Comments on: The Geek Test

The Geek Test

tbc — Sat, 29 May 2004 14:19:12 -0800

I stumbled on The Geek Test today. Very comprehensive (measures more than just technical geekiness). What's your score?

By: Ethereal Bligh

Ethereal Bligh — Sat, 29 May 2004 14:56:31 -0800

32%. Seems like a variation of a purity test. (And that should increase my score, eh?)

By: FormlessOne

FormlessOne — Sat, 29 May 2004 15:11:40 -0800

As my wife had already theorized, I am a Geek God - approx. 68% I'm both elated and depressed.

By: robzster1977

robzster1977 — Sat, 29 May 2004 15:30:42 -0800

24.85207% - Geek Huzzah!

By: Steve_at_Linnwood

Steve_at_Linnwood — Sat, 29 May 2004 15:34:48 -0800

30.76923% - Total Geek

By: GirlFriday

GirlFriday — Sat, 29 May 2004 15:41:20 -0800

18.54043%. Barely anything to compete against.

By: bashos_frog

bashos_frog — Sat, 29 May 2004 15:43:45 -0800

27% and change - Total Geek. I've lost my edge.

By: iconomy

iconomy — Sat, 29 May 2004 15:49:02 -0800

3.90335 - Poser. Go, me! (I'm ashamed that I took this test, which hopefully makes my score even lower)

By: emelenjr

emelenjr — Sat, 29 May 2004 16:00:03 -0800

25.44379%. How the hell do you count to 31 on one hand?

By: obloquy

obloquy — Sat, 29 May 2004 16:02:06 -0800

also mentioned in this thread. my results (33.72781%) indicate I'm a huge nerd, and a total geek. does that make me a dork?

By: chrismear

chrismear — Sat, 29 May 2004 16:09:50 -0800

How the hell do you count to 31 on one hand? Binary.

By: Krrrlson

Krrrlson — Sat, 29 May 2004 16:12:10 -0800

31% could be worse.

By: pyramid termite

pyramid termite — Sat, 29 May 2004 16:24:07 -0800

28.+ % - I also scored 46/71 on this test - http://www.tricklefan.com/southern/test.html whch was good enough to be ranked as a Southern sympathizer. Not bad for a Yankee total geek.

By: chrisroberts

chrisroberts — Sat, 29 May 2004 16:32:30 -0800

How the hell do you count to 31 on one hand? thanks. that cracked me up. reminds me of the shirt that says: there are 10 kinds of people. those who understand binary, and those who don't. so does it make me more of a geek that i find this stuff funny? probably.

By: TungstenChef

TungstenChef — Sat, 29 May 2004 16:35:10 -0800

54.04339% - Super Geek I can't decide if this means my youth was well spent or misspent.

By: JollyWanker

JollyWanker — Sat, 29 May 2004 16:47:40 -0800

35%... and how pathetic is it that I'm disappointed with that score?!

By: chrismear

chrismear — Sat, 29 May 2004 16:50:47 -0800

30.76923% - Total Geek I'm very disappointed. I mainly fall down on my sci-fi and roleplaying duties. Actually, I'm not that disappointed. The test was obviously flawed.

By: sailoreagle

sailoreagle — Sat, 29 May 2004 16:53:59 -0800

43.78698% - Major Geek reminds me of the shirt that says: there are 10 kinds of people. those who understand binary, and those who don't. There's also the Binary Finger t-shirt, which never fails to make me laugh.

By: Veritron

Veritron — Sat, 29 May 2004 16:55:37 -0800

29% - being sane and not being a D&D whore really, really, really hurts your score.

By: Juicylicious

Juicylicious — Sat, 29 May 2004 17:04:36 -0800

9.07298% - Geekish Tendencies I am so not a geek.

By: ODiV

ODiV — Sat, 29 May 2004 17:06:35 -0800

Apparently geeks have a lot of patience. I couldn't get past the third section. :(

By: Ynoxas

Ynoxas — Sat, 29 May 2004 17:21:36 -0800

43.19527% - Major Geek I understand the torn feelings. I am both relieved and disappointed at my score. Also, I delayed dinner to finish the test, which should easily push me over 50%.

By: RustyBrooks

RustyBrooks — Sat, 29 May 2004 17:29:08 -0800

No kidding. what a freaking bore.

