The other week,
I spent hours with a megadrive and a box of games, booting it up then hot swapping the games to (sometimes) cause the sound chip to get corrupted and start spewing out weird noises.

Some of it was quite melodic.
( Slippery Mick ‏, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 13:16, 2 replies)

The party...
Despite having a healthy enthusiasm for dark solitude, escapist literature and Fantasy movies, my mum decides that I must start ‘playing with people my own age’ (I’m only 34). She then informs me that I am invited to a party...FFS!

Even though it isn’t fancy dress, I know I have to make an immediate impression. But which costume? After much soul-searching, I settle on a subtle blend of multiple characters:

1 arm: Jean Luc Picard
1 arm: Knight who says ‘Ni’
1 leg: R2D2
1 leg: Pikachu
Torso: Gondor warrior (with Princess Leia gold bikini)
Helmet: Optimus Prime

As I walk through the door I’m an instant hit! Everybody stares at me in quiet, jealous awe. After a while of having to fight the hotties off with a metaphorical shitty lightsabre, I’m approached by none other than George Lucas who asks me to speak at the 'Bi-weekly-Sci-Fi-Mega-Galactic-Fantasy-Card-Collectors' convention in Hippogrope, Arkansas. He then tells me of his plan to make the remaining 3 Star Wars films before offering me the lead role in his secret production of ‘Star Wars 7: Blood of the Franchise’

It’s usually at this point of the dream that I spluff my X-Men Y-Fronts
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Fri 7 Mar 2008, 13:04, 2 replies)

Collecting
I've collected various things over the years: comics, kung fu movies, Star Wars memorabilia, Micro Machines, but my first ever collection kind of takes the biscuit.

My first collection was ..... rocks! (Stones, minerals, crystals...). I even had a dedicated set of shelves that I bought mirrors for, to display the fine examples of iron pyrite and agates that I had managed to get hold of.

Does this make me a geek, nerd, or just sad?
(Blue_in_Exile, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 13:01, 1 reply)

bollocks
Still bedecked in the dufflecoat of nerdom:

I read this title

www.b3ta.com/questions/nerds/post126773

as deuterium oxide.

Is that a nerd within a nerd?
(Countryslicker, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 12:56, 3 replies)

The jury's still out...
Reasons I might or might not be a nerd (or a geek):

When I was 15 I started growing my hair. It was down to my arse by the time I cut it (when I was 18). It was partly my protest against all the skinheads that were around at the time (early-mid 1990s).

I had a Commodore VIC-20 when I was 6. By age 8 I'd learnt to program it. By age 10 I was writing multi-level games, complete with bits of hand-assembled machine code for the time-critical bits.

I've been called a "grammar nazi" (dunno if that counts).

I had a Dolby Pro-Logic surround system in my front room long before anyone else had heard of it.

I owned a hi-fi VHS machine (JVC HR-D725) which pre-dated NICAM stereo. I converted this machine to NICAM using a decoder board salvaged from an old Ferguson TV set. I was about 15-16 when I did this.

I also converted a Ferguson 3V48 hi-fi VCR to NICAM with a decoder salvaged from a scrap Hitachi VCR.

I was writing stuff in 6502 assembler on the BBC Micro when everyone else just wanted to play games on it.

I had a BBC Micro instead of a Spectrum or Amstrad because the BBC had a built-in assembler and more I/O ports. That I made full use of.

When I was 11 I connected two VIC-20s together via their joystick ports and wrote a simple 4-bit communications protocol.

18 months ago I bought a brand new car (Audi A4 Quattro). Before leaving the dealership I got them to remove the standard CD player so I could fit my all-singing all-dancing Sony unit with Bluetooth and iPod dock.

I own (and use) more than one desktop PC.

At least one of my desktop PCs runs *nix (NetBSD in fact).

About 3-4 years ago I dug out my VIC-20 and made myself an XE1541 cable, installed FreeDOS and 64HDD on an old 486 (complete with ISA network card and TCP/IP drivers) and got my VIC-20 talking to my IP-based network.

I wrote a cross-platform development environment for the VIC-20. This consisted of a tokeniser/detokeniser in ARM BBC BASIC on the RISC PC (successor to the Archimedes), a 6502 assembler on 65Tube (an emulated 6502 co-processor running BBC BASIC on an Archimedes) and Samba running on a *nix box. Once a program had been tested and developed in VICE it could then be loaded on the real VIC.

