It was pretty surprising to read Dr. David Anderegg's comments in the New York Times yesterday. Dr. Anderegg, who's a professor of psychology at Bennington College, is claiming that the words "nerd" and "geek" should stop being used, as they're "damaging, much like racial epithets."

Years ago, certainly before my time, the term "geek" actually meant something entirely different to what it does now. The first reference came from the 1976 version of the American Heritage Dictionary, describing a performer in a freak show who bit off the heads of chickens.

You could say the word has changed at least three times over the years, as following 1976, a geek was someone who was a heavy gamer, computer platform-agnostic, and most likely grew up to be a developer or web designer. Movies of that era portrayed geeks as being the basement-dwellers who very rarely got the girl, with films like Revenge of the Nerds and Weird Science, and even James Bond's Goldeneye, with the Boris Grishenko character perpetuating the stereotype. Even Bryce in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is the quirky geek who just amuses everyone, but no-one would want to actually be. It just wasn't glamorous, but you could certainly say it was the most "hardcore" form of the word.

In the last couple of years though, the word has changed again. The "geek" accolade is a badge of honor, people are proud to call themselves one. It's now used to describe someone with a Twitter account, a wide selection of iPhone cases with Mario characters on, a Tumblr log-in or a penchant for ironic t-shirts. The girls read GeekSugar, the boys search eBay for old Dreamcast games, and they all think they're pretty cool—and different to everyone else.

It's become such an overused—and misused—word that it's lost its meaning along the way.

Now, a geek is just someone who's vaguely techie, knows how to use the internet properly, and has an appreciation for ironic throw-backs to their childhood. It also suggests a pride behind the intelligence one possesses, but with everyone throwing it around willy-nilly, the meaning has become extremely muddy.

Even the geeks in films have changed in the last few years. See Matt Farrell in Live Free or Die Hard, and any character Simon Pegg plays. TV shows like the The Big Bang Theory and The IT Crowd—these new geeks are being portrayed in almost every form of entertainment going.

It's become pretty frustrating watching it all, but recently I'd been feeling like the word "geek" wasn't being used quite as much—that one day it could be reclaimed, and the square-rimmed glasses-wearing brethren could go back to just being the normal people, normal for a period of time when everyone uses the internet and knows how to download iPhone apps.

Dr. Anderegg's comments show a dated view of the word "geek," similar to the geek 2.0 meaning I mentioned, when film characters leaned more towards Poindexter than to Chloe O'Brian from 24; one he feels will stop young people from studying the more "geeky" subjects, such as science and math.

On the contrary, I think they actually encourage people to take a closer interest in those fields, especially with role models like Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Evan Williams from Twitter and Stephen Fry out there today. But I do think it's time the proper geeks reclaim their word, if only to stop me from bristling every time I overhear a 14-year old girl being called "geeky" for knowing how to use BitTorrent.

My quarry stops and looks around confused, but makes no effort to take cover. So I resume firing until my gun yells "Arrrrrrgh!", signifying a kill shot. The LED lights on my opponent's head flash red and he raises his gun into the air. This little tree is proving to be the perfect spot for ambushing attackers. I maybe kind of like pretending to kill people.

——————

Today is BattleSFO, a day-long laser tag capture-the-flag tournament. The field of conflict is a hilly eucalyptus grove in San Bruno, CA, 45 minutes south of San Francisco, in Juniperro State Park. There are about 30 people here broken up into platoons of 5 to 7. Each player is dressed to the nines in varieties of camouflage, some with black war paint under their eyes. They're not quite as geeky as I had expected them to be. Then again, this isn't exactly the kind of laser tag everyone played as kids. The gear is bigger and badder, even if the players are not.

Almost the entire crowd of mostly men has never played laser tag outdoors before. For the most part they're very friendly, though a little shy when I ask them about themselves. One team is made up of four guys who went to college together — an electrical engineer, a carpenter, and an options trader. Another team makes up a local rock band (they seem more interested in drinking beer and running around the woods in battle gear then actually playing to win.) Then there's a group of three middle-aged Asian gentlemen and one of their sons who get together regularly and compete. They found the game on Meetup.com. Raymond Wan, who convinced the others to join him in the woods, explains that normally they play paintball. "The weapons and radio communication make a big difference," he says. "I'm a strategy person. This is more fun."

