Most people’s bucket list involves doing things like riding the Orient Express, or feeding nuts to squirrel monkeys in Borneo. But for geeks, bucket lists are rather different.
For instance, we’re not all that interested in visiting the Eiffel tower (unless it’s to calculate how much weight is supported by each of its four legs), but we are very interested in heading off to gaming expos, Blizzcon, and, of course, CES. For us, these are the great Meccas that make our existence worthwhile. Soaps operas are boring: quantum computers are the solution to our existential crises.
So with that said, what should be on your geeky bucket list?
Pay A Visit To Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park is one of the most famous institutions in the country, even though it was kept a perfect secret during, and for 30 years after, the Second World War. For geeks, the whole park holds incredible intrigue. After all, it’s here that the best analytical minds in Britain, including Alan Turing, of course, managed to crack the German Enigma code and save the planet from Nazism. But what’s perhaps more interesting to geeks is the fact that Bletchley Park hosted the world’s first programmable computer. This is where it all started, right in the midst of the greatest war in human history.
Bletchley is located to the south of Milton Keynes, about 40 miles north of London.
Learn To Code
For some reason, people expect geeks to be able to code, just because they’re able to do things like enter wireless network keys and press “ctrl+alt+delete” when the computer crashes, things that mere mortals seem unable to do. But the sad fact is that most geeks go their entire lives without so much as writing a single line of code into a computer. As this Treehouse review points out, there are all sorts of coding schools now available online, meaning that practically anybody can go out there and code without having to have any prior experience in the field.
Witness A Rocket Taking Off
Just a few years ago, observing a rocket takeoff was a rare event. But thanks to the privatization of space flight, made possible by SpaceX, it’s now a common event. What’s more, rockets don’t just launch anymore: they now come back down to Earth and land back on the launch pad (or topple over in some cases) making for a doubly geeky experience.
NASA currently has a number of authorized public viewing locations for launches from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
Build Your Own Nerd Cave
What is it that all of the most celebrated computer geek on YouTube have? Their own nerd cave, of course. Naturally, what constitutes a nerd cave isn’t yet an exact science, but they are often characterized by multi-monitor setups, Star Wars gadgets on the desk and located in places like the cellar or the loft. Nothing quite compares to having Space Invaders decals on the walls and old computer parts lying around, as well as shelf after shelf dedicated to Star Trek DVDs.
