Who are the coolest geeks?

http://bestuff.com/images/images_of_stuff/210x600/doctor-bunsen-honeydew-4994.jpg

i like how all the guys of ilx are gonna vote mathlete because they wanna bang lindsay wier.

i was an other geek too: i wanted to be

http://www.joodiff.com/images/articles/std001.jpg

and

http://aarkangel.files.wordpress.com/2007/01/oscar-wilde.jpg

and

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en-commons/thumb/a/a0/225px-Breton.jpeg

haha, i went to high school with that guy (possibly not the exact same guy)

-- elmo argonaut, Friday, December 28, 2007 4:04 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

^ tell

i like how all the guys of ilx are gonna vote mathlete because they wanna bang lindsay wier.

-- bell_labs, Friday, December 28, 2007 6:25 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Dude, I'll post that picture of your boyfriend where he looks like her.

lol I have seen that photo and remember the thread about it

Do not us QUIZZERS count as geeks then? ;¨;?

+ humbleness
- arrogance
+ arrogance
- humbleness
0(+) humbleness & arrogance independently distributed relative to actual capacity.

erm...
i would say the ones who can get me the best drugs = winner.
(that would be music nerds)

Also medieval geeks != classic geeks, ffs!

Oops "classics". They do equal classic!

Goths are often fantasy/horror or comic or RPG geeks, but I agree that being a goth doesn't per se equate being a geek.

You know, I was going to make a joke, but it occurs to me that there might actually be such a thing as a "sex geek."

What would he/she do to show his geekery then? Have a complex system of notating, grading and analyzing people he's fucked, in what positions he's done it, in which locations, etc?

there's definitely a such thing as a sex geek. it's like bondage people, people who use elaborate outfits and latex, that kind of thing. they can usually be found on craigslist casual encounters, hbo's real sex, and at burning man.

i'm sure you could come up with something, xpost

actually maybe it's more like a sex nerd. sex geek sounds like something that would be in a soft cell song.

and, they are not cool.

but a sex geek could also be someone who knows the entire history of bondage equipment and has a vintage collection of bondage accessories that they have never actually used.

like that Museum of Mentruation guy. total tampon geek:

http://www.mum.org/visitMUM.htm

sports geek backlash = envy

and it's not about being a statto, it's about having a photographic memory for LOTS of sporting action.

sex geeks are those flabby people you see on HBO's Real Sex shows swinging on bungee cords while they paint the walls with their nude bodies or stick themselves in candle wax and play accordions while they fuck and shit

good lord i hate the human body

the human mind is much more worthy of that sentiment

sports geek backlash = envy

and it's not about being a statto, it's about having a photographic memory for LOTS of sporting action.

-- Just got offed, Saturday, 29 December 2007 00:59 (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

you are fooling NOBODY, statto.

very well, my vote for 'other' was a poetry/birdwatching geek vote. with a bit of cricket and footy thrown in. :D

without referring strictly to myself, birdwatchers are fucking chilled-out people on the whole. any sort of nature geek is worth knowing (usually).

aren't all academics inherently "geeks"? (serious question) or did academia lose its blissfully unselfconscious geeky soul and go to hell at some point in synch with the rise of the "hipster" grad student persona?

also add the tremendous number of people who are in grad programs now who have no business being in grad programs cf my comment about consumer/dabblers

"aren't all academics inherently "geeks"?"

some of them are just smart people with nothing better to do. or even dumb people with nothing better to do. they aren't all obsessed like people in the throes of geekdom are.

I think you could conceivably make the case that nearly all doctoral candidates are "geeks" but definitely not all, since I have known people who were pursuing ph.d's who really didn't give one whit of a smidgen of a fuck about their field of study beyond "more paper means more green" not to mention being totally outclassed by amateur blogger types working in the same arena

I like the turn of phrase "in the throes of geekdom"
it sounds like something walker percy might say if he ever said things like "geekdom"

I dunno, for what it is worth I feel that the "hands on a hard body"-style elimination contest that happens as you actually complete and file your PhD is a process that requires so much focus and commitment and (perhaps insane) self-belief that if you complete grad school you can't just be dismissed as a "dabbler". Not in this grim and hopeless job market, anyway. People can definitely waste their time and other people's time hanging out in grad school, but finishing a dissertation is another matter. That said, theory-inflected humanities has certainly birthed a "cool kids" pattern of identity that is at odds with the older "geek and proud" stance.

man, you should hang out in woods hole sometime. serious algae geeks. there is a woman on the island here who follows the skunks around all year. and she is REALLY into it. she ain't no faux skunk-lovin' poseur. she's the real skunky deal.

tom, you should look into a job in woods hole. lots of underground gov. psi-ops going on involving crustaceans.

http://www.whoi.edu/

where is the "nature" geek? like, only wears wool and other old-fashioned outdoorsy gear, listens exclusively to blue-grass and regularly throws 80s-themed dance parties?

