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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It's just a phase, I'm sure.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
Okay, I'm not a nerd, but I'm not hip. I did watch Matt build a computer once; that should count for something.
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.
I not with interest that while you claim to remember that holiday well, there's no such claim for the party.
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...
I used to feel that way until Quicksilver. The boy needs an editor, badly.