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I'm not sure the author quite understood the seeing Star Wars thing was a super low bar fitness test. Once long ago my new wife asked me why geeks always wear t
by noonespecial 14y ago
I'm not sure the author quite understood the seeing Star Wars thing was a super low bar fitness test. Once long ago my new wife asked me why geeks always wear tshirts with obscure references that no one gets. I was slightly put out by the question until I figured it out. They're a uniform. It's how we id the friendlies on the battlefield.
- milliams 14y agoSeveral years ago I was linked to a thesis (Master's I think) discussing this exact topic. That they're a silent signal to others who might have similar interests to you. Especially obscure ones which look 'normal' to people who don't know the reference. I seem to remember that it was a little more in-depth than that but I can't find it now.
- geoka9 14y ago> I figured it out. They're a uniform. I think it's just a way of showing off. Case in point: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12532552/what-part-of-milner-hindley-do-you-not-understand http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12532552/what-part-of-mil... The guy has no idea what the notation means by still wants to wear the t-shirt.
- smacktoward 14y agoYou're both right. It's social signaling: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory Your Star Wars or Hindley-Milner t-shirt tells people who see it that you're a particular kind of person. This encourages people who are like you to approach you, because it signals that you're safe -- you're "one of us." Likewise, it discourages those who are unlike you from doing the same, sparing you from having conversations with people you find boring. If you work in a community where high intelligence is seen as socially valuable -- i.e., where a way the high-status individuals distinguish themselves from the rest is by highlighting their intelligence -- like tech, it's not surprising that you'd want clothing that would signal that you are a high-intelligence person, even if you aren't one. It's an attempt to get your foot in the door of social groups that would otherwise be closed to you, by camouflaging yourself as "one of us."
- michaelt 14y agoLet's say you started a company and named it after a technical concept from computer science (for example a higher order function that computes the fixed point of other functions in lambda calculus) would that be an example of this signalling?
- thejsjunky 14y ago> The guy has no idea what the notation means by still wants to wear the t-shirt. I'd read that SO post again, you seem to have misunderstood.
- noonespecial 14y agoI read the post and got the opposite. He saw the shirt and wanted to know the meaning. He even knew the context in which it should have that meaning. I'd say he's earning the right to wear the shirt with pride right there.
- tcdowney 14y agoThanks for this. I was sick the day they taught this notation in my PL class and I need to learn it before my final exam next week!!! :)
- marquis 14y agoI saw a t-shirt once at a hacker conference that said 'I can read your email'. This was back 10 years ago now and I thought it was the best thing ever. Sadly they had run out of girls sizes and I never owned one, but I always wanted people to be just a bit afraid of me - not that I would read their email but that I could. Now I guess it was a good thing because people just might have been afraid of me, or thought I was bragging. But c'mon, email was pretty easy to hack into back then.. Oh and yeah. I wanted the t-shirt so other hackers would know I was part of their group. Because I was a girl I felt it wasn't obvious.
- breadbox 14y agoI think the _author_ understood that, which is why she was so surprised to get the question. The high school student may not have, but that was kind of the point: even this low, low bar was still too high for her female friends.
- GhotiFish 14y agoI actually didn't understand the question when that came up. I kinda got the wrong impression of the young girls demeanor.
- venomsnake 14y agoI think this article can also help http://io9.com/5928739/the-secrets-of-geek-mating-rituals http://io9.com/5928739/the-secrets-of-geek-mating-rituals geeks really value smarts in both sexes. So we always try to outsmart all and are delighted when we don't succeed. I have had a few relationships break down just because my gf would never understand that I will argue for everything just for the sake of flexing my brain.
- 14113 14y agoOn the flipside, I've had relationships that break because both sides try to argue everything. A certain amount of testing and probing is good, but continually it creates a really hostile environment that (for me at least) is just too psychological tiring to try and live in.
- geon 14y ago> I have had a few relationships break down just because my gf would never understand that I will argue for everything just for the sake of flexing my brain. ...or perhaps because you just wouldn't stop arguing. Making a relationship work requires adaption from both partners.
