Computer Nerds of the World - Unite!

Nerds, geeks, whatever. They're just not what they used to be. I know. I'm a geekess. But the internet seems to be changing the very fabric of geekdom. We are no longer the brainy but socially inept types best used to advantage in a small room with lots of whatever geeky stuff he or she prefers and left alone. We are now SOCIALLY MOBILE! That is to say, we can now actually communicate with each other and the world AND we have become the new pioneer. Of course, the stereotypical image of the geek is not true to reality. We tend to run from completely incapable of social communication (even autism) to brilliant glad-handing politicians. The only thing we all seem to have in common is that we "think" a bit differently from other folk. That is we process information in a different manner and we perceive things differently. This may be immediately obvious is the true stereotypical geek and much more difficult to detect at either end of the bell curve for geekiness. There is even some emerging evidence that geekiness and autism are linked genetically. As more and more geeks become "valuable assets" to high tech companies and are clustered in areas close to headquarters, we are seeing a significant rise in the number of cases of autism being reported in those same areas. Not yet really a smoking gun, but still something to think about. Now comes this article from BBC.