Nerd // Current

Confirmed: R2-D2 Discovered In Star Trek

At last, here's the droid we were all looking for. In this frame you can clearly see... more

pjacobs51
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9 days ago
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13 comments

La pozione della Figosità

Video realizzato per un 24h video contest. Cosa succede se un nerd trova una pozione... more

deedee84
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1 month ago
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0 comments

Super black busty jiggly 3000

A magical way to relieve stress, dragons den would back it

1978jamesb
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1 month ago
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1 comment

Binary Tee Shirt- "I <3 You"

I love it when you talk nerdy to me... The "

asherp
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1 month ago
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21 comments

E TARD The LifeCaster on The Stickam.com Show The Top Floor Live

I found this video on stickam.com The Top Floor Its a club show on stickam its cool... more

ETARD
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1 month ago
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1 comment

The Tour of The E-TARD HOME

Here is The Home Tour of E-TARD The LifeCaster. chat with me live at:... more

ETARD
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1 month ago
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1 comment

The E-TARD Parrot.

This is my green amazon parrot. his name is Casper, my dad got him when I was 14.... more

ETARD
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1 month ago
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1 comment

E-TARD The LifeCaster - outside on his Laptop

This is after I got my Laptop working with Flash, for a long time it would not work... more

ETARD
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1 month ago
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1 comment

E-TARD & The Justin MonKey from JTV. 1-23-2008

yes this is me E-TARD & the Monkey from ustream.tv E-TARD URL: http://e-tard.tv... more

ETARD
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1 month ago
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1 comment

Nerdy Activist T-shirt

HTML joke! In Helvetica! (for those who follow those things.) Also, seriously, end... more

asherp
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1 month ago
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10 comments

Timelines Swirl Move and Penpoint popular film and TV's Times....yeah

Here’s a visualisation of time travel plots in various films and TV programs. I had... more

J_Jammer
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3 months ago
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4 comments

Great geek debates: “Geek” vs. “Nerd”

The English language has a wonderful capacity for nuance. Doctoral dissertations could be, and I’m sure have been, written about the semantic differences that evolve between words that started out meaning much the same thing. Specifically, of course, I want to examine the words “geek” and “nerd.”

Geeks no longer bite the heads off chickens, any more than barbers still practice bloodletting. The word “geek” certainly used to have a negative connotation, but over time — and especially in the last fifteen or so years — its meaning has trended positive. I attribute this almost entirely to the internet becoming mainstream due to the explosive growth of the World Wide Web. For the first time, people started to be a bit envious of us geeks, because we’d been using email and online chat since long before most people had ever heard of them. As time went on, and computer prices kept falling precipitously, nearly everyone — even the elderly — wanted some kind of internet access, and who did they call to set it up for them? Geeks, of course.

Nerds haven’t come as far. The word “nerd” came, so far as anyone can tell, from a Dr. Seuss book, a fact that can serve to make one glad nobody adopted the term “seersucker” instead. Nerds are brainy like geeks, but also socially inept. Nerds look weird, act strange, and can’t talk about anything but nerdy subjects like computers and science fiction. Why does this meaning persist? I can’t say for sure, but I think it boils down to two words: Robert Carradine. I think Revenge of the Nerds (and, to a lesser extent, its sequels) ruined any chance the word had of becoming anything other than derogatory.

So the chief difference between geeks and nerds is social aptitude: geeks have it, nerds don’t. Geeks can, and very often do, fall in love with and marry non-geeks. Nerds, if they find love, it’s nearly always with another nerd. There’s a reason why this blog isn’t called “NerdDad,” and that’s the chief reason. Speaking only for myself, I was a bit of a nerd when I was a kid, but I got better. Now I’m a geek, and proud of it!

So what do you think? Are you a geek, a nerd, both, or neither?

--I think I might be leaning towards nerd, I find myself socially inept in a lot of situations, and I've had the phrase "get with the program" thrown at me as recently as two days ago. But that's the thing, I don't like "the program"...The English language has a wonderful capacity for nuance. Doctoral dissertations could... more