By: i_am_joe's_spleen

i_am_joe's_spleen — Sat, 29 May 2004 17:36:55 -0800

29%. Of course, some of the questions are dodgy. Eg, you know who created MSDOS? Really? And why would you group CGI and Lisp together? Anyone who knows Lisp should get major geek points just for that. Not that I wanted a higher score or anything.

By: kaibutsu

kaibutsu — Sat, 29 May 2004 17:56:51 -0800

Hm. While it is true that I don't own 2+ calculators, it is also true that I refuse to buy even one, preferring to hone my ability to do all relevant calculations in my head. (How many times a day do YOU use polynomial identities to do multiplaction?) That said, 44.18146% - Major Geek.

By: y2karl

y2karl — Sat, 29 May 2004 17:57:10 -0800

14.39842% - Geekish Tendencies I am surprised to get so a high score.

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Sat, 29 May 2004 18:35:45 -0800

I guess I'm not a geek at all: I can't be bothered to find out if I'm a geek...

By: Keyser Soze

Keyser Soze — Sat, 29 May 2004 18:53:22 -0800

19.341%

By: Freaky

Freaky — Sat, 29 May 2004 18:57:08 -0800

It only asks up to "3+" computers; meh, I have 10 within about 6ft of me, and I think I deserve extra points for having 15 CPU's among them. I guess I lose out because I don't actually use most of them though.. bah! I scored 36.29%, but I think this test needs more "I can think of other things" boxes ;)

By: oflinkey

oflinkey — Sat, 29 May 2004 19:05:54 -0800

I qualified as a Major Geek, which was suprising. Just the other day, I had a conversation with my husband about a lama who was coming to town to speak. He could not remember the lama's name, and I postulated it was "Dorje Rinpoche" something or another, to which my husband added that there had to be a "Tenzin" in there somewhere. We laughed heartily, and then quieted suddenly at the absolute geeky-ness of our little bon mot.

By: elpapacito

elpapacito — Sat, 29 May 2004 19:17:55 -0800

24.26036% - Geek that's more or less what I expected

By: elpapacito

elpapacito — Sat, 29 May 2004 19:21:38 -0800

Oh should have been On Append if (Percentile > 9) {Descriptor = '% - Geekish Tendencies'}; if (Percentile > 15) {Descriptor = '% - Geek'}; if (Percentile > 25) {Descriptor = '% - Total Geek'}; if (Percentile > 35) {Descriptor = '% - Major Geek'}; if (Percentile > 45) {Descriptor = '% - Super Geek'}; if (Percentile > 55) {Descriptor = '% - Extreme Geek'}; if (Percentile > 65) {Descriptor = '% - Geek God'}; if (Percentile > 75) {Descriptor = '% - Dysfunctional Geek'}; if (Percentile == 100) {Descriptor = '% - Liar!'};

By: ChasFile

ChasFile — Sat, 29 May 2004 19:27:46 -0800

Don't be too ashamed of low scores, guys. I propose that anyone who takes the time to complete a several-hundred question geekness quiz online is already plenty geek.

By: tss

tss — Sat, 29 May 2004 19:43:59 -0800

32.74162% - Total Geek Meh. I dunno. I think it's a little low, viz.: I work with robots all day. My leisure time coding project got best paper at a Unix systems administration conference two years ago. I've got a vanity license plate with my custom amateur radio callsign on it. The callsign spells out a phrase in l33t speak. Homeric Greek l33t speak. I guess I don't watch enough TV or play enough RPGs. Really, what more do I have to do?

By: fluffycreature

fluffycreature — Sat, 29 May 2004 19:50:00 -0800

37% - Major Geek Anyone else want to get the raw data and run some stats on it?

By: John Kenneth Fisher

John Kenneth Fisher — Sat, 29 May 2004 19:55:09 -0800

48.52071% - Super geek

By: photoslob

photoslob — Sat, 29 May 2004 20:09:19 -0800

geekish tendencies - ha! my wife is wrong!

By: spazzm

spazzm — Sat, 29 May 2004 20:35:46 -0800

39.05325% - Major Geek.

By: Shane

Shane — Sat, 29 May 2004 20:56:55 -0800

28.99408% - Total Geek

By: sequential

sequential — Sat, 29 May 2004 21:03:43 -0800

I was just a ceil() away from Dysfunctional.

By: Devils Slide

Devils Slide — Sat, 29 May 2004 21:05:50 -0800

14 point something. Add 5 points if you listed your score to 5 decimal places.

