Before you jump to conclusions about who I am, I'd like to take some time to make sure I'm not incorrectly mislabelled as one of the following personality types.
I am not a "Nerd", that is someone obsessed with intellectualism. That is, even though I can quickly learn, I don't enjoy knowledge per se, nor pride myself for it.
I don't enjoy reading books. I don't like remembering seemingly random facts. I don't like puzzles. And I definitely dislike chess.
True, I may have some affinity with nerds, including being smart, slighly socially akwards and not liking sports (no, chess is not a sport). But having met and been friends with some real nerds many times, I can tell that there's still a difference between me and "them".
I think one characteristic that I have and that few "proper" nerds don't have is that I am pragmatic. I don't learn something unless it can be useful through me or to teach to others. I find abstract thoughts and mind games absurd. I don't particularly like the idea of research in mathematics unless a specific potential application is thought of before hand.
In a way, I may be a slightly "nerdy" engineer. Think of me of a non-blasé Dilbert.
I am not a geek. That is, I don't particularly like any of the following:
And so on. True, I like gadgets a bit, but only as long as I actively use them. I like some science fiction. And some Japanese animation. And some video games. But let's be clear: I'm highly selective. Like everything else, 90% of everything is crap. And I'm not going to focus my attention only on things that make me escape from reality.
And I'm not an Apple fan. Yes, I own only Macs. And an Apple mouse. And an iPhone. And I prefer Macs. And a lot of Apple products.
But let me be clear. Every day of work I make use of Mac, Windows and Linux at the same time. I can assemble a PC from parts and install Linux on it. I've been using Windows since Windows NT 4. I may generally dislike Microsoft Windows, but I often prefer using some Linux or Solaris distribution rather than Mac OS X. Most of the applications I use are 100% cross-platform. I dislike DRM, even when Apple-branded. I don't like how the iPhone platform is closed. I always prefer open-source over the amount of features and "support".
I just prefer Macs in general, and don't mind paying for an extra bit of quality and warranty.
And, really, Microsoft tends to annoy me in the way they make their software. At least with open-source I can fix it.