OT: Geeks and ninjahood?

[Paul Lussier]

"Drew Van Zandt" <drew.vanzandt at gmail.com> writes:

> Note that I'm being a bit tongue-in-cheek when I refer to it as
> "ninjahood", but has anyone else noticed a high correlation between
> engineers/programmers and ninjahood?  80% of the students at the dojo
> I go to are engineers or programmers, and about half the
> engineer-types I mention aikido around say something like "Hmmm I'm
> interested in that, where do you go to learn that?"  (Woburn Aikikai)
> ... And while non-geeks I talk to usually ask "What's aikido, some
> sort of martial art?" the geeks tend to know what it is and maybe even
> some of the differences between it and the other martial arts.

Geeks by definition, are people who are a) interested in everything,
and b) always completely dis-satisfied with their current level of
knowledge in everything, which therefore, leads to c) wanting to know
more about everything.

People who don't know what Aikido is are probably the same people who
don't know or care about knowing that there is more than one
manufacturer of toasters.  Whereas a Geek will know not only that
there are several manufacturers of said appliance, but will know which
ones are hackable[1].  So, I think it stands to reason that geeks who
are interested in martial arts will first have conducted a survey of
available styles and forms, and concluded that they, much like
distributions of Linux, all have strengths and weaknesses, and
therefore, should all be studied to some extent[2] :)


Footnotes:
----------
[1] I'm curious to know who on this list has hacked their toaster,
    and/or can provide a recommendation for a good four-slice,
    bagel-width toaster with a decent feature set.  My toaster sucks
    and sorely needs replacing, but I haven't had the time to do the
    adequate research :)

[2] I've studied Aikido and Tang Su Do, but have interests in
    Ju-Jitsu, and really, any other martial art (except Tae Kwan Do,
    which seems more of a contrived for competition sport than a true
    martial art), none of which do I have time for :(
-- 
Seeya,
Paul
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