By: Gyan

Gyan — Sat, 29 May 2004 21:15:31 -0800

12.67xxxx%

By: Lynsey

Lynsey — Sat, 29 May 2004 21:21:04 -0800

34.xxxx total geek. Most of my geek movies are still on VHS and I don't have a DVD recorder, nor watch television anymore. But I am a librarian!

By: Dantien

Dantien — Sat, 29 May 2004 21:39:17 -0800

38.65878% - Major Geek I'm proud and yet sad it wasn't higher.

By: phyrewerx

phyrewerx — Sat, 29 May 2004 21:42:12 -0800

37.4% - Major Geek.

By: Hildago

Hildago — Sat, 29 May 2004 21:53:03 -0800

36.88363% This is without being able to truthfully say yes to many of the computer questions. If I wasn't so inept with these damned logic boxes I would, I am sure, be way geekier than any of you.

By: Space Coyote

Space Coyote — Sat, 29 May 2004 22:07:04 -0800

56.6075 % - Extreme Geek how to count to 31 on one hand People don't understand that scoring high on this test, despite zero coverage in the D&D / fantasy categories, made me smile.

By: y0bhgu0d

y0bhgu0d — Sat, 29 May 2004 22:10:11 -0800

50.29586 - super geek :D

By: Slagman

Slagman — Sat, 29 May 2004 22:15:18 -0800

33.xx % total geek

By: davidmsc

davidmsc — Sat, 29 May 2004 22:21:48 -0800

32.54438% - Total Geek Odd...I didn't really think that I was that much of a geek. And I wonder if adding "Reads MetaFilter" should count as geek-cred on the test...?

By: wfrgms

wfrgms — Sat, 29 May 2004 22:24:20 -0800

What a waste of time.... I think only true geeks would take that stupid test. As an aside, I'm offering free wedges to any geeks in Chicago who score %40 or better.

By: quin

quin — Sat, 29 May 2004 22:38:22 -0800

49.11243% - Super Geek Felt there should have been an option for "uses a laptop without a case" :) Also, no Harry Harrison? No William Gibson? No Neal Stephenson? For shame Geek Test!

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Sat, 29 May 2004 23:11:21 -0800

28.79684% - Total Geek At last, my lifelong aversion to RPGs and computer games has paid off. Or not.

By: TungstenChef

TungstenChef — Sat, 29 May 2004 23:42:55 -0800

I've gotta say, us biology geeks were seriously underrepresented in this test. /still wishing he made it to the 55% extreme geek category

By: jeremy

jeremy — Sun, 30 May 2004 00:03:20 -0800

36.09467% - Major Geek (With absolutely no RPG points, and none for being alone at home . . . married and happy about it.) I agree with Devil's Slide: those of us compelled to report the exact percentage should be given extra credit. I just couldn't help myself!

By: mrbula

mrbula — Sun, 30 May 2004 00:12:55 -0800

9.27022%. And here I was worried I'd score high...

By: addyct

addyct — Sun, 30 May 2004 00:37:02 -0800

58.97436% What do I win?

By: Guy Smiley

Guy Smiley — Sun, 30 May 2004 01:01:22 -0800

32.1499% - Total Geek O frabjous day! (Callooh! Callay!)

By: suprfli

suprfli — Sun, 30 May 2004 01:38:01 -0800

i think it proves that you're a geek if you have enough time on your hands to sit in front a monitor reading through and checking off all of these questions.

By: Opus Dark

Opus Dark — Sun, 30 May 2004 02:38:51 -0800

You are all sub-geeks. An alpha geek would've instructed his/her robot to take the test. I have so instructed mine, and she is, as always, most eager to please me. I'll let you know how she does, but first I've got to adjust her left breast - things got a little rough last night...

By: halonine

halonine — Sun, 30 May 2004 02:55:06 -0800

41.22288% - Major Geek
But I don't think the more female-averse members of the local Linux users group will like me any better.

By: quin

quin — Sun, 30 May 2004 03:27:09 -0800

Based on this output, all i can say is, hey tss, i've read your brochure, and i'm intrigued. Where can i get a job working with you? i'd like to learn more. :D

By: quin

quin — Sun, 30 May 2004 03:36:38 -0800

For the record, every robot i've built has, unfortunately, followed the Bender rule of 'kill all humans' and none of the Asimov rules that i tried to encourage it to follow. i tried, failed, and moved on. my apologies to those of you who will suffer from my damned creation, but you know, science moves on... and all that.

By: chronic sublime

chronic sublime — Sun, 30 May 2004 03:42:39 -0800

What highly appropriate Google Text Ads. Autism and Geekdom. What a winning combination! (As for the test, just a plain old vanilla Geek).

