Nerds and the women who love them

[petmoosie]

I am reading a book called "Nerds: who they are and why we need more of them". Unfortunately, the author has undermined his credibility by not capitalizing magic in phrases like "magic [sic] cards in the backpack", "magic [sic] tournaments on weekends". T is inclined to ignore the book entirely.

Comments

Probably the wrong term

[metageek.livejournal.com]

I'd be put off by the word "nerd" in the first place, which basically means "rude, graceless geek". I suspect the author meant "geek", but didn't know his subject well enough to know the difference.

Re: Probably the wrong term

[petmoosie.livejournal.com]

No, he wants to talk about nerds. And childhood geeks putting away their interests to avoid being perceived as nerds.

Number 2 error found last night and confirmed this morning: He refers to the locus of high-tech development in Boston as Route 495. It's commonly acknowledged to be Route 128. And 495 is an Interstate, not a Route.

Why is nothing as good as I hope?

Re: Probably the wrong term

[metageek.livejournal.com]

If he really means nerds, then he's wrong. We don't need nerds; we do need geeks. There's nothing that nerdiness adds to geekiness that makes nerds more useful than geeks. Quite the opposite: a group of geeks can work together much better than a group of nerds.. A group of really high-quality geeks can even make use of a nerd or two in their midst, but not the other way around.

Re: Probably the wrong term

[petmoosie.livejournal.com]

He means nerds, as defined by children. Children don't seem to know the term geek or its positive connotations until late high school or college.

He is a child psychologist. He is most concerned about middle school, grades 6-8, and math and science drop-out then.

What he is saying is that children are turned off from geekiness because they are afraid of becoming nerds. If his campaign to increase acceptance of geeky tendencies in childhood is successful, there will probably be more of both. If he convinces *mainstream* parents that there is no reason why little Johnny can't be good at math and captain the football team at the same time, fewer nerds will take pride in their lack of social skills. And perhaps will work on them.

Re: Probably the wrong term

[petmoosie.livejournal.com]

Or Johnny can be good at math and be the class Don Juan.