Proud geeks - please share!

In My Humble Opinion
21

1: Do you consider yourself a geek?
Oh yes, finding a label for myself was great fun and made better sense than “weird” which was how I had thought of myself previously.

2: What are your areas of interest/expertise? Are they the same you had as a kid?
Reading, animals, drawing, writing, plants, botanical art, biology, science fiction, archaeology, Biblical languages, Biblical criticism, cognitive linguistics, Internet culture, World of Warcraft. In that chronological order. Addicted to print from 3, drawing and collecting animals from about 4. Trekkie at 9. Picked up new interests from my favourite books and movies. Saw Indiana Jones at 12, studied Greek, Hebrew, archaeology and history of ancient cultures at college. Lectured Greek and ancient history while doing Masters in Hebrew with liberal amounts of archaeology and art history. Quit this year to be an artist/biological illustrator while doing doctorate in Greek/Hebrew plant/animal words. It will probably morph into an exploration of biological categories in the ancient world. Met computers late after discovering cyberpunk.

3: Do you actively seek out information on your favorite subjects?
Yes.

3 ½: and where? Library? Internet?
Both.

4: What was school like? Did you struggle, work hard and succeed, or get by without making an effort?
Worked but never struggled, straight As. Varsity same. Never gave up on fiction reading and lots of free time spent slacking off. Consider myself incredibly lucky. Read very fast which means studying takes less time.

5: In your experience, do people understand why you spend time learning about things that aren’t directly relevant to work or everyday life?
I make them relevant, and am surrounded by people who understand. I do get flack for not specialising, and didn’t get a permanent lecturing post earlier this year partly for this reason.

Do you consider yourself a reader?
Just above “human” in my self-image :stuck_out_tongue:

When you think “reading”, do you think of:

  • exclusively books
  • any piece of text
  • any text based media (including audio books)
  • fiction only, regardless of medium

Any piece of text, including the internet (I will read it all… one day…) but excluding audio books. Way too slow to be reading. I have one audio book, “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” which I used to listen to as a kid when I was sick. It’s more a specialised form of entertainment that takes time and commitment.

I do read non-fiction, obviously, but fiction is like air. Mixed with cake. I won’t answer the last two because they appear to be aimed at people who prefer non-fiction.

22

Let’s see: MIT degree, CS PhD, compulsive programmer, 6,000 or so sf books - I think I qualify.
2: What are your areas of interest/expertise? Are they the same you had as a kid?
CD, History, cosmology, SF. Pretty much the same, except I was a kid long before PCs, so I only started on computers in high school.

3: Do you actively seek out information on your favorite subjects?
3 ½: and where? Library? Internet?
Yes, and mostly library, since when I get interested in something I want a book level treatment of it, not the superficial snippets you find on the net.
4: What was school like? Did you struggle, work hard and succeed, or get by without making an effort?
A breeze.

All my family does this - we educated our kids well. My wife is a freelancer who writes scientific encyclopedia entries and has done a few books, so she learns a wide range of things for work.

Do you consider yourself a reader?
Yes, ever since second grade when I started reading Jules Verne and was a child prodigy.

**When you think “reading”, do you think of:

  • exclusively books
  • any piece of text
  • any text based media (including audio books)
  • fiction only, regardless of medium
    **
    Real reading is about books - and newspapers and magazines. Definitely nonfiction also.

**For non-fiction readers: Did your teachers/parents/librarian/others encourage you to read more fiction?
**
When I was a kid I read everything, and no one would have had the nerve to bug me to read more - I was compulsive enough as it was.
**
And one for those who frequent libraries: Does your library promote nonfiction reading (booktalks, displays, etc)?
**

Not that I can recall, but I often zip in, consult the computer, get whatever looks interesting, and zip out. I don’t get much fiction at the library, since I have so many unread sf books at home. Sometimes I read mystery series that my wife is also reading. Often I decide I want to learn everything about WW I, or Latin philosophy, and grab a bunch of books on them.

23

Part in which I respond to the OP:

1: Do you consider yourself a geek?

Guilty as charged.

2: What are your areas of interest/expertise? Are they the same you had as a kid?

sci-fi/fantasy, gaming, football, law, guns, pro wrestling, law, and miscellaneous oddities
Same as when I was a kid.
*
3: Do you actively seek out information on your favorite subjects?*

Yes

3 ½: and where? Library? Internet?

Internet and required CLE seminars

4: What was school like? Did you struggle, work hard and succeed, or get by without making an effort?

Coasted by without much effort until my junior year in college, then started trying to salvage a respectable GPA.

