Geek Stampede.
Apr. 16th, 2005 07:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swestrupFor some time now I've been meaning to mention the Geek stampede that I was in a number of months ago. Its only taken me this long because of a number of unpleasant associations that I have with other events that happened that day, and that I won't go into other than to say it all occured during the height of my depression due to being out of work.
Anyway, the stampede happened during the preparation for the talk at the University of Montreal by Knuth that I went to. Far more folks had shown up to hear him talk than had been expected, and we overflowed the designated room. At the last moment it was announced that another room, some ways across campus, had been obtained, and as it was 3 times bigger than the one we were in, it should hold us all. So, a massive stampede of Geeks followed, as everyone tried to be first to the new location.
Now, when you change rooms like this, something inevitable happens. The folks who got there early to get good seats are now the furthest from the doors, and so will usually get really bad seats at the new location; whereas those who showed up last will be the first ones to the new location and will get the best seats. I was in the folks who had good seats at the previous location, and so I knew I would have get a bad seat at the new place unless I could get ahead of the crowd. The only way to do that (since I didn't know the campus at all) would be to figure out where the crowd was going and optimize my route.
This is normally a very easy thing to do, as crowds are typically full of dumb people who are simply blindly following the person in front of them, and will often take a less than shortest route from one place to another. What I found out with THIS group was that every single other person in the crowd was doing the exact same thing I was. Every one of them was trying to figure out the shortest route and go there ahead of the crowd. As a result the crowd was VERY hard to get ahead of, since every tactic that I thought of seemed to be simultaneously thought of by at least 30% of the other members of the crowd. It was a very frustrating but also a very enlightening experience.
I have dealt with crowds of anime watchers, crowds of Science Fiction enthusiasts, crowds of shoppers, and many other demographicly-segregated crowds. A crowd of Geeks is the only bunch so far that acted like a group of intelligent folks rather than a mob of mindless idiots. I think this goes a long way to point out the fundamental difference between geeks and the rest of the world. It also goes a long way towards explaining why I had such a lousy seat for Knuth's talk.
Anyway, the stampede happened during the preparation for the talk at the University of Montreal by Knuth that I went to. Far more folks had shown up to hear him talk than had been expected, and we overflowed the designated room. At the last moment it was announced that another room, some ways across campus, had been obtained, and as it was 3 times bigger than the one we were in, it should hold us all. So, a massive stampede of Geeks followed, as everyone tried to be first to the new location.
Now, when you change rooms like this, something inevitable happens. The folks who got there early to get good seats are now the furthest from the doors, and so will usually get really bad seats at the new location; whereas those who showed up last will be the first ones to the new location and will get the best seats. I was in the folks who had good seats at the previous location, and so I knew I would have get a bad seat at the new place unless I could get ahead of the crowd. The only way to do that (since I didn't know the campus at all) would be to figure out where the crowd was going and optimize my route.
This is normally a very easy thing to do, as crowds are typically full of dumb people who are simply blindly following the person in front of them, and will often take a less than shortest route from one place to another. What I found out with THIS group was that every single other person in the crowd was doing the exact same thing I was. Every one of them was trying to figure out the shortest route and go there ahead of the crowd. As a result the crowd was VERY hard to get ahead of, since every tactic that I thought of seemed to be simultaneously thought of by at least 30% of the other members of the crowd. It was a very frustrating but also a very enlightening experience.
I have dealt with crowds of anime watchers, crowds of Science Fiction enthusiasts, crowds of shoppers, and many other demographicly-segregated crowds. A crowd of Geeks is the only bunch so far that acted like a group of intelligent folks rather than a mob of mindless idiots. I think this goes a long way to point out the fundamental difference between geeks and the rest of the world. It also goes a long way towards explaining why I had such a lousy seat for Knuth's talk.
