Oct 22 2008
Be nice to your geek!
I have a confession to make. I, Jennifer of Newfoundland, am a geek. There, now that we’ve got that out of way lets continue on.
Geeks have a bit of a bad rep, especially the hardcore ones. Some of them are even true! I have friends who, when gaming, wouldn’t hear a fire alarm go off. But the underlying qualities that cause someone to become a geek are often sought after.
The prime binding characteristic of all geeks is passion. Geeks are all passionate about something! So many people in this day and age just muddle along, not getting overly worked up about anything. This is not the case with geeks! They will get in long, and often loud, arguments about things many people see as pointless. Like who’s a better captain, Kirk or Picard (psst, it’s Picard). If you can get a geek to apply this passion to another project, you have an amazing source of energy. A great example of this is the Penny Arcade (a gaming web comic) children’s charity “Child’s Play”. They collect donations and toys to send to children who are in hospital over Christmas, last year collecting over $1.3 million.
They know everything about something. Granted that something may be how a warp drive engine works, but that isn’t as useless as it sounds. There’s a lot of real physics that goes into the theories about how those things might work, and someone who can explain it must have a good understanding of physics and math. Geeks are fountains of knowledge, and even if it’s just filling that extra spot at trivia that knowledge should be put to use. Maybe they’ll even fix your computer.
Geeks have geek friends! Very few geeks have only geeky aspect, so our geek friends aren’t just trekkies. Just because that geek can’t fix your computer, doesn’t mean his buddies can’t. Or any other specific bit of knowledge you need.
They just think differently. You see a board with 4 holes in it; a geek sees a table missing its legs. Having someone with such a different perspective can be invaluable for tough problems.
Have I convinced you so much that you want to become one yourself? It’s easy! Here are some simple ways to become a geek:
- Get an obscure hobby and learn everything there is possibly to know about anything to do with it.
- Get into a geek line of work; Computer Science is a good place to start.
- Make sure you tell everyone around you about things that you find fascinating!
Also, I just had to add this… random gadget I came across. It’s a shower gel dispenser.
hallaleugh, sister!
And just for reference, it’s neither Picard or Kirk, it’s Solo who is the better captain. And if we want to get technical, I think his daughter is the better Jedi of the family.