ooooh I just remembered
My flatmate has genuine, real-life taped up glasses.

They were held together with sticking plasters until I insisted he at least use black electrical tape. I'm such a snob :)

As testament to my own geekiness I beleive that many of lifes problems can be sorted with a good speadsheet.

Length? 137 hours and counting on FFXII
(Reverend Samson Fapohunda B3tan, B3tan, B3tan, B3tan, Tue 11 Mar 2008, 17:09, Reply)

My first post- and maybe not my last...
They say palaeontology is one of the few things beloved by both 6 year old boys and hairy old academics.

Sadly, I'm an otherwise "girly" girl in my early twenties so don't fit the steriotype.

I currently have 6 crates of fossils that I've collected from various sites, stored in my parents attic. The collection shows no signs of shrinkage as I normally have a new and exciting "find" to add to it each time I return home from uni. All the fossils are identified and labelled, complete with highly detailed index cards.

I am unashamed.




Length? Well, I couldn't tell if it was a belemnite in his pocket or if he was just pleased to see me...
(Janitor Sinister, Tue 11 Mar 2008, 17:02, Reply)

My go
I touch type at approximately 90 words per minute (when my fingers aren't freezing cold as they are now, as I have just returned from the shops with a pint of milk)

I own all five instalments of The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy... three times over.

I quote HHGttG most days.

I can reel off the entire script, and play every song off The Rocky Horror [Picture] Show.

I'm always posting on forums, ALL DAY LONG
(Multi-Coloured Pop Shop "twat with a ukulele", Tue 11 Mar 2008, 16:49, Reply)

overgeek
I wrote sourcebooks for Rolemaster, D&D and Battletech. I won't even mention Dark Conspiracy.

I feel dirty.

Length: 2d6 inches
(clockworkkillbot, Tue 11 Mar 2008, 16:01, Reply)

I take much delight in running my engine at the same pitch as the root chord of whatever's playing on the stereo.
But other road users don't take kindly when the song changes.

*3rd gear at 50mph*

*CRUNCH*

*5th gear at 20mph*
(Generator cannot be named for legal reasons, Tue 11 Mar 2008, 15:59, 1 reply)

My previous post is further evidence
My previous post was written on the Eee PC that I just bought to get round our net-bot at work, connecting to the free wi-fi in the pub three floors down.

My signature line is a quote(ish) from the first series of Babylon 5.

What more evidence do you need?
(Wascally Weasel now with 100% fewer jokes., Tue 11 Mar 2008, 15:45, Reply)

GURPS
I did the research for a GURPS WWII module.

That is all.
(Wascally Weasel now with 100% fewer jokes., Tue 11 Mar 2008, 15:42, Reply)

Text-based web browsing.
Has anyone ever browsed the web using Lynx, out of choice?

I believe that qualifies for geekdom.

I've used it, but only because I had to.
(Half of Stephen Fry's right buttock pissed on your dog on, Tue 11 Mar 2008, 15:37, 4 replies)

This is B3TA, so the following is probably a repost.
But you can now have a Goatse boot floppy.

www.kolumbus.fi/xtmb/goatsefloppy/

(It sort of fits in with the QOTW...)

PS. If any of you are at college and reading this, please, PLEASE, make as many as you can and leave them in the drives of all the computers.
(Half of Stephen Fry's right buttock pissed on your dog on, Tue 11 Mar 2008, 15:25, 2 replies)

Text
Nerdiness comes in many forms... but there are some worse than others. My brothers and sisters of the b3tan Empire, I have a confession to make.

I have written fanfiction.

And it gets worse. It was Harry Potter fanfiction.

Still, it was written at the request of a lovely girl, so that cancels out some of the taint.
(calamarain just invented dehydrated water, Tue 11 Mar 2008, 15:22, 4 replies)

Maybe that's why we were together so long...
I like geeks. Which would explain why the former Mr Rakky and I were together for six years. His geekdom took on many guises, most of them fantasy / scifi / computer related. But my favorite of his quirks was he had no TV and only listened to long wave radio...

We were at a particularly geeky pub quiz (Sunday night, Holyrood Tavern in Edinburgh if anyone else ever visited it)and the last question in the fiendishly difficult last round was... "For 31 points, name all the shipping areas surrounding Britain and Ireland." A collective groan went around the pub. But not from our table, oh no. Mr Rakky grabbed the pen with a glee not seen since he found an eigth of dope down the back of the sofa and proceeded to name all 31. In order.

