A group of scientists at NASA have come up with a plan to approach that cute girl.
Not entirely work safe satire from The Onion

Who said philosopher geeks are not romantic. Have a happy St Valentines Day.

<3 <3 <3

See it on the YouTube Video (probably work safe – roughly PG rating).

Clippy as hero, almost as unlikely as a heroic nerd.

In Sensors and Intuitors I discussed how people take in information. In this article I discuss how they make decisions. In Jungian terms this is the “judging” function. In Myers-Briggs typing, this is the third letter of the four-letter type (Thinking or Feeling).

Thinkers, as you might have guessed, prefer logic and objective analysis. They tend to seek the most correct answer. They will tend to use objective and measurable data. They may neglect human interest in order to promote efficiency.
Hospital room their brain is like: Operating theater because they are clean, cool, and organized for efficiency.
Star Trek character they are most like
-Old series: Spock.¹
-Next Generation: Data.²
Motto: But that is illogical.

Feelers, as you might have guessed, prefer to make decisions based on person-centered values. They tend to seek the fairest answer. They prefer to use empathy and compassion to guide their decisions. They may neglect purely factual concerns in an effort to promote harmony.
Hospital room their brain is like: Children’s ward because they are warm, friendly, and organized for harmony, empathy, and good feelings
Star Trek Character they are most like
-Old series: Mc Coy.³
-Next Generation: Deanna Troi.
Motto: Very good, Spock. We may make a human of you yet.

Notes:

Yes, I did realize that I posted this the same weekend that Star Trek hit the theaters. It was all part of my plan (thinking) to give some of you a smile (feeling).

¹ Just like real life thinkers, Spock (as part human) would be able to access Feeling (emotion). He is far more extreme than most real life Thinkers.
² At some point, Data received an emotion chip. This means that he too would be able to access Feeling (emotion). This ability to switch from a preferred mode to a different one is more like real-life Thinkers.
³ Although McCoy disliked Spock’s cold logic, he was perfectly capable of using logic to solve a crisis. Just like real-life Feelers he could access logic (Thinking) but preferred Feeling.

So here is another video of a man doing stunts. No quad bike, no muscles, just a lot of skill.

You are back. OK. Did you watch it all?

So it seems romantic, if a bit cheesy. At least it would be if this were a declaration of love to his current girl. As part of a wedding proposal it would be sort of cool in a dorky kind of way. But this was a “love letter” to a woman that left, without looking back, two (count ‘em) years ago. And she did not leave contact details. She just “disappeared.” Now I am not the coolest guy on the block, but even I can figure this stuff out. If she has gone 404, if she is MLNA (for you snail mail types), it is over. It is dead. The horse ain’t getting up, so stop flogging it.

Can you see John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, or Sean Connery doing this pansy ass crap? For them it would be:
Q: “Where is Loren?”
A: “Don’t know, the dumb broad walked out on me. Meet Susan my new girlfriend.”

So let’s go over this:
Over eager declaration of love = cheesy
Action filled marriage proposal = cute
Overwrought, whimpering to some chick that walked (maybe ran) out two years ago = creepy.

The first gets you a contented sigh, the second a big expensive day, the last a restraining order.

This seven minutes of hell took nine months to create. It took energy and skill. All that effort could have been spent to do something useful like… um… get a new girlfriend. Hey, it’s just a suggestion.

At least the Numa Numa kid had the grace to be embarrassed.

Notes:

The video itself is well made. Apparently Captain America (see note below) made it single handedly (the zooms, tilts, and pans were created with editing software). He managed to create some good action shots and a fairly professional feel to it. The script is not too bad with the mystery of what is all about building to the reveal at the five-minute mark. A bit long, perhaps, but still better than I (or many others) could create.

Some cynical types believed that this was made to promote the person in it (Ben Ryan Metzger) for the role of Captain America. Someone certainly posted it to many chatrooms. Given that the camera spends seven minutes on Metzger’s muscles and 20 seconds on Loren, I would not rule that out.

Some even more cynical types suggest that Metzger might not be gay.

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning in general. It is someone that is interested in more abstract and academic pursuits. These interests may or may not be technical. They may, or may not, be obscure. They are more likely to know quite a lot about quite a lot but not necessarily to the huge depth of the geek.

A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular subject or subjects. Often these will be technical or obscure. They will tend to know their subjects in incredible depth and detail, far more than a normal person could bear.

A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations and interactions. They may, or may not, be a geek or a nerd. They may have perfectly normal interests and knowledge but just find people “difficult.”

Where the confusion comes is that often these are mixed. Many nerds also have particular subjects they are geeky (expert) about. Many geeks also have a general interest in subjects outside their area of expertise (nerdy).  Due to their introspective nature, many geeks and nerds also have trouble with common social interactions (dorks).

To sum up: Some nerds are also geeks. Some geeks are also nerds. Not every nerd is also a geek. Not every geek is also a nerd. Geeks and nerds can also be dorks but not every dork is a geek or a nerd. Geeks and nerds are not always dorks.

I hope that has cleared things up.

One of the archetypes mentioned in my article on chick taxonomy was the Femme Fatale. Well it turns out there is a real life version posting on the Internet. Naturally, Typealyzer considers her a party girl.

Have fun nerdy reader, but beware the warnings in my taxonomy article.
The linked blog is probably not work or family safe.