Using the above I wrote a helicopter shoot-em-up game that used an interrupt to rotate the blades of the helicopter as well as moving ripples across areas of water etc. Sadly I never finished it due to time constraints.

My house is fully wired with Cat5. I have a Squeezebox in my kitchen and bathroom with speakers in the ceiling.

I own 3 laptops.

Now, reasons I'm probably not a geek:

I don't have a personal hygiene problem. I take a bath or shower every morning.

I don't wear glasses, contacts etc.

I'm not a virgin. (6 notches and counting... that I'll admit to.)

I look people in the eye when I'm talking to them rather than at my shoes.

I now have a sensible haircut!

I've never in my life played an MMORPG. I have no interest in Final Fantasy. In fact I generally find computer games very boring (except perhaps the Grand Theft Auto series).

I drive way too fast, often for the benefit of some impressionable teenage girl who happens to be sat in my passenger seat at the time.

None of my laptops run Linux. (Or any other *nix.)

Other things that I'm not sure are for or against:

I play the piano. But not often (although I'm not too bad).

I have strange taste in music. 80s pop, country & western, ABBA, dance, trance/techno.

I'm a huge Star Wars fan, and Han shot first. (Only the movies though, I don't collect any of the memorabilia.)

I quite like the Star Trek movies, not really into the series though. And I think Enterprise was complete rubbish.

The Christopher Reeve Superman movies were way better than the new movie and series.

Anything else? Oh, probably...

Length? 8 inches and plenty of girth.
(RabidRodent I'm the person your mother warned you about, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 12:50, 1 reply)

and proud of it.
I collect stamps and coins, and the idea of submitting a stamp cataloging program to the Open Source community gets me out of bed at the weekend.
I knit.
I memorised the scripts to A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi about 15 years ago and still know them.
I am a librarian.
I run a training course on bibliographic software.
Mr MsZuzu has converted all our computers (6 and counting) to run off Linux and I get excited when he "talks geek" to me.
(MsZuzu, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 12:50, Reply)

Yay! I'm A Nerd!
I was starting to get worried that everyone was nerdier than me and I couldn't join in. Then I remembered WoW! If you're horde side, and you were wondering, I was the person who invented the Alterac Valley battle cry "UDEN LO THAT YOU FAT CUNT!"

Yay for negative kudos!
( Gleeballs is mostly made out of chocolate and hate., Fri 7 Mar 2008, 12:47, 3 replies)

geek part 2
(Can't be arsed to re-edit my last post)

I like watching Programs made by Jonathan Meades.

I watch University challenge for fun (although rarely get more than 4 or 5 questions correct)

I used to be in my local pub's cribbage and quiz teams

I know that you cannot twoc a horse

I have paid money to watch County Cricket
(Halfy By light alone, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 12:44, 2 replies)

I saw a duck once

( SkUG >_O i got a couple of stitches in my eyeball... ow, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 12:36, 2 replies)

Sometimes I memorise things for no good reason
I once memorised the name and capital city of every country in the world. This is mostly forgotten now. And I gained no pussy from it.

Also, I once memorised the entire name of Johann Gambolputty [...] of Ulm, of Monty Python fame. Also, no pussy there.

At another time I memorised the lyrics of "99 Luftballons", partly because I wanted to figure out what the song was about in the first place (balloons, obviously). Coincidentally, this came in handy on a backpacking trip a few years later, where some German was trying to recall the lyrics. There was also some Slovenian bird present who was very impressed by my knowledge.

One out of three is not a bad statistic.
(spinoza, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 12:27, 6 replies)

I am a breakout nerd
A breakout nerd is a nerd who uses said nerdiness to score popularity points, resulting in friends that you can talk to even if your internet goes down.

I am invited to pretty much every quiz that exists in the local town, and the paper is simply passed to me if a round comes up on films, or books.



I knew that I truly loved my girlfriend when I made a joke about Metachlorians and she completely understood it, and I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her when she did a spot-on impression of R2-D2.

I totally get the chaos theory idea that the gunner on the Death Star that DOESN'T shoot the pod the bots are in is the sole reason the 3 films exist.

