I just saw this post at
StackOverflow which BTW is a marvelous site for developers - check it out - now someone was asking if Geek is a bad word. Here's my answer to that...
Humans are created from nature so that we need *badly* to organize things into categories. Most humans cannot afford to let "Bob" be "just Bob". Either he's a "dick", "cool guy", "master", "sportsman", "outdoors-man" or "geek" etc...
Many words used to describe these categories are meant to be offensive and hurt us. Some samples of this is "dyke", "gay" and "nigger". Though I think that none of these very negative words can harm you unless you *LET* them harm you. People who refer to others as dykes, niggers or geeks are mostly afraid since whatever that other person is doing this is something they themselves cannot understand. These people need to categorize others to be able to "sort it out" in their own brains. Nothing less, nothing more. Often these are weak people stuffed with prejudice and fear of the unknown. Have that in mind.
Now about geek, I think the latest category normal people are trying to put onto developers are even better, "Asbie". Asbie is a very negative word which actually means you're suffering from a disease which is closely related to authism. It's full name is "Asberger". This is a *scary* nametag since this is often something put onto us by society itself and with doctors with white coats and such. So this might turn into the equivalent of the David Star in Nazi Germany.
Though *geek*...!...??
Seriously, grow up. Others will always try to categorize what they cannot understand, simply because their understandings cannot cope with whatever it is you're doing. If others call you a nigger, does that mean you are a nigger? No, of course not, you're only a "nigger" if you LET yourself BECOME one! And you are only a "geek" and an "asbie" if you LET yourself turn into one...
Is this guy a "nigger"...?
"Of course not you might say, he's the president of USA". But if nametags "got to him" then I can assure you that he would NOT be the President today...
Don't degrade yourself by letting these nametags get stuck with you and color your mind in a negative way, for many people out there you're still "Bob", "Andrew" or "Joe" - me including :)
PS!
That guy at the top of this blog have been categories with tags like; "geek", "aspie" and probably every single socially bad nametag in this world. Don't worry ;)
Thomas (the Geek/Asbie/Nerd - and PROUD of it) Hansen...!