Funny. I thought that the idea behind being a geek wasn't to learn arbitrary and unnecessary skills. My friends and I'd always thought it was about taking advantage of our intelligence to learn things we thought we'd need to know or like to know in the future. All the stuff we learned - including the rare overlaps with this list - sprung from that need to know.

I've met a few geeks who feel like there's some sacred path to being a geek that means you've got to know all the dwarves' names from the Hobbit, and I've wanted to hit them all across the face. Smug dipshittery is just as bad when you're a geek as it is when you're an athlete.

# 5 - Don't get suckered into reading unnecessarily long lists.

I couldn't bear it anymore past point 15.

> Be able to calculate tip and split the check, all in your head.

Wait. What?

So being able to do simple math is reserved for geeks now?

Also:

> Understand that it is LEGO, not Lego, Legos, or Lego’s.

You are not truly geeky unless you are a pedantic asshole. Make sure you rage in comments any time someone accidentally writes "it's" where they mean "its"... because, you know, it can't just be a typo.

No, but game theory is. Splitting the bill without tediously adding up everybody's items and without everybody paying for the single gourmet's dessert is a mechanism design problem.

Get something on the front page of Digg? You've got to be kidding me.

No self-respecting Geek has used Digg since 2007, at the latest.

He was probably facetiously referring to the fact that "Top [0-9]+" lists are a well-known variety of linkbait that tend to do well on sites like Digg and reddit.

"Google obscure facts in under 3 searches. __Bonus point__ if you can use I Feel Lucky."

That says it all. Basically a 'geek' version of "How much of an 80's child are you?" facebook style quizzes presented as something more. These things really bug me as they promte the fetishing of "geek culture".

This is silly. There may not be anyone who needs all of these skills, and the author himself doesn't have them all.

I guess the title "A very long list of geeky skills you may or may not need" was not very catchy.

More like "100 Essential Skills for Geek Posers"

Silly list than skims the superficial surface of what others think we are like.

If OP bothered to submerge himself into our world for more than a few microseconds, maybe he'd come up with a real list that understands true geekdom. And that list would not be "100". No self-respecting geek reads any list with a composite number of entries.

I think the negative comments here are reading too deep into this. I'm pretty sure it's not meant to be taken literally.

I upvoted you for the last sentence though.

It's too bad "skill" 84 wasn't listed at the proper number.

You made it all the way to 84? My attention span aint what it used to be. I was skimming by #4, and tl;dr by the break after 10, and back here to let someone else point out the highlights.

Pfft, like I'd use vi.

I guess this brings up the question of whether "geek" and "hacker" are synonymous. In my head the difference is that a "hacker" focuses his/her intelligence and interests to more productive ends, while "geek" is the superset of people who are particularly interested in technology.

"Properly connect a TV, Tivo, XBox, Wii, and Apple TV so they all work together with the one remote."

Is that even possible? I'm pretty sure some of those are IR remotes and some are bluetooth.

That's why "being sufficiently microcontroller-competent to build an IR-to-BT bridge" is on the list...

(no, it isn't, but I'd have made a point if it were)

It starts off with amazingly good qualifiers, but quickly degrades into a list of obscure SF references :-(

"Get something on the front page of Digg." - I doubt