The joke 'With binary, there are 10 kinds of people. Those who understand it, and those who don't' makes me laugh, a lot, every time....after I explain it.

Most of my jokes need a lenghtly explanation for anyone who didnt watch a cult show, 4 episodes long, aired in another country, at 2am, on a small TV channel.

MST3K is the best thing in the world.

I have a Dalek suit designed for a 9yr old that i squeeze into for every fancy dress party I go to.

I spend more money on DVDs than I do on everything else combined.

I BURN OUR my DVD players after about 6 months, and HAVE to buy multi-region ones, coz most of my favourite films and shows have never graced these Isles.

The Commodore 64 is God.

When I die, I want to go out on rollers, to the wail of bagpipes.



Also, if i remember rightly, in Manic Miner, Moonlight Sonata plays at the intro screen. If anyone wants to code it, the code, off the top of my head is DEFB &51,&3C,&33,&51,&3C,&33,&51,&3C,&33,&51,&3C,&33
DEFB &51,&3C,&33,&51,&3C,&33,&51,&3C,&33,&51,&3C,&33
DEFB &4C,&3C,&33,&4C,&3C,&33,&4C,&39,&2D,&4C,&39,&2D
DEFB &51,&40,&2D,&51,&3C,&33,&51,&3C,&36,&5B,&40,&36
DEFB &66,&51,&3C,&51,&3C,&33,&51,&3C,&33,&28,&3C,&28
DEFB &28,&36,&2D,&51,&36,&2D,&51,&36,&2D,&28,&36,&28
DEFB &28,&3C,&33,&51,&3C,&33,&26,&3C,&2D,&4C,&3C,&2D
DEFB &28,&40,&33,&51,&40,&33,&2D,&40,&36,&20,&40,&36
DEFB &3D,&79,&3D,&FF
Every game I ever made had Moonlight Sonata in it somewhere, lol
(bobman500 enjoys a grope as much as the next fella, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 12:17, 6 replies)

If I've been put on hold while on the phone, and have a piece of paper to hand,
I often find myself doodling - most often attempting retrosynthetic analyses of various drug molecules (translation for non-chemists: working out the best way to assemble a complicated molecule from simple components.)

Then again, I am a final-year chemist and I've been indoctrinated with this stuff for nearly four years now.
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 12:16, 1 reply)

Avrogadro's number
6x10²³ it's the number of atoms, molecules, etc. in a gram mole of any chemical substance

is a Big Number it's very hard to get your head around a number that large

6x10²³ coke cans would cover earth about 4 million times at depth of 280 miles

I love that
(sittingduck Attention seeking, bullshitting fuck-knuckle, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 12:12, 6 replies)

Nerd-tastic
How nerdy? Well, much to the amusement of the whole office, a colleague has found a "Mr Spock" on a clients' payroll.

We're wondering whether he'll be hit with 300 years worth of back tax and NI. His mileage allowance payment may be quite substantial though.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Fri 7 Mar 2008, 12:05, 1 reply)

How nerdy am I...
Well I met my future husband to be on the internet!
( Mrswoodbine finally has her own account., Fri 7 Mar 2008, 11:52, 4 replies)

Hindsight is always 20:20
Nerdiness is as its antithesis, coolness. If you say you are, you're not. If you think you are, you're not. If you fear you are, you might be.

It has to be bestowed upon you by your peers, and conveyed by ostracism. OCD, collectamania, a penchant for sci-fi, fantasy and filing are not nerdiness. A love of all things computerery is geeky, but not nerdy. True nerdiness is a lonely business.

Where as having coolness bestowed upon you is likely to involve invitations to hip parties, unsolicited come-ons from supermodels, an instant entourage and offers of free narcs, being a nerd is a solitary affair, likely to culminate in a feeling of deep existential angst, utterly flummoxed by the world’s antipathy to your innate talents.

So, with the benefit of hindsight, I realize I *was* a nerd. Any awareness of this ‘condition’ at the time would have negated this realization – because I would have sorted myself out. It ain’t fun.

I always used to wonder “why me” at school. Why was I the one attracting the unwarranted attention? Why was I bullied, spat at, beaten up, caned, had money extorted, and was the general ‘lacky’ for the group I’d joined in an uneasy alliance?