*5: In your experience, do people understand why you spend time learning about things that aren’t directly relevant to work or everyday life? *

Dunno. Don’t care. What I do on my time is my business. I tend to keep my professional and personal lives separated as much as possible.

Part in Which I Win “Biggest Geek in Thread”

If you’re happy and ya know it, say Ka-Plah! (Ka-Plah!)
If you’re happy and ya know it, say Ka-Plah! (Ka-Plah!)
If you’re happy and ya know it, then your life is surely forfeit
If you’re happy and ya know it, say Ka-Plah! (Ka-Plah!)

:eek::D:p

Yes, it is rumored I may be part Klingon

24

1: Do you consider yourself a geek?
Depends on the definition, but no. I would consider myself a retired nerd.

2: What are your areas of interest/expertise? Are they the same you had as a kid?
Yes, video games. Actually, I still play the video games I played 30 years ago. I don’t like the new stuff.

3: Do you actively seek out information on your favorite subjects?
Yes.

3 ½: and where? Library? Internet?
Internet, usually.

4: What was school like? Did you struggle, work hard and succeed, or get by without making an effort?
I was rather famous for taking tests without studying. I found school ridiculously easy. I was placed in every advanced class imaginable until high school. In high school though is where my true nerdhood blossomed. I founded the Chess Team, wrote 10 page research papers about computers with my eyes closed, and played Chess with cutout folder paper pieces in the back of programming class. Looking back though, I think I instinctively understood the underlying statistics in multiple choice tests, but I didn’t have that much content knowledge. Even today I’m semi-autistic when it comes to standardized tests.

5: In your experience, do people understand why you spend time learning about things that aren’t directly relevant to work or everyday life?
Nope.

25

Do you consider yourself a reader?
Absolutely.

**When you think “reading”, do you think of:

  • exclusively books
  • any piece of text
  • any text based media (including audio books)
  • fiction only, regardless of medium**
    For the most basic version of reading (looking at an arrangement of letters and perceiving meaning), any piece of text. For the kind of reading I’m talking about when I call myself a reader, my first instinct is “Exclusively books”, though I’ve decided on reflection that articles, essays and so on also count, whether they’re in a book, a newspaper, a magazine or online. Audio books don’t count as reading IMO.

For non-fiction readers: Did your teachers/parents/librarian/others encourage you to read more fiction?
No. I’ve always read both. My grandfather, whose nerdiness puts mine to shame, has suggested that I ought to give up fiction entirely until I’ve finished uni. (Ha! I suppose I can see why he’d think it would help me study, but I couldn’t give up fiction any more than I could give up eating and drinking.)

**And one for those who frequent libraries: Does your library promote nonfiction reading (booktalks, displays, etc)? **
The high school library I frequented until last year did a lot of this. My public library doesn’t.

26

1: Do you consider yourself a geek?
More of a nerd with geeky tendencies.
2: What are your areas of interest/expertise? Are they the same you had as a kid?
Music, art, history. Pretty much, just expanded.
3: Do you actively seek out information on your favorite subjects?
Yes.
3 ½: and where? Library? Internet?
Both, plus experts in the field and museums.
4: What was school like? Did you struggle, work hard and succeed, or get by without making an effort?
Pretty much coasted until my senior year in high school, then buckled down. Dropped out of college from burnout.
5: In your experience, do people understand why you spend time learning about things that aren’t directly relevant to work or everyday life?
Some of them. Non-geeks and nerds don’t usually get it though.

27

1: Do you consider yourself a geek?
A: Yes. Proudly so. Facts, interesting connections,etc fascinate me. (Had enough in my head to make it on Who Wants to be a Millionaire back in 2000)

2: What are your areas of interest/expertise? Are they the same you had as a kid?
A: Space, technology, engineering, materials, innovation, architecture… Mostly the same…although more technical now.

3: Do you actively seek out information on your favorite subjects?
A: Yes. Love trivia…it’s what brought me here.

3 ½: and where? Library? Internet?
A: TV, the web…if I’m in a library (e.g. with the kids) I’ll browse interesting topics.

4: What was school like? Did you struggle, work hard and succeed, or get by without making an effort?
A: High school was a breeze. College was an eye-opener…I had to learn how to study.

5: In your experience, do people understand why you spend time learning about things that aren’t directly relevant to work or everyday life?
A: I think they appreciate the sense of wonder I get. I don’t know if they, themselves, get it. My wife and I, and our four boys, often have interesting conversations around the dinner table…for example…could you dig a hole with an ever-widening diameter so that the geometry would counteract the visual vanishing point and the hole would appear to have parallel sides? We hashed that one out for days (and posted it on the SMDB).