I know that there are probably many people who can do this, but nothing matched seeing the joy on his face that a piece of esoteric knowledge, honed over the years, had finally come in useful and won us eight pints of beer...
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Tue 11 Mar 2008, 14:56, 11 replies)

One reason i split up with my ex.
(Phone Call)

Ring, Ring
Me - Hello?
My ex- Hey are you coming round?
Me- Yeah i'll be about 30 minutes.
My ex- You said that 30 minutes ago.
Me- Yeah, i know im sorry im just really busy.
My ex- ..... You're playing that bloody game again arent you?
Me- No
My ex- Yes you bloody are, i havent seen you in a week because your still playing it.
Me- No im not honest
(cue a sound effect from my tv so loud it proved that i was lying)
Me- .... I'll be right over.

The Game?... Kingdom Hearts. I missed College, Work and time with my Girlfriend for this game, i stayed up all night the night before the release of the second game so i was there first thing to buy it, I then spent over 24 hours playing it, ive spent over £200 on Kingdom Hearts toys, i have the 9 Disc Soundtrack box-set and to top it off, i have a keyblade tattooed on my neck. Girlfriends, who needs em.

(pop)
(beano, Tue 11 Mar 2008, 14:55, 4 replies)

king of star trek
Yes its true im completely obsessed with it, i have numerous items in my collection which includes:

A talking enterprise (which rocks)
3 tricorders
4 phasers
A klingon d'k tahg knife (metal not plastic)
At least 1 of every enterprise featured

I also collect transformers and have 100 at last count
i have watched every episode of trek, transformers, firefly, stargate, stargate atlantis, torchwood, doctor who and babylon 5

Yes i am pale skinned and i havent seen a ladies mimsy (why would i want to im gay) and i used to work for maplin and i have lost count of the amount of mobiles i have owned

Length? Big enough baby
(hypr_like_a_monkey, Tue 11 Mar 2008, 14:43, Reply)

Word
Probably more a boredom thing than anything, but when i've been staring at Word and the screen starts to look a bit fuzzy, i open up the thesuarus and pick two words at random, and then try to get from one word to the other in as few clicks as possible.

Best so far 6 clicks, although that may get better this afternoon...
(Nuclear Ninja like a radioactive Chuck Norris..., Tue 11 Mar 2008, 14:31, Reply)

I can quote
entire episodes of blackadder and red dwarf word perfectly.

Same with Monty Python.

I own every episode of Star Trek and Every Spin Off.

I own over 50 lightsabers ranging from £7-£300

I have Neos coat and sunglasses from the first matrix and bought bb replicas of all the guns from the lobby scene

I made an anakin costume

I have 8 computers in the house, only one is my wifes.

My daughter is named after a famous Manga

I have a vinyl sticker of Alucard from Hellsing in the rear window of my mondeo

I have a flying spaghetti monster where the christian fish would go on the same mondeo

I have decepticon logos where the ford badges should go on again the same mondeo

But most nerdy of all I work in a University IT department and spend all day on B3ta.
( Peej, Tue 11 Mar 2008, 14:22, 7 replies)

I'm as nerdy as SUM(AllPreviousPosts)+1;
I was doomed to be a nerd from a very early age; since we didn't have Teletubbies in the seventies, toddler-me was often kept occupied by being sat in front of a telly switched to Open University broadcasts on BBC2. I blame this for my tendency to nod off when confronted by beards or kipper ties.

At age six, I got a telescope for Christmas. I had endless fun looking at fuzzy blobby images of Jupiter and Saturn and it never once occurred to me to point the thing at the windows of the nurse's accomodation behind my house. No, really, it never did. Twenty-nine years later, I have two computer-controlled telescopes and I still don't use them to spy on naked nurses, as that not the sort of heavenly body I'm looking for. That's how nerdy I am.

At age eight, I was exposed to computers for the very first time in the form of a Commodore PET 2001 with compact keyboard. It was supposed to be used to run the family business. Instead it got used to keep me quiet after school as I played games off some tape that came with a specially imported American magazine.

By age ten, I had my very own computer in the form of a Sinclair ZX-81 and was by now writing my own games in BASIC. This would be followed by a Commodore VIC-20, a C64 and an Amiga 500 all before I left school.

When I did leave school, I was too nerdy to go to college, so instead I got a job in the computer games industry as a games tester. I had achieved the ultimate goal of getting paid to play games all day. At night (when not sleeping under my desk), I'd go home and write C programs on my brand-new 386SX-20 PC, which resulted in me doing a certain amount of programming for my employers too.

After the company got bought out and everyone got made redundant, I went back to college as the older guy everyone "liked" because he had his own car, didn't drink and could win the Students Union pub quiz single-handedly, the prize for said winning invariably being free beer, which of course I didn't drink. The only time I've ever had girls fight over me is over whose pub quiz team I'd be playing on.

