Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with geeks

Lawyers Play Football - Film at 11

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:14:29 -0800

What are some good t-shirt ideas for a football team full of law students? Every year, the staffs of the law reviews at my school play a grudge football match against each other - the Geek Bowl. It's totally for fun, not very serious at all, but a tradition nonetheless.

We'd love to do a witty t-shirt design or slogan for our team's uniforms, but are drawing a blank on ideas. Help us, creative MeFites!

Pertinent information:
- we're the defending Geek Bowl champions
- our journal deals with international law, so bonus points for incorporating international themes, a foreign language, or the word "global"
- lawyer jokes are fair game
- no profanity, please

Why do nerds/geeks like Monty Python so much?

ShameSpiral — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 19:20:22 -0800

Why do nerds/geeks like Monty Python? It is a truth universally acknowledged that poindexters prefer Python. But why? Other classic nerd obsessions seem readily explicable - Star Trek, for example - but I've never really understood what makes Python so very appealing to nerds. Can you explain it?

The only explanation I've been able to come up with is that Python routines often develop logically from an absurd premise, which would appeal to nerds' respect for logic, and that this kind of humor exposes the arbitrariness of many social rules, which would appeal to a demographic that, at least according to stereotype, finds it difficult to deal with the ins and outs of interpersonal communication. But this kind of humor is not exclusive to Python, and seems insufficient to explain the intensity of the cult.

I've observed this phenomenon among nerds from many English-speaking countries, so I'm not looking for explanations that focus solely on Python's American fans.

when a kid is shunned

Anonymous — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 19:41:44 -0800

My son, 9, likes math, playing music, computers, video. He's not athletic; he likes Wii Fit better than real sports. He's starting to get shunned by other boys: he seems nice and normal to me but I guess he's a geek to them. What do I do, besides support him in every way I can?

Or perhaps I should just butt out

universal_qlc — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 10:44:39 -0800

How can I help my guy friends to meet nice women? My husband and I, both engineers, happen to have a disproportionately male group of friends, largely because of where we went to school and the fields we're in. While a couple of these friends have met nice women and gotten married, lately we've found that under certain circumstances (read: drunk) the single ones approaching their late twenties will admit they're worried about meeting women -- at all. It seems that once we left college, they became increasingly difficult to find (indeed, all my close female friends are from school, but I'm okay with that).

I think my guy friends are all brilliant, good-natured, well-educated and interesting men who have a lot to offer, but also incredibly shy around new people. Is there anything can I do to help them out? Or should I just let them be and work it out themselves?

There are Olympics geeks, yes?

exceptinsects — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:08:24 -0800

I would like to read some blogs about the Olympics. Can you recommend any? I am interested in things like:

The uniforms of different countries.

Olympic Village accommodations.

Backstagey stuff about the opening/closing ceremonies. (And THEN five thousand goats, carrying third grade jump-rope champions in glow-in-the-dark ballerina dresses, come out from behind the proscenium...)

Discussions of arcane track and field scoring.

What sports should SO TOTALLY be official now, or are and SHOULD NOT BE OMG.

Why the commentators are wrong, wrong wrong.

and other nerdery.

I'm not so much interested in the political aspects.

What happens to nerds that strike it big early in their careers?

vizsla — Wed, 14 May 2008 19:53:15 -0800

What happens to rank-and-file tech guys after they strike it rich in a tech boom? Do they keep working? How do they spend their money? Do they waste their lives away? Im not talking about the big shot entrepreneurs. I am talking about the typical developer who gets rich from options or from his share in the company. Anyone have any anecdotes, first hand experience or biographies? I've always wondered what happens to people after they don't have to work anymore.

Mecha armor, you say? You know, I can weld.

Netzapper — Sat, 10 May 2008 11:52:19 -0800

PugetSoundFilter: We're relocating to Kitsap County, from Philadelphia, in a month. I need to find the other hackers and tinkerers. Help me build a new network. I'm going to be working from home: writing science fiction, and hacking contract software. But, I want to bounce around between acquaintances' projects. I'd like to help somebody build a website one week, and a hovercraft the next. Then I'd like to spend a month running the sound board for a musical. Then help a software startup do their prototypes. I'd like some of these projects to pay, but mainly I just want to be intrigued.

