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whm1974
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Help me understand, why is there a sport section?

Tue Dec 05, 2017 5:11 pm

OK I'm wondering why there is a sport's section on a geek site? After all true geeks and nerds have a strong disdain for people that like or play sports, especially football and wrestling.

Can you guys clear this up for me?
 
Vhalidictes
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Re: Help me understand, why is there a sport section?

Tue Dec 05, 2017 5:12 pm

I'm curious myself. If I ever wanted to pad my post count for some reason, I'd ask too.

While you're posting, whm1974, you should probably make another one in the back porch. Something along the lines of "Nerd Don't Drink Alcohol, so JBI = ???". I mean if you're going to stereotype you may as well go all-in.
Last edited by Vhalidictes on Tue Dec 05, 2017 5:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
 
whm1974
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Re: Help me understand, why is there a sport section?

Tue Dec 05, 2017 5:14 pm

Vhalidictes wrote:
I'm curious myself. If I ever wanted to pad my post count for some reason, I'd ask too.

I am not trying to pad my post count!!!
 
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Re: Help me understand, why is there a sport section?

Tue Dec 05, 2017 5:15 pm

whm1974 wrote:
OK I'm wondering why there is a sport's section on a geek site? After all true geeks and nerds have a strong disdain for people that like or play sports, especially football and wrestling.

What? I would wager that most "geeks" like to watch sports, and quite a few of them play them also. Why would those not be largely intersecting interests in the Venn diagram.
 
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Re: Help me understand, why is there a sport section?

Tue Dec 05, 2017 5:15 pm

Help me understand, why do you start useless threads like this?

Not all people who are into tech as a hobby or day job hate sports. You're projecting your own beliefs and preferences onto others again. Just because you're into computers and hate sports doesn't mean everyone else here feels the same.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
whm1974
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Re: Help me understand, why is there a sport section?

Tue Dec 05, 2017 5:20 pm

just brew it! wrote:
Help me understand, why do you start useless threads like this?

Not all people who are into tech as a hobby or day job hate sports. You're projecting your own beliefs and preferences onto others again. Just because you're into computers and hate sports doesn't mean everyone else here feels the same.

Let see, haven't most geeky and nerdy types been mocked and picked on for being geeky or nerdy by those who are into sports?
 
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Re: Help me understand, why is there a sport section?

Tue Dec 05, 2017 5:23 pm

I love sports. I played varsity baseball in high school (catcher and RF. I had a good arm and a little power, but I wasn't fast, and have too much swing-and-miss in my swing) and did a lot of lifting and running in the offseason. I wasn't good enough to play in college so that's where it ended, but I've never stopped being a baseball fan.

It's a shame my eating habits didn't change when I stopped working out, because I turned into a fatty. Ben at age 18 and Ben at age 21 look like two totally different people. Now at almost 40 I still resemble the latter far too closely. :(
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Vhalidictes
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Re: Help me understand, why is there a sport section?

Tue Dec 05, 2017 5:31 pm

whm1974 wrote:
just brew it! wrote:
Help me understand, why do you start useless threads like this?

Not all people who are into tech as a hobby or day job hate sports. You're projecting your own beliefs and preferences onto others again. Just because you're into computers and hate sports doesn't mean everyone else here feels the same.

Let see, haven't most geeky and nerdy types been mocked and picked on for being geeky or nerdy by those who are into sports?


I was mocked by sports fanatics when I was younger. Probably badly enough for an A&E special. I grew to hate the very mention of physical activity after a while, which was hypocritical because I walked 6+ miles a night to clear my head after school.

Eventually, I figured out that, like lots of other people, bullies like sports too. The topic of sports has nothing whatsoever to do with my school experience being terrible, and in fact it's pretty clear that I made things worse than they had to be.
 
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Re: Help me understand, why is there a sport section?

Tue Dec 05, 2017 5:32 pm

whm1974 wrote:
Let see, haven't most geeky and nerdy types been mocked and picked on for being geeky or nerdy by those who are into sports?


I was both a nerd and a jock in school. I sat on my ass in the lab during my CS courses, but also chased cheerleaders while taking classes on archery, judo, fencing, or whatever else I was into at the time.

I spit on your puny stereotypes. Ptoo.
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Re: Help me understand, why is there a sport section?

Tue Dec 05, 2017 5:37 pm

whm1974 wrote:
Let see, haven't most geeky and nerdy types been mocked and picked on for being geeky or nerdy by those who are into sports?

There are a-hole nerds too. The bullying just tends to be mental/psychological instead of physical. Yes, I got bullied a bit too. But the most humiliating experience was actually at the hands of the alpha nerd in Chess Club. So whatever. That's all far, far in the past, and I hadn't thought about it for months (if not years) until you started this thread.

Why are you still allowing something I'm assuming happened ~3 decades ago to define you?
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
Glorious
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Re: Help me understand, why is there a sport section?

