"This is the Silver Back Gorilla of nerds. The internet final boss."
https://twitter.com/vxunderground/status/1774071339671794134
Calling him a 'nerd' is somewhat dismissive and disrespectful. Call him what he is - a professional.
> I was doing some micro-benchmarking at the time, needed to quiesce the system to reduce noise. Saw sshd processes were using a surprising amount of CPU, despite immediately failing because of wrong usernames etc. Profiled sshd, showing lots of cpu time in liblzma, with perf unable to attribute it to a symbol. Got suspicious.
from: https://mastodon.social/@AndresFreundTec/112180406142695845
You must have missed that in the 2010s being a nerd became cool. It's not a derogatory term with the younger generations, it's a term of endearment and respect, an identity that is owned and aspired to.
The nerds were now in their 20s and 30s, so when the 50s and 60s geezers called them nerds as always the response was "Yeah. I'm a nerd and I'm making money while you're slated for retirement. Problem?" and the term became an identity for those generations.
Whatever we're calling the Z-ers today, they will do to us what we did to those who called us nerds.
What I'm seeing is that starting in the mid-2010s the number of high schoolers who identify as nerds has gone up dramatically, to the point where from what I've observed even the popular kids who end up surrounded with their own gang are about as likely to call themselves a nerd and engage in stereotypical nerdy activities as they are to be the football players.
Granted, that impression is probably on its way out with how much reputation/"cool factor" the tech industry is losing in recent years.
You need only consider the mental images that come up when you consider a 'nerd' vs. a craftsman or an artisan. This man is an artisan.
'Nerd' is used by technically-inclined people in that age group as a term of endearment—it indicates that you're part of their tribe, that they recognize you as one of their own. You can take offense at that because it's not how you think of the word, but that's the way the language has gone.