"Sod off, you slag! He's playing with ME!"

After college, I wound up running the billing systems for a Gas company in Holland, all by remote-control (well, Telnet) from an office in Manchester. At the time, the tax system in the Netherlands was such that anyone with any actual computing skills went to the country next door to get work, so the people actually in Holland had no computing skills whatsoever (they were mostly arts history grads for some reason) and whenever there was a problem, I would get a phone call and log in to sort things out, usually by the use of "rm -rf *".

I was also responsible for Y2K compliance testing and found that whilst our stuff worked okay, the accounting software our customer used didn't work worth a damn, but no-one seemed to think this was important.

I made damn sure I got a new job by November 1999...

In 1999, I went to work for a company that wrote Operating Systems for palmtop computers and things. The first project was the Seiko-Epson Locatio, a bizarre Japanese PDA that had an integrated camera, GPS tracking and a teeny-tiny mobile phone module all in one cool but clumsy device. To compare, it's the same functionality as the Nokia N95, only eight years earlier.

Strangely, I also worked on the Nokia N95.

To complete the nerdiness, my spare bedroom has about £1000-worth of old role-playing games in it. Ah, memories.
(Sargs, Tue 11 Mar 2008, 14:18, Reply)

I had a +20 Broadsword Damnit!
For years and years, I kept a dirty little secret. On the outside, I was a nice girl, who liked art. I had friends and boyfriends... I went out to parties and stuff...

And sometimes I drew the nerdy kids characters from D+D for them, and they paid me.

Or at least, thats what I told people...

In actual fact, it was actually ME that played D+D with the nerdy boys, and I made them all SWEAR that they'd never tell, or I'd have them beaten up by my boyfriend for making up lies about me.

I had a kick arse set of dice too... my D20 cost me a pretty packet, and Id have had more than enough money to buy stuff like that if I actually had charged them for their character portraits... only I never did. I liked doing it so much, I practically begged them to start new ones!

Now... Im 30, and Im more than a little scared that my child is going to be an Ubernerd, coming from geeky stock as me, the roleplaying internet nerdlette that still knows more IP addresses than phone numbers, and the Man - who will openly admit that he can't remember my birthday, but can remember the DPS rates of all ammo in Eve Online.

I'd like to apologise to all those nerdy boys, who probably grew up to be slightly funny looking but very rich.

I am sorry I was mean to you - but you know, people can sort of smell Geekiness, and I was weak. I should have told everyone I was a roleplayer... but I needed a bravery spell to help me out.
(Kaplaaah Wasting time on the net since 1994., Tue 11 Mar 2008, 14:17, 6 replies)

Football Nutterage
A trainee here at work drives me mental with incessant talk about football. Scores, players, managers, songs. Absolutely glasgow rangers mad. Its geekism pure and simple. It sounds like a spread sheet of a league table. ANd as for championship manager type games, now that is sad. They're not games. They're work. You don't even see your imaginary team playing its matches (at least, not in any of the versions I've had the misfortune of being exposed to by people)
(Teran Thinks Pogonophobia is funny, Tue 11 Mar 2008, 14:13, 4 replies)

Amiga
I completed Cannon Fodder with Jools and Jops in-tacked aged 8 on an amiga 1200 =D
( samjuk, Tue 11 Mar 2008, 13:58, 5 replies)

Pi in the face? ( It's not very funny. I should know. It's nerd humor.)
Friend #3 : Hey guys, I memorized Pi to the 13th decimal.

Me: Prove it.

Friend #3: 3.141592653579.

Me: Shouldn't that be 3.1415926535 EIGHT 9?

Friend #2&3: DORK!!

Me: ...assholes.=( *cries*

And if the way I even posted this message doesn't convince you of my nerdiness, I dunno what else will.

...I'll go back to my lurk mode now.
(Ceraby, Tue 11 Mar 2008, 13:48, 4 replies)

I was just informed
that in April I'll be going to NYC to see some of the equipment my company makes being assembled and installed. I'm quite excited- it's one thing to see the drawings of the stuff and read the official press releases about it, and quite another to see it actually in action.

Did I mention that this is equipment for a sewage treatment plant?

Yes, it's true- I'm excited to be going to see a NYC sewer.

*puts on taped up glasses and pocket protector*
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Tue 11 Mar 2008, 13:45, 5 replies)

I find Babelfish amusing.
One of the things I like to do periodically is take a block of text and run it through Babelfish to go from English to French to German and back to English, just to see the accumulated errors. It ends up reading like dadaist poetry.

