{"id":2483,"date":"2010-01-10T04:23:54","date_gmt":"2010-01-10T04:23:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ni0l.com\/?p=2483"},"modified":"2010-01-10T04:23:54","modified_gmt":"2010-01-10T04:23:54","slug":"the-geek-nerd-singularity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.n0zb.com\/index.php\/2010\/01\/10\/the-geek-nerd-singularity\/","title":{"rendered":"The Geek-Nerd Singularity"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I have been reading a few of books lately that have focused on the geek\/nerd subculture. Benjamin Nugent’s American Nerd: The Story of My People<\/a> does the best job of providing an overall examination of the subject. His conclusions say that nerds like a rule-bound world and sites examples that include amateur radio operators (to include those who favor Morse Code).
\n\"\"
\n\"\"Two other books focus on the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing culture. Mark Barrowcliffe’s The Elfish Gene: Dungeons, Dragons and Growing Up Strange<\/a> is an autobiographical look at Mark’s adolescent life growing up as a roll playing enthusiast who takes his gaming desires to a bit of an extreme.<\/p>\n

\"\"Ethan Gilsdorf’s Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms<\/a> is the latest. Ethan is a journalist and former gamer who, when he stumbles across his old stash of Dungeons and Dragons material, turns his journalistic talents towards a journey of self-reflection through the current growth (and acceptance(?)) of the gaming culture.<\/p>\n

\"\"I rented this on my Apple TV: Monster Camp<\/a>. A hilarious documentary about folks who take role playing to the extreme – leaving the table top and miniature figures and donning the garb of their character to spend the weekend bringing fantasy gaming to life. <\/p>\n

\"\"These examinations of the geek\/nerd subculture have been very enlightening. The recent ground swell is probably due to the maturity of those who lived through the hay-day of Dungeons and Dragons (late 70s and early 80s) which also paralleled the computer revolution. Whether it is for recreational escape or gravitating towards rule-based environments, the geek\/nerd has come out of the high school A\/V closet and has proudly integrated as a member of society… no longer on the social fringe.<\/p>\n

Finally, Cory Doctorow’s Makers<\/a> is a book I got for Christmas. I actually thought it was non-fiction… I hadn’t read much about it but I enjoy Cory Doctrow. The book is actually science fiction, based in the not to distant future based around a changing world economy that is driven more by small groups of creative individuals reather than large, corporate monoliths. The book has bogged down a bit towards the middle but I am hoping it starts to pick up again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been reading a few of books lately that have focused on the geek\/nerd subculture. Benjamin Nugent’s American Nerd: The Story of My People does the best job of providing an overall examination of the subject. His conclusions say that nerds like a rule-bound world and sites examples that include amateur radio operators (to … Continue reading “The Geek-Nerd Singularity”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8,11],"tags":[45],"class_list":["post-2483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-radio","tag-books"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9vUOZ-E3","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.n0zb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.n0zb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.n0zb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.n0zb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.n0zb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.n0zb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2483\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.n0zb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.n0zb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.n0zb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}