EDITORIAL: It’s sometimes OK to embrace the inner geek
April 13, 2010
We all geek out every once in a while.
When was the last time you felt the rush?
Your heart rate skyrocketed, your speech sped, and it might’ve involved arm-flailing.
Why you geek out doesn’t matter quite as much as the answer to the question: “What really gets you going?”
We find it difficult not to answer thus:
D&D.
I can mesmerize you with a dance while my friends rob you blind. I can disappear from sight and, as I emerge from a mystical haze, stop my enemy’s heart with a glare.
Give it a try; I promise you’ll have fun.
You have to believe me: I rolled a 20.
concerts.
I’ve seen more concerts than I can keep track of. I’ve suffered a three-day spell of hearing damage after seeing a band, been pushed and shoved by rabid fans, kicked in the head and stepped on. But hanging out with strangers, bonding over the thrill of seeing your favorite band play is an experience I adore. Awkward mosh-pits and all, I’ll always get a kick out of it.
math.
As beautiful as it is, there’s nothing better than not having to do it. The TI-89 may be the “greatest handheld ever.” None other rips through mathematics with such ease.
What gets me is the calculator hasn’t fundamentally changed for decades. Hopefully our fascination with touch screens and user-friendly interfaces will hit the market soon. When it does, I’ll die happy.
random facts.
Nothing gets me going more than learning something I never knew before — you know, so long as it’s interesting. It takes Pluto 248 years to orbit the sun? Who knew? Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a “Friday the 13th”? Say what? And I’ll bet you didn’t know the dot over the letter “i” is called a tittle. Yeah. Me, either. I just geeked out all over the place.
Follow @OMGfacts. It’s worth it.
words.
I’m afraid my verbosity will obfuscate my point, but this amalgamation of geekery lets me opine on words. I just hope the editorial conglomerate is a symphony of opinion.
No one could ever call me hebetudinous — in fact, I’m quite loquacious. I just love the decadence of words that roll off the tongue with resplendence. Call it frippery, but I think that just makes you lackadaisical.
I’m a geek because I love words like “schaudenfreude” and “salacious” — and my two favorites: “thrice” and “debauchery.”
But now, the ultimate debacle — how to reach the denouement?
commas.
You can’t beat a well-placed comma.
When was the last time you wrote out a sentence of more than 60 or 70 words? Commas make it happen. Unnecessary? Sure, but, sometimes, as I’m reading through something that’s been really well written, I hit a comma that totally makes the message click and this wave of gratitude sweeps over me like a spring breeze after too many hours in one of the library’s tiers.
excel, graphs and charts.
With 250,000 rows of airport data, do you want to know the weekly growth rate of departures from LaGuardia Airport in 1999? In Excel, it’s simple. Sort, sum, graph.
Looking at a dataset that large is like stepping out of the audience during a world-wide theater production, jumping up, on stage and demanding the director hand over the script. From there, you follow along and, suddenly, it all makes sense. I’ve achieved data nirvana.
We hope you’ll find a moment to really geek out and love what makes you unique.