A Modern Geek Code

Does Lain know about Geek Code? It was a very 90s thing where geeky people would encode their interests/attributes in a block of text that would be unreadable to everyone except for other geeks. Sort of like hobo signs, but for nerds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geek_Code I find it endearing despite (or in spite of) its lameness. What traits, characteristics, hobbies, etc. would be included in a modern version of this? The last version of it is very dated, a good third of it is dedicated to extinct Usenet things like Kibo.

A cool concept, but the pigeonholed nature of it is a bit impractical. Like pretty much you're limited to describing what makes you a geek, rather than having the capacity to communicate covertly. I think it's an interesting topic, but I'd look for a more practical alternative(unless you have an interest in creating a more developed version towards your needs) Thanks for sharing this, I'd never heard of this. >born '95.

I've never heard of it, but the very idea got me really intrigued for a bit and made me wonder if it's something a lot of people did back in the day. I'm going off of what was cited in the article: https://web.archive.org/web/20090220181018/http://geekcode.com/geek.html >What traits, characteristics, hobbies, etc. would be included in a modern version of this I can imagine the standard being expanded somewhat to allow for subcategories consisting of 1-3 letters each. For instance, instead of listing "tv+++", you'd have something like "tv+++:xx+:yy--" where xx and yy are subcats for whatever TV shows you particularly (dis)like. So in a way, it's a lot like how people on social media list what fandoms they're in. Existing root cats like for specific media like t (Star Trek) and X (X-Files) would become subcats to unclutter the root namespace. OS-related cats like L (Linux) and w (Windows) would probably be kept where they're at. They could be placed under a root category like C (computers), but that removes the potential of listing whatever distros or versions you like or hate (unless we can create an easy way to have nested subcats). There's tons of Linux distros nowadays, and Windows has gone through so many versions that you've got people who prefer one over the others, however old it may be. Now of course, this raises the question of whether we should allow other OSes (Mac, BSD, etc.) their own root cats to keep it fair, or make them into subcats since there aren't enough distros/versions to justify giving them root cats. And... I may as well address the elephant in the room. With politics being as pervasive online as they are now, there's going to be a demand for subcats indicating specific ideologies. You might even see people wanting to list identities and even mental conditions. I personally wouldn't put it in the standard just to avoid the soykafflinging potential (maybe just keep PS and PE, rework Y and PGP into a "sec" subcat or something), but you know there's going to be a push for it if the code got popular enough. Other changes (nowhere near a comprehensive list): >P (Perl) would now stand for programming, and you'd put languages as subcats >Usenet, being deader than dead, will have all its root cats removed >W (web) would have subcats for websites you (dis)like, since the web is just so ubiquitous these days >possible "misc. internet" root cat for you to put non-web services, like IRC >d (dress) would have subcats for specific fashions >new genericized root cats for unincluded hobbies -- video games, anime, paranormal, etc. -- with subcats for specific works Now as for who would actually use this? ...Probably nobody, honestly. For one there's the fact that this stuff is hard to read. Throw in my suggestions about subcategories and you've got a complete clusterfuck of a system that nobody is going to bother to learn, and I bet it wouldn't fit in a Twitter bio either. Second, in the event that a version comes along that's easy to understand and also short, these are still stupidly easy to datamine, and I can see concerns about it being some kind of project by a corporation or intelligence agency. It'd probably last for a week at best until someone influential enough comes along and says "hey, don't you think this makes it easy for advertisers/feds to get info on us?" good god I can't believe I wrote all this on such a lame subject