Friday Fun: Talk Nerdy To Me

One of my favorite things to do is to watch someone get excited over a little thing. I believe everyone has a subject that they can totally “nerd out” about. It doesn’t have to particularly be something that’s been socially branded as “nerdy”, but just something that you can get real passionate about.

The Magic

It is probably very obvious… but my favorite “Nerd out” topic will always be Harry Potter. I was eleven when I read the Philosopher’s Stone, and 17 turned 18 when Deathly Hallows pt 1 and 2 came out. I quite literally grew up with Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

I don’t think when I told my co-workers that I love Harry Potter they understood until suddenly my desk did this AND I finally received my Hogwarts letter. Okay, a co-worker left it on my desk under a stuffed Barn Owl but hey! Best present ever (legit cried).

Not to mention I have a Deathly Hallows tattoo on my shoulder (my sister designed it, one of my best friend tattooed it, so it was a huge deal when I got it).

Note: I still need a Hufflepuff banner to hang next to my desk.

I have read almost every article on Pottermore. I watch the movies at least once a month, if not more often since I just leave them on while I’m working at home or cleaning. I can quote the entirety for the first movie and most of the first book word for word from my head. I can quote along with the other movies, but not from memory. I just looked up word counts, and I have read over a million words of Harry Potter fan-fictions in the past month. Most of them about the Marauder’s years (we need a 7 season show about the Marauders, please Jo please).

I think I realized I found my other half when I discovered that my boyfriend is just as much, if not more of a Potterhead than I am. We co-run a discord server dedicated to just Harry Potter. We're even redoing our living room to be the Hufflepuff common room!

I will out trivia anyone! I have only lost in one Harry Potter trivia match… to my boyfriend so I guess that’s acceptable...

What is your Nerd Out? Why? What’s a weird fun fact?

Bonus: Go to Pottermore.com if you haven't yet and find out what house you're in! I'm a Hufflepuff... if that wasn't apparent ;)

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@Heth Siemer I am very excited to post a longer reply when I get a chance but Remus/Sirius is canon, right?

Did you just Wolfstar me?! I mean... technically it has neither been proved nor disproved? I just enjoy the comedy shenanigans that goes on with the Marauders.

They lived together in Grimmauld Place and I feel were clearly a couple in the fifth book, fanfiction notwithstanding!

Of course I also got very confused at the end of the Lord of the Rings series when Sam married someone who wasn't Frodo. Because I really thought they were in love. So maybe I'm projecting.

@Monique vdB, I wonder how LOTR would have ended had Tolkien written it today instead of 1937? Hmmmm...

@Monique vdB 2 things. 1. apparently I can't find your name in the @mention when I type it out but i can find it without typing anything. Weird.

2. I think they would've been a thing had Wormtail not been the secret keeper and all that followed with that.

@Scott Theus I feel like something along the lines of Legolas and Gimli would have been possible. The bromance is too real.

I read dictionaries for fun.

I read all of the Encyclopedia Britannica during breakfast for a couple of years, before https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Know-It-All did the same thing

And I enjoy Harry Potter too!

I guarantee your vocabulary is much more expansive than mine. But did the know-it-all know what Hogwarts house they were in?

My passion is sports cars and supercars. Whilst I sadly don't own one, I have had the chance to drive a few different Ferraris, 2 Lamborghinis, a Nissan GTR and an Aston Martin.

Here's me driving a Ferrari last year

Soooo I have a neighbor who is a race car (like Nascar) and various other super cars mechanic. He has a semi truck parked next to his house that always has different cars in it. Next time I see some of them out I'll try to remember to take a pic. I've seen a few Ferraris and Corvettes but I don't know enough to recognize anything else.

Yes please @Heth Siemer, that would be great

I like doing that, too! Recently, I drove a special Audi R8 version which is quite similar to a Lamborghini :)

Update: There are now two semi trucks I assume full of cars but he hasn't had any of them out, presumably due to the hail we've had recently. I haven't forgotten.

:-)

Warren, if you are ever in Newcastle, UK, you are welcome to come into the ZeroLight (company I work for), and try out one of our automotive virtual configurators.

Hey @[deleted], thanks for the offer. I work and live south of London and very rarely venture that far north.

@Warren I didn't forget! He just had everything sealed up until now. There are a few race cars in the semi (can't really see the black on the bottom), his silver Corvette, and a bonus of some random kids on a tractor.

