Be The Bigger Nerd

I want, so badly, to point at my roommate and call him a nerd. He's spent the whole night waiting until the midnight release of the expansion pack for his MMORPG World of Warcraft. They are actually having a "release party" at the store, and he's been there since around 6:00. That's 6 hours of waiting for a game. Not even a full game, just an expansion to a game he already plays.

I really really want to call him a nerd. Then I started thinking about how I spent my evening, and am I really any better?

I spent the night breaking my operating system. I did it in the guise of upgrading, but if I'm being honest I knew that there would be things I'd have to manually fix, and I looked forward to it. Some of them I expected (I have to rebuild my keyboard shortcut bindings, mouse bindings, things like that), some I didn't (took forever to get my USB hard drive running properly again), but I knew going into it that I would have to fix some things. And I did it, not in spite of the problems, but because I knew that there would be.

You see, if my system is stable too long, I get thinking about ways to make it better, and invariably they cause a lot of work for a little reward. I do it because, deep down, I enjoy spending hours at my command line writing dirty hacks to get a cheap effect to work. Sometimes I get something useful (I can now run both Flash and Java on my 64-bit laptop, even though they haven't been released for anything past 32-bits), other times I get something silly (I have a media player that manually runs 7 other media players). It's always fun to try to figure out how to get it to work.

So I started thinking, how is my nerd habit any different from his? He plays RPGs online against other people, I hack Linux. Here are some comparisons...


He talks to other players online within the game, and they all share a common interest (the game). I talk to other Linux users on web forums.

He uses massive amounts of bandwidth to run his game. Tonight alone I used more bandwidth than the average user will go through in a month.

He has clearly defined goals that, with team work, he pursues. The reward is usually minimal, but the main reward is pleasure in a job well done. I have goals that are usually clearly defined, and work with others on the web to make them happen. If I happen to meet a goal, I don't really get a reward, aside from getting something cool to run, but the high is amazing.

He kills things in his quests, usually orcs and trolls I think. I hate trolls (bastards), but I don't kill them. Instead, I kill software bugs.

He has to find creative ways to meet his end. In my world, they're called quick and dirty hacks.

He disappears for long periods of time when new expansions come out. I don't expect to see him again now for at least a week. I have, in my younger days, locked myself at my computer for days on end trying to get something to work, stopping only for food, cigarettes, and the occasional pee break.

I don't really know who the bigger nerd is in our house. I guess maybe it's all in how you look at it. Deep down, I hope that everyone out there has one hobby, one thing they like to do, that is as all-consuming as his game, and my computer. If you don't, isn't it time you become a nerd too? Find one thing that you love to do, and just do it to your best. You'll be glad you did!

Dr S