Rihards Online

Few months ago MaximumPC published a list of 9 Skills Every Nerd Needs. Soon thereafter Gizmodo posted their list which had 50 skills that every geek should have. And of course, this made them feel all womanly, to be one-upped by Gizmodo.

So they have come out with their own list of 50 Skills Every Real Geek Should Have.

Why Checklist in the title? Because I want to see how many of those things I’ve done/can do. And maybe even update it from time to time, if I don’t get all lazy again and start doing something else, which seems to happen quite often lately. Without further ado, let us begin!

MaximumPC List

1. Name These Connectors! (DDR Memory, Dual Channel RIMM, PCI Express Connector)
2. Run All Your Essential Apps on a USB Stick
3. Straighten the Pins on an Older CPU
4. Know the 13 Basic HTML Tags (can even point out mistakes in their little explanation)
5. Get Through to Executive Customer Service
6. Beat Quake in Under an Hour
7. Build a Hackintosh (have a macbook, so no idea how useful this really is)
8. Watch TV Shows on the Internet (Legally!)
9. Get Around the Content Filter on Public Computers
10. Recite pi to 23 Decimal Places (the use of being able to do this escapes me)
11. Replace the Controller Board on a Hard Drive
12. Benchmark Your Computer
13. Decorate Your Room Using Only Printer Paper (love these things!)
14. Securely Erase Your Data So it Can’t be Recovered
15. Get into a Windows Computer if you Forgot Your Password (rainbow tables for the win!)
16. Hide Porn from Your Significant Other
17. Explain What E=MC^2 Means to a Liberal Arts Major (should try this, really)
18. Abstain from Buying Extended Warranties
19. Use Photoshop or GIMP to Imperceptibly Doctor a Photo (I do it almost every day)
20. Use a DSLR in Full Manual Mode
21. Mooch Your Neighbor’s Wi-Fi (done it, but it’s a bad thing to do!)
22. Protect your Wi-Fi
23. Create an Animated Spray in Valve Games
24. Set up a RAID
25. Calculate a Pitcher’s Earned Run Average (baseball, yuck)
26. Run Two Operating Systems
27. Install a Hard Drive in a Laptop
28. Pull Off an Elaborate Prank
29. Rocket Jump Without Using a Macro
30. Wire Your Home with Ethernet Cable
31. Know the 6 Most Important Linux Commands
32. Rip Your CDs to FLAC
33. Stream Your Movies, Music, and Photos to Any TV in Your House
34. Install and Configure a Virtual Machine
35. Run Multiple Monitors Like a Pro
36. Hack Firmware on a Router
37. Pick a Lock
38. Differentiate Between Dr. Pepper and Mr. Pibb (if we had either of them here, maybe)
39. Avoid DRM on everything
40. Download Flash Video and Bend it to Your Will
41. Get Around In DOS
42. Rip a DVD to h.264
43. Overclock Your PC and Tune Your BIOS
44. Use Remote Desktop (use it quite often for work already)
45. Debate the Relative Merits of an Imperial Star Destroyer vs. the USS Enterprise (never!)
46. Build Your Own Computer

Total: 36 out 46.

So much for there actually being 50 skills. Hmm oh well, I’m still quite happy with the outcome. Just 10 things that I haven’t done, for whatever reason. Though with some of the things on the list I’ll probably not be able to complete this list anytime soon. Sadly. Oh well.