Nerd spotting for beginners.

May 31, 2001 5:11 PM

Nerd spotting for beginners.
posted by capt.crackpipe (28 comments total)

that guy standing on the left holding a beer is definitely a nerd.
posted by wantwit at 5:14 PM on May 31, 2001

There may be at least one MeFi member in that picture.
posted by kindall at 5:17 PM on May 31, 2001

I don't see any girl nerds. Sigh.
posted by girlhacker at 5:35 PM on May 31, 2001

That one guy has an earring. He certainly can't a nerd.
posted by milnak at 5:36 PM on May 31, 2001

I think I saw one woman way in the back, near the left column...don't despair, girlhacker
posted by mapalm at 5:44 PM on May 31, 2001

This reminds me of that Eyerman photo of all the people in the 3-D movie theatre. If they all had the same color laptop and were all facing the same way, this snap would be a contender for the cover of Life next month.
posted by amyscoop at 5:49 PM on May 31, 2001

I wish I'd gone to WWDC, so I could have assaulted them and taken their TiBooks.
posted by darukaru at 6:09 PM on May 31, 2001

Ack! They're all using MACS!

So the answer is: Find the one guy running Linux, and THEN you've got the nerd.
posted by SpecialK at 6:38 PM on May 31, 2001

How about the guy standing up in the back, with no computer, but insisting on wearing his backpack with both shoulder straps. That's the deadest giveaway to nerddom I've ever seen.
(and I went to the University of Waterloo, the Canadian Nerdtopia)

What's really surprising is noone seems to be connected/linked to anyone elses computer for a quick head to head game of...um...what can you play on an Apple?
posted by Grum at 7:18 PM on May 31, 2001

Hmmmm I have to be somewhere in the picture...
posted by crackheadmatt at 7:21 PM on May 31, 2001

"Dude, I'm totally going to marry Jessica Alba."
"Bro, we can't both marry Jessica Alba."

Or

"Cha' Kung blath, path moth pah!"
" You want to perform a matting ritual with my lamp shade? Larry, your Klingon is sooo weak."
posted by dong_resin at 7:22 PM on May 31, 2001

Grum: iBooks and TiBooks do 802.11 wireless connections. And WWDC is usually peppered with transmitters. So they could be playing Quake and we'd never know. Now that's nerdy.
posted by darukaru at 7:25 PM on May 31, 2001

that picture was classic. but it's the thing to do at conventions, i suppose. having been to an anime and a gaming convention before, though different in name, they are all surprisingly similar.
posted by moz at 7:40 PM on May 31, 2001

What about the person who took the picture?
posted by hijinx at 7:53 PM on May 31, 2001

Those in charge of this group of kids seem to be averting their gaze. And it looks like the nerd drinking Snapple has on a purple watch.
posted by Sellersburg/Speed at 7:53 PM on May 31, 2001

We have a winner...big guy in the back sitting against the post with the two-tone look. Blonde dye job on top and scuffy dark, brown beard. Woohoo!
posted by tdstone at 8:21 PM on May 31, 2001

tdstone - that "blond dye job" is, like, a baseball cap, no?
posted by pascal at 8:46 PM on May 31, 2001

PS: I'm going to be at JavaOne next week, so I can see myself in a scene like this in the very near future. And I do have a TiBook.

But I will look just _so_ much cooler than these guys. I will!
posted by pascal at 9:13 PM on May 31, 2001

Mad props to the Capt. This pic rocks!
posted by Lynsey at 10:11 PM on May 31, 2001

Pascal,

I won't be at JavaOne, but my buddy Alan will. He'll be demonstrating the latest X3D browser version. It's very close...I'm going to be living and breathing this stuff for a while.
posted by john at 11:07 PM on May 31, 2001

How can Two-Tone guy compete with those lovely lilac calf-length socks in the bottom right of the screen. Are those Hi-Tecs he is wearing??
posted by fullerine at 1:40 AM on June 1, 2001

I think I saw one woman way in the back, near the left column...don't despair, girlhacker

Assa dirthead! As they called them in high school at least.
posted by crasspastor at 1:47 AM on June 1, 2001

What a picture!
posted by Mocata at 4:14 AM on June 1, 2001

Find the person sniffing passwords with EtherPeek on the wireless traffic, and you'll find Alpha-Geek within this subspecies of Mac-Huggers.
posted by machaus at 9:49 AM on June 1, 2001

pascal,

did you diligently schedule javaone sessions until midnight to turn in to your boss, all the while secretly scheming to find fun things in sf to do at night?

or was that just me?
posted by lescour at 10:12 AM on June 1, 2001

No, the alpha geek is the guy who wrote the wireless packet sniffer that grabs GIFs and JPEGs out of the air and displays them on-the-fly. (Someone did that at MacHack last year.)
posted by kindall at 10:23 AM on June 1, 2001

The nerd who took the picture. We're getting a huge kick out of these responses, and surprised to hear about the lampshade!
posted by Chief Typist at 11:20 PM on June 1, 2001

You iconfactory guys kick all sorts of icon ass.

(Just read your bio. I lived in Boone for a few months myself. Good town.)
posted by capt.crackpipe at 3:47 AM on June 2, 2001