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2002’s Sexiest Geek Alive

The 2002 “SEXIEST GEEK ALIVE” was announced yesterday at Austin’s annual SXSW show. 12,000 men and women applied, and it was narrowed down to 8 finalists. The winner this year is Chad Briggs. Winning involved a talent segment, an interview, and an online test – which is available on the website.

The test includes four categories (math/science; computers/programming; nerd culture; science fiction) and questions such as, “What is the half-life of a free neutron?” and “What medical condition is primarily responsible for preventing Homer Simpson from being a genius?”

Ellen Spertus, 33, of San Francisco, the 2001 winner, took the crown by wearing a corset made of circuit boards and counting in binary on her hands.  Ellen was unable to answer the question about how many processors were available in her house, as she claims to own too many to count, what with her bread machine, electric car, and other electronic devices.

This year’s contest included a contestant playing jazz piano while lying down on the bench and reaching backward over the keyboard, and another giving a PowerPoint slide presentation on speaking Russian.

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Gadgets Websites

The Whirlpool Polara Oven

Remember Jason Alexander, the actor who played the character “George” on Seinfeld? One of his first acting roles — if you can call it that — was for the famous McDonald’s McDLT.  Let’s take a look:

Why do I bring this up?  because when it comes to keeping the “hot side hot, and the cool side cool”, nothing beat THE WHIRLPOOL POLARA OVEN.  It’s a refrigerator…inside your oven! 

It’s like a big giant crockpot, designed with food safety in mind.  Just put your raw food into the oven, and tell it what time to start cooking.  Your food will be kept safely refrigerator cool (no e.coli here!), and will be almost done cooking by the time you make it home from the office. 

And to think that watching this fancy stuff on The Jetsons was all futurey and stuff.

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The Warholizer

Here’s how you can get your very own 15-minutes of fame: just upload your photo to THE WARHOLIZER and have it automatically turned into a Warhol-style portrait. 

No, it won’t be a can of soup.  You’re just going to have to try it and see.

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Games Websites

Flash Fun: Five Finger Fillet

We all have a twisted, freaky side.  Here’s a website for you: 

All you have to do at Five Finger Fillet is tap your spacebar at the right time to drive the huge, shiny knife blade in between your victim’s – er, lucky friends’s – fingers.  Try to hit the table as many times as possible without slicing off anybody’s extremities.  Ouch.

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Flash Fun: The Bruce Lee Ultimate Movie Trailer Remixer

We’ve all seen those classic Bruce Lee movies, with all the thumping music, quick camera cuts, and superimposed text graphics. THE ULTIMATE BRUCE LEE MOVIE TRAILER REMIXER gives you a chance to create your own movie trailer loop using music, graphics, and video cuts recreated from those movies you loved watching late at night on TV.

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The Calories Burned Calculator

Although there are those who argue that “calories don’t count,” most experts I’ve spoken with — and trust me, I’ve spoken with quite a few — all agree that 3,500 calories equals a pound of fat.

So dieting is easy: all you have to do is reduce your caloric intake by 500 calories a day, and — over time — you’ll find yourself losing about a pound a week.

Sounds easy, right?  Your first step is to know approximately how many calories it takes to sustain your weight.  That, of course, varies depending on your age, gender and activity level.

So all you need to do to get a precise estimate of what those numbers are, you can enter how many hours you do specific activities at THE CALORIES BURNED CALCULATOR

The list of activities is pretty expansive, and includes such activities as playing guitar, playing frisbee, brushing your teeth, horse grooming, and mopping.  Even sex is broken out to “intercourse” and “foreplay” categories.  Yup, they’ve thought of everything!

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Music Royalty Calculator

Calculating the money made in a record deal can be overly complicated.  Does the artist make a ton of money as soon as they’re signed?  Not necessarily.

Check out the MOSES AVALON MUSIC ROYALTY CALCULATOR to see if you’re getting screwed before you sign your band away.

All you need to know is:

  • Advances
    • how much the advance is
    • retail price of the record. CD pricing averages to around $11.98 apiece, and indie record deals expect that 80% of your sales to come from CDs.
    • What the royalty paid to you is
    • How big a promotional budget will you have?  This is monty that is coming directly out of your pocket, so spend wisely.
  • Producer’s payout.
    • Royalty
    • Producer paid from record one
  • Label costs
    • Packaging deductions
    • Breakage
    • Percentage of Sales royalties are calculated on

The calculator will determine, based on the info you’ve provided, how much money is made on each actual sale and how many sales you need to have before you start making money.  Of course, this is only going to be a rough estimate – your actual successes may vary.