Miss Cellania
Gifts for the Geek Home
by Miss Cellania - August 5, 2010 - 12:50 PM

A home should be an expression of who you are. Sure, when you’re young and broke, your room or apartment might be an expression of who your parents or the people who donate to Goodwill are, but gradually you collect items that express your personality, whether you receive them as gifts or purchase them yourself. If you are a technologically oriented geek, there are plenty of manufacturers and vendors catering to your tastes in home decor.

Interactive LED Dining Table

Windell Oksay of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories built a dining room table with 448 LEDs inside. The lights respond to movement on and above the table surface! No, not a motion sensor, but light sensors that detect shadows and respond appropriately by activating LEDs in those areas. This is a one-of-a-kind project, but if you are handy you can make your own with the extensive documentation of the project as your guide. Take a shortcut by buying the LED panel kit.

Motherboard Picture Frame

Recycling is not only environmentally-friendly, it can make a statement. The Motherboard Picture Frame states that you know what motherboards are all about -even if you don’t! Buying one is much easier than recycling your own, but the motherboards are recycled from somewhere.

Geek Clock

This geeky clock was posted all over as “the clock only geeks can read.” That’s not quite true, as those of us of a certain age learned to read an analog clock by its angles, so no numerals are necessary. However, the formulas used in place of numerals on this clock face will display your geekiness for the world to see.

A Clock that Spells

Here’s a clock that is easy for anyone to read, but the mechanism that displays it is something else. Christiaan Postma designed it to mechanically spell out the time.

I put together more than 150 individual clockworks and made them work together to become one clock.  I show the progress of time by letting the numbers be written in words by the clockworks. Reading clockwise,  the time being is visible through a word and readable by the completeness of the word, 12 words from “one” to “twelve”.

Watch how the clock face changes here. Unfortunately, it’s an artwork that is not available to purchase.

Galactic Hitchhiker’s Towel

Never be caught without your towel! Express your inner hitchhiker with this utility towel, complete with the number 42. No need to explain to science fiction fans.

CRT Light Fixture

As you move from cathode ray tubes to LEDs, recycle your CRTs into light fixtures!

Fractal Art Quilt

Rose Rushbrooke makes gorgeous art quilts with intricate designs, including a collection of fractal patterns she designs and hand quilts. I was particularly taken with this quilt displaying a pattern based on the Mandelbrot set. A quilt like this will impress everyone, but particularly anyone who recognizes how the intricate pattern came about.

Enter Doormat

What do you do at someone’s doorstep? Enter! This doormat says just that, but it looks like a huge computer key. Another available doormat resembles the “home” key.

Icon Pillows

If you’re going to have throw pillows around, make them conversation starters, like pillows in the shape of familiar computer button icons, such as RSS, Mac OSX, subscribe, iTunes, and even chat balloons.

Social Networking Pillows

Display your loyalty to your favorite social networking site with a throw pillow your friends will recognize -or if you have no loyalty, use them all! Etsy seller Craftsquatch makes them in Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and other flavors, including a generic email pillow.

Mini Disc Pillows

Your geeky life isn’t restricted to the internet, however. This pillow comes in the form of a floppy disc, which you might find fun to explain to younger visitors.

Elemental Refrigerator Magnets

Teach your kids about the periodic table as you hang their artwork on the refrigerator, or just show off with the Periodic Table Magnet Set. Use as a complete table, or detach individual magnets as you please.

Temperature Sensitive Tiles

Line your bathroom with tiles that react to heat like a mood ring! These temperature sensitive glass tiles go wild in a hot shower or when washing dishes. They even make awesome floor tiles that respond to bare feet.

See also: Video Game Furnishings for Your Home.

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Comments (32)

  1. Great links todays.

    posted by Jingles on 8-5-2010 at 10:20 am

  2. I want those color change tiles…wow!

    posted by Amy on 8-5-2010 at 10:37 am

  3. I want those tiles!!

    posted by Rissa on 8-5-2010 at 10:45 am

  4. Those tiles are awesome, but expensive at $33 a piece!

    posted by Katie Rose on 8-5-2010 at 11:05 am

  5. Wow at $33 per tile one wall of that shower would cost over $4,000! Having said that I could see it might be worth it but my concern would be that they color changing properties might fade over time like anybody who’s had a color changing mug will tell you after a while it stops changing complete or doesn’t go completely back.

    posted by Angela on 8-5-2010 at 11:14 am

  6. I want a giant mood ring shower! How cool is that?!

    posted by nancy pants on 8-5-2010 at 2:07 pm

  7. Those tiles are awesome.

    posted by christina on 8-5-2010 at 2:48 pm

  8. I must be a major geek because I liked a lot of those gifts LOL

    Love the tile bathroom and the lite table, but I even like the throw pillows!

