The math. Oh my lord the math. I get obsessed by it. A friend of mine wanted to know the distance between two cities in a ficticious world, and I spent the next three hours working with a tiny scrap of information (city x and city y are 3 degrees off of each other) to find the approximate location of not only the distance between city y and city z, but also the approximate distance from all three cities that the equator would be.
Of course, to make matters worse, I never use a calculator for this stuff. What would be the fun in that? I consider it a succesfull night when I reach the answer and have pages and pages of handwritten notes and formulae all over my desk!
Toe picker-upper here, too.
I find that counting on my fingers in “sorta base 5” is easier.
Last December I bought a new computer and had its guts all over my coffee table less than 45 minutes after I got home.
I own one of these.
I’m not a sports fan, so in situations where other men, um, “think of baseball,” I multiply numbers in my head using the binomial theorem.
<sigh> That would be why I told Cardinal to go post it in a non-nerdy thread. The non-nerds wouldn’t know any better. I assumed that all the nerds here would catch it, and was waiting for the penny to drop…then I forgot all about it, having been distracted by a shiny new techie toy. 
Boy, I really started something here! I’m amazed to find out I have so many fellow toe picker-uppers!
Yep. I do that too…
When I’ve been working late, and I’m waiting for the elevator so I can go home, I occasionally imagine spraying the inside of the elevator car with machine gun fire as soon the instant the doors begin to open.
And on the rare occasions somebody else has also been working late and is waiting in the car when the doors open, and sees me with my arms up holding the imaginary machine gun, I have to pretend I’m stretching or scratching my stomach or hitching up my pants or something.
My laptop is named after URL=http://www.cultsirens.com/munro/munro.htm]Caroline Munro and has a sticker on it reading “Member Miskatonic University Alumni Association”.
My desktop is named HAL 2000.
I imitate the voices of monsters from Doctor Who. I’m fairly good at the Dalek, the Ice Warrior, the Kroton, and the original Tenth Planet Cyberman sing-song.
I watch more Doctor Who episodes on VHS than I do cable television. And I get annoyed if you call The Doctor “Doctor Who” because it’s not his bloody name!
Name an English actor, and I can probably tell you if he was appeared in Doctor Who or not.
I have a toy Dalek on my desk.
I bought a PAL-compatible television and DVD player so I could get the latest Doctor Who DVD straight from England.
I own a record player.
I write (or try to write), fictional Doctor Who stories. In script form. With period casting choices.
I can tell you more than you ever wanted to know about
I’m trying to write an epic screenplay about the Battle of Jutland.
I have an entire series of Naval reference books usually found only in Naval Libraries.
The OS I’m most comfortable with is MS-DOS.
I read the Oxford English Dictionary for fun.
I pretend I’m James Bond when I’m in an airport.
But I’m not a Trekkie. Although I do enjoy watching Star Trek on occasion.
:raises hand:
Last year, I once went out with a lady who lived in Apt. 404.
Her nerdy thing: On her door, she had a tiny sign under her apartment number: “Apartment not found.”
My nerdy thing: When she pointed this out to me, I cracked up.
Also, I too open automatic doors with the Force. I also turn on room lights with a brief spell (mutter incantation, wave one hand, and flick the light switch with the other hand).
I also pick things up with my toes (although, so far my kids haven’t started mimicking that). I drove my ex-wife crazy when she was taking College Algebra 15 years after I’d had Algebra II, but I still remembered the Pythagorean Theorem, etc. I also memorized pi & e to quite a few digits.
I do the automatic door “magic”, too.
I love it! Why didn’t it work out? You passed her pre-screening, after all…
I named my second Hard Drive “Donovan’s Brain HD.”
I’ve used the phrase “In your FACE, space-coyote!” in practice. If only within my own mind.
I write fanfic.
I play a little game whenever I see a phone number. I take the digits of that phone number and, using only basic integer operations, turn those numbers into all of the basic numbers in base 10. Typically I allow myself addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and exponentiation.
For example, if I were to see the phone number 972 874 2374 (no idea whose number this is, please don’t call it, may not work anyway)
972 874 2374
2 - 2 = 0
972 874 2374
9 - 8 = 1
972 874 2374
2 = 2
972 874 2374
3 = 3
972 874 2374
4 = 4
972 874 2374
2 + 3 = 5
972 874 2374
2 * 3 = 6
etc.
It is a pretty dumb game, but some phone numbers are more challenging than others(especially when companies try to make their numbers simple and easy to remember, like 555 - 5555!). Numbers with lots of primes in them can be difficult as well because it means division is virtually useless. Sometimes I’ll force myself to use all the source digits in my equation somewhere. That can be tricky. Also I often leave off the area code so I have less digits to work with. Sometimes I try to limit myself to just addition and subtraction, or just exponentiation(which is never fully possible because there is no way to get 0). I also do this with tons of other strings of numbers. Dates, bar codes, ISBNs, random people’s post counts, etc. Sometimes I’ll go exotic and see how high I can make the numbers go(I often have to allow myself to use a number more than once if I’m sticking with basic operations) or try to use nothing but fractional exponentiation where the integers in the number are all I can use for the integers in the exponent. Stupid math tricks really.
