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You’re currently reading “HELP!! O meu gajo é um NERD!,” an entry on Heptahedron

Published:
03.31.09 / 8pm
Category:
Escritos em Português, Geeks!!!, Personal

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Bio da Helena

HELP!! O meu gajo é um NERD!

by Helena

Pois é, ontem descobri: a minha cara-metade é um NERD!! Quando cheguei a casa ontem à noite ele deu-me The Nerd Handbook para ler, e disse-me: “isto é para aprenderes a lidar comigo!” ;). Li… e as semelhanças são assustadoras! E perguntam vocês: “mas tu já não sabias que ele era um NERD?”. Claro que já tinha reparado em alguns indícios; como por exemplo:
1. passar a grande parte do tempo em que estivemos numa discoteca agarrado a um computador que eles lá tinham com Linux, enquanto todos os outros mortais dançavam na pista de dança;
ou 2. quando vi a cara de felicidade dele ao descobrir que tinha Net no seu computador no vale de Yosemite (e perguntam vocês: “mas quem é que leva o computador para Yosemite?” Pois!), enquanto os restantes andavam em caminhadas para ver cascatas…

No entanto, nunca tinha visto a coisa assim descrita desta forma detalhada. E agora vocês voltam a perguntar: “E então, preocupa-te que ele seja um NERD?”- Nahhhhhhhhhh!!! :)

As semelhanças:

“The nerd has based his career, maybe his life, on the computer, and as we’ll see, this intimate relationship has altered his view of the world. He sees the world as a system which, given enough time and effort, is completely knowable. This is a fragile illusion that your nerd has adopted, but it’s a pleasant one that gets your nerd through the day. When the illusion is broken, you are going to discover that…”

“Your nerd has control issues. Your nerd lives in a monospaced typeface world. Whereas everyone else is traipsing around picking dazzling fonts to describe their world, your nerd has carefully selected a monospace typeface, which he avidly uses to manipulate the world deftly via a command line interface while the rest fumble around with a mouse.

The reason for this typeface selection is, of course, practicality. Monospace typefaces have a knowable width. Ten letters on one line are same width as ten other letters, which puts the world into a pleasant grid construction where X and Y mean something.”

“Your nerd has built himself a cave. I’ve written about The Cave elsewhere, but here are the basics. The Cave is designed to allow your nerd to do his favorite thing, which is working on the project. If you want to understand your nerd, stare long and hard at his Cave. How does he have it arranged? When does he tend to go there? How long does he stay?”

“Nerds are fucking funny. Your nerd spent a lot of his younger life being an outcast because of his strange affinity with the computer. This created a basic bitterness in his psyche that is the foundation for his humor. Now, combine this basic distrust of everything with your nerd’s other natural talents and you’ll realize that he sees humor is another game.”

“Your nerd has an amazing appetite for information. He keeps track of everything. See, he’s already seen all three of these movies… multiple times. He knows the compelling parts of the arcs and is mentally editing his own versions while watching all three. The basic mental move here is the context switch, and your nerd is the king of the context switch.”

“Your nerd might come off as not liking people. Small talk. Those first awkward five minutes when two people are forced to interact. Small talk is the bane of the nerd’s existence because small talk is a combination of aspects of the world that your nerd hates. When your nerd is staring at a stranger, all he’s thinking is, “I have no system for understanding this messy person in front of me”. This is where the shy comes from. This is why nerds hate presenting to crowds.”

“Map the things he’s bad at to the things he loves. You love to travel, but your nerd would prefer to hide in his cave for hours on end chasing The High. You need to convince him of two things. First, you need to convince him that you’re going to do your best to recreate his cave in his new surrounding. You’re going to create a quiet, dark place here he can orient himself and figure out which way the water flushes down the toilet. Traveling internationally? Carve out three days somewhere quiet at the beginning of the trip. Traveling across the US? How about letting him chill on the bed for a half-day before you drag him out to see the Golden Gate Bridge?

Second, and more importantly, you need to remind him about his insatiable appetite for information. You need to appeal to his deep love of discovering new content and help him understand that there may be no greater content fire hose than waking up in a hotel overlooking the Grand Canal in Venice where you don’t speak a word of Italian. ” (…)

E isto é um pequeno resumo. No artigo original tudo isto está muito mais descrito. Claro que também há diferenças; o meu NERD não tem Macs nem tem mais amigos do que aqueles que eu penso, no Facebook, Skypes e afins…, como o artigo assume. O que não sei se quer dizer que é menos ou mais NERD do que aquilo que é descrito, mas eu gosto dele assim!!

Pais do meu NERD, divirtam-se também a ler o NERD Handbook, e pode ser que todos acabemos por o compreender um bocadinho melhor! Hihihi!

Helena
Tuesday, March 31, 2009