Television Sky » nerds http://www.televisionsky.org by Shane Snow Tue, 03 Jan 2012 01:55:09 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 New York’s Biggest Tech Geeks, Facing Off As Infographics http://www.televisionsky.org/2011/07/new-yorks-biggest-tech-geeks-facing-off-as-infographics/ http://www.televisionsky.org/2011/07/new-yorks-biggest-tech-geeks-facing-off-as-infographics/#comments Sat, 16 Jul 2011 19:30:01 +0000 shane http://www.televisionsky.org/?p=575 For the past several months I’ve been advising some friends at a startup called Visual.ly. I helped them put together their inaugural foray into auto-generated infographics with this Twitter infographic generator. I drew several dozen comic versions of celebrities and influencial nerds (@arrington, @davemcclure, @aplusk, @ladygaga, and so on), as well as a ****ton of options for build-your-own comic characters. The visual.ly guys spent countless hours putting it all together and hacking away at APIs in order to get things working.

And so, with all that work behind me, I decided to pit some local New York tech geeks head to head and see what happened:

Rockstar founders

Prolific blogger/investors

Outspoken first time entrepreneurs

Investors you see everywhere

Red-heads

]]> http://www.televisionsky.org/2011/07/new-yorks-biggest-tech-geeks-facing-off-as-infographics/feed/ 0 What Happens At Starcraft 2 Tournaments http://www.televisionsky.org/2010/09/what-happens-at-starcraft-2-tournaments/ http://www.televisionsky.org/2010/09/what-happens-at-starcraft-2-tournaments/#comments Mon, 27 Sep 2010 12:04:24 +0000 shane http://www.televisionsky.org/?p=561 My friend Bryan and I thought it would be funny to a Starcraft 2 tournament over the weekend, since we are casual players of the game. So we drove up to Kittery, Maine, to compete for a grand prize of $225 against 30 other strategy-gaming nerds. Things took a turn for the worse the second we walked through the LAN center door…

]]> http://www.televisionsky.org/2010/09/what-happens-at-starcraft-2-tournaments/feed/ 3 How to Put On a Nerd Conference http://www.televisionsky.org/2010/05/how-to-put-on-a-nerd-conference/ http://www.televisionsky.org/2010/05/how-to-put-on-a-nerd-conference/#comments Wed, 26 May 2010 00:20:24 +0000 shane http://www.televisionsky.org/?p=506 Drew this while at TechCrunch Disrupt today.

I mean this in good fun, guys. :)

]]> http://www.televisionsky.org/2010/05/how-to-put-on-a-nerd-conference/feed/ 5 Next Week: Bum Anthology. This Week: Wishing I Was Cooler http://www.televisionsky.org/2009/01/next-week-bum-anthology-this-week-wishing-i-was-cooler/ http://www.televisionsky.org/2009/01/next-week-bum-anthology-this-week-wishing-i-was-cooler/#comments Wed, 14 Jan 2009 07:18:17 +0000 shane http://www.televisionsky.org/?p=221 I know I made all these exhorbitant promises about the Bum Anthology coming out on my blog, but I’m here in Las Vegas this week, and there’s no way I’m braving the cold (yes, it’s cold here compared to where I live) to find some bums to interview. So next week will be the big B.A. debut. I think all the film studios and TV networks do this kind of thing all the time anyway. They hype their upcoming gig for, like, years at a time and then get a lot of disappointed watchers when it finally happens (and a handful of die-hard fans who have to convince the normal people it was still cool). Be fans. Please… :)

So for the last several days I’ve been attending a conference for webmasters and other businesspeople, called Affiliate Summit, at the Rio in Vegas. No, it wasn’t the Consumer Electronics Show, which was going on simultaneously in another hotel here. Affiliate Summit lures in a variety of attendees a full 5 degrees nerdier than C.E.S., and generally a good 18 degrees more shady:

Affiliate Summit is for people who want to make money on the web and love to talk about it together (and hence the shadiness of a good portion of the people here – although there are many reputable businesses here too). C.E.S. is for people who already have money and love to look at awesome gadgets together.

Well, after the conference today I went back to my buddy Joe’s place and watched music videos for a good 4 hours. My plane doesn’t leave til tomorrow, and there’s nothing cool within walking distance so I was stuck here by myself. Pretty much everyone in music videos is 88 degrees cooler than people who go to C.E.S., making them a full 93 degrees more awesome than me.

Here is an example of what happens as Affiliate Summit:

(I’m serious this is a real presentation someone would give)

Now watch the music video below by Metro Station and tell me who’s cooler? Nerdy raving affiliates? Or illin rock bands bumping insane house parties with lots of chicks on slip n slides and lots of people making out?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS3m2vyaCpI

You decide.

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