Ostensibly the aim of StuffWhitePeopleLike is to inform a non-White person how to ingratiate themselves with the white majority. Of course this is not what it is really about. The blog brilliantly satirizes a certain segment of the population. It is the same small part of the population that David Brooks would call BoBos and some refer to as whiterpeople. This, almost entirely white, group define themselves more by attitudes than possessions. And of course those attitudes have to be “correct.”

The Swipples are the result of a prosperous society.  In a prosperous society it becomes more and more difficult to achieve status through stuff. In a wealthy society you do not really increase your status by having 5,000 square feet instead of 4,000. you do not really increase your status by having a 50 inch plasma instead of a 40 inch LCD television¹. I mean, which has more status, a late model BMW or a late model Lexus?

Moving status markers from things to attitudes gives the whiterperson many opportunities to one-up their neighbors. Purchasing a new car is trouble and costly. Installing a new kitchen will disrupt the household. But new attitudes can be adopted for free and with little disruption to your lifestyle. Talking about “economic injustice” does not require you to move out of your gated community. Praising multi-culturism can entail nothing more arduous than hiring a Mexican gardener or Filipino maid. Pontificating on the importance of “public education” does not mean you have to send you children to government schools².

You do not even have to give up buying stuff, you can engage in conspicuous non-consumption. The perfect Swipple non-consumption item is the Prius. This is 25 thousand dollars of non-consumption. It is three thousand pounds of metal, glass, and plastic shipped thousands of miles so you can save the environment. The Prius would likely not have sold as well if it were stylish and less “obvious” because then that non-consumption would be harder to spot. If you bought a Ford Escape Hybrid you had to make do with a little leaf logo and a small “hybrid” badge. The Prius made your moral virtue obvious to the world.

The thing to remember about the Swipples is that, despite their protests, they are all about status seeking. It is about showing that you are a “better” person than those other unenlightened souls.
I like my status symbols to be useful or fun. So despite being able to tick some of the SWPL boxes, I will never be part of the club. Guess I will have to make do with a 50 … no make that 80-inch plasma screen.

Notes
¹  Indeed not owning a TV is popular amongst the SWPLers.
²  A blogger by the name of Gotham Girl praised the diversity of public schools yet sends her own children to a 30 thousand dollar a year private school. [link] [Google cache]

Far worse, from a nerd hero perspective, you would imagine are romance novels. You know those books whose cover features longhaired beauties falling into the arms of buff heroes. If cinema will not feature geeky heroes what hope is there for romance novels?

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that not only is there a romance novel with a nerd hero but an entire series. Yes, an entire series. It is called, surprisingly enough, “The Nerd Series” by Vicki Lewis Thompson. Obviously you would not believe me unless I provided a link.

Of course, reading the small print (if not the novels themselves) reveals that the heroes are not particularly nerdy. In one novel the computer programmer is able to land a pilotless plane because of his flight simulator and gaming experience. As far as representing nerdish/geeky types as heroes, it is start.

But nerdy reader, do not get carried away with fantasies of falling into favor with the babes. One Amazon reviewer had this to say:

…And MAYBE that all might have been acceptable if Charlie had been a much more interesting hero. But it seems like VLT set out to make Charlie as normal and as nerdy as could be. He’s reserved, repressed, only slightly funny, and an overall nice, fairly handsome guy.
link

In other words, he would be a great nerd hero if only he was not such a nerd. I mean he is only slightly funny.

Nerd heroes? As the say, truth is stranger than fiction even heroic nerd fiction.

Here is a stereotype for you: A guy with a blog is a geek while a girl with a blog is cool. As often happens, the stereotype has some truth. Don’t you hate it when that happens?

I recently discovered an interesting new web tool called Typealyzer.  Give Typealyzer the address of the blog and it returns the Myers-Briggs temperament type for that blogger.

By using my bookmarks, following links, and some random searching I found blogs where I could determine if the blogger was male or female. I then asked Typealyzer to render its opinion.

I found that the most common type for women was ESFP. In other words they were extroverted, friendly people that were less likely to be analytical or intellectual. If I had to pick a description for an ESFP it would be party-girl (or boy). A less popular type for female bloggers was ISFP. If I had to pick a description it would be “artsy” type (or maybe a quiet party girl).

For the male bloggers the majority (almost exclusively) were introverted thinking types. Indeed large numbers came back as introverted iNtuitors (e.g., INTP, INTJ). Given that iNtuitors are only 25 percent of the population (and introverted iNtuitors perhaps eight percent) that result is surprising. If I had to pick a description for INTx it would involve the words geek or nerd. [As a Philosopher Geek I sometimes must speak painful truths]

What stood out was that there were very few extroverted male bloggers, and that most male bloggers were intellectual types. The women, on the other hand, appeared to be mostly extroverted social types.  I should make clear that I did not rely solely on Typealyzer rendering its opinion; the content of the blogs tended to match the type given.

So it seems that some stereotypes are true. Male bloggers are geeky guys and female bloggers are party-girls. Hmmm! Maybe I should start attending blogging conventions; there might be some party-girls there.

Notes

Typealyzer does not (at the time of writing) have this blog correct. Indeed as I added entries it changed its opinion radically. It still has not settled on a verdict.

Typealyzer will sometimes change its opinion on a blog over time. But on many blogs is stable and (judging by the blog content) probably correct.

I did find some introverted thinking female and some extroverted feeling male bloggers (I think Typealyzer has a thing for ESFPs). They were a minority though.