I'm a little ashamed to admit that this essay was what got me into programming. I found it, thought, "wow, this guy is really smart," read his Lisp essays, and, well, the rest is history.
But I've had a lot of time to think about it since. And one thing PG never really defines is what makes a nerd. The definition I've settled on is:
1)smart 2)working 3)provides no immediate value (usually this is because they are working on something too "smart" for most people to understand)