Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Your Inner Geek

I work in IT and this week we've all been taking this Geek Test . Some people I work with are up in the 50 and 60 percentile. Me, I'm just 37% geek.

It's the fanfic and my love of documentaries (and being female) that scored me so high. And, well, maybe a few other reasons, but at least I'm not a *dysfunctional* geek.

I only scored 8%. Which has to be deeply depressing. Apparently, it's because I don't do anything but read and watch TV/movies and I'm way behind in owning the new technologies (don't even own a cellphone). Geez. I need a life.

I started to score when it got to my reading and watching habits, but otherwise, I was only ticking the odd box here and there.

LabRat

Wow! I really thought I was more of a geek than that. I only got 14.4% - just geekish tendencies. As many darn boxes as I was clicking on, I thought my score was going to be astronomical... some of those boxes must actually count against the score.

Whew!

Ha ha! That was too fun Sue!

Wow, I only got 16%! I thought for sure fanfic and the concept of dating was going to push it over the edge ROFL.

JD

Hmmm . . . for some reason I thought I'd score higher--I was checking boxes left and right, and they were ALL TRUE.

36.88363% - Major Geek

Yeah - I wonder how many points you get for ticking "I may have exaggerated to score high on this test." 'Cause as soon as it turns competitive like that I start *needing* a higher score.

mmm... ok... well, I'm a couple decimals above 45%, so I'm a super geek. (just when I never thought I'd never be Super anything!)

I was almost ashamed to have to answer YES to some of these questions. I kid you not! Then again, I already *knew* that I'm a geek.


~Lara

who has, among other somewhat geeky things:
- written fanfic (!), shareware applications and a column for an online tech website
- learned Perl from a book, for *fun*, and the bases of the Klingon language, just cause she could
- 6 e-mail accounts (not including aliases set up on her main account) which she actually uses!
- met her boyfriend online in 1995 on the Star Trek message board of a BBS system (yes, BBS... as in "what we had before internet in these parts") and met him in person for the first time at a get-together of all the board users (aka: the premiere of Star Trek: First Contact. Oh! the irony!)
- and works as a software tester for one of the leading companies in computer 3D effects and animation (and does actually know that they're celebrating their 20th anniversary today, cause her calendar was marked...)

Ohh... it's not in the list, but I can also quote several Ferengi Rules of Aquisition.

How pathetic is *that*?

30.57199% - Total Geek
Not surprising at all! Fun link...thanks!

That was so funny. The entire time I was taking the test I had to keep my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing out loud, since I am at work.

I only scored a 16%, which suprised me, I thought it would be higher. I wish it would give me a list of all the answers I checked.

That would have been a great question! And I would have had to check it, too...

That was fun, Sue. I'm disappointed though I'm only 33.333% geek! thought I'd be higher!

Jo

Oh, cool!

I sent the test to some of the guys in the Dev team earlier and, sadly enough... most of them scrored lower than I did. ARGH! Some of them should have scored way higher! We're talking guys that the hem of their pants cut about 2 inches too high, haven't had haircuts in 10 years, have collections of Tranformer toys in their offices and eat nothing but "flat food". I'm guessing being female really does get your store that much higher!

Yeah, I think so too! I shared this with a male friend of mine, who believes it's invalid. He thinks that I should be docked points because I'm "too hot to be a geek." He calls me a nerd instead. Nerd...geek...anyone know the difference? We went to a training a few weeks ago where I totally got into proving my braininess during a 20 minute writing assignment that no one else at my table even bothered to do. My quote to the table: "I get off on proving my intellectual worth!" His end-of-the training paper on what he learned at the conference: "1. Nerds rule. 2. Busty nerds really rule!" What a guy!

I'm depressed. I only got a 48.91519% and am a Super Geek. I would have scored higher in my childhood, but lost my pocket protectors and stuff and had to answer no on a bunch of things I used to do but don't anymore.

21.89349% - Geek.

Not bad, eh?

See ya,
AnnaBtG.

As far as I understand it, the difference is that a geek is not socially inept. They have social skills, although perhaps bizarre ones.

Meaning a geek can be a geek, but still be cool - a nerd is never is cool, a nerd lives in his basement and hasn't seen the light in weeks. (and I do most definitely *know* guys like that, they really exist!)

Generally speaking, "Geek" is a lot more positive way of referring to a person than "Nerd" is.

Mind you, this is how *I* understand it. I could be light years away from right. I could be in a whole different galaxy, altogether. *lol*

Crazy 11.24% Geek. I thought I was wayyyy higher than that. I must have not done it carefully enough.

I think "nerd" implies some pocket protector type of sciency mathy smartness with it. Geek doesn't necessarily have that academic image to it, at least to me--it's more about culture. I'm a geek and into languages (and ha! I was at Rocky Horror last week), but can't do math to save my life. The easiest way to get me to make a deer-in-headlights look is to ask me the multiplication tables. Sad but true.

My husband to illustrate the other extreme is a nerd. He's a researcher at a lab for computer science and does physics for fun. However, he saw the Star Wars trilogy for the first time last year and has never done any of the "cultural" stuff on the quiz (like gone to a con, seen Star Trek, etc).

But all these categories are more arbitrary than anything else. He's actually way more social than I am.

For what it's worth:

Wikipedia - Geek

Wikipedia - Nerd

I LOVE Wikipedia! Those two articles are pretty long, but I found part of a paragraph which pretty much sums it up:

So what if you studied science *and* art?
Eh, I resigned myself to a lifetime of weirdness...

JD :p

*coughs and looks ashamed of herself*

43.58974%