geek

'Tis the season to be jolly, watch "Star Trek" reruns, craft Foursquare ornaments, and draft E.T. into service as a tree topper.

Tech geeks sure know how to celebrate with style. We asked readers and contributors to send along pics of their hopelessly nerdy Christmas trees.

The results range from a rescued traffic cone to a collection of "Star Trek" ornaments that would make Spock blush.

We filled out the slideshow with a couple of delightful additions from around the Web. Check out a wonderfully squicky Cthulhu tentacle tree and an impressive nerd tree that will have computer programmers dreaming of sugar plum fairies with 500W power supplies.… Read more

As if sailing past the 500 million download mark wasn't enough, Angry Birds developer Rovio has signed a global deal with playground manufacturer (best job ever?) Lappset Group, the Telegraph reports.

The first playgrounds will arrive in Finland next year, winging their way to British parks shortly after.

Sand pits, animal spring rides--you know, the ones you'll inevitably fall off--climbing towers with slides and swings will all be part of the park lineup, with the planet's favorite furious feathered ones incorporated into the artwork.

Read more of "Angry Birds playgrounds land on parks near you in 2012" at Crave UK.… Read more

CNET's newest TV editor, Ty Pendlebury, joins us on today's episode for a short lesson in Australian holidays and colloquialisms!

Today we're talking about another billionaire bitten by the space travel bug, even though Jeff seems reluctant to travel in outer space.

We'll also bug Ty to tell us why the FCC doesn't care about eardrums, and he'll join us throughout the second half where we'll premiere a new geek speed-dating show on TLC.

Also, be sure to tune in tomorrow to hear us announce the winners of Target's video voice mail competition. Two winners will get their choice of an Xbox 360/Kinect Bundle or an iPad 2!… Read more

Music may live in your heart, but it also lives right on top of it when you wear the ThinkGeek Electronic Drum Machine Shirt. Pair it with the drum kit jeans, and you'll become a walking rhythm section.

The wearable, fully playable $29.99 shirt crams a whole lot of drum machine into a very portable format. There are nine different drum kits, including "bass invaderz" and "zapf dingbeats." The rhythm is, indeed, going to get you.

The machine is triggered by a set of pads right on top of your chest. You can record loops up to three minutes long and then layer them for a fuller sound.

It comes with a mini-amp that clips to your clothes and hooks up to the drum machine's audio output jack. And, yes, the amp goes to 11.… Read more

There's always at least one person on your holiday shopping list you put off as long as possible because he or she is such a pain to find something for.

You know these kinds of people. The insufferable wiseacre who insists he's easy to shop for when he's constantly looking for weird movies no one has heard of (more accurately, ones no one wants to watch), or talks about how he needs to add to his collection of '70s and '80s TV commercials. They're like gift hipsters. It would be too easy to just get them something readily available.

These are the people for whom gift cards were created.

Ah, but it doesn't have to be that way. With a minimum of fuss, you can get something unusual for that precious snowflake in your life without having to leave the house. Here, in no particular order, are five Crave-worthy ideas that don't involve your online shopping history being inexorably linked to movies with titles like "Blood Freak" or "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies." … Read more

First, there was "The Imperial March" and now, there's "House of the Rising Sun."

The traditional folk song is just the latest tune to be covered by an unlikely group of musicians: old computer equipment. YouTube user bd594 assembled a handful of old tech to re-create the tune made famous by the English rock group The Animals in the mid-1960s.

In his video description, bd594 explains that he used an Atari 800XL with an EiCO Oscilloscope to play the part of the organ, while the combination of an HP Scanjet 3P, Adaptec SCSI card, and an Ubuntu v9.10-powered computer provided the "vocals." The guitar section was performed by a Texas Instrument Ti-99/4A computer with a Tektronix Oscilloscope, and a hard drive powered by a PiC16F84A microcontroller created the bass, drum, and cymbals section.

Each instrument was recorded separately and then mixed; bd594 insists no sampling and audio effects were used in the recording session. What results is a pretty impressive and fresh take on the song. … Read more

Let's get the disclaimers out of the way. No cats were harmed in the making of Bonsai Kitty Plush. Bonsai kittens were never real in the first place. ThinkGeek's plush toy version is not a real cat.

According to Snopes, the original bonsai kitten site was a tasteless joke that was taken down years ago. You can still view it through the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine if you want to relive the outrage.

The site claimed to sell kittens that had been grown inside glass jars. You can understand why people freaked out, but it was all just a juvenile hoax.… Read more

Buying gifts for geeks can be expensive. They are likely to have things like iPads, Microsoft Surface tables, and working replicas of the TARDIS on their wish lists.

You don't have to drop a bundle to show you care about your geek's nerdy pursuits. For $7.99, you can cross that egghead off your holiday shopping list with a Magic Geek Ball from ThinkGeek.

The Magic Geek Ball is the techie, meme-loving cousin of the Magic 8 Ball. Ask it a yes or no question and it will spit back a response like "404 error," "Fail," or "Can Has."… Read more

OK, I'm ready for the backlash. I'm wearing an iPod Nano on my wrist as a watch. I already own an iPhone. And an iPad. What's wrong with me?

Would you believe me if I said that I'd have done the same thing if there was any watch that could do what this one does? Would you believe me if I said I didn't do this for the iPod?

Let me explain.

I've always been a fan of digital watches and funky watch design, especially tech watches (I even defended them on TV). I'm a watch geek. I wore a retro Casio watch. I just got a cool Diesel one. A long time ago, I tried the Fossil Palm-powered watch, the Fossil Wrist PDA. I still have it in my desk drawer. Microsoft Spot watch? Check.

The iPod Nano-as-watch is a proud successor of that line, a gadget that I believe will stand the test of time for its novelty. Apple may not make a true iWatch, and the iPod's long-term destiny may not inevitably be on my wrist, but for now it's the most innovative use of iPod technology since, well, the first iPod. … Read more