But among the beginners are some veterans of ray gun war.

The general of these mini-gorilla-armies today is Ziggy Tomcich. Earlier in the morning Tomcich performed his duties as the event's organizer, scurrying around the picnic table area, AKA central command. He's sort of a goofy guy, but his excitement was palpable and I couldn't help but giggle a little bit in anticipation of getting my hands on these fake guns and peering down the sight at some unknowing adversary. As I watched Tomcich untangle headsets, distribute color-coded headbands, and make sure everyone was checking in correctly it was clear that, though his day job is as an audio engineer for the San Francisco Opera, playing laser tag is his true passion in life.

Tomcich has been playing the game since he was a teenager. Running around the Photon indoor arena in Baltimore at 15, Tomcich got hooked. After graduating college he took a job as a designer, marketer, and consultant for several arenas around the country. Then, in 2006, Tomcich took laser tag to the next level. Playing in Armageddon games in the UK and Sweden, where players compete in 3-4 day tournaments, Tomcich played outdoor laser tag for the first time. When he returned to San Francisco, Tomcich realized that the city lacked the kind of gaming he really loved. Being outdoors and playing laser tag was something, he felt, everyone should do.

"To me, laser tag is an extreme sport," he says. For him, part of the fun and the reason why he started his event website SFLastag.org, is the idea that the game is simple to play and creates a highly social environment. "Unlike most other sports, first-time players in outdoor laser tag can do quite well against seasoned players. It's more about strategy and tactics."

Before the first battle "Cypher," aka Todd Robinson, who co-owns SpecOps Live Play, a central California company that provided the artillery, gave everyone a rundown of their equipment. SpecOps imports their guns from an Australian company called Battlefield Sports, essentially an arms dealer that deals in toys. The company custom builds 10 different models of gaming weapons from sniper rifles to sub machine guns – all equipped with real-world laser sights, speakers for feedback, and sensors to keep track of game stats. Guns can emulate any of 69 models down to recoil, and fire and reload rates and muzzle flashes (LEDs, essentially). SpecOps has brought M4 assault rifles, sub machine guns, carbine rifles, and sniper rifles.

During Robinson's speech, Tomcich chimed in: "Do not aim your gun at non-laser tag players. These guns don't exactly look like Hasbro." For this game every weapon has 99 clips of 50 rounds. Those with smaller guns reload in about 5 seconds, the bigger ones about 7-10 seconds, so Robinson recommended taking cover while reloading. "The ‘bullets' will bounce off of pavement," he says. For this game they've disabled friendly fire. But when they hit the laser targets velcro'd to heads that belong to enemies, the guns vocalize the action like weapons with built in sports announcers synthesizing current status of prey as "casualty", "killed" or "already dead".

As he went through the briefing, the look on Robinson's face was more serious then anyone in the eucalyptus grove. Listening to him describe each weapon and how they worked made it clear to me that, though some people are here to play a game, for others laser tag is a way of life. In other words, I better take good care of his guns.

Honestly, the weapons are a little intimidating. First off, they're huge and I'm, well, I'm little. The guns are so heavy, in fact, that I opted for the smallest one I could find. I was also one of two girls on the field. Cypher's father, who co-owns SpecOps, told me that women actually tend to fair better at this type of laser tag then men. Women, he said, will hang back and think tactically about the game. Guys sometimes have a tendency to run out out commando-style and shoot at everything they see. My tactics were set: I'd wait for my enemies to come to me.

The game starts and I take up position. When I shoot people that happen upon my trap, they stood still, look around, and fired recklessly without making much effort to take cover. Those I shoot over 20 times are killed, sent back to the respawn area (AKA Command Center, AKA picnic tables) where Robinson will reset them, reactivate their ordinance and send them back into the fray.

The battle heats up. Despite my overall aversion in life to things that require running and exercise, the real-world feel of this whole day is bringing up the competitor in me that normally only emerges when I'm shit-talking people during video games. It is unclear who is winning at the moment; the command center tracks the flag movement via new GPS-tracking system and the PC that also handles all the on field comms.