So, I'm looking for groups, organizations, and activities in the Puget Sound area that are likely to be filled with geeky artists, hackers, tinkerers, malcontents, gear heads, and the like. Ideally, such organizations and groups would have creative productivity as the central focus, but I'll also take those which are just likely to be full of nerds. We're living in Kitsap, so stuff on that side of the water would be ideal; but, have car, will travel.

How's the dorkbot chapter? Are there co-op garages, or machine shops? New media artists' collectives?

Bonus point: good RPG gaming groups?

Calling all nerds/geeks/dorks and Socially acceptable people

hadjiboy — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 23:51:29 -0800

Asking this on behalf of a friend of mine: can you help him out with a quiz that will give him an accurate description of how someone will stand on a DNG/SA scale that he's created--where DNG stands for Dork, Nerd, Geek, and SA stands for Socially Acceptable? (Bear with me for a second, will you?) "So while out with my roomie and a friend of ours, we discussed how my g/f rates as a 4.5 on the nerd scale. However, she disputed this, saying that the rating system was overly subjective and that she would like to appeal the rating given out by the committee (the committee consists of myself, my roomie, his brother, and two friends). So, we've decided to come up with a rating system. The "Dork/Nerd/Geek" rating divided by the "socially acceptable" rating gives us the DNG/SA ratio. Our goal is to come up with enough questions covering the DNG area of things (with varying degrees of dork, nerd, and geek dom) while still factoring in how socially acceptable or "normal" someone may be or might appear. So, to keep some sense of objectivity in the creation of this, I thought I'd seek some suggestions.

What I'm looking for from you guys are some activities, habits, or quirks that may make someone either DNG or SA and give that activity a rating between 1 and 10. For instance, what the committee agrees upon as the a 10 in the nerd area of things is LARPing (Live Action Role Playing). For the record, I've never done this, never plan to, but I've known people who have. Another instance would be watching sports or following a popular TV series...that would garner somewhere between an 8 or 10 (depending on the sport or TV show) on the SA rating.

So, if you have any suggestions, please, let me know. Also, if you're suggesting anything for the DNG, please indicate whether you believe this activity to be dorky, nerdy, or geeky.

Once we figure out which questions to include, we're going to figure out whether or not we'll do a "yes/no" format, or the "strongly disagree/often/whatever thru strongly agree/least often/whatever" format that you see on weirdo personality tests and job apps sometimes. After that, it's a matter of figuring out the math and a little bit of coding. We're thinking of putting it online ;p Yes, our DNG/SA ratio is undoubtly high."

80's Geek-boy Movie marathon: help me think of movies.

23skidoo — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 12:30:06 -0800

A friend of mine is hosting an 80's Geek-boy Movie marathon. Help me think of movies. A friend of mine is hosting an 80's Geek-boy Movie marathon. To be specific, movies will be shown that are from the 80s and feature main characters that are male, young(ish), and geeky (preferrably intelligent with regards to computers/science, but other kinds of geeky intelligence might be okay, too). Some good examples we came up with include: Explorers, War Games and Real Genius.

Since we don't really have the patience to sit through dozens of hours of movies, we were planning on watching a couple, and then just watching choice scenes from the rest. I can search imdb just fine on my own, but if you would be so kind, please recommend a specific scene from an 80s Geek-boy movie that would really highlight the geekiness of the characters in the scene.

Looking For Bald Geeks Fictional/Nonfictional

bleucube — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 12:13:48 -0800

Can you list any bald famous (semi-famous is OK) geeks? Could be fictional or nonfictional. Must be bald for other reasons then making a statement, character role or health reasons..... Geek defined as "A person with a devotion to something in a way that places him or her outside the mainstream. This could be due to the intensity, depth, or subject of their interest". Could be with computers, math, music, science, art...etc

This is a good list, but looking for others.

Thanks!

How to deal with a brand-new geek boyfriend?

goofyfoot — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 17:44:42 -0800

My new lover is one of those lovely geeks. He’s never had a girlfriend. He has no frame of reference for the odd sexual awkwardness, the occasional times of coolness, the unapologetic want to be alone. I’ve had lovers and know this can be worked through, but he doesn’t. Do any former geeks have advice? So my lover of four months is the kind of geek you read about (and while checking previous askme queries I found this here). He’s in his mid-thirties and was sexually inexperienced until recently; I’m a few years older and have been in long-term relationships. For several months we’ve gotten along beautifully, except for one rather big thing: he is not used to talking.