- rubyrescue 14y agoit's the movie equivalent of atoi()
- yen223 14y agoIt is the same reason why we insert random programming references into comments :P
- noonespecial 14y agoDon't mind him rubyrescue, he's just trying to string you along. Oi.
- protomyth 14y ago> They're a uniform. It's how we id the friendlies on the battlefield I'm not sure about that. I think people tend to wear things they feel good about. Sport jerseys, political shirts, or funny t-shirts just make us feel good. Some people feel better when were the in-crowd things, some are our for themselves. // this is my favorite http://www.openbsd.org/tshirts.html#30 http://www.openbsd.org/tshirts.html#30 the 4.4 t-shirt
- fennecfoxen 14y ago> > They're a uniform. It's how we id the friendlies on the battlefield > I'm not sure about that. I think people tend to wear things they feel good about. Both of these things can be true. There are deep-seated reasons that people seek to project their identity through personal appearance and other techniques... :)
- InclinedPlane 14y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth
- fudged71 14y agoIrony: how do you pronounce that? IPA isn't exactly readable.
- InclinedPlane 14y agohttp://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=shibboleth http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=shibboleth
- andor 14y agoRTFM ;-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_English#Key http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_English#Key
- fudged71 14y agoRight, but it's unintuitive and takes a while to decrypt. Browser extension idea: hover over IPA to see only the relevant glyph pronunciations.
- jholman 14y ago1) It's pronounced like a native English speaker would guess. SHIH buh leth. 2) IPA is tough, but in Wikipedia's case, if you mouse-over each IPA symbol, it'll give you a "/ʃ/ 'sh' in 'shy'" and so on.
- rekwah 14y agoThis isn't limited to just geeky t-shirts with obscure references. Clothing is one of the easiest ways for a person to indirectly advertise their interests. This helps lower the 'awkward approach' barrier for strangers that might like to strike up a conversation. Instant conversation starter. Even living in the PNW, I still get plenty of waves and cries of "Go Pack!" whenever I wear a hat or shirt supporting the Packers. I wear the memorabilia for myself, but the social benefits don't go unnoticed.
- petercooper 14y agoI've not seen Star Wars. Well, I tried to but fell asleep 10 minutes in. Oddly, I'm not feeling like an odd one out here, even so :-)
- lotharbot 14y agoI refused to watch Star Wars as a kid, because people kept telling me that if I was a nerd I had to watch it. I considered it a protest against their definition of "nerd". I did finally watch the original trilogy after I was married. It's OK I guess...
- yew 14y agoI've decided to protest against protesting against definitions, on the grounds that they're words and protesting against them will redefine them to something that someone else will protest against, ad infinitum, and I don't want to die from a stack overflow ;)
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- mogrim 14y agoWatching it as an adult was always going to be a recipe for failure, I think you really need to have grown up with swapping Star Wars cards, playing with the figures, etc.
- ahoyhere 14y ago
- memset 14y agoI am guilty of this (using the term "guilty" because, as we're discussing in this thread, this can really turn people off of being in our field.) My HN name is "memset", and if you've ever written C, you are quite familiar with this function. So if this comes up in conversation with other tech people, and they don't "get it", it tells me something about them. "Hm, we don't have the same background." It remains to be seen how useful this is as a way to decide what kinds of people I feel I could learn from or want to work with in the future.
- marquis 14y agoMy great mentor taught me that every time someone might have a blank face at what you say, look at it as an opportunity for learning. Most people love it when you get excited and say "yeah, memset is this awesome way of getting data ready to copy on a computer. You know when you watch a movie on Youtube it preloads while you watch? Memset is helping make sure your computer is prepared so you can watch it without annoying buffering". People start thinking it's pretty cool as they can relate to it.
- skrebbel 14y agoI see your point, yet I have a really hard time associating something like memset() with "awesome". I think if anyone would actually respond "wow, cool!" to a story like that, the message to me is that this person finds everything (s)he doesn't understand cool.
- marquis 14y agoMemset isn't aweseome. It's what you do with that's cool. Explain what you do, not that you use Python or Go or C#. People want to hear a narrative, a story. What gets you really interested in your work? Why do you do it? Tell that.
- ams6110 14y agoThey're saying "Wow, cool!" to be nice. In their head, they're thinking "gawd what a dweeb"