Re: Linux is great, but is it cool?

[Rex Ballard]

On Jan 15, 5:05 pm, Robin T Cox <nom...@nomail.net> wrote:
> On Tue, 15 Jan 2008 13:31:13 -0600, thad05 wrote:
> > Of course we could both be wrong.  I've also heard it said that a geek
> > is someone who eats lightbulbs.

Geek was originally a term in Circus and Carnival shows, for someone
who did remarkable things to his body.  Often, they had extraordinary
discipline and could do some interesting things ranging from body
peircing to sword swallowing, to eating metal or glass.  Some of the
tricks were learned from Hindu Fakirs in India.  Others were simply
illusions in which it only appeared that someone had hammered a nail
into their forehead.  In other cases, it was a combination of the two,
such as laying on a bed of nails that was so dense that the pressure
on any single nail wasn't enough to pierce the skin, but required a
special skill in how to balance on all those nails, getting down and
up without moving in a manner that would tear the flesh.

In the late 20th century, the early 1960s, the term was used to make
reference to people who excelled in science, math, and technology.
Perhaps the only relatinship between the two terms was the habit of
techno-geeks to work very long hours on vending machine products and
caffinated cola.  Many geeks also had the technical skills to build
bugging devices, recording devices, self defence devices, and other
gadgets that gave them "unusual abilities".

In Jr High and High School, during the late 1960s and earlry 1970s, it
was a term of derision, usually used by Atheletes, Druggies, and
Cheerleaders to refer to the intellectuals who excelled in science and
math.  Later, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, those who had been
called Geeks and Nerds, began to take it as a badge of honor,
especially as they left college to work for double and triple the
incomes of the students who used the term as an insult.  Bill Gates
was a geek and a nerd, and proud of it, and promoted himself as such,
while he became the richest man in the world.


> So how many geeks does it take to change a light bulb?

Depends on what you want to change the light bulb into.

A true techno-geek wouldn't replace the light bulb with another light
bulb, he'd use a flourescent light, or an LED array, to get more light
with less power, that wouldn't have to be changed for years.

A circus geek would turn it into lunch. :-D

Rex Ballard