Why was I always chosen last in sport, always to be the target (goalie), after the fat asthmatic kid? Why was I taunted, called gay before my balls had even dropped? Why was I the spare prick at the orgy, the last man standing at the few parties I was invited to, when all good men and true were making out?

It took me a while to grow up. To develop empathy. To see myself as others saw me. It was only then I realized how I must have come across.

To some extent it was circumstances and just plain bad luck. I was the only middle class kid in a working class school (40% of my school left with nothing, no CSEs, no O levels – I got the most -8 (just) – the next highest was 5) .

We had six non classical albums (I don't remember what they were ;) ) and the radion was always tuned to radio 4.

We didn’t have a TV till I was five, and even after that TV was strictly rationed. My dad had a system – reading books allowed us a number of hours of TV/week – at the age of 11, I was reading “John Prebble’s “ The Highland Clearances” (a weighty tome, but just 5hrs, in case you were wondering).

I got a dictionary for my tenth birthday… nothing else. My parents were self educated but poor as church mice. Almost all my clothes were second hand or hand knitted….

Poor and starved of common cultural references, I started secondary school just as ‘brand consciousness’ hit kids – late 70s early 80s. Wither the Dunlop Green Flashes of yesteryear, or the black pumps with orange soles. If you didn’t have Adidas Mamba or Samba you weren’t it. I got Gola.

Fred Perry, Pringle? I had a snorkel parker and tank tops. Accoutrements? A violin (borrowed) of course. And outrageous 70’s blond curls.

Five years of hell. It’s a miracle I wasn’t killed… I can’t believe I ever used to make matchstick models, or knew how to work out the a resistor’s value from the colour coded bands....(snip)

….skip to the end.

Clawed my way out of all that, and have found myself an amazing woman, with innate style.

This can be illustrated simply by the contrast between our (teenage) approaches to parties – mine - turn up, drink some snakebite, sit on the stairs hoping someone would come and talk to me (take pity on me?)

Hers? She still likes to follow her grandmother’s advice

“Never sit down, never refuse a drink”

It’s a confidence thing.
(Countryslicker, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 11:49, 4 replies)

Just remembered this...
One of the things that annoyed me about Gladiator was that the chariots drove on the right. I believe the Romans drove on the left.

How many nerd points do I get for that?
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 11:48, 11 replies)

Sometimes words are simply not necessary

(yokelrobin THE NERD WHOSE HAIR DEFIES GRAVITY/FASHION, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 11:44, 13 replies)

I found it funny
How can you tell if a nerd is an extrovert?

He looks at YOUR shoes when he talks to you.
(oneinthepink is at your cervix m'lady, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 11:42, Reply)

Star Wars Episode 7 - Man Love (2)
Obi and Luke entered the bar and Luke's eyes almost popped from his head as he saw the gyrating naked body of the Pappilonian Four Nobb in the cage. Everywhere he looked, there was naked flesh and a variety of alien members.

"The Bellenz of Breth have a member as big as a giant redwood and it takes them a month to get an erection," said Obi as he feathered his gnarled old fingertips across the peachy buns of a Cumbot.

"Who's that guy over there," asked Luke, pointing to a hunky lunk of a man sitting next to a rolled up carpet.

"That's Hands Solo. He's the quickest shot in the galaxy. And the carpet next to him is Chew Batty, the bentest Wookie in the system. Don't bend over when you're near him!"

The two wandered over and sat at Hands' table. The smirking space cowboy winked at him and there was a heavy thunk as Chew Batty's enormous hairy schlong hit the bottom of the table.

"Who do we have here?" Hands asked Obi One. "He looks like he knows how to handle a sabre."

"The force is strong with this one," replied Obi One, smiling a queer smile and uncrossing his legs. He put a hand on Luke's muscular thigh.

"Oh!" exclaimed Luke as a splat of something warm hit his forehead.

"Sorry about about that," said Hands. "I was aiming elsewhere."

Chew Batty roared fearfully and a geyser of ejaculate washed over Obi One's feet.
(frankspencer, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 11:23, 7 replies)

Simple really...
I'm an accountant... but more than that... I'm a tax accountant.
(fatharry, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 11:20, 2 replies)

You'll like this, not a lot, but you'll like it.
I'm a full card carrying member of The Magic Circle.

