Lift Up Your Hearts!

My sister called me a geek because I adorned reserved church pews with such labels as "DSTB 1" and "NMB 2."  To me, that was a compliment, but I still maintain I'm too old to be a geek.  Nonetheless, I was pleased to note that I scored higher than expected on Geek Dad's 100 Essential Skills for Geeks.

1. Properly secure a wireless router.  I can't count this one, as Porter has always done it for our systems.  But I could have figured it out and done it if necessary.
2. Crack the WEP key on a wireless router.
3. Leech Wifi from your neighbor.  Not for long, but I did occasionally back in the day when most people didn't bother to secure their routers and before there were air cards.
4. Screw with Wifi leeches.
5. Setup and use a VPN.
6. Work from home or a coffee shop as effectively as you do at the office.  My home is my office, so this is a given.  I'm not so comfortable with coffee shops, though I've done it.  If I were a real geek, maybe I wouldn't be so paranoid about security.  Or maybe I'd be more.
7. Wire your own home with Ethernet cable.  Porter did this.  I could have done the geek part, but I'm not so sure about the crawling-around-in-tight-spaces-in-the-attic part.
8. Turn a web camera into security camera.
9. Use your 3G phone as a Wi-Fi access point.
10. Understand what “There’s no Place Like 127.0.0.1” means.
11. Identify key-loggers.
12. Properly connect a TV, Tivo, XBox, Wii, and Apple TV so they all work together with the one remote.  Wouldn't want to.  :)
13. Program a universal remote.  Not high on my priority list, but I think I did it once.
14. Swap out the battery on your iPod/iPhone.  Hmm, this skill must be more difficult than it is on my non-i phone.
15. Benchmark Your Computer
16. Identify all computer components on sight.  Probably not.  But I bet I could identify some 1970's computer components that many modern geeks can't.
17. Know which parts to order from NewEgg.com, and how to assemble them into a working PC.
18. Troubleshoot any computer/gadget problem, over the phone.  Nope.  Few things are more frustrating.  I'm not bad if the other person has the same system, version, and set-up as I do, but does that ever happen?
19. Use any piece of technology intuitively, without instruction or prior knowledge.  I do like to play with things and figure them out without reading the manual first—more so now that mistakes only break my computer, not someone else's—but I want a real manual, not a booklet that's only more than a couple of pages by virtue of saying the same thing in 10 languates, and not a .pdf that I can't read until I've already installed the system.
20. How to irrecoverably protect data.
21. Recover data from a dead hard drive.
22. Share a printer between a Mac and a PC on a network.
23. Install a Linux distribution. (Hint: Ubuntu 9.04 is easier than installing Windows)
24. Remove a virus from a computer.  I don't ever want to have an opportunity to learn this skill.
25. Dual (or more) boot a computer.
26. Boot a computer off a thumb drive.
27. Boot a computer off a network drive.
28. Replace or repair a laptop keyboard.
29. Run more than two monitors on a single computer.  Aw, shucks.  When I first read this, I thought it said "two monitors," not "more than two."
30. Successfully disassemble and reassemble a laptop.  Never done that, but I know a completely non-geeky, blonde musician who replaced her laptop's hard drive using a screwdriver and tech support from India.  This is the origin of our family's "O as in Nancy" reference, that being a phrase said tech support used when giving her a key necessary for installing the drivers.
31. Know at least 10 software easter eggs off the top of your head.
32. Bypass a computer password on all major operating systems. Windows, Mac, Linux
33. Carrying a computer cleaning arsenal on your USB drive.
34. Bypass content filters on public computers.
35. Protect your privacy when using a public computer.  If there's more to this than clearing the cache and browsing history, and closing the browser, I don't know it—which is one reason why I avoid public computers when possible.
36. Surf the web anonymously from home.
37. Buy a domain, configure bind, apache, MySQL, php, and Wordpress without Googling a how-to.
38. Basic *nix command shell knowledge with the ability to edit and save a file with vi.
39. Create a web site using vi.
40. Transcode a DVD to play on a portable device.
41. Hide a file in an image using steganography.
42. Knowing the answer to life, the universe and everything.  Clever, though I didn't realize it until I added "42" to the list of numbers I could say "yes" to.
43. Share a single keyboard and mouse between multiple computers without a KVM switch.
44. Google obscure facts in under 3 searches. Bonus point if you can use I Feel Lucky.  I never use I Feel Lucky, but I am apparently better than most at finding what I want with Google.
45. Build amazing structures with LEGO and invent a compelling back story for the creation.  Too old for the LEGO questions.  Do Tinker Toys count?
46. Understand that it is LEGO, not Lego, Legos, or Lego’s.  Of course it's not Lego's.  Even geeks should punctuate correctly!
47. Build a two story house out of LEGO, in monochrome, with a balcony.
48. Construct a costume for you or your kid out of scraps, duct tape, paper mâché, and imagination.  This was SOP when I was growing up.
49. Be able to pick a lock.
50. Determine the combination of a Master combination padlock in under 10 minutes.
51. Assemble IKEA furniture without looking at the instructions. Bonus point if you don’t have to backtrack.  Would you believe I've never been in an IKEA store, as far as I remember?  There's one around here somewhere, but too far away for me to look for it without a compelling reason, and I HATE SHOPPING FOR FURNITURE.
