Last night, while trying to fall asleep, I was thinking of a list of things that when I hear someone say them/reference them/joke about them, I immediately know I am dealing with a geek (not that there is anything wrong with that). So far:
1.) “These aren’t the droids you are looking for.”
2.) All your base are belong to us.
3.) Han Shot First.
Let’s expand this list. Consider this an open thread.
Zifnab
4.) Critical Hit!
5.) Zug Zug
6.) Frost Shock!
Mary
Using the following words and phrases when you aren’t talking about math, literature or coding:
1) “Canonical” (example)
2) “For certain values of [term]” (example)
chopper
“pro tip”
Chubbs
“I like boobies”
Tempest
From the game Team Fortress 2: “I’m a black Scottish cyclops!” or “I fix practical problems”
From Firefly/Serenity: “Shiny”
foxhunter
7) I am in your base killing your d00ds!
Third Eye Open
“…So I was like, This nation cannot handle another FU worth of this war, The JAM is laying low, while Al Quds is setting up base to run interference, knowing that we are SOL since our assets are stretched so thin…So, do you read Balloon-Juice?…Do you want to come see my external cooling system?…Can I buy you another drink?”
RSA
In my work environment (computer science department) the default assumption is “geek”, but I’ll take a shot anyway:
“Windows registry”
“SCA” (without expansion of the acronym)
“intractable” (when used to describe a computer problem)
Face
“Me fail English? That’s unpossible”
libarbarian
“Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.”
“Engage.”
jenniebee
Natural 20.
There are 10 kinds of people: those who understand binary and those who don’t.
Resistance is Futile
This one was actually used on me once – curiously enough, I’m still friends with the guy:
“I get the phone numbers of everybody I know who beat me on the SAT. Basically, that’s your number. Can I have it?”
Pb
Live long and prosper.
LUNIX!!
Linux.
Whatever that funny phrase was we were mocking last week.
scarshapedstar
8) Never whistle while you’re pissing…
9) (other geek responds) …and don’t ask questions while you’re getting blown.
Third Eye Open
Oh, yeah…
“STAR POWER!”
or
“Berserker, Berserker”
Tim F.
“First, assume a spherical cow.”
James
“Do or do not. There is no try.”
Any use of “foo” and “bar” while talking or in writing.
dan
Y’know, “These aren’t the droids you are looking for” was an early Queens of the Stone Age song.
I think the sheer amount of drugs and ROCK prevents them from being labeled as geeks.
canuckistani
“One.. two..five!””Three, sir”
“Cardboard box? You were lucky. We used to live in a lake”
Among astronomers (who are by definition geeks to begin with)
“That’s no moon. That’s a space station”.
Also, if they tell you they’re late because there was no break command on the shampoo bottle.
knobboy
“Scheme is a statically scoped and properly tail-recursive dialect of the Lisp programming language…”.
In an orthogonally asynchronous sort of way. Deterministically speaking of course.
RSA
“Trekkie” and “Trekker” used in the same sentence, with a distinction between them.
chopper
1) any quote from achewood. any at all.
RSA
Holy crap, knobboy, a fellow Lisp aficionado in Balloon Juice. I’ll raise you “dynamic versus lexical scoping” and throw in “method dispatch”.
Ned Raggett
Ain’t THAT the truth (re: Achewood — I’ve had a slew of people try to convince me this past week that among other things it’s the most clever dialogue in the English language this century. I pray for them.)
Cyrus
I’d say using “Trekker” at all is evidence of geekery. Ditto for “SF” and other variations on “sci-fi.”
Johno
– “Resistance is useless/futile”
– sub-indicators to above: if the respondent follows up with a quotation from Doctor Who, ST:TNG, or Hitchhiker’s Guide, or for full points, all three.
– Usage of the abbreviation ST:TNG with no additional explanation
– Any reference to a “rudimentary lathe”
– “…and a shrubbery”
– To refer to the act of checking in or chatting with someone as “pinging” them.
– “Imagine a beowulf cluster of those!”