Some of the posters here must have made the transition from being a loner to being a partner. Do you have any wisdom for him?

The Knights of Ni. Heh.

Aknaton — Tue, 09 May 2006 21:28:37 -0800

What did nerds recite before Monty Python existed? Monty Python seems to be a touchstone of nerd-specific culture (whose boundaries have always been porous, and ever moreso after the dot-com boom). What were the corresponding shared bits of culture that helped establish us vs. them, among college nerds (say) before Monty Python existed? I've asked my parents (nerds) but they can't remember.

Suggestion for best offline role-playing game?

It ain't over yet — Sat, 22 Apr 2006 10:05:24 -0800

Suggestion for best offline role-playing game? To give to a geek who is not living up to his true geek potential. Game should obviously be tons of fun, and relatively easy to learn.

Geek Gifts

anastasiav — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 18:43:23 -0800

Gifts For Geeks? Geeks of Metafilter: what gift would you want? My brother-in-law is a real living, breathing geek. He works in IT (SysAdmin stuff), lives alone, loves Family Guy. Not so much on the Star Trek/Comix, though. He just bought his first house and its pretty bare. What is the best gift I can get for him for $75 or less?

He does play some computer games, but I don't know what he has. He does not have any gaming console system (so far as I know).

Extra bonus questions: What the heck did guys like my brother-in-law do for a living before computers came along??

How can I stop acting dumb around my girlfriend?

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 00:00:41 -0800

How can I stop acting dumb around my girlfriend? I'm smarter than my girlfriend. That alone isn't a problem. After all, we've both got our strengths — she's more practical, more hardworking and better at dealing with people, I'm more interested in solving problems and better with facts and ideas.

The problem is, I find that I dumb myself down when I'm around her. She doesn't make herself act impractical, lazy or unfriendly around me, so why should I hide what I'm good at when she's around? But that's exactly what I do. I "forget" things I know, or act confused by things that make perfect sense, or I just avoid intellectual subjects altogether. My public school education taught me that it's dangerous to act too smart around anyone but your fellow geeks, and now in my mid-twenties I still can't seem to break the habit.

What should I do? I'd especially like advice from guys who have had the same problem. Google turns up tons of advice geared towards women, none of which really resonates with me. I'm not trying to make myself more feminine or more submissive; I don't want her to think of me as a brainless hot body. Hell, I know she likes it when I show off my brains a little. I'm just not used to acting smart around non-geeks, and I have no idea how to start. Practical tips on how to act smart without sounding arrogant or obnoxious would also be nice.

Note to the "you didn't say you love her!" crew: chill out. We've been dating for less than a month. But I like her a lot, I think the relationship's got potential, and I really want it to work out. How's that?

I will not be crucified on a cross-compile of gold...

mzurer — Thu, 14 Jul 2005 18:55:53 -0800

I am having problems with crosstools on OS 10.3.9 - Does anyone have this setup working? Any general advice on crosscompiling on a Mac for ARM is also welcome. When I try to get crosstools going, during the stage where is it building glibc, it pukes out and tells me my versions of as and ld are out of date or missing. Poking around on the internet, and I see that the version of binutils distributed with XCode 1.5 (the most up-to-date available for 10.3) is not the latest and greatest, and this is causing some problems for other people. When I try to build the most recent versions from the gnu ftp site, I find that my platform doesn't seem to be supported.
Questions:
So what's up with that?
If I upgrade to OS 10.4 and XCode 2.1, are later versions of as and ld included?
I am not terribly tied to crosstools, but it will probably be used in the "standard" development tools for this project. What exactly would I need to have if I am not going to use crosstools? I think I need gcc, glibc, binutils, and some other stuff all targeted to building the ARM target on my Mac.
What exactly do I have wrong in my description above?

