Evolving Thoughts

I’m not a nerd, just a follower!

Posted by John S. Wilkins on September 6, 2006
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I am nerdier than 93% of all people. Are you nerdier? Click here to find out!Well everyone else is doing it and it appears I qualify for an MIT position (anyone listening?), but I have to justify my nerdiness to skeptics.

1. I read all of Arthur C. Clarke’s novels when I was a kid.

2. I read all of Robert Heinlein’s novels when I was a teenager.

3. I read all of Neal Stephenson’s and Terry Pratchett’s novels now.

4. I learned to program in COBOL.

5. All I read apart from the above are technical scientific and philosophical papers. If I push myself, I’ll read a technical scientific or philosophical book. The current one is Rosenzweig’s Species Diversity in Space and Time. For relief I read popular science books.

6. I had a holiday once. I remember it well.

7. I once went to a party, also.

8. I did a bachelor’s degree, an honours year, a masters, a graduate diploma and a doctorate part-time while working full-time! For fun!

9. Occasionally I remember to get a haircut.

10. I read the unexpurgated Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to my five year old daughter (sorry, Alice. I hope you get well eventually).

11. I do not use a spellchecker, because I know spelling better than the checker does. (but it types better than I do.)

12. I answer all the trivia questions, and try to beat the contestants on quiz shows, and mostly do.

13. I once knew all the stats of the Saturn V rocket, and had a card indexing system of all astronauts and cosmonauts, including trainees, of their education, rank, home towns, and missions. I wrote directly to the Soviet space program, age 13, for information. I’m sure there’s an ASIO file on me somewhere.

14. I’m a philosopher. Of science. What more needs to be said?

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Comments

  1. #1 Murffy
    September 6, 2006

    It’s just a phase, I’m sure.

  2. #2 Per
    September 7, 2006

    Nerd test:

    Do you get this nerd joke?

    There are 10 types of people in this world; those who understand binary, and those who don’t.

  3. #3 John Wilkins
    September 7, 2006

    I think everybody gets that joke these days. How about this one:

    A mathmatician, a physicist, and an engineer were all given a red rubber ball and told to find the volume.

    The mathematician carefully measured the diameter and evaluated a triple integral.

    The physicist filled a beaker with water, put the ball in the water, and measured the total displacement.

    The engineer looked up the model and serial numbers in his red-rubber-ball table.

  4. #4 Matt Silberstein
    September 7, 2006

    Got a 93% as well, but I don’t think I deserved it. I have an inner nerd, but I don’t live as a nerd.

  5. #5 Matt Dunn
    September 7, 2006

    “7. I once went to a party, also.”

    I seem to remember that here in Bloomington for FDIBS you were rather adept at partying. Of course I also remember that you were rather adept at discussing how to reboot old Apple computers. So, you know, there’s that.

  6. #6 Susan Silberstein
    September 7, 2006

    Okay, I’m not a nerd, but I’m not hip. I did watch Matt build a computer once; that should count for something.

  7. #7 utenzi
    September 7, 2006

    I was with you up to #10 but I didn’t qualify for #11-13, JW. I wish I was better at Jeopardy but we all have our crosses to bear.

  8. #8 RBH
    September 7, 2006

    I not with interest that while you claim to remember that holiday well, there’s no such claim for the party.

  9. #9 John Wilkins
    September 8, 2006

    Oh, I remember that party. That was when I discovered (1) never mix hash cookies, scotch, gin, vodka and beer, and (2) that no matter how wasted I get, I remain conscious and able to recall in vivid detail how my friends decided to roll me across the back yard to get me out of the way…

  10. #10 arensb
    September 15, 2006

    I read all of Neal Stephenson’s and Terry Pratchett’s novels now.

    I used to feel that way until Quicksilver. The boy needs an editor, badly.