Apply For Your Geek Card Here

Lists may be utterly pointless, but on a Friday where the biggest tech news is Wayne Rooney’s new contract with Manchester United, hey, they fill a void. TechRepublic has a list of 10 things that will result in the REVOCATION~! of your Geek Card. I think I lost my card at E3. Number 10: Admitting you like iTunes. This is true: any geek worth his salt should be using foobar2000. Well, if you’re using Windows; if you’re on a Mac you’ve already handed over your geek card. (That’s a joke.) (Plus 10 Geek Points.)

The list…

9. Not knowing the difference between binary and hexadecimal

Know, but only because I use to fiddle with hexadecimal when trying to make GameShark codes for N64 games back in the late 90s, which is fairly geeky in and of itself. Plus 10 Geek Points.

8. Not knowing what MMORPG stands for

Obv. Plus five Geek Points.

7. Loving your cable or telecom company

I actually have no problem with my ISP. Never been capped, and downloads from Usenet (+10 Geek Points right there) run at a steady 12MB/s.

6. Not knowing the name of the book that Blade Runner was based on

Not only did I know this, but I’ve read the first two or so chapters of the book. So there. Plus five Geek Points.

5. Confusing Star Wars and Star Trek

I’ve zero interest in either of these. Minus 50 Geek Points.

4. Believing the “free” in open source refers to price

Free as in Freedom. Plus 10 Geek Points.

3. Defending Facebook for its privacy transgressions

I largely don’t care what Facebook does, being that I so rarely use it, but it’s clear that the whole organization cares as much about privacy as I care about Star Wars. Plus 20 Geek Points.

2. Taking something into Geek Squad to get fixed

Hard to visit the Geek Squad while my protest continues. N/A.

1. Buying a paper computer book at Barnes & Noble

Fairly certain I’ve never bought a paper computer book. Computer knowledge is best acquired in esoteric mailing lists and message boards. N/A

FINAL GEEK SCORE: 20 POINTS

My points scale was completely arbitrary, so your results may vary.

Where do you fall?