Example:

Of the origin of the Hound of the Baskervilles there have been many statements, yet as I come in a direct line from Hugo Baskerville, and as I had the story from my father, who also had it from his, I have set it down with all belief that it occurred even as is here set forth. And I would have you believe, my sons, that the same Justice which punishes sin may also most graciously forgive it, and that no ban is so heavy but that by prayer and repentance it may be removed. Learn then from this story not to fear the fruits of the past, but rather to be circumspect in the future, that those foul passions whereby our family has suffered so grievously may not again be loosed to our undoing.

From origin of the dog many reports gave to the hunt Baskervilles, although, because I come into a direct line of Hugo Baskerville, and touring buses has I the history of my father had, who likewise had it of its, I it put down with the whole faith, which she even produced herself, while one determines here. And I will you let believe, my threads that the same judge, who punished likewise love-who-tests the sin it to forgive can, is not so heavy and the fact that prohibition, but only by request and can repent it is taken away. Learn it then from this history fruits past not to fear, but rather prudently to be in the future that these stinking passions, by which our family suffered so seriously not yet at our disassembly to be solved to be able.

I find this more amusing than I should.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Tue 11 Mar 2008, 13:34, 4 replies)

Not that much
I alphabetise my CDs and DVDs, and hate it when people put them back in the wrong place. Nothing too bad there I guess.

However - I've played Championship Manager/Football Manager since it's fledgling days on the Amiga, and like to have imaginary press conferences about the game in my head when i'm in the shower or in bed, especially after a long session of playing the game.

When I was much younger I used to go mental if my team lost, shouting at the screen and punching my bed were regular occurrences.

Not as bad as the folk who wear a suit if they get their team to a cup final right enough...
(Zutroy started without you, Tue 11 Mar 2008, 13:26, 3 replies)

Er...
Having moved to a larger (and detached - yay for loud music!) house I wanted to upgrade my hi-fi. I got some very good NAD components but was buggered if I could find a set of speakers I was happy with. They're generally all made down to a cost (even when you're paying 4 figures for them) and nothing was pushing my buttons.

So I built my own. Took three months.

And you know what? They're fucking fantastic - sound incredible. I'm not just a pretty face see...

And then I went and ruined all my audiophile (note AUDIO) credentials by building a large subwoofer as well - not that my original speakers didn't push plenty of bass out in the first place.

When I venture into nightclubs (it's getting less frequent these days) I frequently think "my hi-fi sounds better than this".

Parties are good at my house :)
( dan j what the buggery bollocks is this?, Tue 11 Mar 2008, 13:24, Reply)

> A vagabond
reminded me - my best mate at school was a Bowie nut. Another mate used to challenge him with 'spot the lyrics'.

One time he just said, "Hamburgers"

"Ah, yes, I know this one...oh yeah: 'Sweet Thing' from Diamond Dogs.

...wake me up when it's Thursday again.
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Tue 11 Mar 2008, 13:24, Reply)

Invisible Porn...
Hoya!

OK, this is not actually happening to me but still great fun anyway...

Besides studying at uni, I work in a secondary school to pay for my studies. Said work involves paper work, dealing with little fuckers and doing a night in the dormitory, watching over students.

Said students are BTS ones (diploma certifying them as highly skilled technicians), and that in many disciplines.

Some of them are specialised in networks, computer programming and OSes.

As a consequence, the dormitory got its own Net connection.

Now, let the fun begin...

Last week, a guy from the dorm, using a special proggy, downloaded 81 GigaBytes in just two days! In order to do that, the proggy, obviously, made him able to use 90% of the bandwidth, thus making all the others computers in the dorm, as well as the teachers'lag HEAVILY!
Since every IP, log and so on is recorded, the guy has been discovered.

As a consequence, the Net access has been suspended until further notice.
Remember my geeky 'puter friends?

They decided to take action. :-)

Although the dorm's Net access is blocked, its IntraNet is not and all computers there are linked altogether, allowing people to share stuff...

So, as a revenge, what did my mates do? They invaded the poor sod's peecee and FLOODED it with porn, 80 GB of it!!!

Now, you may wonder why is this a revenge? After all, everyone loves porn, right? Well, they made the films read-only (sounds cool), non-writable (means not deletable, sounds LESS cool), voided the root's rights , which means even the Admin can't do anything (sounds nasty) and, since they're bloody clever, as HIDDEN files!!!
Now, you have to know that the guy they did that to is a complete twat when it comes to computing, can't even use WhineDope properly (OK, who can?). Oh, they put some big games too to fill the beast quickly...

Now, the guy keeps on deleting some of his OWN stuff, not realising what happened! Actually, the only way out is formating the whole thing!

