Nerd

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Yes, a nerd used to be the kid at school who wore grandpa glasses, had pens and paper in his shirt pocket, was a social misfit and got beat up a lot. Once they went on to rule the world we relaxed the meaning a bit.

The word you are seeking is "geek", not nerd

I worked in a building that had about 1,000 engineers, and maybe another 1,000 technical people, and about the same number of "ordinary" people.

At least there, the words "nerd" and "geek" had different meanings, or maybe a geek was just a nerd without the negative connotation. We had lots of geeks, but few nerds.

In the 70's and 80's those of us who build computers, audio, and tinkered with electronics outside of work were called "hackers." That term is now usually reserved for those who break the law, or do malicious deeds. We are now "geeks."

The geeks acted "normal," played sports, raced cars, went fishing, and were for the most part socially accepted in a non technical crowd, as long as we didn't talk too much about tech......remember the first rule of "Fight Club." Yes, a few of us built audio stuff, and maybe even computers, but the majority walked around with white wires dangling from their ears.

There was always a distinction between software geeks and hardware geeks. They didn't often intermingle. There were a few hardware guys who defected to the soft side, but none went the other way. Every once in a while the company would have an event that brought us all together.....my favorites were soft VS hard laser tag and paintball......your code broke my phone....take that....die sucker! Those who built audio were about evenly split between hard and soft.

Nerds or "Sheldons" as portrayed on a stupid but popular TV show, were often awkward socially, and didn't fit in. The majority didn't last more than a year or two at the plant. Often they did not do well performance wise. There were a few that wore their "nerd card" in plain sight, often referred to themselves as nerds, and were accepted. Many were good engineers too.

Would Best Buy send their service techs out in cars labeled "Nerd Squad?"
 
I just wander the world, oblivious to the "wonders of social interaction".
Always been part of the geek/nerd world I guess, but never felt any belonging to any form of social groups.

Which reminds me, gotta get some flowers for the missus, I even managed to partly save my own *** this morning, just gathered the kids and sang happy birthday really loud around her.
I really do not know how I ever got to be with any girls in the first place, must've been because I just did not have any apparent interest?
Give up trying and you get one kind of thing?
 
... And lucky escape! Sort of.
She took the kids to some friends of hers throwing a kids b-day party!

And here I am eating fruit salad (1 sour apple, 1 banana, 1 orange, lots of grapes) with vanilla sauce, drinking pear & raspberry juice (no sugar or artificials added). Gonna geek out and enjoy measuring my speakers, listen to music and "waste time", as she puts it, all day!
 
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