Comments on: Geek^infinity

By: QuietDesperation

QuietDesperation — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 15:57:05 +0000

I was never happy with the drive to make “geek” and “nerd” into “good” words (sorry, but they were used endlessly as hateful epithets in my youth to keep smart people down and marginalized), but now we have “dork” to contend with? You know the origin of that word, right?

As I say nerds rule the world. We took over with computers wile the jocks were pumping iron ,and getting there heads bashed in on the gridiorn.

I never understood this delusion, either. With very few exceptions it’s the “jocks” (another label) and similar folks who get elected to office and corporate boards. They went and got MBAs and sold diseased investment products made from diced subprime loans mixed with mad cow disease.

Some smart people make a lot of money, like a Gates or a Jobs or somesuch, but is that ruling the world? Not really.

And what’s wrong with pumping iron? I entered a couple amateur body building contests when I was younger at the same time I was pursuing my Master’s degree in electrical engineering.

HP calculator

Still an indispensable tool for engineers and scientists. An “app” on a glorified MP3 player just won’t do it. No more, though. HP was gutted and turned into another me-too PC/printer outfit by Carly Fiorina, philosophy major and advocate for anything and everything that depressed high tech salaries. She’s running for senator from California now. Notice a pattern?

By: mike burkhart

mike burkhart — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 14:50:22 +0000

As I say nerds rule the world. We took over with computers wile the jocks were pumping iron ,and getting there heads bashed in on the gridiorn. They never saw our takeover coming. Now to Star Trek as everyone knows I have been a fan since I was 6 and I love the Next Genration I have to say the neat thing was the hallodeck ,Data I liked the idea of an android as a crew member (I would have like to see an episode where Data visits the planet from the episode I Mudd that had the androids that wore the flashing necklesss maybe he might feel right at home or not) to get off topic I recently bought a dvd that had a sequal to the version of War of the worlds shown on the Scifi chanel (it stared C.Thomas Howell) and a movie called Invasion of the Pod People . The Pod people movie was a ripoff of Invasion of the Body Snachers (and only half as good) As for War of the Worlds 2 Phil might wand to take a look at it there might be some bad astronomy in it .I know that many sequals have been writen to War of the Worlds (including a stupid tv series based on the 1954 movie) but I feel War of the Worlds dosen’t need a sequal.

By: IVAN3MAN AT LARGE

IVAN3MAN AT LARGE — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 00:01:18 +0000

Dennis:

I don’t get the Quisp reference. Is that considered Nerd-chow or something?

It's Phil's favourite cereal: Click Here.

By: N/A

N/A — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 23:59:52 +0000

Delete — Submitted in Error.

By: Buzz Parsec

Buzz Parsec — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 22:53:01 +0000

Warp 10? My starship goes to 11!

By: Dennis

Dennis — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 20:12:44 +0000

I don’t get the Quisp reference.
Is that considered Nerd-chow or something?

Also, I was watching one of the TNG movies the other day, and it occurred to me that Wesley Crusher has been excluded from (if I’m not mistaken) all of them.
I’m sure Wil Wheaton must have written about this somewhere.
Does anyone out there who follows him have any insight on why this is the case?

By: ballookey

ballookey — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 16:48:22 +0000

OK, I enjoyed listening to this, but if I were Ashley Judd, I’d probably disavow ever being on that show too if Whil Wheaton mentioned YET AGAIN how he’d wrecked me.

I get it, it’s a joke, but we’ve freakin’ heard that one. Several times. The besmirching has long-since ceased to be funny.

By: becky'sthoughts

becky'sthoughts — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 15:36:10 +0000

@ Quatguy: When you are stopped by law enforcement for speeding, what’s the first thing you are asked? “May I see your license and registration?” Papers indeed.

By: Matt T

Matt T — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 13:37:28 +0000

A true geek^infinity would specify *which* infinity. A geek^aleph_1 would be truly geeky.

@Quatguy (10):
although few would suggest you have the appearance of an illegal alien
Those few, I guess, would be known as “Native Americans”…

By: Ben

Ben — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 11:54:12 +0000

QUOTE#9 That was so enjoyable to listen to. I feel all warm and fuzzy now. /QUOTE

Every letter how I felt!

Thanks for this one, Phil, and again for the earlier Rikers one.

P.S.: “You totally rikered her…”, haha. Great panel.

By: JB of Brisbane

JB of Brisbane — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 09:02:08 +0000

@ #3 IVAN3MAN (Okay, so I haven’t worked out subscript yet) –

Frakes didn’t write the screenplay – he only had to direct the steaming pile.

By: jcm

jcm — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 06:16:52 +0000

Awesome!

By: Harvi

Harvi — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 05:24:23 +0000

Please come next year! It was awesome to see all the Wil Wheaton panels. I was thinking while I was there that you would make a great guest!

(may be I should mention that to the head of sci-fi programming…)

By: CelticGoddess13

CelticGoddess13 — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 23:50:55 +0000

OMG, this is so effing cool!!! Thanks for posting!!

By: Brian Too

Brian Too — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 23:34:43 +0000

Anyone see the episode of Family Guy, where Brian and Stewie were discussing Whil Wheaton? Brian pronounced the h’s and Stewie was getting on his case about it. Small but funny moment.

By: Rory Kent

Rory Kent — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 23:27:17 +0000

“I can crush you into oblivion with my HP calculator before I even hit Enter.”
Yeah, well my TI-83+ raises my geekness to, to quote Kirk, “one to the fourth power”. xD

If I may out-nerd the panel for a moment, the reason a ship cannot reach Warp 10 is that the Warp scale is exponential and becomes exceedingly so past Warp 9. Warp 10 is literally infinitely fast. *mind explodes* The Ent-D had (will have) a maximum sustainable velocity of 9.6 due to the stability of the dilithium crystals.

Oh, and I think this audio file may be the single best TNG-geek moment in history.

By: Calamity Janeway

Calamity Janeway — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 21:55:34 +0000

Full video here:
http://trekmovie.com/2010/05/30/watch-star-trek-tng-phoenix-comic-con-panel-w-wil-wheaton-levar-burton-jonathan-frakes/

By: Non-Believer

Non-Believer — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 21:51:54 +0000

Why was there no video???!!!!

By: Calamity Janeway

Calamity Janeway — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 21:51:05 +0000

And in other Trek happenings, Patrick Stewart was knighted yesterday … Make it Sir!
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127365237

By: Quatguy

Quatguy — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 21:46:02 +0000

Phil, do you have any thoughts about skipping the Phoenix Comic Con in support of protests against Arizona’s nazi-esque immigration law?

Papers Please!!!, although few would suggest you have the appearance of an illegal alien (except maybe from western or northern Europe somewhere).

By: pinko_commie

pinko_commie — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 21:36:43 +0000

That was so enjoyable to listen to. I feel all warm and fuzzy now.

By: IVAN3MAN AT LARGE

IVAN3MAN AT LARGE — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 21:34:48 +0000

@erlando, If you're familiar with the Eurovision Song Contest, then you'll know it's considered embarrassing if a country's entry receives nul points (Wikipedia link).

By: Jim Seymour

Jim Seymour — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 21:17:49 +0000

@Guysmiley,

If you’re going to use the superfluous “h” in Wil’s name, it’s customary to put it in front of the “W”.

By: erlando

erlando — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 21:10:24 +0000

@ivan3man: Actually “zéro points” would IIRC be more correct..

By: IVAN3MAN AT LARGE

IVAN3MAN AT LARGE — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 21:00:05 +0000

Erratum: At my above post, it should be nul points (no points), not “ne point”.

(My French sucks!)