Tue Dec 05, 2017 5:40 pm

whm1974 wrote:
After all true geeks and nerds have a strong disdain for people that like or play sports, especially football and wrestling.

Can you guys clear this up for me?


I played soccer on a school team in high school as well as a league. Sometimes that was 4 hours a day. I switched schools mid-junior year and stopped, but I was the sole "nerd" (as I literally had a stack of 2x2 computers) in a houseful of jocks (football, baseball, soccer) my junior year in college and had an absolutely awesome time. Best year of college, by far.

To this day, I don't watch or follow sports, but I fundamentally can't understand the antipathy that you think I should have.

Sure, I'm uninterested. Why can't you be disinterested?
 
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Re: Help me understand, why is there a sport section?

Tue Dec 05, 2017 5:41 pm

whm1974 wrote:
Let see, haven't most geeky and nerdy types been mocked and picked on for being geeky or nerdy by those who are into sports?


No.

And if you have, letting it define you turns into self-victimization.

EDIT: oh, wow, I didn't catch JBI's last bit where he said something identical first.

Take the advice dude.
 
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Re: Help me understand, why is there a sport section?

Tue Dec 05, 2017 5:52 pm

Glorious wrote:
To this day, I don't watch or follow sports, but I fundamentally can't understand the antipathy that you think I should have.

Sure, I'm uninterested. Why can't you be disinterested?

I'd put myself in this same boat. I'm simply disinterested. I watch very little sports, but I understand that a lot of people really enjoy it as a form of entertainment, and that's fine.

If I'm out at a bar and they have one of the local teams on the TV, I'll sometimes half pay attention. Like, glancing up to check the baseball score every inning or so. Or watching the final drive if a football game is a nail-biter that comes down to the last few seconds. Or watching a replay if other people in the bar cheered a great play. I don't follow the teams, or just "put the game on" at home unless one of the teams makes it to the championship series, in which case maybe I'll watch if I've got nothing else going on that evening.

But mostly it's just one of those things -- like "reality" TV -- that I don't particularly care about one way or the other.
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Re: Help me understand, why is there a sport section?

Tue Dec 05, 2017 6:18 pm

whm1974 wrote:
just brew it! wrote:
Help me understand, why do you start useless threads like this?

Not all people who are into tech as a hobby or day job hate sports. You're projecting your own beliefs and preferences onto others again. Just because you're into computers and hate sports doesn't mean everyone else here feels the same.

Let see, haven't most geeky and nerdy types been mocked and picked on for being geeky or nerdy by those who are into sports?


Yes, but some of them were into sports even while they were mocked and picked on. I was my high school's intermural free throw champion and lettered in tennis and cross-country at the same time that the bullies tried to stuff the then little guy I was into lockers (I say tried because I won all of those fights, but they did, nonetheless, try.) If only I could get back close to being that thin now!
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Glorious
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Re: Help me understand, why is there a sport section?

Tue Dec 05, 2017 6:24 pm

JBI wrote:
I'd put myself in this same boat. I'm simply disinterested. I watch very little sports, but I understand that a lot of people really enjoy it as a form of entertainment, and that's fine.


Heh, that was a bit of obscure word play.

Uninterested can be more precisely understood to mean "indifferent" which is what you and I are towards sports.

Disinterested can be more precisely understood to mean "non-biased" or "impartial", which is what I want whm1974 to be towards this subject.

Oddly, despite this kind of thing, I was never once abused by any jock. I know it's just my personal experience, but much like your run-in with chess jerk, I've always thought that the people being preyed upon were targeted for other, perhaps co-incidental, characteristics.

In fact, a few years after the fact, someone showed me a video they took of a study session I was leading. Guess who came across as a dick: Me, or the jocks I was with? :wink:

( I know, I know, it's a softball) :P
 
whm1974
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Re: Help me understand, why is there a sport section?

Tue Dec 05, 2017 6:29 pm

Glorious wrote:
JBI wrote:
I'd put myself in this same boat. I'm simply disinterested. I watch very little sports, but I understand that a lot of people really enjoy it as a form of entertainment, and that's fine.


Heh, that was a bit of obscure word play.

Uninterested can be more precisely understood to mean "indifferent" which is what you and I are towards sports.

Disinterested can be more precisely understood to mean "non-biased" or "impartial", which is what I want whm1974 to be towards this subject.

Oddly, despite this kind of thing, I was never once abused by any jock. I know it's just my personal experience, but much like your run-in with chess jerk, I've always thought that the people being preyed upon were targeted for other, perhaps co-incidental, characteristics.

In fact, a few years after the fact, someone showed me a video they took of a study session I was leading. Guess who came across as a dick: Me, or the jocks I was with? :wink:

( I know, I know, it's a softball) :P

I would like to see that video.
 
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Re: Help me understand, why is there a sport section?