Thanks @Heth Siemer, I had forgotten ;-)

There are a number of things I'll fly the geek flag for, but if you get me stared on photography and cameras I'll never shut up.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/stheus/

Okay question then. I have a sony a9000 I inherited from my mother cause she's given up on photography (she has a brain clot, she cant see through the camera anymore) and I'm trying to continue some of her hobbies... however, I can't get the shutter to not take a full 2-3 seconds to snap the pic. What setting am I missing?!

I'm guessing this is the Sony DLSR a900, not the mirrorless Sony a9...

If so, then there is "Drive" button behind and to the right of the shutter (as you are looking through the viewfinder) that controls how the shutter fires when you press the shutter button. If it's taking 2-3 seconds then you probably have that set to "Self Timer;" there are two choices for the timer with this camera, 2 seconds and 10 seconds (If you like I can explain why you would use each.)

To change the setting press the Drive button to get to the setup screen, use the up/down arrows to select the mode, then the right/left arrows to select the setting. You'll want either Single-Shot to take one picture when you press the shutter or Continuous to take pictures for as long as you hold down the shutter.

Sony DSLR a6000 my bad. I had to go look. Would that change things? haha...

It just changes the location of the button, and the a6000 has an extra self timer drive mode and (I think...) an extra bracketing mode for depth of field. In this camera the drive mode settings are accessed by pressing the left of the control wheel on the back of the camera and picking the setting you want.

I have spent the weekend trying to figure it out. I had to google but at least I knew what to google now XD it's fixed. I think...

I love Harry Potter! Gryffindor 4-ever! :-D

I really nerd out about historic costumes, singing, and lego though.

....Harry Potter Legos are like the perfect squaring of my nerdom.

I have a few pairs of harry potter lego earrings. I had to recreate the graveyard scene out of boredom. Yes. I'm wearing Harry Potter Lego earrings at work.

@Monique vdB Your daughter should love this.

311mjyx

That is AWESOME!!!!! <3

I nerd out on cooking. Practicing the techniques of great chefs brings calmness and joy into my life. I love getting into the details of how to perfect a cheesecake (no cracking!) or how to roll out a sheet of dough, or getting the crust on a good ribeye. Here's a few photos of my time in the kitchen. (sorry the photos are so huge! Looks like I need to figure out why this is happening)

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Wow!

Just....wow!

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I'm actively drooling. Please cook for me.

wooooow! I wish I could access some of my photos from where I am, I'd start sharing some from my Baking folder :D

Right, I now officially hate you.

1. I'm fat. Tonight, I have totally over-eaten because of birthdays. I should be full. You just made me hungry again. I don't need that. (But may I have the pasta thing? Now? Looks like spinach and ricotta cannelloni? )

2. I try to cook, and I like trying. But I don't get it right a lot - 1/10 is great, 1/5 goes in the bin, and the rest is eaten so we don't starve or waste it. I am jealous that you can both enjoy it (as I do), and get it right (as I don't)

3. Despite point 2 saying I get some stuff right, this excludes flour based stuff (unless you need dwarf bread)

I am not as gifted as @Test User KL in cooking or photographing my creations, but I do like to bake. I'm not half bad at it either :-)

Portal Cake.jpg Pumpkin Pie.jpg

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nnnn i'm hungry now.

@Kimberly Deal _Columbus ACE_ Those leaves! 😲

I have a soft-spot for old Sci-Fi TV shows, but I've won more than one pub quiz with my totally nerdy knowledge of the stuff one chap was involved with in the 70s and 80s.

If you're not a sci-fi nerd, will probably not recognise "Terry Nation", but I do think you'll recognise one of his more famous creations. This one was on work experience in my office when I met it.

Oh, now that's cool :D

FATHER OF THE DALEKS!

Wow super cool!

Blakes 7. I thought of Avon as a role model. Which seems a bit concerning in hindsight.

Love this friday fun topic. I'm really into Harry Potter, but not as nerdy as @Heth Siemer - awesome tattoo. Sorting hat put me into Slytherin..... *hmm*

What my obsession is - retro game consoles.... especially Sega and Nintendo. Started of at the age of 9 with a game boy an sleepless nights trying to rescue the Princess in Super Mario Land, beat everyone in Tetris aso.

I think I remember a whole summer playing summer games on Sega Master System... especially footbag.

