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Hello all,
Just wondering if any of you had an idea for a christmas present for an engineer. My brother is coming back from toronto this christmas, wanted to get him something. He did his undergraduate studies in electrical engineering and is currently doing a masters degree in artificial intelligence.
thing is, his birthday is the 28th. so i need to get him two.
1) He's a mac fanboy (complete opposite of me), so i decided i'd get him his own turtleneck of power a la steve jobs, and a magic mouse.
i need help picking something for his birthday present, he likes witty things so i was trying to think of something clever. my sister got him a kinetic gear clock, uses a electromagnets to propel something or other to keep the gears rotating, it just eats up batteries.
I was also thinking about presentation of the presents, i was gonna put it in a box, and after i wrap it, tie it up also and use some sort of puzzle. I figured something with binary would be cool, but alas, i dont program like he does so this escapes me, wouldn't know how to make a puzzle with it.
any ideas?
no particular price range, i suppose <100$ would be fine, a little over doesn't hurt.
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try this website:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/
for a puzzle, it depends how you want to do it. IMO, it's very difficult to make a physical puzzle yourself.
Maybe try something like:
1) hide the gift somewhere
2) write some heavily obfuscated code that outputs text which says the location of the gift. if you can't program, ask a friend (or ask in the programming thread on TL), or just make up a riddle instead
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Green laser pointer.
Trust me.
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On December 10 2010 13:36 jeddus wrote:
Green laser pointer.
Trust me.
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On December 10 2010 13:36 jeddus wrote:
Green laser pointer.
Trust me.
It will be used to point at the cockpits of airplanes. Don't recommend. 
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I am more interested in the fact that he likes mac and is in engineering...this almost never happens because nothing runs on mac.
and obviously get him SC2 =].
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Puzzles are fun! Use ROT13 encryption on your clue list, which should be written in haiku, in lemon juice or diluted blood or semen. UV lamp should be included. Green laser probably won't work for that, so put it in the goody box.
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Just get him something cool. Just because he is an engineer doesn't mean the only thing he wants is to do engineering in his free time. I doubt buying a cheap engineering present for a full blown engineer is actually a good idea. You can buy "normal" presents really.
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1) We already have a green laser pointer from before xD
2) i was thinking of getting him SC2, but i'm not sure about it, he doesn't take SC too seriously
3) I'll look into that encryption thing, at this point i'm thinking of coding something similar to the matrix intro, with a couple simple input commands and spitting clues back out
4) lol, i know, but my brother in particular is an engi nut. His spare time during high school and university was spent learning a whole bunch of different programming languages xD
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amazon kindle?
if he likes the outdoors and/or photography, check out the Joby site (gorillatorch switchback is pretty cool)
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On December 10 2010 13:32 Wangsta wrote:try this website: http://www.thinkgeek.com/for a puzzle, it depends how you want to do it. IMO, it's very difficult to make a physical puzzle yourself. Maybe try something like: 1) hide the gift somewhere 2) write some heavily obfuscated code that outputs text which says the location of the gift. if you can't program, ask a friend (or ask in the programming thread on TL), or just make up a riddle instead
thinkgeek.com was be the first thing that came to my mind too... As an engineer graduate myself, I often browse that website to drool at geeky t-shirts
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Elec engineer and masters in AI... portable heater maybe? When I'm coding for lengthy hours my feet gets cold (especially in the winter) and I have to wear socks even at home.
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EPT
