Posts Tagged ‘Geek’
Stereotyping: The 15 People You’ll See At Every Geek Convention
Author: Laura Clark
This are the cartoon depictions of the 15 people you’ll see at every geek convention. Are they accurate? I have no idea — the only convention I’ve ever been to involved heavy drinking and passing out in a hot car before the doors even opened. And did my friends leave me there? Yes. Could I have died from heat exhaustion? Absolutely. But did they give a shit? Nooooooooooo, they were too busy trying to look up the skirts of every She-Ra and Rainbow Brite in the place. And that, dear reader, is exactly why I’m going to hide a bag ol’ bag of meth under their couch and call the cops. NOBODY ABANDONS ME!
Fifteen People You’ll See At Every Nerd Convention [dorkly]
Thanks to crame and Liza, who were just as shocked as I was to see “girl dressed as sexy thing for attention” didn’t make the list.
Related Posts:
Tags: 
Identity Crisis: Geek Character Mashup Tattoo
Author: Brian McKinnell
This is a Greeky (this ain’t spanakopita!) geeky mashup tattoo Frankenstein’d together out of five separate characters. Apparently it serves as some kind of geek-detecting device. Weird, I know, but I just shaved my head and found out I have a nipple growing in my hairline, so I’m kind of desensitized to weird right now.
I had a whole year in Iraq to come up with my ideal geek tat. The great thing is not only does it prove my geekiness, if someone knows who all the characters are it lets me know just how geeky they are.
Can you name them all? I can. SPOILER: Boba Fett’s head, Samus Aran and Cloud’s arms (plus sword), Link’s torso and Mega Man’s legs. Can you guess which hand he uses to masturbate? SPOILER: Cloud’s. Samus’ is a f***ing beam cannon — she’d blow Link’s ocarina off!
The Ideal Geeky Tattoo [geeksaresexy]
Thanks to Lily, who agrees it wouldn’t have killed you to have him standing on a Back to the Future hoverboard.
Related Posts:
Growing Up Geek: Terrence O’Brien
Author: Stefanie Jenkins
Welcome to Growing Up Geek, an ongoing feature where we take a look back at our youth and tell stories of growing up to be the nerds that we are. Today, we have our very own Associate Editor, Terrence O’Brien.
In case you hadn’t guessed, that’s my father up there with a tiny me cradled in his arms. He’s OG — original geek — and a defier of easy categorization that clearly explains how I ended up as the son of a gun I am today. In fact, without an understanding of where he came from and who he is, much of what would fill a completely self-centered Growing Up Geek simply wouldn’t make sense. So, that’s where we’ll start the story, with a quick look at the man who, for better or worse, made me the nerd I am today.
Continue reading Growing Up Geek: Terrence O’Brien
Growing Up Geek: Terrence O’Brien originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Oct 2011 14:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | Comments
Related Posts:
Growing Up Geek: Jesse Hicks
Author:
Welcome to Growing Up Geek, an ongoing feature where we take a look back at our youth and tell stories of growing up to be the nerds that we are. Today we have our very own Contributing Editor, Jesse Hicks.
I’ve never been one for nostalgia, but if I I had to choose a Proustian element from my geeky childhood — a singular sense-memory that evokes a whole constellation of related feelings — I’d pick the eerie keening of a 28.8 modem. That high, quavering sound, for me, conjurs up the earliest days of my geekdom, when computers were slow, landlines were king and the internet was young.
I was twelve when my family got our first computer: a 486DX that first appeared without a hard drive. My mom had found a great deal at a computer show…or so it had seemed. That missing 120MB hard drive, as you may have guessed, severely limited functionality. But once that problem was remedied, I was off and running with DOS and XTree, happily deleting essential system files. The learning process had begun.
Continue reading Growing Up Geek: Jesse Hicks
Growing Up Geek: Jesse Hicks originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 Oct 2011 16:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | Comments
Related Posts:
Gallery Of Geek Logos Made Out Of FOOOOD
Author: Katie Scott
This is a gallery of geeky logos made out of food. They’re called ‘”foogos”, because they’re a combination of “food” and “LEGOS”. Weird, I know. But I’m not here to ask questions, I’m just here to type the first thing that pops in my head and get drunk. Also, please don’t email me telling me foogos is actually a combination of “food” and “logos” because you might laugh now but I swear on eventually seeing a tit IRL I’d get at least two people who just stumbled into Geekologie telling me how dumb I am. And I am dumb, just not that dumb. But, as stupid as I am, I more than make up for it in handsome. And by handsome I mean obesity. Got a whole lot of that going on. Now, what was I talking about? “Food.” Ha — of course I was.
