

50 Skills Every Real Geek Should Have - neel980
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/50_skills_every_real_geek_should_have?page=0,0

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neel980
A little outdated but still has some useful tips in there.

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dalke
What of those is useful? I don't have a Windows machine, so a huge number of
those don't make sense or are worthless. I don't care one whit about hardware,
which eliminates another large swatch.

1\. memory connectors, 2. keep your apps on a memory stick, 3. straighten old
CPU pins, 4. know some basic HTML <br />, btw, is to be compatible with XHTML
and is not pre HTML-5.0. 5. is "executive customer service", 6. play Quake in
<1 hr, 7. "build a Hackintosh", 8. watch movies online (which even my non-geek
Mom does), 9. get around content filters (doesn't a real geek have 3G or such
connection?), 10. π to 23 decimal cases (blah), 11. replace a controller
board, 12. benchmark a computer, 13. use printer paper to decorate your room,
14. "Securely Erase Your Data", 16. hide your porn ... X. 'shop a photo, Y.
something about modding a Valve game, Z. rocket jumping, ... and more.

I'm a real geek, and I say that most of these are relevant to only a small
subsection of people who self-identify as a real geek, much less of those
considered real geeks by others.

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neel980
If there is a "real-geek" certification I'm sure I'd fail.

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dalke
That site promotes geeks as users of information. Playing games, using
programs, ripping CD, etc. There are a few things about building hardware
based on components, but little in the way of creating or doing research.

I didn't finish it as it was full of dreck, but I saw nothing about
programming, soldering or wireboarding, working with sensors. The only think I
saw about art or design was 'shooping or putting an image into a game. Why
learn 20 some odd digits of pi when you could toss in some CPU to Great
Internet Mersenne Prime Search or other distributed computing projects? Or
spend time with the Wikipedia MySQL dump, load it into your own SQL instance,
and geek out learning databases?

And so on.

