Geek vs. Nerd isn’t even the real question

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This began as a comment on I Can’t Decide If I’m A Nerd Or A Geek; Maybe It’s The Gender Bias

My husband got his father to paint a Seussian nerd on the high chair he built for our child, so in our house there was never any question.  It’s practically our family crest.  But although I became quite proficient on the Apple Lisa at a film company I worked at back in the day, it was only after I was given a domain name for mothers day that i myself embraced my inner nerd.

I guess my problem with the infographic is that it appears to have been created by marketing hipsters, not actual nerds *or* geeks, because to my mind a lot of their points are incorrect.  Then of course, at this point I may well be a nerd. Personally, I totally agree with your comment on the teeth thing, which seems to imply that parents who can’t afford orthodonture are condemning their kids to looking like this.  As far as the Mac versus IBM argument goes… if using a Mac makes you a geek, then that implies the smartest tech folk are not geeks, because they are unwilling to give up the freedom to tinker,

Then, too, I am put off by labelling. I find it rather liberating to see women excluded from this stereotypical labelling.  I myself don’t call anyone “nerds” or “geeks” (although I have had characters consider the question).  Once upon a time some Hollywood people too lazy to do any actual research labelled computer criminals as hackers.  Most of the smartest tech folk I know self identify as “hackers” in the non-criminal sense.  There is a huge difference between the labels people choose for themselves and those decided by outsiders.

Recently I saw a picture of Snoop Dogg cooking with Martha Steward captioned “Stereotyoes Matter ~ and only one of them is a convicted felon.”   And since I saw it on Facebook, I couldn’t possibly be a nerd, a geek or even a hacker.

Geeks vs Nerds
From: MastersInIt.org

Facebook Permissions

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Yes I am on Facebook. One of these days I’ll explain why. Meantime, I’ll share advice as needed :)

Facebook Apps ask for your permission to post in your name to your friends.

You may not realize this, but the app/games proceed to annoy your friends with requests to play the game.

As far as those being annoyed can tell, it is *you* sending them these annoying messages. Sometimes friends will complain, sometimes they just unfriend.

Just sayin’.

Update

It occurs to me I should have mentioned how to block annoying Apps, especially since Facebook doesn’t make it easy to figure out how to do this, presumably because the corporation receives buckets of cash from the App companies.

When you are at “home” in Facebook, look to the left hand sidebar where you’ll see a heading called APPS, and under it you’ll see “APPs and Games”

Click it and the first heading will be “Invites from friends”

It lists all the “invites” you have received here, beside the avatar of the person who supposedly sent it to you.

Hover your mouse over it and a blue background will appear behind the entree as well as a small blue “x” in the top right hand corner. You don’t actually see the “x” unless you hover, and you don’t know what it gives you unless you click it. Sneaky, eh?

Click on that little blue “x” and you will be given the options to:

  • Hide the request
  • Block the person responsible for the invitation
  • Block the APP — this is the one that will block all future requests from *anyone* playing/using this app.
  • Ignore all requests from the person

TechDITZ Glossary Entry: APPS

— This is simply an abreviation of the word “Applications”which means software programs. Facebook and others make the distiction between “games” and “Apps” because the assumption is that apps are actually useful.

This is my Help Desk

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After years of hanging around with people who actually understand computers, and then writing the Stop Usage Based Billing blog for a few, I seem to have picked up the odd bit of useful knowledge.

These bits and pieces have wound up scattered willy nilly among my various blogs and web pages, because the last thing I need is another blog.  Still, I keep writing those articles.  From now on, this is where they will be.  The posts will be sporadic, but I’ll try to be consistent about categories and tags. Still, if you’re interested, your best best would be to subscribe to the RSS feed.  That’s the little orange and white thing; it allows you to subscribe to the feed, which means you’ll get a notification whenever I post an article.

Why am I doing this now? Well, I finally found a good name for the thing :)