52. Use a digital SLR in full manual mode.
53. Do cool things to Altoids tins.
54. Be able to construct paper craft versions of space ships.
55. Origami! Bonus point for duct tape origami. (Ductigami)  I have done some origami in my time, but when John Montroll is your standard, you don't claim to do origami unless you've made it all the way through one of his books, and I haven't—even though we own at least 15 of them.
56. Fix anything with duct tape, chewing gum and wire.  Does it count that on a high-school trip to Europe I fixed my camera with string and glue?
57. Knowing how to avoid being eaten by a grue. I've been eaten by one many a time, but finally succeeded in avoiding being lunch.
58. Know what a grue is.  Doggone.  I looked it up once, but as with many things I look up once, the definition currently eludes me.
59. Understand where XYZZY came from, and have used it.  Oh, the memories.  My first computer game ever, and still my favorite, despite its simplicity.
60. Play any SNES game on your computer through an emulator.
61. Burn the rope.
62. Know the Konami code, and where to use it.
63. Whistle, hum, or play on an iPhone, the Cantina song.  Many times, though not on the iPhone.
64. Learning to play the theme songs to the kids favorite TV shows.  I can sing "It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" and most of the songs from The Pirates of Penzance, which pretty much exhausts my kids' "favorite TV shows."
65. Solve a Rubik’s Cube.  Now that my five-year-old grandson can do better than me at this, maybe I'll resort to looking it up online.
66. Calculate THAC0.
67. Know the difference between skills and traits.
68. Explain special relativity in terms an eight-year-old can grasp.
69. Recite pi to 10 places or more.  Piece of cookie.
70. Be able to calculate tip and split the check, all in your head.  This is why I don't go out to eat without Porter.  I can do it, but I like to leave the restaurant before midnight.
71. Explain that the colours in a rainbow are roygbiv.  That's geeky?  I thought that was normal.  Geeky is "Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain."
72. Understand the electromagnetic spectrum - xray, uv, visible, infrared, microwave, radio.  Once upon a time...though "understand" is perhaps too broad a term.
73. Know the difference between radiation and radioactive contamination.  Radiation is what I was soaking up at the beach yesterday.  Radioactive contamination is what I was hoping was not present at the nearby nuclear submarine facility.
74. Understand basic electronics components like resistors, capacitors, inductors and transistors.  At one time I could have told you a lot about them, and even recited a rude mnemonic for remembering the resistor color code.  But I never could remember whether "bad" meant black or brown.
75. Solder a circuit while bottle feeding an infant. (lead free solder please.)  Illegal question.  What's that infant doing with a bottle?  This is merely a cover-up for the fact that approximately 50% of the potential geek population would be eliminated if the skill were "Solder a circuit while nursing an infant."
76. The meaning of technical acronyms.  I know many TLA's, but not nearly enough to qualify.
77. The coffee dash, blindfolded (or blurry eyed). Coffee <brew> [cream] [sugar]. In under a minute.
78. Build a fighting robot.
79. Program a fighting robot.
80. Build a failsafe into a fighting robot so it doesn’t kill you.
81. Be able to trace the Fellowship’s journey on a map of Middle Earth.  Despite my poor memory for such details, I could probably do it.  Having read the books a couple of dozen times can make anything stick.
82. Know all the names of the Dwarves in The Hobbit.  To my embarrassment, I could only come up with nine of thirteen off the top of my head.  The rest would come with time, however.
83. Understand the difference between a comic book and a graphic novel.  I can do this thanks to Groshlink.  Prior to reading Tom's post I thought graphic novels were something to be avoided, like graphic violence.  I still think they're something to be avoided, but for different reasons.
84. Know where your towel is and why it is important.
85. Re-enact the parrot sketch.
86. Know the words to The Lumberjack Song.
87. Reciting key scenes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  I've never seen any Monty Python movie, so that probably disqualifies me completely.  But I can nonetheless recite, "Bring out your dead!"
88. Be able to recite at least one Geek Movie word for word.
89. Know what the 8th Chevron does on a Stargate and how much power is required to get a lock.
90. Be able to explain why it’s important that Han shot first.  I did not know this, but having looked it up, it is, indeed, critically important that Han shot first.  I am exceedingly disappointed in George Lucas for caving in to—what? Political Correctness?  I don't know how to name it—and with one seemingly minor change removing the depth and moral evolution of Han Solo's character.
91. Know why it is just wrong for Luke and Leia to kiss.  It doesn't take a geek to know this, merely someone who sees all kissing in sexual terms.
92. [Rude item removed.  See the original if you care.]
93. The ability to name actors, characters and plotlines from the majority of sci-fi movies produced since 1968.  I guess this assumes one has actually seen the majority of sci-fi movies produced since 1968.
94. Cite Mythbusters when debunking a myth or urban legend.
95. Sleep with a Cricket bat next to your bed.
96. Have a documented plan on what to do during a zombie or robot uprising.
97. Identify evil alternate universe versions of friends, family, co-workers or self.
98. Be able to convince TSA that the electronic parts you are carrying are really not a threat to passengers.  No, but I've had to convince a tollbooth attendant that the dollar coin was legal tender in the United States.
99. Talk about things that aren’t tech related.  Sure, as long as they're related to education, childrearing, genealogy, conservationist living, and whatever else I talk about on this blog.  Oh, you mean actual, physical conversation?  Hmmm....
100. Get something on the front page of Digg.  In my dreams.  Or nightmares, I haven't decided which.