OneAndOneIs2

So XKCD raised the age-old question: What's the difference between a geek and a nerd?

You need to mouseover the cartoon to get his definition.

Other definitions that I tend to agree with are that nerds are more likely to be socially awkward, they're also likely to be more knowledgeable (obsessive?) about their subject.

e.g. a normal person will tell you that pi is "three and a bit"; a geek will tell you it's "3.141 and never ends" and a nerd will sit down and calculate it to as many decimal points as you like.

A slightly unkind definition is that geeks have girlfriends, nerds have their palms. (Palm PDAs, you understand)

If you watch Big Bang Theory (and if you don't, you should) then Sheldon is the archetypal nerd - genius but socially incompetent - whereas Leonard is more of a geek (albeit a slightly nerdy one)

One of my co-workers is of the opinion that it's the other way around - his explanation was "Nerds will play a game until they can complete it blindfold, but geeks will decompile it to find out how it works"

We debated it for a while, and in the end I won by virtue of the fact that Batman was riding an elephant - we weren't very serious in our arguing :o)

But I'm curious - what's YOUR definition of geeks vs. nerds, and which would you consider yourself?