A quick Proud Geek moment… while driving with my teenage son I pointed to the gibbous moon and said “I wonder if it’s waxing or waning”. My son replied “I think it’s waxing”. OK, nerdy enough…but two days later I am again driving with the boy when he looks up at the moon…determines that there is more of it to be seen and proclaims “YES! Waxing, I KNEW it!” (pumps fist).
That’s my boy.

p.s. We have The Periodic Table of Desserts hanging in our kitchen.

28

Yay you! I may actually pass this exam, thanks to you lot. :smiley:
Yesterday I was thrilled to discover the requirement was 3500-4000 words, not 7500 as I had for some reason thought… so for once in my life I’m feeling somewhat optimistic. And the thing isn’t due till wednesday, so with a little luck I’ll avoid the allnighters [insert traumatic college memories here].
1:** Do you consider yourself a geek?**
Most definitely
2: **What are your areas of interest/expertise? **Comic books, dinosaurs, horses, renaissance and baroque art, mythology, SF/fantasy, history, general language geekery… Are they the same you had as a kid? Pretty much, yeah
3: Do you actively seek out information on your favorite subjects? And how!
3 ½: and where? Library? Internet? Both, and then there’s the stuff that winds up in my mailbox every month, thanks to Nat Geo and Fortean Times…
4: What was school like? Did you struggle, work hard and succeed, or get by without making an effort?
From 6th grade and throughout high school I didn’t do one scrap of homework, and still did fairly well (in middle school I was notorious for turning in essays I’d written in about 15 minutes and still getting As). Of course this meant that by the time I got to college I had zero discipline and no real idea how to apply my brain, so… It was only thanks to my friends and family badgering me I got my degree at all.
5: In your experience, do people understand why you spend time learning about things that aren’t directly relevant to work or everyday life?
Not really, but I can flash my librarian credentials and say “Knowing stuff is my job!”.

Do you consider yourself a reader?
Why yes, I do.
**When you think “reading”, do you think of:

  • exclusively books
  • any piece of text
  • any text based media (including audio books)
  • fiction only, regardless of medium**

For non-fiction readers: Did your teachers/parents/librarian/others encourage you to read more fiction?
No - I’ve always been an omnivore.

And one for those who frequent libraries: Does your library promote nonfiction reading (booktalks, displays, etc)?
We try!

29

I am absolutely a reader. I read mostly fiction, but I like to throw some current non-fiction learning stuff in regularly to keep my brain exercised. Reading is just reading; whatever book or text I have in hand is what I’m reading.

I come from a reading family; it was never particularly promoted, just constantly practiced. My local library has any number of excellent resources.

30

1: Of course. Otherwise, would I be in this thread?
2: What are your areas of interest/expertise? Are they the same you had as a kid?
Chess, math, physics. Yep, they’re the same.
3: Do you actively seek out information on your favorite subjects?
Definitely
3 ½: and where? Library? Internet?
Internet and chess books.
4: What was school like? Did you struggle, work hard and succeed, or get by without making an effort?
It was a cakewalk. Seriously, not a bit of effort.
5: In your experience, do people understand why you spend time learning about things that aren’t directly relevant to work or everyday life?
Yes and no. They know I’m smart so they leave me alone about it.

31

God how I hate that word.

No. But that don’t mean anything. I’m sure I can find a few people who do consider me a geek.

Software, physics, maths, biology, food/cooking.

I’m much more interested in food and maths now than when I was a kid. I used to be more into electronics too.

Yes.

Internet first - youtube is a great resource if you find the right channels, and so is this site. Once I decide to dig in a subject a bit deeper I usually search the web (or ask people online) for book recommendations. Even though I spent more time than is healthy on the web, books tend to be the best way to to get an in-depth introduction to stuff (especially technical subjects). After that, you’ll just have to do things yourself until can see what’s good info and what’s bollocks.

I never made an effort after the first two years or so of high school, and I didn’t do all that well. Still made good enough grades to get to university on an artificial intelligence course. Should have focused more then too. Oh well.

Some do, some don’t. I can understand both.

ETA: Please note that I “do software” for a living as a freelancer. So much of the really “geeky” stuff I do can be put down as “studying”.

32

Oh no! :slight_smile:

Yes.

Printed material, mostly. Currently, I’m reading more non-fiction books than fiction. Also the occasional newspaper.

