I bet there are many on here who either (a) consider themselves geeks (or nerds, if you will) or (b) think that other people consider them to be geeks.
So what’s so geeky about you? In other words, what would other people point and laugh at if they knew you did it? (And no, I’m not including masturbation!) Or what do you do that people already point and laugh about?
For me - now stop that sniggering back there, I can hear you - I actually have ticket stubs to nearly every movie I’ve gone to since 1988. Yeah, 1988.
Had a garage sale the other day with a fairly “normal” friend, and someone came looking for Star Trek books, specifically written by Peter David. I had some, and sold them to the guy, then pursued a lengthy and quite detailed conversation that started with the Q Continuum and worked its way through Michael Crichton’s and Robert Heinlein’s books, ending with a sharp turn into Ayn Rand.
Halfway through this conversation I turned to my very puzzled friend and asked “How much like a complete geek do I actually sound right now?”
I live on the internet. I have Tux the penguin shirt. I like Mandrake Linux. I talk about my computer all the time. I love Star Trek; I think Star Wars is retarded. I have signed art from lots of Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons artists (and I know how to play both.) I think Alan Turing and complex mathematical equations are sexy. I fantasize about a minor character from Final Fantasy 6. I quote Monty Python all the time. I make webpages for fun.
You win a stack of Monopoly dollars, each with consecutive serial numbers for collectibility.
You win the Dungeons and Dragons Pepsi Challenge, in which the characters are played by various Pepsi products: Diet Pepsi the Mage, Pepsi Blue the Cleric, and Crystal Pepsi the One Who Gets Beat Up a Lot.
I’m a geek. I have a bookshelf that’s half-filled with math books, ranging from low-level (calc I and the like) to stuff that I would have trouble reading (like Complexity Theory of Real Functions, which assumes familiarity on the part of the reader with NP-completeness and Lebesgue integration). I’m particularly interested in computability theory (the area that Alan Turing founded), and I can spout equations to your heart’s content, jin.
I make an effort to have an encyclopedic knowledge on any subject I’m interested in. Fortunately, I’m not the sort of person to share my knowledge for hours at a time.
I work as a programmer dealing with networks and low-level hardware stuff. I think database design is really cool.
I can speak Elizabethan English better than anyone else I’ve met (which probably isn’t that well, seeing as I haven’t met that many other people who actually speak it).
I don’t have any gadgets, although I’m probably going to get a cell phone later today. I view it as a necessary evil, and I promise to be courteous about it.
I understand this:
GE/MU/O d+(-) s+: a- C++ UL>+++ P+ L++ E- W++ N o? K- w O? M- V- PS+ @PE Y+ PGP- t++ 5 X++ R tv++ b++ DI++ D++ G++ e++ h+ r-- y?
Unfortunately, Robert Hayden will probably never make a new version of his Geek Code, but one can always hope.
Regarding myself, I’ve gotten into debates with co-workers about the merits of object-oriented programming. I’ve seen every episode of The X Files, Monty Python, and most of the Star Trek incarnations. Oh, and I went to one of the geekiest colleges there is.
I’m a geek of “other” because there is no aviation category (hence the username). I can identify most of the world’s civilian aircraft on sight. People usually come to me to check the validity of things like aviation news stories.
Oooh, NP! I sat in on a complexity class at the U of T while I was doing the preliminary sketches for my Universal Turing Machine drawing, and I used some of the equations from the class notes for the background of my drawing. (I gave the #1 print to the professor of the class and had a short talk with him about it last time I was up there. An aside – Andrew Hodge, the guy that wrote Alan Turing: the Enigma has #69 – also a gift) I really dig the complexity stuff in a way over-my-head aesthetic sort of way. I’m interested right now in possibly doing an image of Charles Babbage next, because from what I’ve read so far he was something in the way of a borderline madman… a very eccentric kind of guy. I really think people need to know more about the individuals that influence these fields… it really puts a human face on it, makes it more than just numbers. It’s history.
If you’re looking for interesting stories about mathematicians, I highly recommend Eric Bell’s Men of Mathematics, which was written in 1920-something, and details the lives of the men who were considered the greatest mathematicians at that time (the field has only become larger, of course). Also, check out the life of Kurt Gödel. He was too late to be included in the book I referenced earlier, but he was kind of an odd dude, and his work is of the same importance as Turing’s (i.e., the most important stuff done in the twentieth century).
Come to think of it, math is the one subject that I could talk for hours about–just because it takes that long to get to all the really good stuff.
(Head down…mumbling) Yes, I am a geek. I read science books for fun. I do volunteer work teaching senior citizens how to use the computer. I pick up interesting rocks and keep them in my pocket. I am sometimes surprised when I realize that the people around me have eyes that are slowly glazing over as I am explaining the taxonomy of lizards. I have worn Hawaiian shirts and Vans deck shoes for the last 20 years. But the most damming of all is that I actually watch educational TV deliberately, and find most TV very dull. Except for Dexter’s Laboratory…that was me as a kid (in my imagination)
Well, there’s my Star Trek watch, photo of Kirk and Spock, keychains, lots of ST and other trading cards and books, etc.; my Battlestar Galactica Colonial Warrior jacket; my boxes full of comics; my tendency back in high school to befriend and hang out with other geeks and nerds; I have a brother who’s even geekier than I am.
Whattya mean this makes me a geek? I thought that being able to quote Monty Python made one cool but perhaps it’s that very misconception that pushes one into the realm of geekdom.
Watching educational television is simply a practical use of one’s free time isn’t it?
Besides that I don’t think I’m a geek but then again… ask me about fountain pens… I dare you.