By: Orange Goblin

Orange Goblin — Sun, 30 May 2004 03:45:19 -0800

reminds me of the shirt that says: there are 10 kinds of people. those who understand binary, and those who don't. I own that shirt.. 31.36095% -Total Geek

By: meech

meech — Sun, 30 May 2004 04:52:43 -0800

6%. Does that mean I'm no longer wanted round here? I can name 2 characters out of Star Trek you know...

By: dabitch

dabitch — Sun, 30 May 2004 05:29:53 -0800

38.85602% - major geek. confused about the MSdos question too - did they mean QDOS and Tim Paterson, or Gary Kildall and CP/M? And no Neal Stephenson, for shame!

By: Ethereal Bligh

Ethereal Bligh — Sun, 30 May 2004 06:57:25 -0800

I think they meant Paterson, and I answered "yes" although I couldn't remember his name, I do remember the story. (What I remember is that they sold it to IBM before they had even negotiated with Seattle Computers for it.) Personally, I think that not only is the CP/M answer less correct, it's easier.

By: twine42

twine42 — Sun, 30 May 2004 07:33:14 -0800

I got 42% geek (42.2 to be precise) and laughed out loud. That's got to be worth some points, no?

By: jonmc

jonmc — Sun, 30 May 2004 08:47:20 -0800

I only have "geekish tendencies." (12.288%) *kicks everyone's ass, takes their lunch*

By: JakeEXTREME

JakeEXTREME — Sun, 30 May 2004 10:46:18 -0800

7.29783% - Poser

By: NationalKato

NationalKato — Sun, 30 May 2004 11:15:06 -0800

about 200 questions in, i got bored and started playing Neverwinter Nights.

By: dabitch

dabitch — Sun, 30 May 2004 11:16:39 -0800

geeeeek!

By: phoebus

phoebus — Sun, 30 May 2004 12:36:48 -0800

55.6213% - Extreme Geek

By: bedhead

bedhead — Sun, 30 May 2004 13:11:27 -0800

62.1308% - Extreme Geek. I am not surprised in the least. However, I think I should've received more points for my comic book geekiness. I have comic book characters tattooed on me, for chrissakes.

By: mr.marx

mr.marx — Sun, 30 May 2004 13:28:44 -0800

just 16% sigh of relief

By: duckstab

duckstab — Sun, 30 May 2004 14:15:43 -0800

41.22288% .. I wonder if I get extra points for taking this test in a coffee joint using their free wireless, while upgrading debian on my laptop, and sshing to a sshd listening on port 443 to irc around their lame firewall? Also, the reason i'm upgrading debian here is because I refuse to get high speed net access at home, because I know it'd be .. bad for me.

By: Kip

Kip — Sun, 30 May 2004 16:55:10 -0800

67.8501% sigh....

By: mr.marx

mr.marx — Sun, 30 May 2004 17:57:43 -0800

I wonder if I get extra points for taking this test in a coffee joint using their free wireless, while upgrading debian on my laptop, and sshing to a sshd listening on port 443 to irc around their lame firewall? I'm interested in upgrading my twenty eight point eight kilo baud Internet connection to a one point five megabit fiber-optic T-1 line. Will you be able to provide an IP router that's compatible with my token ring Ethernet LAN configuration?

By: duckstab

duckstab — Sun, 30 May 2004 18:45:47 -0800

I'm interested in upgrading my twenty eight point eight kilo baud Internet connection to a one point five megabit fiber-optic T-1 line. Will you be able to provide an IP router that's compatible with my token ring Ethernet LAN configuration? ... can i have some money now?

By: rudyfink

rudyfink — Sun, 30 May 2004 19:41:25 -0800

Major Geek. According to this test geekiness seems to have quite a bit to do with RPG.

By: botono9

botono9 — Sun, 30 May 2004 21:10:44 -0800

43% - Major Geek.

By: boredomjockey

boredomjockey — Mon, 31 May 2004 01:00:28 -0800

36.88363% - Major Geek. (And I've never played a role-playing game.)

By: bingo

bingo — Mon, 31 May 2004 02:19:16 -0800

26.23274% - Total Geek. I gave myself a point for Metafilter, and another point for having gone to three meetups. Really, I should have added one for going to them in two different cities. mr. marx: Show me a token ring Ethernet anything, or a fiber-optic T1 line, and you've got yourself a deal.

