You're a Geek if....

My peers at work (Call Center with a DSL account), for some weird reason look up to me. They say I'm a very technical person and a walking encyclopedia of technology. But they're wrong, I just love to read and try things out. I'm one of the bravest few that could reformat, repartition, reinstall (Linux and Windows), and even bypass all security & activation features (of Windows) in our area. I could do it because I read and take time to understand the article.

One day, they made a wager, who among us is the geekiest. They made a list of what we have and what we could do. Well, I won even though I don't consider myself as a geek. I don't think I deserve that title since there's always someone more knowledgeable than me. But they pointed out that I deserve "geek throne" since I pass most requirements.

So here's the "You're a Geek if..." list;

• your favorite gadget (cellphone, watch, mp3 player, etc.) is designed for different purposes.

• you have more than 2 computers at home.

• your hard-drive has 4 partitions and a minimum of 3 OS installed.

• your system clock on your computers is set to UTC.

• you have a watch that tells time in binary (no one passed this).
  

• you are multi-lingual. You primarily speak in English but would prefer doing everything else in C/C++, Perl, Phyton, PHP, etc...

• you have a hard-copy of Hardware Compatibilty List of all your OS.

• the money that you're saving is for hardware upgrades, not food.

• you dislike Linux/Windows Magazines since your could read those articles on the internet.

• you have a minimum of 2 yrs subscription to Dr. Dobbs Journal, C/C++ Users Journal, and other similar magazines.
  

• the only time you use your mouse is when editing images or playing games.

• you hate GUI since it eats up a lot of resources, not to mention that your hands and fingers would have to leave your keyboard where it belongs. And speaking of keyboards, you would rather use a standard 104-keys with PS/2 connection than buy a state-of-the-art keyboard with additional (programmable) keys you would never use.

• you'd invest on LCD monitors since it's easy on the eyes.

• your PC is more expensive than your car (if you have a car).

• you know the real definition of the word Hacker.

• your bookmarks consists of technology news, how-to's, tools, and software dev't.

• your homepage is either Google or Dogpile.

• you love reading articles on TLDP.org or Textfiles.com

• you spend your freetime reading and learning new programming languages.
  

• your wife (or mom) begs you, on a daily basis, to stand up from your terminal and eat lunch (or dinner).

• you're not a stranger to 2-4hrs of sleep a day.
  

• your weekends are spent on developing softwares for personal use.

• you had job offers from a large software company but turned it down 'coz you won't be able to do what you want. You'd rather join Cambrianhouse.com

• you have Gigabytes worth of eBooks, at least half printed out for reference.

• your shelf/shelves has all kinds of Bibles. The New and Old Testaments consists of C++ Programing Language by Stroustrop (Matthew), C++ for Linux in 21 days (Luke), Windows exploits books (Revelations), Windows to Linux Toolkit (Exodus), ISP/Telecoms technical manuals (Psalms), etc...

• you believe that Firefox, even with NoScript installed, is very insecure... "it is, afterall, running in Windows".

• you smirk everytime you hear your peers talk about the new features in Vista. They didn't know that you've been using the same features on either Mac or Linux aeons ago.
  

• you're aware that Microsoft stole the GUI from Apple which was stolen from Xerox.
  

• you love GPL'd softwares and (very) rarely use proprietary softwares.

• you love downloading (even though I don't and won't advocate piracy) OS from Piratebay.

• you have CD-R/CD-RW's, DVD-R/DVD-RW's, and USB drives scattered all around your station.

• your company ID (if you're employed) has a USB drive dongling around, doesn't matter if you're using computers at work.
  

• your First Aid Kit consists of Knoppix, INSERT, and Damn Small Linux.

• you love using torrents, in fact, you prefer downloading in .torrent format.
  

• you signed up for an insane amount of bandwidth from your ISP which you rarely use.
  

• you laugh at your ISP's Technical Support Representative's competence. Sometimes you hear them blaming your OS because "Linux is incompatible with our service" only to find out that they have network issues after you tell them to run some line tests.

• you've signed up against DRM before, now you've signed up against Network Neutrality.

• and lastly, you have pale skin due to little exposure from sunlight and smell bad 'coz you'd rather be in front of your computer than take a bath (hehehe!).

So I guess this is the list, take note though that I've added some stuff on the list based on my perception of a "true geek".

If you have any additions, please leave a comment and I'll be glad to include them here.

Update (04 August 2006): Corrected grammatical errors. Please inform me if I missed any.