Muhahahahahaha! That'll teach ya!

Be funky

M A D

PS: all my CDs are alphabetically sorted, first by artist, then by date of release. Moreover, they are ALL put back in their cases with labels perfectly straight. I HATE when people put CDs with labels turned upside down...

Moreover, in this time of Rap/Techno MP3s played on telephones and flashy computers I buy CDs exclusively, I love Jazz, hate Rap/Techno and all sub-mongoloid shite, still take pictures the ONLY way, by film and am a fond lover of the best computer EVER -the Amiga.

No, I don't have a girlfriend...
(MAD Life -The Best Antidote To Happiness, Tue 11 Mar 2008, 13:10, 3 replies)

I appear perfectly normal.
I am a woman in my late twenties, good sense of style I think, and definitely look better with the years on me than ever before.
I am trained in graphic design, but work in events, very professional and down to earth. I get on well with my crew, the clients like me, I deeply enjoy my work.
I have friends I have known since nursery school, others since college, and so on. Lots of good, quality mates.
Again, I'm pretty normal.

I really scare people, particularly men for some reason, when they sneak a glimpse at the rest of it.

My brain accumulates crap. It always has done. Always will. So people are shocked when I know about D&D games, binary, extensive and extremely thorough knowledge of cult movies, science fiction, internet memes, obscure music (tragically, this involves jazz, I wish it didn't), comics, wilfully difficult music (which on Sunday alone scared a bloke I've known for 10 years who thought he alone knew what he knew), AV systems, sound rigging (I am particularly good in this area), and many, many, many, many more subjects that are too heady in number to list here.

I don't actually NEED any of it. It upsets me that stuff I actually HAVE to remember must be written down by my own hand before being processed and filed for use, whereas the useless dross throws itself onto my mental sofa, cracks open a beer and announces it's me it's been looking for all this time. And STAYS.

So it's all that stuff that most men that I like pride themselves on knowing, and as my just-finished long-term relationship has just proved, it's a matter of pride to most men that they know all the words to Empire Strikes Back, and they don't like to be corrected or laughed at when they mispronounce Calrissian or suchlike. And that's just a cursory sort of correction in my repotoire.

So whilst I outwardly have a front of "I read World of Interiors, enjoy the Tate and went to see Roisin Murphy on the weekend", all of which is true, I am also someone prepared to allocate a day in Forbidden Planet for browsing before dashing back home to dawdle here with fellow geeks.

Though looking here I'm not as geeky as some, which has made me feel marginally better.

Gosh, that was quite cathartic. Sorry about length but it felt good. Rather like an AA meeting.
(niceandwarmandhot vive la résistance, Tue 11 Mar 2008, 13:08, 6 replies)

Not me but my boy of 3.5...
... calls his small etch-a-sketch type thingie 'my little iPhone'. It's about the same size.

Had his first 'laptop' (leapfrog type thing, just so he would let go of our laptops) at 1.

Not that he can't use my iPhone. Takes pictures, looks at them, zooms in, chooses the video he'd like to watch etc.

He also beat his parents at Wii bowling.

Does that count?
( bierbelly, Tue 11 Mar 2008, 13:05, 2 replies)

Professional Beach Bum
While this isn't of the geeky, computery nerdiness which is usually expected of a B3ta post, I still consider myself a nerd.
I am a coastal engineer and so my work revolves around designing and building beaches. I like to think of myself as a modern day slartibartfast (if you know this then you are a geek). Of course I can't claim the fjords of Norway as my own but a couple of coastlines on the South Coast have benefited from me tinkering with my groynes while watching a dredger rainbow in shingle and sand.
This said I like my job and hope to pursue it, however my wife does get a miffed when I disappear off when on holiday for a few hours and return having filled up the memory card with examples of rock fish tail groynes, off shore breakwaters and the like. Luckily she is a geographer and so appreciates the management structures which I present in a powerpoint presentation, on the cold winter nights.

So off to the beach now for some fun/work. And my word it's a lot of fun at the moment, lost the beach at Selsey yesterday and I'm damned if I can find it again.
(B3any_pants, Tue 11 Mar 2008, 12:54, 2 replies)

I don't consider myself to be that nerdy
but I do have the body of a pre-pubescent girl.

....in my boot.

But seriously, I have stick thin arms, I'm pigeon-chested, and I have sticky-out ears. -I look like an archetypal nerd, but I'm really not that geeky, I've never even played Dungeons & Dragons.

I had Heroquest instead, and it kicked D&D's arse!

First post in a long time, hardly seems worth it now. :D
(tiger blood and Adonis DNA, Tue 11 Mar 2008, 12:48, 2 replies)