Halfway to hex: Anniversary gifts for geeks

July 28, 2008

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14 Ivory Electronic instruments, speakers Piano keys were originally made from ivory.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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