The Nerd Handbook

Face it, we're all nerds here - each in our own way - but since you're reading a technology news site I think it's safe to assume you're at least partly the technology/gadget nerd type. Perhaps you shiver (like me) at the sight of a new toy and take joy at that zen-like tea smell you get when you smell new electronics mmm...

*composes self*

Sometimes it's hard for our significant others to understand how we work. Rands In Repose comes to the rescue with The Nerd Handbook:

Your nerd loves toys and puzzles. The joy your nerd finds in his project is one of problem solving and discovery. As each part of the project is completed, your nerd receives an adrenaline rush that we’re going to call The High. Every profession has this — the moment when you’ve moved significantly closer to done. In many jobs, it’s easy to discern when progress is being made: “Look, now we have a door”. But in nerds’ bit-based work, progress is measured mentally and invisibly in code, algorithms, efficiency, and small mental victories that don’t exist in a world of atoms.

There are other ways your nerd can create The High and he does it all the time. It’s another juicy cliché to say that nerds love video games, but that’s not what they love. A video game is just one more system where your nerd’s job is to figure out the rules that define it, which will enable him to beat it. Yeah, we love to stare at games with a bazillion polygons, but we get the same high out of playing Bejeweled, getting our Night Elf to Level 70, or endlessly tinkering with a Rubik’s Cube.

The article is part tongue-in-cheek, part serious, and provides some insight into dealing with a nerdy significant other. We nerds are lovers too!

[via: Digg]