– any reference to “saving throws” such as, “Looks like someone failed their saving throw!” said of a fallen, vomiting, or otherwise embarassed colleague.”
– “Lighting bolt! Lighting bolt! Lighting bolt!”
– “I have a cunning plan”
RSA
Including objecting to the expression “sci-fi” as being unserious or derogatory, of course.
rachel
Even more geeky: having a Beowulf cluster of anything.
Brian
“Elf needs food badly.”
“Damnit Jim, I’m a doctor, not a ________”
“I find your lack of faith disturbing.”
“Soylent Green is people!”
Blue Jean
$%#@! Pb beat me to the “Live long and prosper.” All I can say is “He’s dead, Jim. Game over, man! Game over!”
Punchy
“perhydrocyclopentanophenanthrene ring nucleus”
“proteoglycan”
“booyah”
Brian
Oh yea… one more:
“It’s a cookbook!!!”
Tim F.
I have to dissent on the Star Wars quotes. If even the buried corpse of Terri Schiavo gets the reference then it’s not dorkery.
canuckistani
If you ask them who their favourite captain is, and they have an answer.
jrg
“Thanks for all the fish”
chopper
don’t get me wrong, i love achewood to death. but when i hear someone refer to a motorcycle as a “sex bicycle” i think ‘nerd all over’.
Tim F.
Level 1 dorkery: “They’ve gone plaid!”
Level 2: There are 10 kinds of people in the world…
Advanced: whatever the hell knobboy said.
rachel
Open-Sourcers can’t seem to resist recursion. More WINE, anyone?
celcus
Saving throw
There can be only one!
We are the Knights who say…
Not now mom, I have friends over!
Dennis-SGMM
“box” instead of workstation or server
Cyrus
I dunno about that. Sure, you don’t have to be a geek to recognize all Star Wars references, like John’s #1. (Although there are plenty that you do have to be a geek to recognize. John’s #3, for example. Plenty of non-geeks have seen A New Hope, but how many cared about and remembered that difference between the original and edited version?) To make pretty much any Star Wars references, though, you probably do have to be a geek.
Pb
Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn
Klaatu barada nikto
Bah Weep Grah Nah Weep Ni Ni Bong
Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulûk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.
Heghlu’meH QaQ jajvam
Bill Arnold
“it would be bad” (ghostbusters)
Teak111
HAL, open the pod bay door, HAL.
I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dave.
Its just a flesh would, now come on.–oops thats a nerd quote, sorry.
Brad
-42
-Anyone who even knows that Serenity/Firefly exists(ed)
-Dammit Jim, I’m only a doctor.
-Froody
-Dirk Gently
-Ham radio!
protected static
Any variation on crushing your enemies, driving them before you, and hearing the lamentations of their women…
Brad
I would like it remembered that mine was the 42nd response.
chopper
fnord.
Billy K
Ha. If you ask who their favorite DOCTOR is, and they have an answer (esp. other than Tom Baker).
P.S. I have to agree with Tim – a lot of this stuff is pretty mainstream. Star Wars? Ghostbusters? Come on nerds!
RSA
I think the latter two expressions also have a whiff of geekiness; most normal people say “computer”. (I confess to using “Windows machine” and “Unix [or Linux] box” as well as other bits of operating system jargon: such and such an application runs on “XP” or “OS X”. Macintosh geeks can be identified by their use of the terms “Carbon” and various feline names (Jaguar, Leopard, Tiger) for operating system versions.)
And a few more computer geek-speak terms: “parens” for parentheses, “bang” for !, and “RTFM” for “that’s not hard to find out on your own.”
wasabi gasp
p4wn3d
zzyzx
Anyone who tells you, “Don’t blink. Blink and you’re dead,” when you walk by a statue.
jenniebee
Ditto for favorite Doctor, and add “EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!”
And thanks to Brian for “Elf needs food, badly” – zomg, my husband said that on like our second date! He got this kind of sheepish look and started to explain what it meant and I stopped him by saying “Warrior is about to die.” True love, baby. True love.
More:
“Heisenberg may have slept here”
“grok”
“Red Snappah. Very Tasty!”