    Notice I typed LOL – I have to stop typing that because I have actually found myself SAYING LOL when something is funny… geek.

    I have recently introduced a gift that may be a little on the “gifts for geeks” side.

    Funny Love Poems http://www.advice-with-dr-julia.com/short-funny-love-poems.html fit the bill in that they are delivered in a PDF via email – romance at its tech geekist!

    Ha!

    posted by Dr. Julia Chicken on 8-5-2010 at 2:58 pm

  9. Oh my gosh, the temperature sensitive tiles are awesome!!

    posted by Jenny on 8-5-2010 at 5:33 pm

  10. WANT TILES!!!….don’t wanna pay $33 for them though.

    posted by KerriD on 8-5-2010 at 6:10 pm

  11. no pi on the geek clock ? for shame.

    posted by dirk alan on 8-5-2010 at 10:16 pm

  12. my math teacher has the geek clock

    posted by ufluffed on 8-6-2010 at 1:00 am

  13. Is there an “enter return” (mac) button doormat to let people know they’re welcome to visit again?

    posted by Stacy on 8-6-2010 at 4:16 am

  14. Holy God, that quilt is amazing. (and I mean that as a prayer!)
    And I, too, am waaaaaanting those tiles. Heh. Have a fabulous weekend, fellow _flossers! :)

    posted by Helenann on 8-6-2010 at 10:15 am

  15. Those tiles are awesome. Waaaay to expensive for my blood though. Now, where to find mood rings in bulk so I can glue them to the wall instead….hmmm……

    posted by nihil on 8-6-2010 at 12:20 pm

  16. Oh my god the art clock is INSANE can you imagine how painful that was to plan out ahead of time?!

    posted by Nicole on 8-6-2010 at 1:30 pm

  17. Who wants to lend me $2,500 for a fractal quilt?

    posted by Lori on 8-6-2010 at 2:10 pm

  18. The ‘Enter’ floormat is funny, but I’d like one that says either ‘Any’ (as in “press any key”) or ‘Pause.’

    posted by AC on 8-6-2010 at 8:15 pm

  19. awesome list!

    love the tiles :)

    quilt is beautiful… is it just me or the displayed one look like woman’s reproductive organs?

    happy reading

    posted by MJ on 8-17-2010 at 4:21 am

  20. How about things you could actually buy. You can’t buy one-piece works of art. Most people couldn’t afford $6,000 for “fun” shower tile. Most people don’t have the tech know-how to build a multicolor shifting LED panel.

    Meh to this list.

    posted by Konraden on 8-30-2010 at 10:40 am

  21. i totally want a dinning room like that.

    posted by Looking4 Purpose on 10-4-2010 at 1:40 pm

  22. The best was, A Clock that spells completely abstract… and icon pillows were cool too, love to have them.

    posted by GM on 10-8-2010 at 4:28 pm

  23. The table top is quite neat!

    posted by Beverly on 10-18-2010 at 10:41 pm

  24. I love the Hitchhikers’ towel :)

    My mate just started making these sticky tapes in the style of Police and Crime scene tapes here:

    http://www.aintrocketshop.co.uk

    Check ‘em out they’re pretty cool, and certainly geeky.

    posted by Mike on 10-27-2010 at 8:57 am

  25. Dude, that stuff is awesome!!

    posted by Talyn on 11-27-2010 at 5:33 pm

  26. Those tiles are the whip.

    posted by Adam B12 on 12-24-2010 at 3:33 am

  27. Love those tiles!! BUT, at $33.00 EACH, don’t you think that’s a little steep? They’re only 4″x4″, should at least get a discount for 10 or more.

    posted by Maxx 2.0 on 5-22-2011 at 1:37 pm

  28. using an old tv as a light fixture is incredibly inefficient and oh yeah…. ugly.

    posted by LarryC on 6-13-2011 at 8:51 am

  29. Dang, it’s a shame those tiles are so expensive, they are awesome!

    posted by Elle on 6-13-2011 at 5:36 pm

  30. i cant believe nobody is talking about that clock. it is amazing

    posted by roddynuggz on 6-29-2011 at 11:51 pm

  31. Of all the Different Geeky Items. I liked the Color changing Tiles/the lcd table, and the spelling clock…How unique….I agree Roddynuggz…it is amazing.

    posted by T. Robinson on 11-7-2011 at 12:01 pm

  32. I want those temperature sensitive tiles! And the floppy disk pillow–so cute!

    posted by axiom on 1-31-2012 at 9:39 pm

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