Tue Dec 05, 2017 6:37 pm

Sports mod here (took over for Stiffie several years ago). The forum started mostly because of the many fantasy sports played by TR regulars in TR-named leagues.. We also discuss other non-fantasy sports along the way, up to and including Test cricket (almost entertainingly dull, per Slartibartfast). Formula 1 gets a whole bunch of annual posts as the season goes on (if you can't see the links between geeks and F1 cars ...).
What we have today is way too much pluribus and not enough unum.
 
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Re: Help me understand, why is there a sport section?

Tue Dec 05, 2017 6:39 pm

This is too much... But somehow all of these totally pointless threads keep chatter going.
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Re: Help me understand, why is there a sport section?

Tue Dec 05, 2017 6:40 pm

whm1974 wrote:
I would like to see that video.


Any one of my famously abrasive posts is a spiritual transcript of the same.

---

Now you are bringing back memories: I *was* threatened with violence by a jock once. Of course, this was when in Junior year me and some of the soccer guys in my house (I did not play soccer myself, but we got along the best) were firing water balloons into HIS house (consisting entirely of football players) at like 2-3 in the morning on a semi-regular basis.

At some point he figured out it was us, or more specifically me, and followed us back into our house. He was all like "stop or I will punch you in the face right now". I smugly said "sure, and very likely get booted from the team, maybe the school, and possibly even criminally charged as you entered this house without permission with the express purpose of doing my person harm."

He actually thought about it for a moment. My direct roommate (who was a baseball player) said after-the-fact that he was sure I was about to get my butt kicked. But, "reason" won out and he retreated.

---

Later on I apologized and personally assured him that I, at least, would not longer participate in such activities. And I didn't.

But that's the point: who was the jerk? The nerd, or the jock?

I know the answer. Do you?
 
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Re: Help me understand, why is there a sport section?

Tue Dec 05, 2017 8:12 pm

"Sport Section" is the geek version. Regular folks call it a "Sports Section"
 
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Re: Help me understand, why is there a sport section?

Tue Dec 05, 2017 9:21 pm

Image
Congratulations, you've noticed that this year's signature is based on outdated internet memes; CLICK HERE NOW to experience this unforgettable phenomenon. This sentence is just filler and as irrelevant as my signature.
 
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Re: Help me understand, why is there a sport section?

Tue Dec 05, 2017 9:27 pm

I resemble that remark.

Wait, does that mean I'm normal?
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Re: Help me understand, why is there a sport section?

Tue Dec 05, 2017 9:27 pm

Did you take the time to make that?
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Re: Help me understand, why is there a sport section?

Tue Dec 05, 2017 9:30 pm

Chrispy_, your Venn diagram is missing a lot. Nerds/jocks who are very open about their phobia, and actual normal people who are neither nerds nor jocks. :p
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Re: Help me understand, why is there a sport section?

Tue Dec 05, 2017 9:43 pm

At the very least, it needs this:
Image
It really seems like it is more of an overt sports hatred than a secret phobia.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
Vhalidictes
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Re: Help me understand, why is there a sport section?

Wed Dec 06, 2017 11:59 am

I love the edited diagram, JBI. I think sports hatred is a thing a lot of bullied people grew up with, it seems fairly normal to me.

The weird part is that most of them grow out of it. In other words, whm1974, we're both the same age - too old for this ****.
 
Hawkwing74
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Re: Help me understand, why is there a sport section?

Wed Dec 06, 2017 2:15 pm

My uncle, who is also a programmer by career, game me a basketball at age 15. I played hard for years but discovered no innate talent. At best, I could hold my own among amateurs.

I loved basketball- watching and playing during the Jordan years and beyond. I think a well-balanced life is best. Try out different things and see what fits.
 
whm1974
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Re: Help me understand, why is there a sport section?

Wed Dec 06, 2017 2:25 pm

Hawkwing74 wrote:
My uncle, who is also a programmer by career, game me a basketball at age 15. I played hard for years but discovered no innate talent. At best, I could hold my own among amateurs.

I loved basketball- watching and playing during the Jordan years and beyond. I think a well-balanced life is best. Try out different things and see what fits.

So what? I gotten a basketball in box of goods given to me by the Knights of Columbus when I was 18 for Xmas. I gave it to my 8 year old brother.
 
Hawkwing74
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Re: Help me understand, why is there a sport section?

Wed Dec 06, 2017 2:30 pm

whm1974 wrote:
given to me by the Knights of Columbus when I was 18 for Xmas. I gave it to my 8 year old brother.

My point is...did you try it? Did you try any sports? You can't say you hate something if you never tried it.
 
whm1974
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Re: Help me understand, why is there a sport section?

Wed Dec 06, 2017 2:47 pm

Hawkwing74 wrote:
whm1974 wrote:
given to me by the Knights of Columbus when I was 18 for Xmas. I gave it to my 8 year old brother.

My point is...did you try it? Did you try any sports? You can't say you hate something if you never tried it.

Yes I was forced to play sports against my will during PE. :evil:

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