Geek-a-bees, Remora Geeks and Psuedo Geeks

Just because you type your thoughts into cyber space, doesn't automatically make you a geek. When pondering this self-nominated term so many computer users use loosely, I discovered the author really didn't know the first thing about what a real geek is.

I think my first husbands dead mother might have been one of the first geeks. She was born February 25, 1933. Right after high school, while taking a civil service test and trying to obtain a job, she was discovered to have an uncanny strategic ability to reason and problem solve. The US Government trained her and then put her straight to work on programming their computers; the old fashioned mainframe type that would fill an entire room. I remember when she used to bring home the cards that were 3"x6" manilla with various holes punched in them. When I asked her what she did with the cards, she made it sound so simple when she explained the computer read the cards to know what to do. They were put into a card reader and the computer data operator ran the data systems. There were also people hired as data processors that punched the cards. That was my first recollection of the industry back in the 60's.

To enter into the kingdom of the geek is usually a generational right of passage many times entered at birth through the genes. My ex-husband started his career as a geek in electrical engineering. He worked running mainframes at banks at night paying for college, played with high power voltage in the house on weekends and ran a soldering gun after the cat for entertainment as he "switched out" circuit boards for more RAM or ROM whichever it was. He later worked in the semi-conductor industry and when he could talk shop or come up with a different design for a toaster or microchip, that is when he would feel the deepest pleasure.

Our son is a senior an electrical engineering student at Washington State University. I saw the same light I saw in my husband years ago when he discussed robots, artificial intelligence and the realm of how human like machines will make and shape our future world. On his recent visit he left me with both the latest copy of Scientific America and a frank discussion about how robots will enter into the same revolution as the PC we know now and were first introduced to in the 70's.

Finally, for us geek-a-bees, those who listen to other geeks, remora geeks, those who feed or use products made from geeks and psuedo geeks, those who pretend to know more than they know about computers like me, beware. The real geeks have a future and a vision that there will be a robot in every home in our near future. The Koreans predict 2013. The Japanese predict 2025.

Geek's history came from people who designed systems and circuits that were simply on or off or in a system of ones, zeros or cards. Today's geek has passion for the future of ideas. And the one thing for certain is, a true geek has an angle and strategy on where its all going and how to get there, with or without typing simple words into cyber space.