But no one is listening back at HQ. The General Tomcich isn't attending to the computer anymore. Instead, Tomcich's standing across from me in the grove defending our Purple flag from capture. "We're encountering heavy resistance," we can hear over the radio. "Wear them down," a player shouts. Minutes later our fellow Purple team members come running through the brush holding a flag. Our opponents are not far behind. But they're too late. This round is ours.

Erin Biba is a San Francisco-based Correspondent for WIRED Magazine who writes about science, popular culture and beer made from primordial yeast. Follow her on Twitter.

In other words, are you a nerd that can tan?

[Image via Flickr/bre pettis]

The two front-running teams, distressingly named Team Pragmatic Theory and Team Bellkor in Chaos, joined forces and have submitted an algorithm that is 10.05% more accurate than Netflix's. Now, the other contestants (it's a field of thousands) have 30 days to beat that score, and if nobody can (and no rules have been broken), Netflix will award the superteam a cool million.

This is a smart move for Netflix—improving their algorithm by that much would have been incredibly expensive anyway, and Netflix has said that the $1 million prize is actually a great bargain. Plus, it'll net them tons of press. Like the press I'm giving them, right now. Maybe in return, you guys can stop recommending 28 Days Later because I liked The Royal Tenenbaums. [Wired]

In this video you will learn of our President's enthusiasm for comic books, see a photo of him imitating a statue of Superman, and watch him flash the Vulcan sign.

Indeed, John Hodgman. It is an exciting time to be a nerd. [Collegehumor, Thanks Julian!]

Keep in mind that tattoos of anything that falls under the nerd culture umbrella is acceptable—from physics equations to portraits of Bill Gates with the words "XOXO Forever" underneath. Bonus points if you actually have a tattoo in this category.

Scientists at the University of Indiana have shown the incredible density and molecular strength of neutron stars, which as all you amateur astronomers know is the leftover from a gravitational collapse of a star during a supernova. The research was started out of concern that the intense gravitational pull of these things could cause ripples in space-time, but could lead to new understanding of star quakes or magnetar giant flares.

So the next time you're about to push your glasses up your nose and toss an esoteric insult at your lab partner, consider "as dense as a neutron star." [Eureka via Crunchgear]

In 2000, Kevin somehow convinced the town council of Pauls Valley, Oklahoma that they needed a museum or tourist attraction, and that his incredibly large collection of toys and action figures should be it. In 2005, the museum opened up, and in 2009 you found out about it and tried to figure out a good reason to go to Pauls Valley, Oklahoma.

In addition to his collection, which has got to be one of the biggest in the world, there's a superhero room where kids can dress up like superheroes and run around. And think of how good it would feel to do that in public so you wouldn't have to feel ashamed anymore.

In any case, be sure to check out the full slideshow over at Wired. [Wired via Boing Boing]

And these USB glasses celebrate the most famous of fashionable geek icons, the horned rim, by storing 2GB of data in their 2mm frame that doubles as a bookmark. (Sadly, they don't actually work as glasses.) Pick up your pair in March when the they'll be available for $29.

Just keep in mind that if you begin wearing things like short sleeve shirts with ties in any way above the perfect equilibrium of self-deprecating irony, you're in danger of going too nerd. And if you ever go too nerd, even for the briefest of moments, you can never go cool nerd again. It's the way it's always been and always shall be. [imm living via Engadget]

Multiple:Option's middleware for the DS lets you create a custom puzzle game that ends with a marriage proposal. Simply give the game to your romance target, hope they don't totally suck at puzzle games and then see if your bet on them tolerating your insufferable nerdiness for the rest of their lives pays off. [Offworld via New Launches]

My attempt: "No, we're not crazy billionaires insulated from the real world, completely cut off from what's cool and hip. Now everybody, grab your rollerblades! Dippin' Dots and bowl cuts are on us!"

Surely, you can do better.

Macheads and Windows fanboys can now proclaim their love for their respective platforms through sign language...and oh damn! Is that a Linux Lover encroaching on your turf? Turn that mother out! All you nerds should be careful using these on the street though, since you could come across someone who might mistake them for their real-life gangsta counterparts. 7H|_|G L1F3. [Joey DeVilla]