“Spatula City – for all your spatula needs!”
Kermit
“Game over man!!”
“Renew! Renew!”
“Bunch of savages in this town”
“Kneel before Zod”
Enterprise followed by a letter
“nuclear wessels”
“Kaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnnn!”
Blake
“These go to eleven.”
Third Eye Open
Protected Static,
When did Conan become a “geek” thing?
Krom is going to be very dissapointed.
Kermit
“Otisberg?!?!?”
“Australia!!”
“what a lovely smell you’ve discovered”
“one ring to blah blah blah”
Kermit
“don’t shoot food”
“thank you Mario but the princess is in another castle”
“I am not a number…”
Mike @ work
Leeeroy Jenkins
PaulW
All Monty Python & the Holy Grail:
“It’s just a flesh wound.”
“A moose once bit my sister.”
“Ni!”
“1,2, 5! Three, sir! 3!”
Decided FenceSitter
You’ll be eaten by a Grue.
Anything Sluggy referenced.
Ivan Renko
That’s a slavering grue.
RedBeardJim
Any use of the word “frell”.
blackfrancis
canuckistani Says:
If you ask them who their favourite captain is, and they have an answer.
Jean Luc Picard, of course.
oh. that makes me…
(hides in mom’s basement)
blackfrancis
Mike @ work Says:
Leeeroy Jenkins
DAMMIT! there I thought, no one had mentioned it, until right near the end of the thread…
blackfrancis
aha! anyone who knows what YTMND actually means.
Sasha
“Inconceivable!”
“Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.”
“Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya.”
Andrew
“Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra”
and
“Shaka, When the Walls Fell”
Sasha
Or “frak”.
Also include, “So say we all”, “By your command”, and “Who’s your daddy?”
BJ
Dated a bit, but;
“Division is futile. Prepare to be approximated.”
Also
“Make it so”
“By your command”
yet another jeff
“Fire bad, tree pretty”
“PEBKAC”
“that was an ID 10 T error”
“You can’t have my shiny thing. I found it, it’s my shiny thing.”
protected static
Third Eye Open:
I’m gonna guess… pretty much the day it opened.
*shrug* You go to cons with the fen you have, not the fen you wish you had.
Jess
What!?! That’s not geeky! Spinal Tap is teh coolest!
Yeah, I have to go with any Monty Python reference, 99% of which are made by guys with bad haircuts according to my anthropological notations.
canuckistani
“Let’s go do some crimes. Let’s get sushi, and not pay”
“Laugh while you can, monkey-boy”
“Hail to the King, baby”
If you actually carry a towel around with you.
Dreggas
Gotta love it.
Jay
“My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” (Or any other quotes from The Princess Bride.)
Any quote from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. ANY.
“Frak”; before the Battlestar Galactica revival, you had to be seriously geeky to use that.
Talking about “grokking” anything or anyone.
EJ
“It’s not a bug, it’s an undocumented feature.”
Jay beat me on the Princess Bride – the geekiest quote, though, is “Never get involved in a land war in Asia.”
Dreggas
“I roll some dice to see if I am getting drunk”
oh and pretty much anything in This.
Jon Karak
Yea man, Bishop should go!
Game over man… Game over!
Dreggas
Oh and some more:
“I want an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle!”
“You’ll shoot your eye out kid”
“Ok you Primitive Screwheads, listen up! You see this? This… is my boomstick!”
“Shop smart, shop S-Mart”
“what are we gonna do tonight brain?”
“NARF!”
“Gimme some sugar, baby”
rawshark
Inconcievable!!
Ned Raggett
“Is this to be an empathy test?”
Ned Raggett
I gotta be honest — it is surely STILL geeky to be using it even after the revival.
Phil
Never fight a land war in Asia.
The Populist
Live Long And Prosper
My Young Padwan
Anything said in a philosophical Yoda-esque question in a question
I grok Spock
Luke, I am your father
Klaatu Barada Nikto
To Serve Man…It’s a Cookbook!
