Is Utah really the nerdiest state???

[prisonchaplain]

I'm not exactly laughing, 'cause my state's in the same category, but...okay...yeah...I'm laughing!!! 

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2613568/Welcome-nerd-heaven-Utah-nerdiest-place-US-study-finds.html

 

 

[pam]

I'm not surprised. Seems like just about everyone here is into Harry Potter, Star Wars and all that jazz.

 

And why do you think they brought comic.com to Utah?  Because there is enough of a following to make it successful here too.

[Guest]

Holy Guacamole, Batman!  That's an awesome suit!

 

I'm a nerd in nerd hell.

[SpiritDragon]

This whole thing got me thinking about the criteria for being a nerd. I have always equated it with a certain lack of social skills rather than particular interests, although admittedly certain activities seem to draw in the socially awkward.

 

Anyway I found this description fun and somewhat useful:

 

Geek

One of four titles used to classify someone based on their technical and social skills. The other three titles are nerd, dork, and normie. The difference between the four titles can be easily shown in table form:

................ Technical ...... Social

Title ............ Skills ......... Skills
---------- ---------------- ------------
Normie ......... No ............. Yes
Geek ........... Yes ............. Yes
Nerd ........... Yes ............. No
Dork ............ No .............. No

 

Normie: A normal person. Blah.

Geek: An outwardly normal person who has taken the time to learn technical skills. Geeks have as normal a social life as anyone, and usually the only way to tell if someone is a geek is if they inform you of their skills.

Nerd: A socially awkward person who has learned technical skills due to the spare time they enjoy from being generally neglected. Their technical knowledge then leads normies to neglect them even further, leading to more development of their technical skills, more neglection, etc. This vicious cycle drives them even more into social oblivion.

Dork: A person who, although also socially awkward, doesn't have the intelligence to fill the void with technical pursuits, like a nerd, and is forced to do mindless activities. Almost always alone. Usually with an XBox. Like playing Halo. All day. Every day. Not even understanding how the Xbox is making the pretty pictures on the screen. Very sad.
If you met me at a party, you would have no idea that I enjoy finite element analysis-based inviscid flow modelling using computational fluid dynamics. That's because I'm a geek.

 

I must admit I've never heard of a normie, and never been referred to as any of the other titles. However by this classification system I too would be a geek because I seem to interact with other humans just fine, while having a very technical side (although biology is not the usual geek science). I certainly have many "nerd" interests if that means I enjoy sci-fi, fantasy, and role-playing.

 

Perhaps this study is a better indication of the people in a population who are open to include many interests as opposed to socially awkward rejects.

[Guest]

This whole thing got me thinking about the criteria for being a nerd. I have always equated it with a certain lack of social skills rather than particular interests, although admittedly certain activities seem to draw in the socially awkward.

 

Anyway I found this description fun and somewhat useful:

 

Geek

One of four titles used to classify someone based on their technical and social skills. The other three titles are nerd, dork, and normie. The difference between the four titles can be easily shown in table form:

................ Technical ...... Social

Title ............ Skills ......... Skills

---------- ---------------- ------------

Normie ......... No ............. Yes

Geek ........... Yes ............. Yes

Nerd ........... Yes ............. No

Dork ............ No .............. No

 

Normie: A normal person. Blah.

Geek: An outwardly normal person who has taken the time to learn technical skills. Geeks have as normal a social life as anyone, and usually the only way to tell if someone is a geek is if they inform you of their skills.

Nerd: A socially awkward person who has learned technical skills due to the spare time they enjoy from being generally neglected. Their technical knowledge then leads normies to neglect them even further, leading to more development of their technical skills, more neglection, etc. This vicious cycle drives them even more into social oblivion.

Dork: A person who, although also socially awkward, doesn't have the intelligence to fill the void with technical pursuits, like a nerd, and is forced to do mindless activities. Almost always alone. Usually with an XBox. Like playing Halo. All day. Every day. Not even understanding how the Xbox is making the pretty pictures on the screen. Very sad.

If you met me at a party, you would have no idea that I enjoy finite element analysis-based inviscid flow modelling using computational fluid dynamics. That's because I'm a geek.

