Next: Prada Pocket Protectors?

Fortunately for most of us here, this Salon column claims that geek chic has survived the popping of the dot-com bubble. Though I'll confess I'm a bit disturbed at how cavalierly the author runs roughshod over the subtle differences of meaning between "geek," "nerd," and "dork." "Geek," after all, has a noble provenance: It referred to circus freaks who bit the heads off chickens. The origin of "nerd" is less clear, but it may have come from Dr. Seuss's If I Ran the Zoo, which is also pretty cool, though the term is more apt than "geek" to connote social awkwardness (rather than merely an overdeveloped interest in tech or music or what have you). Dork, on the other hand, is just one more word derived from that organ of a thousand names, the penis, and (as with most such terms) indicates obnoxiousness more than anything else. (Bilingual trivia: Penile slang is mostly negative in English. In Spanish, it's more positive—e.g. "cojonudo"—while the negative term "coniazo" is derived from a term for "vagina".)

Anyway, speaking of geekery: I have to confess that I think this is really cool.