My random thought of the night as I walked to my first college party, hosted by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Club:
I am not like these people. We are all nerds, to be sure, but we are different kinds of nerds. They are the role-players, the artists, the writers, the anthropomorphics (furries to some).
I write code.
They create.
I put stuff together.
I am a Patryn. I deal in what is. I pass through the Labyrinth of weeder CS classes, and emerge stronger, tougher, and harsher. Or, optionally, it claims me, and I become a business major.
They are the Sartan. They can create for the sake of creation.
And, just as the Patryn and the Sartan ended up interbreeding, so can the Tech Nerd and the Artistic Nerd end up as one.
I am Haplo. I am mostly Tech, with a few drops of Artistic. I can write a song or draw a picture if forced, it does not fill me with the same glee as a tightly coded, bulletproof function.
So, what da ya think? Are there two types of nerd, both using the same magic but to different ends?
Those aren’t nerds you’re hanging out with. Those are geeks.
It breaks down like this:
Nerds are socially ostracized people who are extremely well versed in useful fields of knowledge, such as writing code, or designing space shuttles. You, my friend, are a nerd, as are Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking.
Geeks are socially ostracized people who are extremely well versed in useless fields of knowledge, such as Star Trek, or Doctor Who. I, myself, happen to be a geek. George Will and Peter Jackson are also geeks.
Finally, there are dorks. Dorks are socially ostracized people who don’t know shit. Beavis and Butthead are dorks.
Well, I wrote a monogram on the subject for the SDMB a little while ago, although it’s reception was not what I would have hoped. <Dramatic sigh> Genius is so seldom recognized in its own time.
But that’s the thing. When I went through my Star Wars geek phase, I read technical essays that extrapolated how lightsabers could work, explained why the Death Star couldn’t work, and gave glorious detail of the slow lingering deaths that the Ewoks would all suffer when DS Mk II failed to work in a rather dramatic manner. I didn’t build model lightsabers or read/write fanfic.
I could (then. Not now.) tell you three ways a lightsaber might work (before Ep 1. I think you all know to which scene I refer), but I can’t write a story about a quest to get one. These geeks/Sartan can. Some of them even have enough Patryn blood to look up the supposed technical details and work them into their stories.