Soylent…Green is…People
Damn you all to hell (in the most outrageous Chuck Heston overacting known to man)
Get your hands off me, you damn dirty ape.
Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.
I know what you’re thinking, ’cause right now I’m thinking the same thing. Actually, I’ve been thinking it ever since I got here: Why oh why didn’t I take the BLUE pill?
Jimmmmm
“That’s not a bug, that’s a feature.”
RSA
Or a “phased-plasma rifle in the forty watt range”.
Speaking of “an AI” or “an artificial intelligence” in talking about a hypothetical program or robot.
Andrew
Best 80’s geek movie, by FAR.
rawshark
This line was never spoken. The line is, ‘No, I am your father.’
Blade Runner?
Billy K
Best. Movie. Ever.
ZOMG! That is the lamest thing I’ve ever heard – but also the coolest and sweetest. Methinks you’re both very lucky.
Oh – add to teh list, saying “methinks” without irony.
BrianM
“Look at ’em. Ordinary fuckin’ people, I hate ’em.”
“A Repo Man will harm no automobile nor, *through inaction*, cause any automobile to come to harm.”
“A maze of twisty little passages, all alike.”
Segmentation fault. Core dumped.
Flip the bozo bit.
“Hurm” (meditatively)
Control-Shift-Meta-Cokebottle
“Oh my god, it’s full of stars!”
tBone
I’ll be in my bunk.
John's Minions
“Welshy!”
“War, War never changes.”
“see you, space cowboy.”
anything from the glory days of FASA. ie “Chummer”
jenniebee
More:
Ka-plach!
I want my two dollars!
It has raisins in it. You like raisins.
and
“I think the stereotypes in Galaxy Quest were totally unfair.”
Third Eye Open
Where are all my Carrion Fields-Peeps?
protected static
Parts! I’ve never done it with parts before…
Dead or alive, you’re coming with me.
I’d buy that for a dollar!
protected static
rawshark: No, it’s to see if you’re a lesbian.
Doubter4444
What’s the fequency, kenneth?
When said to a person named kenneth, even better
Dreggas
“Johnny Five Alive!”
“Are you telling me you built a time machine… out of a DeLorean? “
Vlad
————-
|……d….|
|.
just sayin
Dyslexic Borg says “Prepare to have your ass laminated”
Vlad
Well, crap, that didn’t display right. Let’s try again, with a few text examples:
“Wow! This makes you feel great!
A wisp of vapor escapes the fountain…”
“Ooph! This tastes like liquid fire!”
“You have a strange feeling for a moment, then it passes.”
knobboy
RSA!!
Ahh, but the parentheses. That’s where I had them!
They laughed at me and made jokes but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt and with geometric logic.
mere mortal
Krunk!
GeekyOne
pwnt, n00bz! ph34r my l33t skilz! (or any variation thereof)
Dreggas
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right A, B, Select Start = The secret of immortality.
David Moisan
“I can has …?” (“John has cat! Tunch can has cheezburger!”)
“QSL?” (old ham radio geeks)
“This behavior is by design” (If you’re in Microsoft IT)
“for n-1 things”
The Other Steve
Pwn3d!
Only geeks watch Battlestar Galactica, or for that matter anything on the SciFi channel.
The Other Steve
DASD
ABEND
Caya
If you aren’t willing to kill for it, how important can
it be?
I would like, if I may, to take you on a strange journey.
I have a bad feeling about this.
Statement: HK-47 is ready to serve, master.
Luke
anyone who uses the word “paladin”. I cannot think of any non-geeky context for that one.
outside of a phish concert, any reference to TMWSIY (the man who stepped into yesterday)–and even phish concerts are geeky in their own way
Susan Kitchens
The use of “trivial” when discussing problems/problem solving:
“That’s trivial. What you really need to do is…”
Dreggas
“would you stop it with the fat lady, you’re obsessed with the fat lady.”
Dreggas
“Do you like gladiator movies?”
Blue Jean
“Stupid, stupid rat creatures!”
EJ
“Let me tell you about my mother… BLAM!”
dwightkschrute
Seriously, any time people talk about “space elevators”, a la a certain instantly putzy blogger.
