Next Week, 500+ Geek Talks Around the World 60
Brady Forrest writes "Next week, from March 1-5 there will be ~65 Ignite events happening around the world. Ignite is an opportunity for geeks to share their passions and ideas with local peers. Each speaker gets 20 slides that each auto-advance after 15 seconds for a total of just 5 minutes. The result is bite-size chunks of information that inform the crowd on new topics. Most of the Ignites will be streamed on the new Ignite video site."
Well, TED did jump the shark this year (Score:5, Interesting)
So in other words, this will be TED without the elitism (used to be you had to get "invited", now you can't join at all except to pay $1k to get streaming video), astronomical ticket prices ($6000 to attend the conference!), etc?
Christopher Poole, founder of 4chan, was invited to talk this year at TED.
"Eyyyyy!" *splash*
Re:Geeks Vs Nerds (Score:4, Interesting)
I mostly agree. I've been saying for some years now that back in the day, geeks/nerds were people who were passionate about some out-of-the-mainstream interest. SF, computers, model railroads, real railroads, chess, war games, obscure bits of history...
But nowadays 'nerd' is synonymous with what would have been called a 'computer geek'.
The meaning of geek has suffered an even worse fate - geek now means conformity. It's not just about being into Star Trek or anime, it's about having seen and being into the right anime. About knowing the popular cultural references. About having read the right books and seen the right movies. (Hence the phrase "geek cred" and "turn in your geek card")
I don't call myself a geek or a nerd nowadays, because both terms have been rendered essentially meaningless.
Hmm... I guess I don't agree after all.