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Halfway to hexAnniversary gifts for geeks
- 28 July, 2008
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Last year I marked our anniversary by blogging this list of geek anniversary gifts. As of today, we're at year 9!
Today marks the eighth anniversary of our other founding partnership: our marriage. July 29th, 2000 was the Big Day not only for the two of us, but also for Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston.
We know that popular opinion lays the blame for the Brad-Jen breakup at the feet of a certain Ms. Jolie, but we recognize a completely different kind of relationship pressure. With all the press coverage of their marriage, did you ever see them pictured with matching his 'n hers PowerBooks?
We don't want our own marriage to fall victim to the specter of insufficient technology. And yet the traditional roster of anniversary gifts is still geared towards the analog lifestyle.
To celebrate our half-hex anniversary, we're proud to present a new, geek-friendly set of recommended anniversary gifts. Do note that the recommended 8th anniversary gift is a nice, fresh web link...hint, hint.
| Year | Traditional | Geek | Notes |
| 1 | Paper | Manuals, documentation | Electronic documentation is just as appropriate as paper manuals. |
| 2 | Cotton | Tech conference and tech culture T-shirts | 100% cotton and size-appropriate, please, if you want to create passionate users. |
| 3 | Leather | Protective cases, luggage | Before you buy that leather laptop case, make sure your geek isn't a vegan. |
| 4 | Fruit, Flowers, Linen, Silk | Apple product | To a true geek, there is no fruit besides Apple. |
| 5 | Wood | Fonts, input devices | Early typewriters were made from wood. |
| 6 | Sugar, Iron | Red Bull, energy snacks | Sugar, in its geek-preferred form. |
| 7 | Wool, Copper | Circuit boards, hardware upgrades | Circuit boards use copper circuits. |
| 8 | Bronze, Pottery | Web links | Bronze is used for bells, i.e. a way of drawing people's attention. |
| 9 | Pottery, Willow | Data storage | For holding things -- the modern equivalent to willow baskets. |
| 10 | Tin, aluminum | Enclosures, CPUs | CPU enclosures are often made from aluminum. |
| 11 | Steel | RAM, memory | RAM chips are typically held in a computer by steel clips. Think of this as the digital equivalent of a wedding photo album. |
| 12 | Silk, Linen | Security devices and software | Silk is made by worms. Security software protects against computer worms. |
| 13 | Lace | Portable electronics devices | Microchips, like lace, used to rely on women with good eyesight to do the manufacturing (both have since automated). Assembly of small products still relies on fine motor work by women. |
| 14 | Ivory | Electronic instruments, speakers | Piano keys were originally made from ivory. |
| 15 | Crystal | LCDs | Liquid CRYSTAL displays. Get it? |
| 20 | China | GPS | Ceramics are part of the miniature antennas used in GPS devices. |
| 25 | Silver | Digital photography equipment, image capture | Silver used in early photo processing. |
| 30 | Pearl | Smart phones | Like the Blackberry Pearl. |
| 35 | Coral, Jade | Linux boxes | The Linux OS, like coral, is made up of thousands of individual contributions that are nonetheless "commonly perceived to be a single organism". |
| 40 | Ruby | Web applications | Preferably applications written in Ruby on Rails. |
| 45 | Sapphire | Laptop computers | Laptop screens use LEDs; some LEDs use a sapphire-like crystal as part of the manufacturing process. |
| 50 | Gold | MP3 players | Gold is used in semiconductors; radios were one of the earlier applications of semiconductors. |
| 55 | Emerald | Code, custom software | As created on the Emerald Isle. |
| 60 | Diamond | Pre-release alpha technologies | Synthetic diamonds are projected as a future material for superconductors, capable of withstanding great heat. |
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About Alexandra Samuel
Social Signal CEO, Harvard Ph.D. and compulsive adopter of online task management and collaboration tools.
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