KevinD
Gotta love Cowboy Bebop. (and Samurai Champloo)
RedBeardJim
“For the Horde!!!”
zzyzx
Inside a Phish show, TMWSIY is still pretty obscure…
KevinD
“Get the Humanoid. Get the Intruder.”
KevinD
Tetsuuuo!
Kanedaaa!
Krista
Well, shit. And here I was thinking I’d escaped geekitude.
Then again, I own three GPSs, and have models of a colonial fighter and cylon raider above my freaking BED, so who was I really kidding?
Krista
Sorry, a colonial Viper, not fighter. No idea what the hell I was thinking, there.
Sigh…
Billy K
It’s OK. You just made all the geek boys’ hearts skip a beat anyway.
pfrets
I’ll see your ‘grok’ and raise you.
TANSTAAFL!!!
Jess
Krista,
I was feeling smug there for a bit myself until people began unleashing the Blade Runner quotes. C’mon–that’s not geeky, is it?
But maybe any movie quote is geeky when you get right down to it…
grumpy realist
Use of the term “cons” meaning “to join things”
“I have a cunning plan….”
“No Toad Sexing!”
Use of the term “vaxen”
“well, it’s a Phase-of-the-Moon error…” (if you simply say “POM” you are seriously geeky.)
“Warning! Danger Will Robinson! Danger!”
“Well, to within an order of magnitude….”
Any mention of Weisskopf units.
Crossing your h’s when you are writing (I did this for years…)
Making a distinction between “hacking” and “cracking” of computers.
Use of the term “modulo” in ordinary conversation
Jan
“Set your pagers to stun.”
grumpy realist
Some more serious geek movie quotes:
“Lasers day one!”
“Bring on the logic probe!”
….and (from books) probably any quote from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series.
And here’s my ultimate physics geek phrase (points to anyone who can place it:) “The polhode rolls without slipping on the herpelhode lying in the invariant plane.”
yet another jeff
“The real folk blues
I only want to know what true sadness is
Sitting in muddy water
Isn’t such a bad life
It ends after the first time”
yet another jeff
uggghhh…IF it ends after the first time.
David Schraub
“BOOM! Head shot!”
“I find your lack of [anything], disturbing.”
The Disgruntled Chemist
I can’t believe nobody’s said mine yet:
“Last night, while trying to fall asleep, I was thinking of a list of things that when I hear someone say them/reference them/joke about them, I immediately know I am dealing with a geek”
My actual geek indicator to contribute: people who say a problem is trivial. That one screams “physicist”, and they’re almost all major-league geeks.
protected static
[coughs]
Fire for effect.
borehole
“Nuke it from orbit. Only way to be sure.”
This one comes in handy for all sorts of houshold chores.
Chris Johnson
Wow. Specifically ‘geek’, huh? I’m going to have to go with
“shiny!” Only Joss could introduce a meme like that. Only geeks picked up on it.
X is “trivial”. Not because I’ve ever heard anybody say it, but because if I did, I would know that person was a geek. Or possibly an uber-nerd.
“PROTIP”. I bet I know where you are from, Chopper!
In the same spirit, anything that “xxors”. Haxors, roxxors, etc.
OVER 9000
What’s that game again? “Battletoads”
The first rule of X is…
Using metasyntactic variables for ANYTHING. Foo, bar, and baz. Knowing the additional ones is grounds for geekdom black hole implosion.
NOTE, NO STAR WARS ANYTHING. The only geeky star wars thing is insisting Han shot first. Everything else is pop culture.
RSA
And never end a question with “-P”.
A Unix geek would write this more concisely: kkjjl;l;
I used “X is trivial” once when writing a test for an introduction to computers for non-computer science majors. Unfortunately, many students got the question wrong, because they apparently didn’t know that “trivial” is supposed to mean easy. Experience perhaps with Trivial Pursuit has given a lot of people the impression that trivial means hard. Weird.
