Review (PDF) The Geeks' Guide To World Domination: Be Afraid, Beautiful People
TUNE IN. TURN ON. GEEK OUT.Sorry, beautiful people. These days, from government to business to technology to Hollywood, geeks rule the world. Finally, here’s the book no self-respecting geek can live without–a guide jam-packed with 314.1516 short entries both useful and fun. Science, pop-culture trivia, paper airplanes, and pure geekish nostalgia coexist as happily in these pages as they do in their natural habitat of the geek brain.In short, dear geek, here you’ll find everything you need to achieve nirvana. And here, for you pathetic nongeeks, is the last chance to save yourselves: Love this book, live this book, and you too can join us in the experience of total world domination. • become a sudoku god• brew your own beer• build a laser beam• classify all living things• clone your pet• exorcise demons• find the world’s best corn mazes• grasp the theory of relativity• have sex on Second Life• injure a fish• join the Knights Templar• kick ass with sweet martial-arts moves• learn ludicrous emoticons• master the Ocarina of Time• pimp your cubicle• program a remote control• quote He-Man and Che Guevara• solve fiendish logic puzzles• touch Carl Sagan • unmask Linus Torvalds• visit Beaver Lick, Kentucky• win bar bets• write your name in ElvishJoin us or die, you will.Begun, the Geek Wars have
Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Three Rivers Press; Original edition (March 10, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0307450341
ISBN-13: 978-0307450340
Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #178,785 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #45 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Humor > Computers & Internet #142 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Trivia & Fun Facts #301 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Humor > Parodies
Garth Sundem has done it again--he's written a witty, intelligent, and fun book that will get readers thinking. Here are just a handful of some of the delightful finds you'll get to peruse in this new book: Five Thought Experiments You Can Do Without Getting Out of Bed, World Leaders Who Also Happen to Be Hot, Spam Haiku, Futurama Quotes, and How to Ask Where the Bathroom is in Twelve Different Languages. There is a lot of variety in this book, which is great for geeks who get bored easily. There are also a ton of puzzles in this book, so for all of you logic puzzle fans--this book is for you. There is definitely something in it for every kind of geek, male or female, age 18 to grandparent. Sundem clearly has a gift for making people laugh while also plugging in real facts (that won't put you to sleep!). If Stephen Colbert, Alton Brown, Bill Nye, Matt Groening, and Steven Levitt all wrote one book together, this is what you'd get.
There is no doubt that when I was in school, I was a geek. As the years have gone by since the glory days of my geekdom, however, I have been feeling that I have lost some of my geek credentials. So, when I came across this title, I thought I'd check it out and see how I stack up. As it turns out, I'm a bit of a mixed bag. Or, rather, I am or this book is.Some of this stuff absolutely spoke to me: the "proof" that 2 = 1 (which I "teach" in my math classes), the 10 geekiest writers (of whom I've read nine), the quotable Kung Fu (the time I've spent with that young grasshopper), the basics of golden age geek britcom (of which I've seen it all, over and over), to name a few examples. On the other hand, though I could appreciate the bulk of it at some level, there was a lot that I felt pushed geekdom to the extreme (semaphore, really?) or stepped outside what I would consider pure geekdom (thanksgiving dinner in 30 minutes or less?).Still, in the end, this is a generally fun, easy to read in bits and pieces, peek inside the geek's brain. A nice diversion for ageing geeks and the people who love them.