Hah. That’s a good one. When I was about 12 I used to take about 4 programming manuals with me on vacation. My parents did remark on that but never encouraged me to do otherwise.

I’m thinking about subscribing to my local library (I heard it’s fairly good) but I haven’t yet except for a short visit, so I don’t know.

33

I like your name, I’ve always loved Hemulen. :slight_smile: (I collect stamps too!) It’s an appropriate name for this thread.

1:** Do you consider yourself a geek?**
I guess more of a nerd really.

2: **What are your areas of interest/expertise? ** Books, I’m still something of a SF/fantasy nerd, homeschooling (that is, books) and sewing, esp. the nutty branch known as heirloom sewing. Also I love old B movies, etc.

Are they the same you had as a kid? Books yes, sewing no

3: Do you actively seek out information on your favorite subjects? Yup

3 ½: and where? Library? Internet? Both. I am a librarian.

4: What was school like? Did you struggle, work hard and succeed, or get by without making an effort?
In high school I got by, but it was a terrible school. I have never considered myself to be the easy-genius type, just reasonably bright. I went to a prestigious college, where I was underprepared and outclassed by most of my peers, but I loved it. I also spent a year in HS as an exchange student, which certainly taught me a lot of hard work goodness.

5: In your experience, do people understand why you spend time learning about things that aren’t directly relevant to work or everyday life?
I think they think I’m a little over the top, but mostly everyone seems to tolerate me with grace.
Do you consider yourself a reader?
Definitely.

**When you think “reading”, do you think of:

  • exclusively books
  • any piece of text
  • any text based media (including audio books
  • fiction only, regardless of medium**

Proper books, but any kind

For non-fiction readers: Did your teachers/parents/librarian/others encourage you to read more fiction?

No–I really only got into non-fiction as an adult anyway.

And one for those who frequent libraries: Does your library promote nonfiction reading (booktalks, displays, etc)?

We have a trough of non-fiction and the “new books” table is NF. Not so much in the J area.

34

1: Do you consider yourself a geek?
Oh hell yeah.

2: What are your areas of interest/expertise? Are they the same you had as a kid?
Languages, cartoons specifically Thundercats and Silverhawks, scifi, kimono / other Japanese traditional clothes, world-building, Batman, some other comics. They’re more or less the same although focii have changed.

3: Do you actively seek out information on your favorite subjects?
When I get on a spree I can spend hours and hours researching stuff and taking notes.

3 ½: and where? Library? Internet?
Mostly the internet. Also books I buy.

4: What was school like? Did you struggle, work hard and succeed, or get by without making an effort?
In grade school I got by without an effort. Not so much in college, although I learned to manage.

5: In your experience, do people understand why you spend time learning about things that aren’t directly relevant to work or everyday life?
Not really no. ‘What are you doing?’ ‘Writing.’ ‘Oh, is that for a class.’ ‘No.’ ‘… then why are you doing it?’ :rolleyes:

Do you consider yourself a reader? Yes, although not as much as I did in high school.

When you think “reading”, do you think of:
Usually books, but any informative or entertaining writing. Surfing casual websites, no.

35

1: Do you consider yourself a geek?

Yep. Nerd, too. And enough of both to know the difference. :slight_smile:

2: What are your areas of interest/expertise? Are they the same you had as a kid?

Yes.

Seriously, though, I have such a wide range of interests that I am able to hold my own in nearly any conversation, though clearly not with the depth of a specialist. My own specializations would be computers, theology, physics, history, electronics, martial arts, and… er… “modern entertainment”… OK, computer games.

This jibes fairly well with my youthful interests, though I am probably more traditionally “child-like” in my interests now than I was then… I believe that the world is my oyster today, while back then I felt like I was forced to one path. I was interested in math and science and felt that I shouldn’t really bother with anything else.

3: Do you actively seek out information on your favorite subjects?

You bet. And I also actively seek out information on whatever crosses my mind – I don’t limit myself to a few favorites.

3 ½: and where? Library? Internet?

The Internet was God’s personal apology to me for the hell that was Public School.

Seriously, though, I find libraries fairly superfluous these days. I still check out books that aren’t made available online (read: aren’t free), but it’s hard to cross-reference and add media to printed pages, not to mention the instant-knowledge-gratification aspect.

4: What was school like? Did you struggle, work hard and succeed, or get by without making an effort?

I’m… er… somewhat negative about my experiences.

Let me put it this way: I honestly would not wish the American Public School System on my worst enemies (who, ironically, were found there). I am constantly astounded by the fact that some parents actually choose to send their children to these hell holes. Clearly, they’re seeing something different than I saw, but even my own sister plans on sending hers next year. And it wasn’t a single school – I was in 7 different school systems before college.