It doesn't get much nerdier than that.
(kickstandrich last had sex with your mum/sister/wife/daughter on, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 11:08, Reply)

Not as nerdy as this guy
www.wpbf.com/news/15366554/detail.html

If your going to commit a massive robery, why not go straight fpr the lego. you know you want to.
( willenium Fist bump for verification, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 11:07, 3 replies)

Tropical Fish
They are the geekiest pet a person can own.

A basic pet, furry mammal – say cat – requires not much attention, feed it, worm it, stroke it and it will purr on your lap all the way through the star wars trilogy. And who has not laughed at a hamster running on its wheel?

Birds? Parrots are the coolest pet in the world. Fact. (Pirates had them?!?)

Insects? Well they sit in a box requiring limited feeding – you don’t even have to show them love. As long as they have some leaves they are happy to spend their days trying to impersonate a twig.

Reptiles? My mate owns a rather large snake. It requires a little heat and feeding once a week. Once a Week! He can happily spend his days clubbing and kissing girls like a cool kid without having to worry about Giles the pythons health.

Goldfish. “I won mine at an air gun game at the pikey fair. I am a crack shot. I am deadly with a tin pellet. I am a natural born killer. Clearly - I am cool”

Tropical fish then? Well you need to buy a certain type of tank. Fill it with a certain type of water at a certain temperature. If it’s too hot you will wake to find fish soup. To cold and you find them all belly up and slightly blue. To much chlorine…………zzzzzz.
Have expensive lights on a perfect timer. Have expensive and exotic food. Buy plants a rocks to best suit the fish you’re going to buy.

And then there’s the fish. From what I have been told it’s like a very hard game of top trumps. If you choose the wrong fish you will find in the morning that your collection of 30 fish has been reduced to 1 very fat and sleepy looking fish. And at £££ a go – it could be an expensive mistake. It’s the one pet that requires much planning and preparation and thought and you don’t even get a purr or much amusement out of them. Its the pet equivalent of warhammer.

Now im sure some of you must have some tropical fish tanks and will tell me how easy it is and how completely wrong I am. Please do. And offer tips. I would love to replace my screensaver with a real tank.
( KISS.ME.WHERE.I.POO Signed the sex offenders register on, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 11:05, 10 replies)

The missus' geekery
The missus (with me helping her) spent 2 and a half hours sorting her magic the gathering cards by colour, rarity, shinyness (I forget all the criteria as I have no clue how to play it). THough this was offset by spending two and a half hours afterwards on a massage/sex session :D I was chuffed. Brain didn't half hurt trying organise all they thousands of cards. Need some relaxation after hehehe.
(Teran Thinks Pogonophobia is funny, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 10:58, 2 replies)

When I was but a nipper...
I had a predilection towards dismantling broken electronic goods. I would spend hours pulling apart toasters, blenders, tv's and whatever I could get my hands on. I'd strip all the components down to their most basic state and lay it all out on a floor. My mom was so proud and thought this was almost certainly the start of a great interest that would lead to a glittering career in something, although neither of us was sure what it would be.To be honest I think she was just hoping I would have a job one day and bugger off out the house.

Obviously I discovered drugs, fast cars and woman later in life and my dreams of success faded faster than Martin Luther King doing stand up at the annual KKK dinner. Now days I'd sooner throw away a torch than change the batteries.
(The Archduke of South London I'm in your Girlfriend eating her organs, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 10:56, Reply)

Fighting Fantasy
When I was in the cubs, I went bob-a-jobbing with my friend. We made about £40 and kept it for ourselves.

Except my mate trusted me to spend the money for us - "get us something really cool" he said.

So when I returned that evening, shiny-eyed, with a complete collection of Fighting Fantasy books and dice, I received the beating that had long been overdue.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 10:56, Reply)

i sing along to the mars volta
and i've read every novel terry pratchett has ever written (including the non-discworld stuff, of course). am i a nerd?

it's funny, but over the six pages i've read of this so far, nobody has said "worst qotw EVAR!!11!!1!" or something to that effect. funny how we all like to brag, isn't it?
(notjustahatrack peeling a sausage..., Fri 7 Mar 2008, 10:56, 7 replies)