Marc Andreessen, Sequoia Capital's Roelof Botha, YCombinator founder and investor Paul Graham, and Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, who sold his company to Amazon this summer.

The first company to present was 5to1, an advertising technology company that tackles the seemingly unsolvable problem of filling up remnant advertising inventory that can't be filled up by premium or direct sales--and which often ends up getting filled by ads that are cheap and irrelevant. 5to1's model lets site owners and publishers fill up their ad inventory as though it's a music playlist.

"What we're talking about here is total control by the publisher," founder and CEO James Heckman said. "No ad is going to show up that you don't like." (He described typical remnant ads as "the dancing fat bellies and the punch-the-monkey ads.")

But some judges were lukewarm on 5to1.

"I think it's a really slick interface but I would just be worried," Tony Hsieh said. "It just seems like a lot of work to have to go through and decide which ads (to run)...my question is how does it scale as a publisher grows."

The next start-up was another advertising platform, DataXu. The focus of DataXu's product is a data dashboard where publishers can buy ads through ad exchanges like Google's and Yahoo's with a highly refined algorithm that promises to show the right ads to the right people at the right time--for example, that news- and sports-related ads get more reception in the morning--and then tracks the success of an ad campaign with all sorts of analytics.

President and CEO Mike Baker called DataXu's offering "rocket science," adding that the underlying technology was actually used by NASA for a Mars mission plan. "What we're doing is actually using machine-learning techniques to take vast amounts of data with a small positive-action subset, which is very consistent with the Internet advertising problem: there are very few clicks and even fewer actions," Baker said, while declining to provide any real trade secrets. "We're applying on top of that the concept of control systems."

Up next was something much more consumer-focused, and that left the audience pretty impressed: SeatGeek, which forecasts concert and sports ticket prices, much like airline price applications like Microsoft's Bing Travel do. Co-founders Jack Groetzinger and Russ D'Souza explained that sometimes ticket prices can drop unexpectedly at the last minute--and sometimes they don't.

The secondary ticket market is around $15 billion, Groetzinger said.

SeatGeek pulls in ticket prices from secondary sellers such as StubHub or Craigslist and then forecasts where they might go based on an algorithm. "We have a system that every day crawls the Internet and pulls in thousands of actual ticket sales," Groetzinger explained. "We're also pulling in other external factors that we know to drive ticket prices." For a baseball game, for example, it can come down to the weather, the starting pitcher, and whether there are popular concerts in town. "Right now we're testing at about 75 to 80 percent accuracy, and that's going up every day as our system learns."

SeatGeek, which says it's already profitable… Read more

Well, you don't really need to totally disregard this episode, but that is what 10-12 means in CB radio talk. And the news is light. Although we do learn that the head of MI6's Speedo is not a state secret. But it SHOULD be!

MI6 boss in Facebook entry row http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8134807.stm

Small towns and farms to get Net Neutrality http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10278484-94.html

Apple orders up a ton of … Read more

Twitter is great, but there usually comes a time when phenomena like it jump the proverbial shark. The fact that these T-shirts from ThinkGeek exist could mean Twitter is approaching that point, but I do kind of want one anyway.

The brown and blue shirt essentially turns you into the Twitter "anonymous" icon, or the default Twitter profile image for people who haven't uploaded their own pic (I use my CNET headshot, natch!).

The icon's pictured to the left, but for those who don't know it, it's o_O. Just like that. It's an … Read more

As if Chris Pirillo of Lockergnome fame wasn't all over the Web enough, he now wants to be in your kettle. Pirillo has partnered with Might Leaf Tea Company to invent Geekalicious, a signature tea that bears his likeness. It's a genmaicha-like tea, and like most genmaicha, it has rice puffs that combine with the other natural tea flavors to give it a refreshing character.

How do I know so much about tea? How does Pirillo? Some are saying tea is the new coffee. I used to work in a coffee shop that was popular among the tea-elite. … Read more

Going to a retail store for consumer electronics purchases can be both exciting and frustrating. After working at Best Buy for two years, I have a few opinions to share that you might want to consider before your next shopping trip.

1. We have no formal training in the field of consumer electronics. Upon transferring to the computer department from home theater, I expressed concern to the manager: "Will there be time for someone to train me on laptops/desktops? What do these specifications mean?" His reply was simple: "Just do your best. A good salesperson can just read the labels and compare specs." Ouch.

Salespeople are not necessarily experts in the products sold in their departments, even if they are expert salespeople. Though many express a strong interest in the products they sell, your time spent at a retail store fishing for information about a future TV purchase could be better spent online researching the products yourself (I heard CNET has pretty great reviews).

2. We make little off the big-ticket items, so we smother you with accessories. Remember the story "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie"? Well, if you tell a salesman you're going to buy a TV, he's going to want to sell you a DVD player to go with it. Once he sells you the DVD player, he's going to want to get you to buy an HDMI cable, too.

Managers at Best Buy (and possibly all retailers) tell employees that the store profits surprisingly little from video game consoles and computers. Cables, accessories, mice, and other components, however, have a huge profit margin-- stores can make about $120 from a $150 Monster HDMI cable. Angry yet? The point is, we're going to work really hard to convince you to purchase that big item, but once you've said "OK" you've opened Pandora's Box.

Here's my advice: Grab the big item, and run. Purchase all accessories online, including memory cards, cables, traveling cases, and so on. Amazon, Monoprice, and Newegg are all reputable discount Web sites. You'll find what you need at a much lower price.… Read more

Oh, man. They're just trying to kill me. Which, I suppose, is a bit ironic, as this is a replica of a medical device.

Seriously, though, check it out. For a measly $39.99, you can be the proud owner of a Star Trek Original Series Medical Tricorder. Exclusive to Entertainment Earth (the "they" who is trying to kill me with all this geeky stuff), this deluxe tricorder not only looks sweet, but even has sound clips of DeForest Kelley as Dr. McCoy, including my personal favorite, "I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer!" It … Read more