"People can definitely waste their time and other people's time hanging out in grad school, but finishing a dissertation is another matter."

i would never discount the serious time/work people put into a pursuit like that. and i don't doubt that most people are really into what they are into. but there are definitely people who are just addicted to school. the end-game almost doesn't matter to them. i've known some. some just become full-time teachers eventually. most of them, actually. that i've known.

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~doc/www/images/clubs/DOC20040820-MooseMountainSh.jpg

nah, the nature geek goes out to nature reserves on their weekends and looks for plants and animals. the lepidopterists and birdwatchers are foremost in this field; butterflies and avians elicit that much more excitement. the real ultras draw pictures of what they've seen in their notebooks, habitat and all. often bearded, they can frequently be found with binoculars. rarely harmful. sturdy walking-boots, goretex mac.

the other night I was watching Dirty Jobs on the discovery channel and Mike Rowe was hanging out with this chick who had green hair and breeding mosquitoes in a lab. At the end Mike is all "I still hate the bastards, but you love 'em don'tcha" and the girl had him pull her shirt down in the back so the cameraman could capture this giant detailed full-color tattoo of an adult aedes aegypti on her left shoulder

she probably had a long drinking-straw and a stanley-knife about her person, mike can be pretty pleased he got out of there before things turned serious

re: grad school, my advisor for my master's told me about a lot of kids she sees going in (esp humanities) expecting to go find some easy tenure-track teaching job at a small college and getting screwed - and engineering/sciences kids turning in plagiarized shit for their dissertation, that she winds up catching because she's one of the only engineering profs who actually uses turnitin.com et al.

the nature geeks are probably a subset of sports geeks, at least the ones gbx is talking about. skiing, rock climbing, mountain biking, TOTALLY INTENSE WINTER CAMPING, etc.

there is a bird guy here who writes for the paper and who is on the local npr and he's great. he really makes you want to go out and do some birding.

outdoorsy types who aren't collecting and sketching and documenting everything related to a particular field of interest don't count
otherwise why don't we just call roger clemens a geek while we're at it

hunting enthusiasts secretly revealed to all be geeks

not this guy though. i hate this guy.

http://www.wgbh.org/cainan/article?item_id=2506480

maybe it's just his voice. he's so smug about nature. i wish he would get hit by lightning.

only wears wool and other old-fashioned outdoorsy gear

oh wait i missed this part. the outdoor sports nerds would never turn away a synthetic ultra-breathable waterproof shell and post-consumer recycled fleece pullover.

these i think are more people that take up outmoded sports such as telemark skiing and jeu de paume. in other words, canadians.

"hunting enthusiasts secretly revealed to all be geeks"

my co-worker, wally, loves guns, and i love to read his hunting/gun magazines. so fascinating. i learn a lot. about guns. and grouse. and all kinds of stuff. gun geeks are way up there in the geek pantheon.

outdoorsy types who aren't collecting and sketching and documenting everything related to a particular field of interest don't count

yeah, i'm not talking about intense bros; i'm talking about people that go to lumberjack festivals (ren faire in plaid) and plan long canoe trips that are "interesting" because they use the same route as the voyageurs

xp exactly!

they only telemark in leather boots

LJ = sex geek.

oh I agree, and classical archery geeks and etc but once again there is a line between the dabblers and the true geeks. I know several coworkers who like to take a trip to the firing range once in a while and then I know Mr. Gardner, who has gonzo licenses from the state so that he can have a massive firearms collection in his house full of all kinds of terrifying murderous oddities and historically significant killing devices

oh god what about "design" geeks. like want to talk to you about fonts and shit. ahhhhhhhh

xp falconry figures in there too