25 years later I still love those games and have all consoles (which look really don't look cool on a 4K TV) - but have no idea how I was able to spend more than 2 hours with playing....

So I just collect old consoles like Atari and love that I could play if I had the time.

When it comes to Star Trek I'm pretty much as Trekkie as they come. Ok, maybe I'm slightly under "as Trekkie as they come". I don't dress up at conventions but aside from that I'm all Trek. Small point of order it is indeed Trekkie not Trekker. Ok, stepping off the soap box ... I've seem every episode of every incarnation multiples times over. I've read countless Trek novels, been to no less than 15 conventions, have shelves and boxes full of Trek memorabilia, and my Christmas tree says "I wish you a most honorable holiday, Qapla'!" every time it is plugged in. This is last year's tree. If you look closely you can find a number of Trek ships on it.

I've always said that "It's not Christmas until I have Captain Kirk fighting the Gorn hanging from the tree."

YOU WILL LOVE THIS!

So my family is ALL Trekkies. My father, mother, both my sisters, my brother, and I. To the point that at my best friends cosplay wedding my entire family went as starfleet officers (besides me, as I was apart of the wedding party and was assigned my cosplay)! I'm more of a fan of Harry Potter but Star Trek comes in a very close second.

When I was 8, my family and I went to the Star Trek Hilton in Las Vegas, Nevada. However, we were staying at Circus Circus, and my two sisters and I had gotten our faces painted beforehand. During our adventure I came across a Ferengi. Note that my face was painted red for a ladybug. The Ferengi was NOT happy about that!

We had also taken my babysitter (who was 16 at the time) and her and I were following this Ferengi around because my mother had told the sixteen year old that she should go touch the Ferengi's ears. My babysitter was not really a Trekkie and didn't understand... but she did it anyway. It wasn't until several years later when I was re-watching DS9 that I understood what an Oo'mox was. My mother is an awful person haha.

In the midst of messing with this Ferengi... my four year old sister went missing. Now, this isn't something that was rare. In fact, she had been on a leash because of how common it was for her to escape, and the little Houdini got out of it while no one was looking.

She had her face painted like a butterfly. However, the pink from the wings had faded, so the black from the outline of the wings and antennae looked like she had ridges like a Klingon.

Apparently, when she wandered off she didn't just walk away... she got completely lost. So, she went and found who I can only describe as General Martok pre-eye loss (yes, I know it's just a dude in a costume who looks similar, but to a four year old he was the real thing), walked right up to him, banged her fist on her chest and yelled "Qapla'!" at him... and then proceeded to ask for help finding her mom.

When they found us, "Martok" told mom he had almost lost character in front of an entire crowd at this little child who knew how to talk to a Klingon. So somewhere there is a photo of my sister, with her face painted like ridges, in the arms of a Klingon general. This was also almost 18 years ago so I think it's in a photo album not a digital copy so I have to physically search for this photo when I get home.

That sister is now almost fluent in Klingon, can write in Vulcan (which is my favorite written language ever btw), and I do believe she can speak and write some Elvish (I know she can at least write it).

Is it bad I want to get trill markings? If I was into tattooing my face I probably would've done that already.

Wow! I wish my family had been that cool!

My dad and I did watch Next Gen every night together, but we were the only fans in the family. Somewhere there is a VHS of me at Universal Studios where they did a Green Screen adventure with Star Trek. I still think its cool :D

@Scott Theus I wholeheartedly agree.

@Heth Siemer That's such an awesome story! I went to the Star Trek experience a couple times when I was in Vegas and I happened to be staying at Circus Circus as well because it was the cheapest on the strip. I'm super bummed that it isn't there anymore. It was such a cool place to go.

They had a couple walk-through experiences that were pretty neat. One put you in the midst of a Borg invasion and you had to out-run (fast-walk) the Borg that were coming after you. Another one led you across the bridge of the Enterprise D ... which was AWESOME!!! I wanted to just stop there for a while and look, but it was a quick time ... grr! Apparently, if you were getting married in Vegas you could actually do it on the bridge set.

I had dinner at Quarks once as well. There is nothing like eating dinner and having a Klingon come up and insult you for ordering weak human food.

I grew up calling Captain Picard, Grandpa Picard.

I have been to the Star Trek experience 4 times.

I nerd out to Games Design concepts and the sheer enjoyment a simple interaction system can give a player. There is something about picking apart how an interaction system works, the design choices that went into making the system a certain way, and the method in which it responds to a player.

game flow.png

I wonder what my version of that graph would look like. I get frustrated as basic 2D scrollers and stick to MineSweeper, the Hexcells series, and King games (Candy Crush).

