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The Geek Code, developed in 1993, is a series of letters and symbols used by self-described "
subculture - which in turn was inspired by the
's RISC OS computers.
The Geek Code, developed in 1993, is a series of letters and symbols used by self-described "geek
The word ''geek'' is a slang term originally used to describe Eccentricity (behavior), eccentric or non-mainstream people; in current use, the word typically connotes an expert or enthusiast obsessed with a hobby or intellectual pursuit. In th ...
s" to inform fellow geeks about their personality
Personality is the characteristic sets of behaviors, cognitions, and emotional patterns that are formed from biological and environmental factors, and which change over time. While there is no generally agreed-upon definition of personality, mos ...
, appearance, interests, skills, and opinions. The idea is that everything that makes a geek individual
An individual is that which exists as a distinct entity. Individuality (or self-hood) is the state or quality of being an individual; particularly (in the case of humans) of being a person unique from other people and possessing one's own Maslow ...
can be encode
The Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) is a public research project which aims to identify functional elements in the human genome.
ENCODE also supports further biomedical research by "generating community resources of genomics data, software ...
d in a compact format which only other geeks can read. This is deemed to be efficient in some sufficiently geeky manner.
It was once common practice to use a geek code as one's email or Usenet signature, but the last official version of the code was produced in 1996, and it has now largely fallen out of use.
History
The Geek Code was invented by Robert A. Hayden in 1993 and was defined at geekcode.com. a similar code for the Bear (gay culture)">bear Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family Ursidae. They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Nor ...Yerkes spectral classification
In astronomy, stellar classification is the classification of stars based on their spectral characteristics. Electromagnetic radiation from the star is analyzed by splitting it with a prism or diffraction grating into a spectrum exhibiting the ...
system for describing stars.
After a number of updates, the last revision of the code was v3.12, in 1996.
Some alternative encodings have also been proposed. For example, the 1997 Acorn Code was a version specific to users of Acorn Computers">Acorn
The acorn, or oaknut, is the nut of the oaks and their close relatives (genera ''Quercus'' and '' Lithocarpus'', in the family Fagaceae). It usually contains one seed (occasionally
two seeds), enclosed in a tough, leathery shell, and borne ...Format
Geek codes can be written in two formats; either as a simple string:PGP
PGP or Pgp may refer to:
Science and technology
* P-glycoprotein, a type of protein
* Pelvic girdle pain, a pregnancy discomfort
* Personal Genome Project, to sequence genomes and medical records
* Pretty Good Privacy, a computer program for the ...
:Encoding
Occupation
The code starts with the letterG (for Geek) followed by the geek's occupation(s): GMU for a geek of music
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...
, GCS for a geek of computer science etc. There are 28 occupations that can be represented, but GAT is for geeks that can do anything and everything - and "usually precludes the use of other vocational descriptors".
Categories
The Geek Code website contains the complete list of categories, along with all of the special syntax options.Decoding
There have been several '"decoders" produced to transform a specific geek code into English, including: *Bradley M. Kuhn
Bradley M. Kuhn (born 1973) is a free software activist from the United States.
Kuhn is currently Policy Fellow and Hacker-in-Residence of the Software Freedom Conservancy, having previously been executive director. Until 2010 he was the FLOSS C ...
, in late 1998, made Williams' program available as a web service.
* Joe Reissmade a similar page available
in October 1999.Reference to the site first appears in the Internet Archive on October 7, 1999().
See also
*Leet Speak
Leet (or "1337"), also known as eleet or leetspeak, is a system of modified spellings used primarily on the Internet. It often uses character replacements in ways that play on the similarity of their glyphs via reflection or other resemblance ...
*New Speak
Newspeak is the fictional language of Oceania, a totalitarian superstate that is the setting of the 1949 dystopian novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'', by George Orwell. In the novel, the Party created Newspeak to meet the ideological requirement ...
*The Natural Bears Classification System The Natural Bears Classification System (NBCS), also called the bear code, is a set of symbols using letters, numbers and other characters commonly found on modern, Western world, Western computer keyboards, and used for the self-identification of " ...
*Signature block
A signature block (often abbreviated as signature, sig block, sig file, .sig, dot sig, siggy, or just sig) is a personalized block of text automatically appended at the bottom of an email message, Usenet article, or forum post.
Email and Usenet
...
References
{{ReflistExternal links
*Robert Hayden'official Geek Code web site
(presenting v3.12) Internet self-classification codes Internet culture Lifestyle websites Nerd culture