Enjoy,
Steven
For instance, my post count from the above post was 1786.
(1+7) - 8 = 0
1 = 1
8 - 6 = 2
(8 - 6) + 1 = 3
7 - ((8-6)+1) = 4
6 - 1 = 5
6 = 6
7 = 7
8 = 8
8 + 1 = 9
Voila.
Enjoy,
Steven
I said I pretend I’m James Bond when I’m in an airport. By that I mean the literary James Bond.
Heh, I love being among like-minded people.
I will tracert web sites when I’m waiting for a download on my computer or when I’m bored. Then I’ll try to determine what I’m hitting. I’ll remote access my laptop (which is next to me) and run programs through it.
I have a dual celeron server, 2 AMD computers, 1 laptop, 2 monitors with a dual desktop setup for games.
I also like to compute my speed on the road in meters per second and minute.
I have 15 GURPS role playing books, all the Star Wars books except for all of the newer ones after Ep 1. Most of the Dragonlance books, All the Terry Practchet books and a few Star Trek Voyager books.
All you toe-grabby people got nothin’ on me. I can move chairs with my feet. I once opened a can of beer with my feet and a key, to pry the tab open. I didn’t drink it though. A friend of mine didn’t believe me when I said I have very strong toes, so I pinched his foot with my toes. He was wearing sneakers, and he said OW!
On occasion I’ve posted in hexadecimal or in Lisp.
I like sewing. I’m a guy. I made a couple Renn Faire peasant shirts for me and my wife available light, and some skirts for her. I made a satin pillow for our wedding rings for the ceremony, and I made her a bridesmaid dress for her friend’s wedding.
I quote Warcraft II so much that a.l. sometimes says zug-zug and dabu. This is also true of other geek culture stuff, like All Your Base and Trogdor.
I’ve recently lamented giving away my childhood Lego collection (among other things), so I bought some new sets, and some lots off eBay. I am a member of BayLUG and LUGNET, and I have a Lego webpage. I’m using LDraw compatible software to create digital versions of my creations.
My inlaws think I should be on Jeopardy. I may go for it one of these days, but I think Alex Trebek is a pretentious ass who would lose really badly if he was on the other side of the stage.
When I was in elementary school, I used to sit in the back and read the encyclopedia instead of listening to the teacher. I once got into an argument with the substitute about the location of the pituitary gland. I think we were both wrong, but I was closer.
I was a sysop on a BBS that my friend ran, and I did all the ANSI art for the menu screens.
I do Force pulls, but usually only to open doors.
I do the Leeloo Dallas thing with chicken.
This was my first computer, my mom got it for me when I was 6. I wrote a program that showed a rocket blasting off. I didn’t have a tape deck to record the program, so I memorized it.
I can sometimes restore a corrupted Sims neighborhood by a combination of registry and file manipulation. I learned this when I worked at EA/Maxis tech support.
One time I was at a Mexican restaurant with a friend. I was eating my tamales one at a time, while she was eating a little off one enchilada then a little off the other. I commented that mine were in row-prime order while hers were in column-prime order.
I know this joke: Why do programmers confuse Halloween with Christmas? Because OCT 31 = DEC 25. The true geekiness of this joke becomes apparent when you try to tell it out loud; it really only works when written.
I love filk music and Celtic music.
My husband and I have an extensive book collection of fiction and non fiction books. We have the books double stacked on a homemade bookshelf in our living room. It now covers one whole wall.
I have built a computer (my first attempt) from my husbands spare computer parts.
I continually search for cooperative shooter games my husband and I can play.
I have played Quake so long in 1 sitting, I fell asleep and dreamed I was in Quakeworld (and still kicked butt)
I enjoy putting together the occasional robot kit.
I have been invited to a Sci-fi con to show some of my sculptures.
I do the toe thing too. Oh and I sleep with my eyes open sometimes (but I think that is more weird than nerdy)
But, see my husband is worse than me… I mean he collects irish whistles!
I just bought a Lego Imperial Star Destroyer.
It was a bit expensive too at £250 ($400).
Sometimes I’m walking down the street and someone walking toward me will pass by. I automatically try to look in my rear-view mirror to see them from behind. (I’ve driven way too many miles in cars on and bicycles.)
Does that count as nerdy?
I used to dance or flail about when I was alone in an elevator. At least I did until one day a voice came over the speaker asking if I was ok.
Made me wonder how many security guards I’d unknowingly titillated all those times I adjusted slips or pantyhose when I was “alone.” :eek:
I’d forgotten! I used to wear my Third Eye mirror on my glasses constantly, on or off the bike. There were a couple of family members very disturbed by this; they decided there was something very sinister about me.