 

I must admit I've never heard of a normie, and never been referred to as any of the other titles. However by this classification system I too would be a geek because I seem to interact with other humans just fine, while having a very technical side (although biology is not the usual geek science). I certainly have many "nerd" interests if that means I enjoy sci-fi, fantasy, and role-playing.

 

Perhaps this study is a better indication of the people in a population who are open to include many interests as opposed to socially awkward rejects.

 

 

Hah ha...  of course that's what the mainstream is telling you... they're all a bunch of geeks...

 

Nerds are extremely academically smart (IQ score greater than their weight)  and doesn't have to pretend they know it all or do not care to conform to others' word view or change their language to conform to non-nerds.  Geeks are wanna-be nerds but just can't be smart enough so they specialize in one subject and then go to social functions to show off so people will think they're so smart - as smart as nerds... so, of course, they take the opportunity to make nerds look bad by telling people how socially inept nerds all are... when all the while the people in their social circle are desperately seeking an escape from the geek who can't talk beyond the mechanics of how Peter Jackson made Gollum come to life...

 

Dorks and normies are not even in the same sphere...

B)

[jerome1232]

I had a programming teacher that would always start the day off by saying "Remember a geek is someone with passion for their interests, a nerd is a geek with no social skills."

I think it's an important distinction

[Guest]

I had a programming teacher that would always start the day off by saying "Remember a geek is someone with passion for their interests, a nerd is a geek with no social skills."

I think it's an important distinction

 

 

Your programming teacher is a geek... that is, he tried to be a nerd, but he just wasn't smart enough.  And that's why he's a programming teacher. 

[pam]

Your programming teacher is a geek... that is, he tried to be a nerd, but he just wasn't smart enough.  And that's why he's a programming teacher. 

 

So that's why some go into teaching? Because they weren't smart enough to do the actual skills for a living?  Doesn't say much for teachers who just have a love of teaching.

[Guest]

So that's why some go into teaching? Because they weren't smart enough to do the actual skills for a living?  Doesn't say much for teachers who just have a love of teaching.

 

Wow.  Always touchy, these teachers!

 

No Pam... a geek will be a programming teacher because he is not smart enough to be a Rocket Scientist.  It has nothing to do with the smartness of the non-geeks in the teaching profession.  A nerd will be a programming teacher if he has a passion for it but he will not open the class with "a nerd is a geek with no social skills"  but he just might open the class with "a geek is a nerd without a brain" if he feels the need to put a geek in his place.

[jerome1232]

So that's why some go into teaching? Because they weren't smart enough to do the actual skills for a living?  Doesn't say much for teachers who just have a love of teaching.

I'm not sure if you are joking or not, but he did work in the field, now he was old and gray, retired but teaching now instead of administrating databases. He did say he enjoyed teaching his profession more than his actual profession. After all, you are getting paid to geek out to 20 or 30 students about something you love.

Arguing about nerd vs geek is sometimes a nerd/geek sport.

[Lakumi]

that's our word, you have no right using it!

[Wingnut]

I've always understood nerd to mean one who is highly intelligent, possessing book-smarts, and is sometimes socially awkward.  I've understood geek to mean one who has specialized "cult-following" interests, such as all those described in the article (Harry Potter, LOTR, Star Wars, Star Trek, comics, cosplay, Doctor Who, etc.)  Nerd and geek often cross over, but aren't interchangeable.  The guys from The Big Bang Theory are both nerds (highly intelligent) and geeks (Dungeons & Dragons, ComiCon attendance, etc.).

 

 

I'm not surprised. Seems like just about everyone here is into Harry Potter, Star Wars and all that jazz.

 

And why do you think they brought comic.com to Utah?  Because there is enough of a following to make it successful here too.

 

Is the ComiCon that just happened in SLC the ComiCon?  Because a lot of places have their own smaller versions that still attract plenty of people, but the event du jour is the San Diego ComiCon.

[Guest]

Arguing about nerd vs geek is sometimes a nerd/geek sport.

 

Jerome is now elevated to nerdom.  Welcome, initiate...

[Quin]

I am so having flashbacks to

Epic Rap Battles of History : Nerd v Geek

One of the few without swearing, although I'm going to err on the side of caution & not link it.

Q

ETA The Einstein v Hawking one, though, is one of my favorite things of all time.

Humming...

