Re: On nerds and dreamers

Sally Caves wrote:
> I myself have no sense of what this term
> really means--or even what the common cliche "get a life" means
> anymore--I've discovered that for a lot of people it seems to mean a
> 'lovelife.' :) ...for others, it means getting a profession, or getting
> married.  :)  It's another ambiguous phrase defined by the people who use
> it.  Comments?
"Get a life" has a very specific definition in hacker culture, as defined in
The Jargon File, also published as New Hacker's Dictionary:

http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/G/Get-a-life-.html

It discusses possible etymologies of this phrase. See also:

http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/G/geek.html
http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/N/nerd.html

These are researched to death in typical nerdish fashion. I don't think you
can get more precise definition & etymology elsewhere. :-)

Also used by programmers in the sense "Don't work too hard, but get a life
of your own", or "Don't burn out", see this discussion on The Wiki:

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?GetaLife

Also used together with "get a life" in the sense "Don't care too much about
cyberspace" is "The Internet is not your life":

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TheInternetIsNotYourLife

Seo Sanghyeon