Violet Blue has just announced this year’s The Top Ten Sexy Geeks 2008.

Researched and culled all year, then boiled down with nominations and my own personal invention: the trademarked, nerdlust-powered, drink-dispensing, algorithmic GILF-O-Tron 9000 — it’s the Top Ten Sexy Geeks of 2009.

The music video is “Nrrrd Grrrl” by MC Chris featuring #1 sexy geek Cyan Banister.

See Previously: Violet Blue’s List of The Top Ten Sexy Geeks 2007

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid For more content like this, subscribe to the RSS feed, Twitter & FriendFeed.

Violet Blue’s List of The Top Ten Sexy Geeks 2008

Related posts:

- Violet Blue’s List of The Top Ten Sexy Geeks 2007

- Violet Blue, The New Sex Columnist For The SF Chronicle

- Violet Blue: Open Source Sex

- Violet Blue Launches Techyum

- Violet Blue Launches New Blogs On Art Machines & San Francisco

What’s better than a chorus line of voice activated dancing R2-D2 droids?

Here’s another R2-D2 dancing to the Imperial March.

The R2 Builders Club has video of a dancing R2-D2 at Maker Faire 2008.

Want your own dancing R2-D2? These are the Star Wars Interactive Electronic R2-D2 Astromech Droid which is available on Amazon or you can build your own.

For more info on Astromech droids, check out Wikipedia and the Star Wars Wiki.

via The Official Star Wars Blog

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid For more content like this, subscribe to the RSS feed, Twitter & FriendFeed.

Voice Activated, Interactive Dancing R2-D2 Astromech Droids

Related posts:

- Star Wars: Live on Stage Featured on The Official Star Wars Blog

- Photos of Star Wars: Live on Stage at The Dark Room

- SXSW Interactive 2008, A Massive Geek Convergence in Austin

- Northern Voice 2008

- Star Wars & Marvel Comics Stamps

“The Squid vs. The Whale”, is a really cool new Threadless T-Shirt design by Brandon Ancone depicting the age old battle between the giant squid and sperm whale.

illustration by Brandon Ancone

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid For more content like this, subscribe to the RSS feed, Twitter & FriendFeed.

The Squid vs. The Whale T-Shirt by Brandon Ancone

Related posts:

- Fail Whale Ate My Balls, Celebrate Twitter Downtime With Style

- Everybody Poops, A Bipartisan T-Shirt by Threadless

- Face Hooked Threadless T-Shirt Design for Facebook Addicts

- FriendFeed Comments on Laughing Squid

- Twitter Fail Whale Makes Guest Appearance in Laugh-Out-Loud Cats

Looking for a new job in a struggling economy is hard work. Make it easier on yourself by getting to know the best tools for the task at hand.

Earlier this week we asked you to share your favorite online job search sites, and today we're back with the most popular answers. Keep reading for a detailed breakdown of the best sites around for finding work when you need it. NOTE: Due to a few ties in the preliminary call for contenders, this Hive Five will actually feature six job search sites.

Monster

Monster.com first opened its doors way back in 1994 (first called The Monster Board), and has since been a very popular destination for employers and employees alike looking to fill and find a job. With over a million job postings and over 150 million resumes at any one time (according to Wikipedia), Monster has one of the largest job search databases available. In addition to its job search and resume posting tools, Monster also offers career advice, a beta tool for researching companies, and more. From the sound of our call for contenders post, many of you have secured or been offered jobs through Monster.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a social networking site along the lines of Facebook with an emphasis on building a work-related network. Launched in 2003, LinkedIn quickly became a popular destination for workers looking to build their professional relationships. While LinkedIn isn't primarily a job search destination, the idea is simple enough: People get jobs from their professional network, so rather than digging through enormous search databases when you're looking for work, your LinkedIn network becomes an excellent resource for connecting with people in your field who know where you might be able to get good work.

CareerBuilder

Along with Monster, CareerBuilder is the oldest job search site on the list (founded in 1995). Also like Monster, CareerBuilder's pages boast millions of job postings, hundreds of thousands of employers on the hunt for potential employees, and a whole lot more. Although many commenters have secured jobs from both Monster and CareerBuilder, others have also commented on receiving a fair amount of spam "opportunities" from them as well.

HotJobs

HotJobs is another age-old job search engine that first started in 1996 (under another name), went through a few other changes, and was eventually purchased by Yahoo in 2002. HotJobs is a traditional job search engine cut from a similar cloth as Monster or CareerBuilder. When you head to HotJobs, you're searching a giant database of jobs. Like the other two, you can also post your resume for employers to search and find you. Several commenters point out that the three largest job search engines on this list (Monster, CareerBuilder, and HotJobs) all generally carry a lot of the same job postings, so it's more a matter of choosing which one you feel most comfortable with when you're managing your resume and searching for jobs.

Craigslist

Craigslist is best known for free classified ads that have secured Craigslist power users great deals, but the pages of Craigslist also offer a thriving job board. According to commenters, Craigslist can be especially useful for workers looking for regional work. Before you send out another application through Craigslist, be sure to check out these tips for applying for a job on Craigslist.

Indeed

Job search engine Indeed is a meta-search engine that scours job sites, newspapers, and company career pages for jobs. Matching jobs are fed to you on a familiar Google-style results page. Indeed isn't a full-service job search site where you post your resume and hope for calls from employers, but if you know what kind of work you're looking for, its impressive meta-search (complete with email alerts and RSS feeds) is worth a look. Note: The majority of votes for Indeed were from first-time commenters (which generally means spam), but Indeed still snagged plenty of legitimate votes from satisfied users.

