While we very much enjoyed Wired Magazine’s recent Geek Dad list of Geeky Halloween Costumes, the list seemed to dominated by Sci-Fi movie and TV characters. We felt we could go a little nerdier.

iCostume

The potential of using iPads (or any other tablet computer equipped with decent cameras) is exciting. However, the hardware costs may be a little more than you normally budget for costuming.

The Invisible Man : Strap one iPad to your front, and another to your back. Initiate a FaceTime session between the two tablets. The iPad in front will display what the rear one is displaying and vice-versa. The net effect on the adult wearer will appear to be a large hole through the chest, but small children can be rendered nearly invisible using this technique.

Indigestion : Requires only one tablet, mounted just above your belly button. Take several videos from antacid commercials and run them in a slideshow loop.

Infinity : Uses the same chest-mounted tablet. Attach a webcam to a long stick protruding from your shoulders and arrange it so the webcam points to the tablet. Display the webcam image fullscreen on the tablet.

Coding T-Shirts for Groups

A group of three could go as public, protected, and private. If you pick up a 4th wheel, they get the friend shirt.

Also for threes, make up shirts with <, =, and >. See how many relational operators you can construct. Extra candy for implementing (or having anyone recognize) the Perl spaceship operator.

For couples, go dressed as && and || and, in conversation, && disagrees with everyone as soon as he disagrees with one thing, and || agrees with everything anyone says once he’s heard on thing he agrees with. See if anyone catches on, or if everyone just eventually decides that && is a jerk.

Another idea for couples is to go as NULL and -> (alternative being * and 0). Stand close together and fall down (or freeze) whenever anyone addresses you.