Hit the jump for a dozen more.
Related Posts:
Growing Up Geek: Tom Merritt
Author: Dave Adams
I always hesitate to apply the term geek to myself. To me it’s an honorific. Someone with super mad skills or knowledge deserves the term, and the superior of all those who deserve it is the alpha geek. But times being what they are geek has become a term of currency. Before I let this devolve into a debate about the difference between geek and nerd, let’s move on to the evidence. You, dear reader can decide for yourself where on the geek scale I belong.
Continue reading Growing Up Geek: Tom Merritt
Growing Up Geek: Tom Merritt originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Sep 2011 16:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | Comments
Related Posts:
Growing Up Geek: Billy Steele
Author:
Welcome to Growing Up Geek, an ongoing feature where we take a look back at our youth and tell stories of growing up to be the nerds that we are. Today, we have our very own Contributing Editor, Billy Steele.
See that dapper young fellow right there? You’d never think someone dressed that goofily as a kid would grow up to be a tech blogger, now would you? It’s true — and I never thought so either — but, as I would come to find out, my unorthodox childhood would help shape my nerd sensibilities in more ways than one. It all starts with the fact that I was raised by my grandparents, which was awesome, but usually meant that I was at least a year behind on all the popular gadgetry. This also meant that I was forced to hold on to things a bit longer, so while my friends were sportin’ the N64, I was still rockin’ Contra on the NES (no shame).
Let me take a step back for a moment. My first exposure to technology of any substance was a high-mileage Atari at my mom’s place. She had an entire library of games, but the only two that I cared about were Frogger and Grand Prix. A couple of years later, when I obtained that coveted O.G. Nintendo, I survived on a constant diet of Excitebike, Bases Loaded and Tecmo Super Bowl. After playing until I couldn’t see straight — on several occasions as an elementary lad — I was able to string together a handful of undefeated seasons with America’s team the Dallas Cowboys. I’ve now taken on the plight of a Panthers’ fan, but I digress.
Continue reading Growing Up Geek: Billy Steele
Growing Up Geek: Billy Steele originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Sep 2011 16:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | Comments
Related Posts:
Growing Up Geek: Kevin Wong
Author: Tiffany Shoman
Continue reading Growing Up Geek: Kevin Wong
Growing Up Geek: Kevin Wong originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Sep 2011 16:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | Comments
Related Posts:
Growing Up Geek: Joseph Volpe
Author: James Cliff
Welcome to Growing Up Geek, an ongoing feature where we take a look back at our youth and tell stories of growing up to be the nerds that we are. Today, we have our very own Associate Editor, Joseph Volpe.
Let’s get this out of the way. I did not grow up a geek, I was a sorcerer trapped in the body of a husky little boy. Or, so I managed to convince myself for years on end, wearing my Mother’s Argentine poncho, and wielding a carved wooden staff (my wand, ahem!) and a yellow glass marble — all tokens of my extended magical abilities. Before you wonder aloud if I spent much of my time sitting alone at recess convincing bugs to transform into Popples, I will tell you now that you are wrong. I did, in fact, have plenty of company in my (failed) attempts at insect transmogrification. Esoteric interests, it would seem, are the flame to the kindred weirdo’s moth.
Russia factored wildly in my youth. Aside from the Cold War themes omnipresent in every 80s film I watched obsessively, and my unrestrained glee for a country frozen in an unending winter, I had my third eye fixed squarely on its governmental research into psi phenomena. Yes, I was a seven-year old who carted around a paperback copy of Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain and engaged any unwitting adult in my quest to harness telekinesis. To the credit of my immediate family and one slightly freaked out Grandma, my repeated mental attempts to move the crystal napkin holder were graciously humored over pancakes and eggs.
My early life wasn’t all a vain attempt at unlocking my sixth sense. No, I had other loves — namely books, comics and video games, but not in the way you’d think. While most children were happily rotting themselves into contented alpha states in front of the boob tube, I was poring over fantasy novels, concocting potions and searching graphic novels for the “knowledge” that would get me out of this earthly realm. Jean Grey was somewhat of an early hero to me; the X-(Wo)Man who would later become Phoenix had the power pack combo of psychic powers I’d always wanted. Ours was a love / hate relationship that ended in bitter resentment. (She never shared her secrets!) I’d moved on from my fictitious frenemy when I unearthed a book at primary school called The Girl with the Silver Eyes about a young child with (surprise, surprise) psi abilities born from prenatal drug use. Cue me repeatedly questioning my poor Mom as to the list of medications she took while I was in utero. Any other mother would have found this alarming, but mine was only further charmed.