Chris Johnson
Oh, forgot a super recent but super relevant to current events one:
“brb, church”
Off Colfax
Anything involving the words “Ono-Sendai”
“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”
Cat mother
“The Truth Is Out There”
BSOD
Nerf warlocks!
And then she said, “Well, my cupholder doesn’t work any more.”
And any use of the phrase “Hit me.” when not in relation to a card game.
Nick
Do not want
Off Colfax
Can’t believe I forgot this one…
“IT’S A SERIES OF TUBES!”
Fruitbat
I’ll reluctantly submit these:
“I don’t want the world. I just want your half.”
“Why is there a watermelon there?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
(To be used when gathering up things for a trip or something) “All I need is X and Y. And this paddle game.”
“You’ve got red on you.”
And I predict the following will become part of some geek lexicon someday:
“I am McLovin.”
“It’s like a division sign”
…and several others I’m reluctant to type out here. But I’ll say them in the right company.
Llelldorin
Screaming “BA, not AB!!!!!” after reading Dreggas’s comment above.
Detecting a sure sign that I wear my underpants on my head after reading the last sentence.
Reading every frakking comment in this frelling thread.
Preferring Roger Delgado to John Simm.
Llelldorin
Wow–who knew? The comments engine here has an underpants-on-head-suppressant!!!!! No matter how grotesque the exclamation pointism, you get two exclamation points!!!!!
John's Minions
While Off Colfax hit the proto-geek, let’s not forget his progeny..
“The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallowed sub-category. He’s got esprit up to here.”
TenguPhule
Nuclear Strike Detected.
Reach out and Touch Someone.
We can’t hope to achieve victory through force of arms.
There is always hope.
Don’t follow the lights.
Get off the ground!
Broke into the wrong goddamn Rec Room didn’t you!
Any phrase employing the term ‘Meatbags’
Now you see me. Now you’re dead.
For King and Country.
“Oops.” “What do you mean Oops?!”
There is a very small chance that we’ll survive.
I have a very cunning plan.
Form Blazing Sword!
Michael
I hear you are having problems with your TPS reports.
If only we had a holocaust cloak.
SGEW
Aaaargh! I recognize far, far too many references on this thread! My geek quotient has been quantified, to my detriment. Might as well contribute.
(Geeky under any circumstance):
“Noooo! They be stealin’ my [anything]!”
“Tanj!” or “Finagle!” used as an expletive.
“The computer is your friend.”
(Only truly geeky if sung properly):
“Rene Descarte was a drunken fart: I drink therefore I am.”
“Daisy . . . daisy . . . .”
“Life’s a piece of shit, when you look at it . . . .”
Ivan Renko
Interesting thread, but I’m moved to say…what a load of felgercarb.
Renko
Billy K
I know exactly where you’re from, Johnson. I’ve always suspected there were a few on this blog.
Pb
The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.
grumpy realist
“The enemy is at 30 microns, and closing!”
(Recognizing this quote is serious, serious geekdom. Used in the very first Battlestar Galactica episode way back in…1979? All of us in our hall were in the lounge watching, cracked up, and someone quipped “yes, the battle took place in a petri dish.”)
uh_clem
“I see no [item] here.” (old geeks only)
“My hovercraft is full of eels.”
“An ID ten T problem.”
“The problem appears to be between the seat and the keyboard.”
Use of the word “grep” as a synonym for “look for”.
BTW, movie quotes, especially from box office blockbusters, do not admit one to the geekhood. But I’ll allow this one:
“Vote for Pedro.”
AWJ
Oh snap, I’ve been found out! At this rate, I may just have to become an hero…
(Actually, I’m quite sure that the sarcastic use of PROTIP long predates “that site”. I remember hearing it–and using it myself–in the infancy of my geekdom, as far back as the late nineties…)
tmetze
I’d have to add-
“There are four lights”
“Seven of Nine Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01”
“They’re all dead Dave”
and if you know who Lister’s father is, you’re really geeky.
John Spragge
My ‘Cyborg Manifesto’ t-shirt
My cell phone answering message:
You have made contact with the borg collective. Resistance is futile. The message from your archaic telecommunication device will be assimilated at the tone.(beep)