B is for Bézier Curve

August 30, 2012 8:55 PM

U is for USB Drive: A collection of flash cards for “design geek-hipster-interwebbers” to teach their children the A-B-Cs in their own style. It is currently only a concept.
posted by TangerineGurl (21 comments total)

I mean, if you're teaching them on the iPad then do you really need a deck in hand? This link'll work fine.
posted by carsonb at 8:57 PM on August 30, 2012

Technically the K in CMYK stands for Key, not blacK.
posted by rlio at 9:04 PM on August 30, 2012 [4 favorites]

For real geeks:

A is for awk, which runs like a snail, and
B is for biff, which reads all your mail.
C is for cc, as hackers recall, while
D is for dd, the command that does all.
E is for emacs, which rebinds your keys, and
F is for fsck, which rebuilds your trees.
G is for grep, a clever detective, while
H is for halt, which may seem defective.
I is for indent, which rarely amuses, and
J is for join, which nobody uses.
K is for kill, which makes you the boss, while
L is for lex, which is missing from DOS.
M is for more, from which less was begot, and
N is for nice, which it really is not.
O is for od, which prints out things nice, while
P is for passwd, which reads in strings twice.
Q is for quota, a Berkeley-type fable, and
R is for ranlib, for sorting ar table.
S is for spell, which attempts to belittle, while
T is for true, which does very little.
U is for uniq, which is used after sort, and
V is for vi, which is hard to abort.
W is for whoami, which tells you your name, while
X is, well, X, of dubious fame.
Y is for yes, which makes an impression, and
Z is for zcat, which handles compression.

posted by benzenedream at 9:05 PM on August 30, 2012 [44 favorites]

I was on the fence about it until I got to Q. That's one that definitely needs taught to all the children of the world! And quite a few adults ...
posted by barnacles at 9:09 PM on August 30, 2012

X X X

Is this beverage some awful blend of Dos Equis and XXXX?
posted by Sys Rq at 9:13 PM on August 30, 2012

Cool, but some of this stuff has a limited shelf life. Imagine teaching f is for floppy, z is for zip drive, etc.
posted by carter at 9:25 PM on August 30, 2012 [2 favorites]

"U is for USB drive" seems awfully recursive.
posted by dunkadunc at 9:44 PM on August 30, 2012

"M is for Meme".
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 9:53 PM on August 30, 2012

Isn't Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book good enough already?
posted by Hicksu at 9:59 PM on August 30, 2012

O child learn your ABZ's
And memorize them well
And you shall learn to talk and think
And read and write and spel. -- Uncle Shelby
posted by Mad_Carew at 10:08 PM on August 30, 2012

H is for Hipster, describing your dad;
I is for Irony, something he's had.
posted by davejay at 10:09 PM on August 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

"U is for USB drive" seems awfully recursive

and "R's for Recursion" which can be immersive
posted by davejay at 10:11 PM on August 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

S is for Something recursing around

and T is for Twenty bucks, same as in town
posted by davejay at 10:20 PM on August 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

speaking of irony, I typed that out thinking that the alphabet goes U R S T, which is totally the wurst.
posted by davejay at 10:20 PM on August 30, 2012

USB Drive! I remember those, they were everywhere in the 00's, back before they had DropBox. Low-level IT techs still carry them to fix old-fashioned Windows and Linux PC's.

So this is an alphabet using antiques to illustrate the letters?
posted by Slap*Happy at 4:09 AM on August 31, 2012 [1 favorite]

Hipsterical!
posted by Devonian at 4:27 AM on August 31, 2012

barnacles, I'm not too sure I'm with them on Q. Look at what time it is when it's quitting time...
posted by nushustu at 4:47 AM on August 31, 2012

The Nerdy Baby ABCs
posted by ook at 5:19 AM on August 31, 2012

I IS FOR INSUFFERABLE
posted by bicyclefish at 7:09 AM on August 31, 2012 [1 favorite]

Why does "nerdy" have to mean "knows how to use computers"?
posted by dunkadunc at 12:31 PM on August 31, 2012

barnacles: "I was on the fence about it until I got to Q. That's one that definitely needs taught to all the children of the world! And quite a few adults ..."

They misspelled 5:30 (and I myself am seriously guilty of this, especially if I work at home it's hard to just drop a project I'm working on and become a daddy/husband again).
posted by Deathalicious at 11:24 PM on September 4, 2012