Computer Hysteria: "Eeeeek a Geeeek"
       by Berry F. Phillips        July 2004

For those of you who have seen the "nerd movies," a geek is not a nerd.   However a nerd could be a geek. A nerd is a person who has limited  social skills and is  often obsessed with science and technology, while a geek is  more computer related. A nerd may wear taped glasses, pocket protectors,  and plaid shirts. A person who simply uses a computer at work and does  not spend his free time online is not a geek.

Geeks are technically adept, love computers and use them to socialize.  Geeks are usually social outcasts from mainstream America and maintain  their own literate hyper-informed underground. You cannot tell a geek  by his dress. However, geeks subscribe to the unwritten geek credo that  originality and strangeness are good, and that blind conformity and  stupidity are unforgivable!

One upon a time, two geeks met at prep school and became fascinated with  a large main frame computer owned by a private corporation. In those  early days, computers were very expensive to own and their school rented  data processing time. Eventually, the two young geeks were placed in  charge of the data processing for their school. However, there simply  was not enough time left after doing the school processing for the two  geeks to work on their own computer-programming projects. These two  programming wizards decided to hack the mainframe to steal more  processing time. The corporation caught them and made them a deal. If  they would handle the security for their mainframe computer, they would  trade them personal processing time in return.

From that humble beginning, these two geeks eventually became  billionaires. One could say they added another unwritten geek credo: that  the geeks shall inherit the earth! One geek is of course, Bill Gates,  the founder of Microsoft. The other geek is Paul Allen the cofounder of  Microsoft. 

Today, the Gates foundation is active in a variety of charitable  projects. Paul Allen is the primary backer of the first commercial space  ship as well as the Allen Array of satellite dishes to enlarge the  capability of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) to search  the heavens for alien civilizations featured in the movie, "Contact" and  pioneered by the late Carl Sagan.   

Geeks can unite by participating in the SETI project by downloading a  free screensaver and helping with the data processing as we search for ET.   Set your search engines on SETI@ Home for the free download.     After writing this article, I am now wondering if I am a geek.   Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!     

Berry Phillips is a member of the OKCPCUG and a regular writer for the OKCPCUG website and the eMonitor