The Seven Deadly Sins of Geekdom

Geeks Rule! Absolute Geeks Rule Absolutely.

Geek, as defined by Merriam-Webster's dictionary: "a carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake." So, after you know what's in a name, here are some arbitrarily chosen 7 deadly sins of nerds, geeks and aspiring "mad scientists". You may hear about other "sins", too, from your girlfriend, or family.

1. Losing your head, or rather replacing it with something more... usable

2. Thinking that the answer to the Universe is anything but 42. Also, inventing (and living inside) a world with far more interesting laws, problems and answers









3. Actually wanting the Earth to get swallowed by a neat little black hole (in the wake of LHC testing). Or at least craving to witness this event, if only for a microsecond.







4. Sex? What sex? "As you approach UofC (University of Chicago), the amount of sex approaches zero"





5. Obsessing over someone else's fantasy... "The Difficult Aspects of Assassination in the Crossover "Star Wars - Hello Kitty" Universe."

Though "obsessing" is so vital to being a "nerd", that it can not be counted as sin. OK, here is worse, then: submitting a new LOLcat to "icanhascheezburger", but forgetting to feed your own pet.




6. Collecting the darnedest things... abacuses? or abacii?








....vintage military equipment from heavy bombers (Navigation and Bombing Systems







7. The Crisis of Self











When Geeks Go Crazy

When a wonderful smart person becomes too obsessed and too involved with one little segment of skill or knowledge, they pass into a geek territory - and if they don't know when to stop, then they quietly (and usually harmlessly) go nuts. They implode, becoming a geek "neutron star" with entirely different set of rules inside. So, here are some of the signs to see, if your friendly cubicle geek is close to tipping over...

- starts rearranging his working space to resemble Photoshop palettes, and then proceeds to zigzag around, creating a digital masterpiece.

and the Anti-Gamer setup

World's Worst Intersections & Traffic Jams

They should pay you to enter these interchanges

There is a difference between "going mental" and making mental calculations how to get out of this traffic mess... at least we hope there is.

The complexity of modern interchanges can be daunting. Here is an exaggerated vision of what the future may look like

And this is present day in Japan (does that make your heart beat faster?)








But here are a few more that definitely ask to be included into the
"Most Complex Junctions" Hall of Fame:

- Shanghai, China
(see that little circle on the side: this is a trap for amateur drivers, in which they swirl around forever)



- Taganskaya Square, Moscow
(shaped like a huge dumb loaf of bread... and just as unpalatable)







- Tokyo, Japan
(this one's actually quite elegant)







Golden Glades interchange in N. Miami Beach, FL.








Looking like some strands of yarn: Rt. 440 in New Jersey

Extreme Off-Roading

Some off-roading can border on suicide.

Don't get me wrong, I own a Jeep and will go off road with the first opportunity. However, some of the following shots stretch the realms of possibility and can be deemed either Photoshop or "simply nuts".

We'll start with the Hummers climbing exercise on The Lions Back, Moab, Utah.





Scary roads do not get "better" than this:
Carhuaz Valley road in Peru on the way to Chavin De Huantar ruins.











Meanwhile in the US mountains...
Flat Iron Mesa in Moab, Utah








Webster Pass - top shelf road










Schofield Pass - Devil's punchbowl with snow








Cliffhanger - Moab, Utah








"The Cliffhanger is the worst feeling because it's less than 3' to a very very long freefall."
Santa Fe Peak, Colorado, and switchback road near the top of Mt. Antero






And probably the hairiest of all -
Negotiating top of the Pearl Pass, Colorado, in a thunderstorm








Off-roading's Humble Beginnings
The 20s had more mud and fewer roads, of course

Love, Romance and Other Natural Disasters

Easy does it. A little more effort leads to babies

With depressed economics people need more interaction to survive, so they get more interested in each other... and some of them fall in love. The hardships and challenges produce plenty of romance, and then babies start arriving. The pictures here (mostly) extol the virtues of romance, and also show some disasters that go along with it.

Pristine, pre-romance condition








These ideas are not good, even for control freaks











This is indispensable for any romance








Interest, or lack of it



















Kuwait's Parliament

Lords of the Logistics

Necessity is the mother of invention

Pictures of people trying to achieve something in spite of circumstances. Warning: do not try to repeat any of these feats.

Overloads & Strange Cargo














Check out such extreme train riding (seems to be a new sport in Russia)









Meanwhile in India they are perfecting the art of waiting-on-rails
Here is the classic photo










Nothing like being prepared











...especially since all screens show different






Put to good use







Beer is more important than some silly water.









Morning coffee ritual:

Wierd Accidents

Nothing is as fascinating as an unexplained accident

New batch of strange mis-happenings, weird situations, and often maddeningly mysterious wrecks, where we keep asking ourselves: "How on earth that could happen?"



We got a story behind the image: 2004 Hurricane Ivan is responsible for dropping the air conditioning unit on top of this car... The car was left in a parking lot like this for a year, as nobody wanted to pay the moving bill!
















Some classic ones...





























We can only guess how some of them happened
(the truth is often stranger than fiction)

...the following photographs document mostly the bizarre aftermath of car & truck accidents, when it's not as easy to guess what caused them. Sometimes even police can't figure out the truth.


We'll start with the most mysterious ones. Every one of them may be turned into a hair-raising story

This was 2005 crash at Midway Airport in Chicago, where the airport is literally in the middle of a city, with no room (compared to O'Hare which has fields between the street and runways). In this case, the pilot decided to land during a snowstorm, hit a ton of snow on the runway and didn't have any time to stop before it was in the street