Alas, nothing in this intermittently amusing book will enable world domination. It's rather what is already in the reader that will or will not permit him or her to demonstrate superiority to the rest of humankind. Which is principally the sheer hubris required to call oneself a geek, to buy a tome like this one, and to imagine that an obsessive interest in and tenacious grasp of arcane and highly-specialized knowledge will lead to the highly-paid and slavishly-worshipped position of Master of the Universe (or, more likely, to madness, obesity, and sitting in your underwear at a computer in your mother's basement).Take a look inside before you decide that this is the kind of book for you. After wasting 23 pages on a table of contents, it kicks off the remaining 250 densely-packed pages with references to Dada art and Douglas Adams, the hoary algebraic "proof" that 2=1 (no, you can't divide by 0), martial arts moves for comic-book geeks, Jeopardy categories, silly calculator tricks, a smattering of parasites, game theory, secret societies, constellations, thought experiments, chess openings, basic economics, and Asimov's three laws of robotics. And that's just the first dozen pages. Get the idea?Most magazines use sidebars to take readers on tangents, but this book contains nothing but sidebars. Everything is trivial, from bar bets to math tricks to Yoda quotes to obscure Australian animals to the basic rules of logic, Scrabble, spelling, and tic-tac-toe (and there you have the next dozen pages). While much of it is undeniably entertaining, very little of this information is really useful, though I suppose knowing how to ask for the restroom in 12 languages, how to brew your own beer, and how to patent your invention might come in handy for certain kinds of geek.
Do you want to know how to let your geek flag fly? Do you want your geek voice to be heard? Well then purchase this book and may the Schwartz be with you! This book contains many funny bits and keeps me entertained from beginning to end. People stop me while I am reading on the street and ask me how to conquer the world and now I can tell them after reading this glorious book.
Well this confirms it... I am officially a geek. There are so many fun and weird things strung throughout this book, you find yourself addicted to finding out what is on the next page. Just don't put it by the toilet or you will never leave the bathroom.
I bought this figuring it was a front to back read. You can pretty much just open the book and start anywhere, read a couple pages and just close, then repeat process. It's still a good book with lots of various random facts that are going to geekitize you at your girlfriends family party and forever keep you separated from those bro in-laws.
Some people might think that this book is just a random book of useless information. Well, they would be right. But most of this "Useless information" is actually extremely interesting.There are things that I've wondered about for a very long time, that I finally know the answer to when I read this book. Now, take this with a grain of salt, though, because you're not going to find the meaning to life within these pages. But you can get pretty darn close. :)
The Geeks' Guide to World Domination: Be Afraid, Beautiful People The New World Order: Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid (What The New World Order Means to You!) (Illuminati Secrets Book 1) How To Analyze People: Mastering Analyzing and Reading People: (How To Read People, Analyze People, Psychology, People Skills, Body Language, Social Skills) A Beautiful Wedding: A Beautiful Disaster Novella (Beautiful Disaster Series) Linux Annoyances for Geeks: Getting the Most Flexible System in the World Just the Way You Want It UNEXPLAINED DISAPPEARANCES & MISSING PEOPLE.: MISSING PEOPLE CASE FILES; UNEXPLAINED DISAPPEARANCES; MISSING PEOPLE. (UNEXPLAINED DISAPPEARANCES : MISSING PEOPLE Book 2) Hosting Static Websites on AWS: A Step by Step Guide for Non-Geeks Freaks, Geeks and Asperger Syndrome: A User Guide to Adolescence Watching Baseball Smarter: A Professional Fan's Guide for Beginners, Semi-experts, and Deeply Serious Geeks Geeks On Call Wireless Networking: 5-Minute Fixes Wine Wars: A Trivia Game for Wine Geeks and Wannabes Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Cooks, and Good Food Dr. Anarchy's Rules For World Domination: (Or How I Became God-Emperor Of Rhode Island) How To Analyze People: Body Language and Human Psychology Guide to Mastering Analyzing (Analyze People, Body Language, Human Psychology, How to Analyze People) The Savvy Resident's Guide: Everything You Wanted to Know About Your Nursing Home Stay But Were Afraid to Ask Should I Be Afraid?: A Survival Guide For Baby Boomers and Senior Citizens The Game Guide: Everything you wanted to know about hockey but were afraid to ask. The Ultimate Guide To Skin Whitening: The Permanent, Most Effective Solution For Increasing Complexion And Having Beautiful Skin (Beautiful Skin, Improve ... Complexion, Become Fair, Skin Pigmentation) People's History of Sports in the United States: 250 Years of Politics, Protest, People, and Play (New Press People's History) Be Not Afraid
