Brian Alleyne

"Beginning in 1983, when I was 16/17, I took both formal and informal training in programming and information technology. After that start, I had periods when I flirted with becoming an application developer—but these were never quite serious, and by the time I was thinking seriously about a programming career in the later 1980s, I had already been drawn towards sociology. I was then, and remain, a kind of geek—the computer technology enthusiast—a rarer creature in the 1980s than in the early twenty-first century. Back then, the ‘computer guy’ (always referred to as male, though I remember working with quite a few female computer specialists) was recognized as highly knowledgeable and skilled. I made a decent living as a part-time programmer and computer literacy tutor, earning enough to support myself while I attended university as a full-time undergraduate in sociology."

In “Geek and Hacker Stories Code, Culture and Storytelling From the Technosphere” by Brian Alleyne

"As I write this, it is now more than 30 years since first I stared at green glowing alphanumeric characters on a computer monitor, back to 1983 when I learned word processing with WordStar and got my first BASIC programs to work. Now I stare at high-resolution screens with rich displays that mimic a glossy magazine, and my smartphone has more memory than the washing machine-sized IBM minicomputer on which I worked as a system operator in my first proper job; that was in 1984. What has not changed is my sense of wonder at personal computing. I am a computer geek."

In “Geek and Hacker Stories Code, Culture and Storytelling From the Technosphere” by Brian Alleyne

The last quote above could be applied to me…Has there been a better time to be a nerd/geek than now? Or is it all about the 80s? Well that's the headlines at least. And if you can read between the headlines, it's pretty simple. These two statements contradict each other. If "there's never been a better time to be a nerd", then that means that being a nerd used to be a much shittier experience than it is today. And that means that being a nerd/geek most definitely is a thing. As somebody who actually knows what the 80s and 90s were like, it wasn't a pleasant experience to be a nerd in those days. People simply assumed that your opinions didn't count. People wished you were more "normal". People just assumed that you deserved all the stick you were getting. There will always be one faction who insists that the oppressive system must be called to account, versus the other faction who thinks that you should man up and solve real world problems instead of whining about it. There will always be one faction who thinks that you should make peace with the system and another who thinks the world should meet you on your own terms and if they can't, well fuck them. There will always be people who, if you complain about being an oppressed race, they'll tell you that women have it worse. If you complain about being a woman, they'll tell you that being gay is worse, and if you complain about being gay, they'll tell you that being a minority race is worse. Fact of the matter is that identity politics - whether about race or religion or gender or sexual orientation or being a nerd/geek - will have plenty in common with each other.

Being deeply interested in science and math is just as much of a choice as going to a cosplay convention, no? Having an aptitude for those things may not be, but none of us are obliged to focus only on things we have an aptitude for and ignore everything we don't. Alleyne’s book reminded me that as a kid I used to misspell words on purpose so as to get out of participating in the spelling competition, probably because I'd been skipped a grade ahead and didn't want to be seen as a nerd. It's not something I'd urge anyone else to do and my mother would've been furious had she known, but it was a choice I made. Incidentally I Also did the same when I went to do the conscription exams (physical and theoretical) when I was called up (I was still in college and I wanted to finish it before I went there to do my duty to my country). You may actually not be aware that there are cultures out there who see nerdiness/geekiness as a neutral or maybe even good thing. If you want to know why Western schoolchildren do badly in school compared to people from other developed countries, for me the chief culprit is the problematic relationship with its nerds. This equation of nerdiness/geekiness with cultural undesirability is already a large form of hostility.

To me there are two problems in society that arise from this: first is that a lot of human potential is wasted when people are discouraged by their peers to push themselves to do the nerdy thing and pick one or two fields to excel at. And the second problem is that the cultural contempt for nerds is paid back with interest when the nerds grow up and get to run the world, and decide that the rest of humanity who treated them that way in high school would be better off with minimum wage jobs for the rest of their lives.

Did I "reflexively" not decide for myself, that I didn't want to be seen as a nerd at school? Nope. It was something I thought about over an extended period of time later on - who I was, who I wanted to be, and who might be my allies. I had possibly an unusual opportunity to give this thought because my school took an experimental approach, combining 2 grades in one classroom in an effort to minimize disruption for kids who needed to repeat a year, and for those of us who might skip a year ahead. I was given the chance to skip 2 years ahead and my parents (wisely I think) decided that it would have been too awkward socially, since my birthday is in the summer and I was already younger than most of my classmates. I wouldn't go so far as to say I was savvy or mature in my thought process at that age, but all of us make an endless series of choices as to who we are and want to be. I was strangely far less sensitive about reading voraciously than spelling well, and had to be taken aside by the librarian and told to stop entering reading-related competitions so as to give other kids a chance.

I agree that nerdiness/geekiness can be a good thing, but pressure to be an academic success can be overbearing too, sometimes beyond all reason. I think much smaller classes would go a long way towards reducing bullying, and towards helping schools help students work out what their strengths and weaknesses are, but it's an expensive way to operate.

On the bright side, there were large rooms that were full of techie stuff to "play with". You more or less just got on with what you wanted, within reason. If you wanted to do something interesting then you wrote a bubble sort program in C and a data formatting program in Basic (my parents bought me a ZX Spectrum) or you built your own BBS server (as I did back in the day). Plus we had the Fairchild Channel F, Atari 2600, APF-MP1000, Magnavox Odyssey 2, etc., Love and Rockets, X-Mal Deutschland, etc., and that was just the gaming and music sections. In films we still had Aliens, Predator, and Star Wars before they got fucked up by accountants and toy manufacturers. It was a great time to be a nerd/geek.

NB: Nerd & geek are not synonyms. Ed Milliband is a nerd, Bill Gates is a geek. They may have both been picked on at school for being 'different', but it's a different kind of 'different'. And as someone once (almost) said, "The geek shall inherit the earth". Geek is always tech related, nerd is more comic books and dungeons & dragons. There are obviously many geeks into nerdy stuff, and many nerds that are into tech stuff. But I (a total geek) hated most of the nerdy stuff (still do). I've a degree in Computer Engineering, and have spent all my first working years since graduating working as a *nix and Oracle, and SAP R/3 sysadmin before moving on to the nasty world of consulting and corporate greed. Being a sysadmin I couldn't give a shit whether trendy cocks thought being geeky was "chic" or not. I've Been There, Done that, wrote my T-Shirt 16 Years Ago. And, no, you can't buy the T-Shirt any more. Tough shit, trendies. Besides, geeks don't wear geek t-shirts. They wear a t-shirt that declares their favourite Linux distro, or plain t-shirt that badly need ironing (T-shirts need ironing? News to me; my t-shirt today says "I DON’T NEED GOOGLE. MY WIFE KNOWS EVERYTHING".… (mais)

Understanding the Power of Love
A Life Changing Revelation
by Brian Alleyne

This 109 page Christian-based blessed helper was both an eye-opener and a Godsend. It defined love in such a pure and simple fashion that it reminded me the power of God in all his many facets. I feel that the author's gentle honest style can help many to a true understanding of themselves and their relationship to others. I would recommend this sweet messenger to anyone wanting divine guidance during these most troubling of times. Thanks Brian, God Bless you and all you do.

Love & Light,

Riki Frahmann… (mais)