Technology was something I took for granted back then, since its silicon circuitry lacked the magic I so desperately sought after. My father was a computer programmer and we always had a plethora of personal computers stationed around the house. One of my earliest memories is even of him bringing home the first Macintosh. I wasn’t aware then that at-home computing was a rarity for the time, nor that it was a nascent market. I’d accepted computers the way most young kids accept a new baby, or puppy. Year after year, model after model, we aged together, developing an intimate bond that just seemed natural. When AOL first swung open the dial-up gates to the World Wide Web, I was there trading insights with folks in the New Age chat rooms.
It was about this time, my early teen years, that I also decided to take a serious swing at coding. I’d sit in our basement for hours on end, feet up on the desk, head buried in some dense how-to for Hypercard or C++, vainly attempting to make sense of the programming languages I couldn’t seem to master. Four months in, and I’d numbly settled into the realization that programming was not my calling. French, however, would turn out to by my bag(uette).
From the age of two and continuing up until around 17, my heavily opinionated Sicilian extended family had me fingered for a career as a Pediatrician. I know, pediatrics and the supernatural aren’t what I’d call bosom buddies either, so you’ll understand the internal disconnect I had for my planned future. Thankfully, a little something known as the PlayStation and Next Generation magazine would come along and permanently derail medical school from my pre-arranged life track.
Midway through a presentation I’d created to get them to purchase a still unreleased PlayStation for Christmas, I saw a look in my parents’ eyes that said, “This kid has no intention to actually play video games.” And they were right. I didn’t and never have really had an interest in defeating Bowser, rescuing Zelda or bringing down Dr. Robotnik. Mine was a pure love for the industry and its inner machinations. I pored over processors and discussions about phong shading the way most follow news of the Brangelina horde. It was clear to me then what had to be done. I’d learn Japanese, move to San Francisco and work as a video game journalist. Some of these things happened, but none in the way I’d intended.
And so it went that I dove head first into foreign language study, 4.0 GPA territory and enough extra-curriculars on my booked up schedule to exhaust even the brownest of brown-nosers. Here, my friends, is the moment where fringe geek intersected with overachieving nerd and completed my ascension to the freak throne. I bought video games to collect them, read industry magazines to analyze them and lived in Japan in the hopes of reporting on them. As you can probably tell, I didn’t succeed in that goal. Oh, I became a journalist, no doubt, but the fascination with 3D gaming took a turn for the general gadget category somewhere in my Akihabara wanderings.
Now, I proudly bear my geekdom badge as it’s been legitimized by a certain reputable online publication. Gone by the wayside are my dalliances with the supernatural, and my preternatural obsession with the video game industry. In their stead, I now pursue with an equally obsessive zeal research into quantum mechanics and ancient astronaut theory, swapping out The Boy Who Could Fly from my Netflix queue for What the Bleep Do We (K)now!? And don’t worry, I still carry my inner husky boy with me — except now he knows that real magic lies in the specs.
Joseph Volpe is always on the Twitters doling out nuggets of pop cultural ephemera to anyone who dares follow him (@jrvolpe). He cannot promise to side with humanity in the face of an Anunnaki return.
Growing Up Geek: Joseph Volpe originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Sep 2011 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | Comments
Related Posts:
Growing Up Geek: Sean Buckley
Author: Angela Chin
The hardest question I was ever asked as a kid was “what do you want to be when you grow up?” When the boys all cried “Fireman!,” and the girls unanimously pledged their life to marine biology, I came up short. Growing up? I hadn’t planned on that.
Peter Pan complex (and book collection) aside, I had it as good as any boy during the 80s / 90s split. I grew-up in the pre-internet stone-age, when the world was still a mystery that couldn’t be Wiki’d away. Playground rumors went without debunk, and wild stories ran amok across the schoolyard — pixies in England, aliens in New Mexico, and magical robot cars in Japan. The world was a fantastic, impossible place. It still is, but I’d be lying if I said the finality of reality isn’t a small disappointment compared to the lies I loved as a child. With the information superhighway still under construction, I had to find other ways to spend my summers. Sure, countless hours were wasted well spent saving 8-bit princesses (and the world of course), but the best weeks of summer were had at Boy Scout camp, the County Fair, and trudging across the country on family road trips.
Continue reading Growing Up Geek: Sean Buckley
Growing Up Geek: Sean Buckley originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 02 Sep 2011 14:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | Comments