The struggle for me was retaining my sanity in the face of mind-boggling drudgery and bullying. I didn’t always get good grades because I just plain didn’t care to do the work. But I almost always got good test scores.

My mother tells me that I was precocious and loved learning and experiencing new things when I was little. I know (and have confirmed with her) that this pretty much died in school. School is also where I picked up all sorts of bad habits, such as picking on my sister just because she was a girl. I hated history passionately throughout my school career, but started loving it as soon as it wasn’t a matter of rote, but of storytelling.

It wasn’t until after school was over that I started really learning.

College was… somewhere in between. There were times when I had to work hard (I got 2 BS Engineering degrees, 4 yrs). But there were times also when I was bored and apathetic. But it was also where I learned that I wasn’t being forced anymore, and I could take classes that interested me. I took a few classes just for the fun of it (Neurology was cool!).

5: In your experience, do people understand why you spend time learning about things that aren’t directly relevant to work or everyday life?

Maybe not why I spend >so much< time doing so, but by and large the answer is “yes”. It’s pretty clear to people that I enjoy learning and knowledge, and, frankly, so do most of the people I surround myself with, so that may not be an unbiased view.

Do you consider yourself a reader?

Emphatically yes.

When you think “reading”, do you think of:

The word “reading” to me means text, and while it’s certainly possible to read text online, I generally think “books” when I hear the word. Since I mostly read fiction, I have a slight skew in that direction, but am pretty sure it’s association.

**For non-fiction readers: Did your teachers/parents/librarian/others encourage you to read more fiction? **

Yes, but I was also encouraged to read non-fiction. For the most part, as a lad, I ignored that part – it was all fiction until I found out that real life could be fun, too.

And one for those who frequent libraries: Does your library promote nonfiction reading (booktalks, displays, etc)?

I don’t actually know. I tend not to pay much attention to displays. My wife would know.

36

This is a great topic.

  1. Geek has a pejorative connotation, so no. I think people who have lost the instinct to be curious are the freaks. In caveman days, you couldn’t afford to be incurious about what was going on around you. It was pay attention or end up as panther shit.

  2. I’ll list my areas of interest, not necessarily expertise. Calculating devices, typography, economics and finance, epistemology, probability. Those are what come to mind right now. I had no interest in most of that stuff when I was a kid. I went through three distinct phases: first airplanes/space, then computers, then physics. I ended up an aerospace engineer.

  3. Of course

3.5. Internet, library, other people with the same interests. Also by observing everyday events with an “active mind”

  1. Mostly got by without making an effort. Later on, when more effort was required, I had to be interested in the material in order to do well. Fortunately I found interesting aspects in most classes

  2. I think the question of relevance is a loaded one. At some level, everything is relevant to everything else. The idea that economics has nothing to do with science which has nothing to do with religion which has nothing to do with politics is false. Most information is relevant in some way to daily life; the fact that many people fail to understand how is maybe what prevents them from becoming curious. For example, people are exposed to statistical ideas all the time, usually as part of persuasive arguments that influence their behavior greatly. Yet most people glaze over when you try to explain the difference between the mean and the mode, or some other simple statistical concept.

37

The followups:

Yes, I am a reader, meaning any form of text. I don’t think audio books are quite the same as reading printed material. It’s a lot easier to tune it out and a lot harder to reread until you understand. I rarely read fiction. The amount of fiction I was exposed to in schools at various levels is all out of proportion to the amount of fiction I read voluntarily. I don’t mean to denigrate fiction, I just find that fiction rarely holds my interest for an entire work.

Yes, my public library has displays for both fiction and nonfiction books.

38

Yes. I used to read 150 pages per hour. On trips, I would usually buy paperback books 4-6 at a time from airport kiosks, and read one every 3 hours. I don’t read as much anymore, but once a year I read through the entire Wheel of Time series just to keep myself fresh. Online, I usually go to 3-6 different websites daily and read all the news. I’m done with one website in about 15-20 minutes, usually.

I consider “reading” anything with a narrative, which would include all novels, most non-fiction, and comic books. It has to use symbols. Audio books wouldn’t count as reading to me. However, summaries of longer stories would count.

Regarding non-fiction, I’m attracted to trivia, puzzle books, game theory, strategies, or things related to my profession.

When I was growing up, I lived at the library. I never participated in what they did though, I would just pick a stack, work my way through it, then go to the next stack.