---

Now that you've seen the favorites, it's time to vote for the best: Which Is the Best Online Job Search Site?
( polls) Whether or not your fave made the Hive, let's hear more about it in the comments.

Marko Manriquez is the founder of The Freegan Kitchen, a site that promotes cooking found food. He's been diving in dumpsters for food going on three years now.

As a result his lifestyle is both environmentally and socially responsible. I recently became aware of freeganism through a mutual friend. Then I got to interview Manriquez about how he's been off the agri-business grid since. Photo by electromute.

Kelly Abbott: When did you first become interested in the freegan lifestyle and what drew you to it?

Marko Manriquez: I've always considered myself an environmentalist (as well as a bit of cheapskate), so it was a natural fit for my lifestyle. My friends kept finding amazing things from the dumpster, including food. At first, I was apprehensive to eat any of it, taking only timid bitefuls. But, I was surprised at both how much perfectly good food was being thrown away (~14% by conservative estimates) and that no one really knew about it. And it also bothered me that most of our garbage was being literally entombed in landfills rather than composted or returned into the ecosystem. The United States is a culture of enormous consumer appetites (obviously)—we consume (and waste) so much but it never really seems to satisfy our desires. The impulse to buy our way out of anything is very strong, rarely questioned and conditioned into us perpetually from a very early age. I wanted to share this revelation with others. I created FK as a way to both satirize our consumer media bubble (how better than with a cooking show?) while at the same time empower others to alternative forms of sustainability—all the while leveraging the tools of the system to critique itself.

Freegan Biriyani. Photo by Monka.

KA: If you started dumpster diving in college, did you do it in La Jolla or the San Diego area? If so, where, specifically, did you do it and did you encounter problems?

MM: Yes, this has become a problem as freeganism becomes a victim of its own success; in terms of more and more dumpsters becoming fenced off and locked up. The Whole Foods dumpster in La Jolla is a good example of this—its trash is securely locked tight. I think it's ironic that a green company perpetuates this green façade in the front of the store and a different stance in its back alley. Right now, I'm working on a web widget/mobile app that will be a tool freegans can use to addresses this problem. I hope to introduce it in time for Earth Day.

KA: How long have you been a freegan?

MM: I discovered freeganism circa 2005 (three years ago), and have been an environmentalist practically all my life. I think it started in first grade when I drew a picture of a submarine than would travel the sea filtering out toxic waste and garbage. I was an odd little kid, haha.

KA: Why do you choose to be a freegan?

MM: I think it's immoral to waste food or to harm our ecosystem. It follows then, that freeganism specifically and environmentalism/sustainability in a broader sense is a lifestyle choice. I like to view myself as passionate about sustainability without being dogmatic or intolerant. I hope that translates into my art.

Freegan Ice Cream. Photo by doubledareya.

KA: Can you explain the art of dumpster diving? What advice might you give to beginners?

MM: It's fun and kind of a rush when you first get started and don't know what to expect—like a scavenger hunt. It's especially useful for art students or creative-minded individuals looking for raw materials to salvage into clever art projects since you find all sorts of odds and ends in the dumpster. You name it, chances are it's laying in a dumpster somewhere. College campuses and affluent neighborhoods can be goldmines for furniture, housewares, and electronics. Food is hit-or-miss in the supermarket dumpsters of these areas. Here's what I've found helpful:

Dumpster Diving Etiquette

• Be quiet, discrete
• Be considerate—don't leave a mess
• If you find something of value that you don't need, place it aside for the next freegan
• Bring a flashlight or headlamp
• Organic produce is coded begining with a '9' in its PLU (Price Look-Up code), conventional food has a 4 digit PLU
• A pocketknife is also helpful
• Bring a bag or something to carry your loot
• Gloves are nice but optional
• Early morning or later in the evening is optimal
• If a worker asks you to leave, don't argue, just move on to the next dumpster
• If it smells/looks bad, it probably is
• Thoroughly scrub your produce with a brush (and I like using baking soda too)

KA: As for food, do you ever get tired of what you find? Is there usually a variety of food? What do you do if the dumpster is empty?

MM: Not really. You can find pretty much anything you need to survive tossed by someone in the dumpster. This includes but isn't limited to: furniture, electronics, computers, monitors, vacuums, food, clothing, books, even unopened alcohol (my friends have been more lucky at this than I). Most of the furniture in my house came from the street. We like to look around college campuses (SDSU dorms especially), especially at the beginning or end of the quarter—it's a goldmine. I've personally found TVs, monitors, computers, vacuum cleaners, speakers, shelves, cookware, art, CDs, books—all in perfectly good shape and more than we can use. Most of it only needs a little repair and is soon good as new.

Freegan Pastries. Photo by veganstraightedge.

KA: As for sanitary issues? How do you know you're not eating contaminated or spoiled foods? Do you have methods for securing food sanitation?

MM: It's the same whether you're inside the grocery store or out back in its dumpster—use your eyes and nose. You look for mold, rotting, and discoloration. If something smells bad you toss it. If a bag or can is bulging, you avoid it. But here's the thing: grocery stores are continually restocking and tossing out food that is technically expired (due to the expiration date) but is perfectly edible—sellable one day, labeled as garbage the next day. So, the dumpsters are continually being replenished and odds are good that you'll find plenty of bounty. Overall, by following a careful practice, I feel pretty good about the quality of food I gather and have never gotten sick or ill from it.

KA: I have to ask: Does being a freegan ever interfere with your social life or family dynamic?

MM: Never. In many ways, it probably enhances the dynamic. It's a great reason to go out dumpster-diving with a couple friends and divide and cook the bounty afterward.

Guest contributor Kelly Abbott's weekly post, Ungeek to Live, highlights all the ways you get can stuff done without (gasp!) a computer.