The Future is Now

TiredStarling — Sat, 09 Jul 2005 10:53:46 -0800

SciFiLit: I don't get it. Help me to. I read Stranger in a Strange Land about 30 years ago and was almost enjoying it until the second half came along with - it seemed to this callow youth - a heavy-handed Saviour/Redeemer allegory. Stanislav Lem's Return from the Stars was kinda fun in small doses. Brave New World and 1984 were good but obviously of their time. Vonnegut had his moments. The Stainless Steel Rat was just plain nuts. A few months back I tried once again to get into the genre with Red Mars. I struggled through 100 pages, but while it was interesting in a "gee whizz - a synthetic bubble to keep the atmosphere in!" kind of way, I found I just did not care about the people. The characterisations were ludicrously one-dimensional – I'll take Fleming's James Bond any day if I want one-dimensional characters.

What SciFi books have the all-important trinity of rollicking story, fascinating technical detail, and characters I want to cry over?

A few good geeks?

nyterrant — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 09:51:11 -0800

A friend of mine is starting a business and needs to find some hard core developers. How should he go about looking for them? A business school friend needs to find some professionals who can design and build the front and back end of an upload-intensive, web-based application with user-interactivity. He's a business type, and doesn't know where to look for good computer people. Is there is some kind of freelance job board where hard core developers go to look for work? Any pointers welcome.

Where to find a geek/nerd/SUPERSMART guy?

INTPLibrarian — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 12:31:43 -0800

So, if it's really true that Geeks and Nerds Are Worth It, where does one find them? In particular, single science PhDs in thier 30s in the Chicago area... but I'll take general advice, too. ;-)

Function room in Boston?

bondcliff — Thu, 14 Apr 2005 06:17:33 -0800

Where's a good place in Boston for about 75 internet geeks to get together for a party sometime this summer? 10th anniversary party for a website full of crazy people of both sexes. At a minimum, food and drink need to be available. Ideally there would be internet access and some small stage to make presentations. There should be some tolerance for wacky highjinx. Sunlight is not a requirement.

How can I become a unix super-geek?

timeistight — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 10:13:30 -0800

How can I become a unix super-geek? The internet seems full of grade-school kids who write shell scripts in their sleep and who throw grep and chown and dev/null into casual conversations. I, on the hand, can't seems to follow step-by-step instructions without getting into some kind of trouble I can't debug without help.

I'm probably too old for skillz, but I'd like to learn some skills.

How can a geek find a date?

jb — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 00:29:00 -0800

How can a geek find a date? Particularly, I am interested in finding out from geeky women the best ways for a geeky (eg sf-fan, gamer, computery) man to find women of a similar temperment, and then the best way to approach them. I'm asking because, though I'm female and attached to a lovely geek (really a nerd), I have had only the one serious relationship and I really have no sense of what to do more generally in terms of meeting people, but have a few friends who are looking (whom I would like to help).

D'oh! He's pining for the fjords!

milovoo — Wed, 08 Sep 2004 12:07:44 -0800

Is there a way to gently steer someone away from constant Simpsons or Monty Python quoting? [MI] I realize it's every nerd's right to quote from these two sources, but seeing as how pretty much everyone has seen every episode twice, is there a way to curb this behavior in a good friend's new significant other. Has anyone ever been successful in getting someone they know to stop their quoting or maybe just limiting it to a quick "... like the so-and-so sketch" instead reciting the whole scene? Is there a friendly way of saying "yes, we've all seen it"?

Rent-a-Geek

mecran01 — Fri, 06 Aug 2004 15:36:30 -0800

rent-a-geek: Is there a site/service out there where I can hire someone to do some micro-jobs for me related to running a server? Something like Google Answers but instead of paying someone $10 to find out the history of hemophilia in New Zealand, I would pay someone $10 to fix my WebDav installation, or get mysql working, or some task that would take a Smart Person about 10 minutes of poking around. It's not that I can't figure this stuff out eventually but I am short on time. Such a site would have to have some sort of reputation management, I suppose.

(Geesh, I sound like I'm writing a business plan)

Should I get a raise?

skryche — Thu, 27 May 2004 09:02:59 -0800

How much should an Advanced Excel (PivotTable, lookups, etc.) hombre in Manhattan be getting paid? I've been temping in this hole of an office for a few months and almost all spreadsheetery has become my responsibility. I think some sort of raise is in order, but I'm not sure what my target should be.