"The Imitation Game" was Turing's name for what we call a Turing Test: http://psych.utoronto.ca/users/reingold…

Soon. I recently bought a pair of binoculars. I had wanted a pair for a while, but the idea of visiting Corona Heights with them pushed me over the edge.

Fritz Leiber's Our Lady of Darkness, set in SF.

Conversations I would have, if I had a time machine:

Don't miss The Odyssey. Among its other virtues, the characters fully inhabit a world ruled more by interpreted customs than laws, where (should you be the sort of person who catches their notice) you may meet Gods and Goddesses, who occasionally enforce those customs. As they interpret them.

Speaking of identifying bombs by smell...

Given SHIELD's penchant for dismissing mental powers, I wonder if Charles Xavier rolls through their HQ every year or so implanting suggestions that they don't exist.

Nothing wrong with "inertial force" vs. "viscous force"! If that doesn't work for you, though, there's another approach.

Three laws of Cliodynamics:

On a similar note: 1,600 year old Roman color-changing nanotechnology.

Little known fact: the tornado that purportedly took the life of Pa Kent did contain a shark, and in their brief time together, Pa Kent and that shark loved a lifetime's worth.

The monster baby from It's Alive. Caught it on TV when I was alone in the house. Big mistake.

Odd that this would appear when I'm reading Three Days to Never.

Whoops! Didn't realize you weren't the OP. Strike that reference.

So, you've gone from "never hostile" to "perhaps as hostile as any other random group of men"? Those are kind of different. By "kind of", I mean, "hugely".

Let me clarify your false dichotomy: a lack of interest in computer science is not the same as a lack of interest in all STEM fields.

"Geeks may be awkward, but they're never hostile"?

Speaking of culinary arts, you've cooked up a false dichotomy. I probably would have looked for career options that "created something of real value for humanity*" and would be less likely to suck, personally, for me.

The geek stereotype skews male - typically, a male that's not especially friendly towards or comfortable with women. (I pause to emphasize that I'm talking about the geek stereotype.)