When I apply my battle theory minds are relatively blown...

Ill school you anywhere, MIT to Oxford. All your fans will be like, um,,that was awkward.

There are a million million million million million million particles in the universe that we can observe....

Yo mama took the ugly ones and put them into one nerd.

I'll be stretching out the rhyme... Like gravity stretches out time...

[Lakumi]

Jerome is now elevated to nerdom.  Welcome, initiate...

the first test, the Ring of Clover's

And two will step into this ring, with long weapons akin to blades of grass, and you will face the forest spirit in there! You will face your demons there!

[Palerider]

So the characters in the Big Bang Theory really live among us.....wow

[Lakumi]

So the characters in the Big Bang Theory really live among us.....wow

No those people are extremely unrealistic in terms of how nerds and geeks act, are seen by others, etc

[Palerider]

No those people are extremely unrealistic in terms of how nerds and geeks act, are seen by others, etc

Not so sure about that......Lol

[Lakumi]

Not so sure about that......Lol

I've spent my whole life around nerds and the like and I have never seen anyone close to that.

No one at any of the anime cons, doll cons, comicons, anycons, nowhere.

They're fabricated characters for TV, nothing more, not at all real people. Socially awkward people in those circles aren't like that, sorry to break the illusion.

[SpiritDragon]

Hah ha...  of course that's what the mainstream is telling you... they're all a bunch of geeks...

 

Nerds are extremely academically smart (IQ score greater than their weight)  and doesn't have to pretend they know it all or do not care to conform to others' word view or change their language to conform to non-nerds.  Geeks are wanna-be nerds but just can't be smart enough so they specialize in one subject and then go to social functions to show off so people will think they're so smart - as smart as nerds... so, of course, they take the opportunity to make nerds look bad by telling people how socially inept nerds all are... when all the while the people in their social circle are desperately seeking an escape from the geek who can't talk beyond the mechanics of how Peter Jackson made Gollum come to life...

 

Dorks and normies are not even in the same sphere...

B)

 

Hence the nature of my wondering about the original findings. It all depends on how things are defined. I would generally operate on the premise that nerds and geeks are interchangeable concepts for socially awkward sorts who may or may not be otherwise intelligent. Perhaps if the overall premise is too designate people to nerdom or geekdom based on interests than we would see geeks being the overly tech savvy/sci-fi type and the nerds being the fantasy/roleplaying type. When I envision a geek he is an overly skinny hunch-backed teenager with too thick glasses, when I picture a nerd he is an overweight 40 year old still living in his mom's basement with his collection of teenage nostalgia and remakes of it.

[Palerider]

I've spent my whole life around nerds and the like and I have never seen anyone close to that.

No one at any of the anime cons, doll cons, comicons, anycons, nowhere.

They're fabricated characters for TV, nothing more, not at all real people. Socially awkward people in those circles aren't like that, sorry to break the illusion.

Just because you haven't been around one does not mean they don't exist. I know they do and they live among us.

[Lakumi]

Just because you haven't been around one does not mean they don't exist. I know they do and they live among us.

bah, hogwash!

I submit a challenge to enter thunderdome with me! two men enters, one man leaves!

[pam]

I'm not sure if you are joking or not, but he did work in the field, now he was old and gray, retired but teaching now instead of administrating databases. He did say he enjoyed teaching his profession more than his actual profession. After all, you are getting paid to geek out to 20 or 30 students about something you love.

Arguing about nerd vs geek is sometimes a nerd/geek sport.

 

No I wasn't joking.  I was responding to a post that I took as derogatory towards teachers.

[Roseslipper]

well they say God's people are a peculiar people.

[kapikui]

So that's why some go into teaching? Because they weren't smart enough to do the actual skills for a living?  Doesn't say much for teachers who just have a love of teaching.

Teachers are awfully touchy.  Not to rag on the vast numbers of truly awful teachers I saw as a substitute school teacher (I saw a certified teacher who was fuzzy on the difference between contractions and pronouns, and another who happened to teach junior high history who actually said "the Japanese wouldn't have attacked Pearl Harbor if we hand't nuked Hiroshima."), there are a lot of good school teachers.  Statements like this often refer to the college professor types who can't actually perform in the real world, and for that matter, often can't teach.