By: jaden

jaden — Mon, 31 May 2004 04:22:19 -0800

28.79684% - Total Geek

By: mojo80

mojo80 — Mon, 31 May 2004 05:34:20 -0800

14 percent something something. Geekish tendencies. I'm not surprised, but all my coworkers are. I guess they can't call me a geek anymore! By the way, don't be disappointed with a low geek score - the highest recorded score is 69%. That's a clear indication of how this test has been structured.

By: bingo

bingo — Mon, 31 May 2004 08:42:10 -0800

I think you get a point for figuring that out. Maybe the idea is to suggest that "69" is as far as a geek should hope to get.

By: Songdog

Songdog — Mon, 31 May 2004 11:28:41 -0800

43.58974%. Wow.

By: mdn

mdn — Mon, 31 May 2004 15:42:07 -0800

I was avoiding the comments in here because I thought there'd be another fight about it being old news, but I guess I was thinking of the nerd test (the discussion includes the link to the innergeek site, though). Anyway. What I think is funny is the variety of different types of people who all fall under the title "geek" - I got a medium high score because I'm an science / theatre / philosophy kind of geek, but not a star trek / role playing / programmer type of geek. The five boxes for being female should probably not count unless you're the latter sort. It's not just a literary v math thing, though. I love numbers - symbols of any sort - I know pi to at least 20 digits (once knew it to 100); on my b'day invite last year one of the clues I gave about which birthday it was, was that in base 7 it's the answer to life the universe & everything... believing in faeries and collecting stamps don't seem even mildly relevant to me though. Although, for the collecting section, I nearly gave myself a box for having a fair number of rubber stamps, and where it said "spoons" I stood back in shock, amazed that other people found spoons interesting. I use them a lot in artwork - the shape is interesting, and the sound of the word, and maybe there's something kind of distinctly human about an ancient and yet really rather unnecessary instrument. And also something intriguing about a metal tool that is so harmless. I looked up "spoon collecting" after taking the test, and discovered how widespread sterling silver souvenir spoon collecting is... and it's not, as I wondered at first, those home shopping channel "collectible" type things - some of the engraved spoons really look historically interesting and beautifully crafted. But somehow, I'm automatically turned off when something is a well-established "thing", when people subscribe to newsletters about it and have their own little "clubs". I don't like even like it in professional life... it's like when a good turn of phrase becomes a cliche as it's used. I like the idea in itself, but not in its established form. Everything interesting has to be a reestablishment, a new form - which goes against a lot of the geek test - starting or joining clubs etc got points... hmm. yep. definitely rambling.

By: allaboutgeorge

allaboutgeorge — Mon, 31 May 2004 15:52:19 -0800

29ish. Real geek, which is a pleasant surprise. I'd halfway hoped to exceed my age.

By: onhazier

onhazier — Mon, 31 May 2004 17:41:57 -0800

53% Super Geek. As if I didn't know that already. The additional points for being female didn't hurt, I guess.

By: bingo

bingo — Mon, 31 May 2004 20:24:26 -0800

so what was your score, mdn?

By: dejah420

dejah420 — Mon, 31 May 2004 22:10:15 -0800

Apparently, I am a super-geek...coming in with a score of 48.71795%. Apparently, school administrators were right, and my misspent youth playing d&d did go on my permanent record and did indeed come back to haunt me. Who knew?

By: codger

codger — Tue, 01 Jun 2004 07:52:52 -0800

Also, no Harry Harrison? No William Gibson? No Neal Stephenson? For shame Geek Test! No Rudy Rucker? No Kim Stanley Robinson? No Charles Sheffield? I was between one-fifth and one-fourth geek. I'd like to see the scores of the people I consider to be much geekier and those who think the same of me. Actually, I don't care at all, I just don't want to do my job (which isn't geeky at all).

By: mdn

mdn — Tue, 01 Jun 2004 08:01:08 -0800

oh, it wasn't particularly high - around 30, in the "total geek" sector. I was just struck by how some boxes made me feel seriously connected and others made me feel completely alienated from this so-called category of "geek". Perhaps I'm just more of a "nerd" or a "dork" (not according to the nerd test, but onomatopoetically, nerd feels more intellectual and less star trekkish to me. Dork just sounds socially clumsy in a cute sort of way.)

By: CunningLinguist

CunningLinguist — Wed, 02 Jun 2004 13:04:17 -0800

13.6 - only "geekish tendencies." whew! (and since when does Russian literature, Monty Python and going to museums make you geeky?)