How nerdy are you

c hack · Post by **c hack** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 2:54 pm

jimtyrrell wrote:If Sober, Lunkhead, and C Hack want to collab sometime on a SongFight as the 71 Nerd Club or something, I'm up for it.
Of course, doing so will up our collective nerd factor by a few points.

Yeah, but the fact that we're socializing would cancel that out. I'd be up for it.

Eric Y. · Post by **Eric Y.** » Sat Feb 19, 2005 1:59 am

i'm a lazy nerd.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/eyanyo/3550.html

Caravan Ray · Post by **Caravan Ray** » Sat Feb 19, 2005 7:43 am

Puce wrote:
Mogosagatai wrote:Also, for the E=mc^2 question, I assume that they expect slight nerds to answer "speed of light" and real nerds to answer "2.99792x10^8 m/s".
However, if that's true, that ignores the possibility that an even nerdier person might answer with the more accurate "speed of light", since it's actually 2.99792458x10^8 m/s. I could be wrong on my assumption, but either way it's a dumb question for leaving those possibilities.
98.1287% of nerds can't pass up the chance to use an awkward statistic or constant that they have memorized. Seriously, how many times have you heard some nerd rattle off 5 or more digits of Pi, when just saying Pi would suffice? I hear that sort of thing daily.

What bugged me was the units were all wrong. In practice C is the speed of light in centimeteres per second. Pedantic and obscure.

The E=mc^2 question made me stop and think too. But I reasoned the correct answer is "the speed of light", not 2.99792458x10^8 m/s, which is really just a numerical way of describing the speed of light rounded off to an arbitrary number of significant figures. C actually stands for "the speed of light".

But where is the speed of light expressed in cm/s? That's just crazy talk! The SI unit for displacement is metres and metres only. "Centi" isn't even an accepted prefix - the only prefixes that should be used are those by 10^3 ie. milli, kilo, mega, giga, nano, pico, etc, etc.

I know that Americans stupidly cling on to archaic units of measurements and don't know what the System Internationale is - but surely Canadians aren't that retarded too!

Now I know that you'll probably tell me it's some physics or mathematics convention that c is expressed as cm/s - but we engineers deal with the real world - and should the day ever come when a civil engineer may have to do a calculation involving the speed of light - then by God I'll be doing it in m/s and you can shove your centimetres three foot up your arse.

(i think my score just went up again)

Adam! · Post by **Adam!** » Sat Feb 19, 2005 8:25 am

Ray: This is one of those things where the nerdiest answer isn't the most correct answer. To demonstrate, find a mirror. First, say "C stands for the speed of light". Then say "C stands for 2.99792458x10^10 cm/s, *snort*", but make sure you take off your glasses and rub them on your shirt while you rattle off all those numbers. See? Much nerdier.

Einstein certainly wasn’t thinking about SI units when he made that theorem (which was originally written as m = L / c^2). To convert from gram*meters^2/seconds^2 to ergs you have to drop the units. If you don't use centimeters-per-second you will be off by a large margin when you calculate E.

Learning is fun!

thehipcola · Post by **thehipcola** » Sat Feb 19, 2005 8:34 am

Leaf wrote:
TheHipCola wrote:17
sigh...I'm so out.

8)
I got 33 more than you!!! I'm more nerdy than...y..o..u....uh.... damn. You're cool.

Not really man, it's Hip to be square. Or so says Huey Lewis...

Caravan Ray · Post by **Caravan Ray** » Sat Feb 19, 2005 9:22 am

Puce wrote: Einstein certainly wasn’t thinking about SI units when he made that theorem (which was originally written as m = L / c^2). To convert from gram*meters^2/seconds^2 to ergs you have to drop the units. If you don't use centimeters-per-second you will be off by a large margin when you calculate E.

Learning is fun!

Well I'll be buggered - I didn't know that. That will explain why the thermonuclear device I've been working on doesn't even set off the the smoke alarm. Now I've got that info though - look out New Zealand!

Hoblit · Post by **Hoblit** » Sat Feb 19, 2005 11:04 am

Southwest_Statistic wrote:
Hoblit wrote:this is after working for an online company for 6 years.
As tech support? Sounds like you're qualified for it - there where plenty of computer questions in there.

P.S. Hoblit, said with a chuckle. Not wanting to insult you or anything in case you actually are tech support.

I started that job as tech support. So there would be no insult. I worked through many different types of things and was updating .asp and .html before it was all over. Still only got a '7'. Partly I think because I keep a clean room, I had no idea who those pictures those were and my math education ended with Algebra in HS. (Which is handy in coding btw. who knew.) My idea of a friday night has/had nothing to do with homework or 10:00 curfews ever. To this day even. My ex-girlfriend would totally take issue with my low score though. She called me a computer geek/nerd all the time.

What it boils down to is..I'm not the TYPICAL computer geek because I'm not nearly as smart.

Post by **Lunkhead** » Sat Feb 19, 2005 11:47 am

I'd do that collab, too! How about:

"The 71st Nerd Brigade"
"[Nerds? Cult? Brotherhood?] of the 20th Prime"
"71 Nerd Salute"
"Mid-Level Nerd Attack"
etc.

Andy Balham · Post by **Andy Balham** » Tue Feb 22, 2005 10:39 am

58% I don't know where I went wrong.