I try but I have no patience for wandering around a virtual world trying to figure out what to do. The one exception is The Sims Vacation add-on which had a good level of direction.

...

That chart is so accurate.

I game with my bf all the time, but he was a pro for Cloud9 (Overwatch and CS:GO) and I've accepted that I'm permanently living in that anxiety section when I play with him... with lots of death screens! There's a reason my hashtag is #hethfails XD

When I was a Games Designer, this chart became a staple to every project I ever worked on. From mobile, console to physical card games, this chart would be lingering in the background of mind when deciding variables for certain mechanics.

Ooooo games designer? What did you work on?!

<<Avid gamer

As some of you might know, board games are my obsession. Here's a part of my collection:

I would say that I am some kind of board game nerd. There are 10 unmistakable indications for this:

You are posting every game you play on Boardgamegeek, where you played, with whom you played, who won - I do...
You post a photo of every boardgame you play on twitter, instagram or facebook - no, not every one, just sometimes...
When you returm from Essen (world's biggest board game convention), you post a photo of the pile of games you bought - Yes, I do...
You think, some of the awarded games "Kennerspiel des Jahres" (award for complex games) are just kid's games - no, I don't
You order totally overprized nerdy T-Shirts from all over the world - no I don't, just get the usual ones from Atlassian Summit ;-)
You pay more than 120 Dollars for a kickstarter game, which you don't know, but it has these great miniatures and the cover looks nice - I'm afraid, yes, I did...
You are discussing things like "If Batman, Mr. Spock und Tintin et Milou would fight against Darth Vader, Lara Croft und Rick und Morty, who would win and why?“ - this can be a funny discussion, but no
Talking while playing games? No, people should concentrate on playing! - well, sometimes....
You like best to play on your own, all alone, so you don't have to argue with anybody - no, not at all
You think that „Chess/Go/Monopoly/Catan/Magic the Gathering/Netrunner/Poker/Tichu/Jassen/Skat/Bridge/Dog/Uno/Soccer/,,," is the best game of all times and there is no need for any other game - no

This list was published by Tom Felber, one of the initiators of the "Spiel des Jahres" - award in Germany (https://www.spiel-des-jahres.com/de/die-10-anzeichen) - According to this list, I am 4-out-of-10-nerd. Could be worse...

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My husband and I need a local boardgame playing posse before we expand our collection.

One day I will have a library. One half will be books. The other will look like this.

I used to play awesome board games. Then I had kids. Now I get to play Disney Princess Enchanted Cupcake, Mouse trap, and Don't break the ice. <sigh> We'll get there. :)

YO THERES A HARRY POTTER BOARD GAME!!!!

Yes I own it, and its expansion pack... yes I play it all the time. No, surprisingly it's not my favorite board game (Eldritch Horror).

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/199042/harry-potter-hogwarts-battle

So heads up... it says the play time is 30-60 minutes. This is per level. There are different "levels" for each year at Hogwarts... There's 7 years. The first time we played this it took my sister and I 18 1/2 hours to complete! However, the greatest thing about this game is how easy it is to pack it all up and resume at a later time. Each year comes in its own box, each card tells you which box it goes in. Different card types are different sizes to make it easier to sort through. Plus, there's these separators that are included so if you're in year four or something and want to stop, you can put your cards in the main box with these separators and resume the game later. In terms of how the game box itself is set up it is legit the best.

Coming in hot out of nowhere on this one...if you listen to podcasts The Ringer has a podcast called Binge Mode. They are currently re-reading and re-watching every single Potter book as well as diving into the wider canon. They dissected every episode of Game of Thrones last summer and occasionally dive into current movie and tv releases. It's a hilarious and actually insightful look at the Potter canon. My wife and I repeat their funny phrases in our every day lives all the time. Check it out!

OMG HOW HAVE I NOT KNOWN ABOUT THIS?!

It's really funny and for me (a semi casual fan of the series) an interesting new perspective on the material.

I really love those old action movies from the 70s / 80s with Bud Spencer & Terence Hill 😎 my grandpa watched them with me, I know Themen heart but everytime one is on TV I stick there 😂

https://youtu.be/ahwJF5AcsGA

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Friday Fun: Talk Nerdy To Me

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