I ran into this list over on Gizmodo today, and thought it’d be an interesting meme.

If none of these make any sense to you, that’s okay. I choose to love you anyway.

The 50 Skills Every Geek Should Have:

1. Install a hard drive in a laptop – Both IDE/PATA and SATA of various sizes!
2. Perform a clean OS install on a machine with two OSes – Just two? Why stop there?
3. Swap out the battery on your iPod/iPhone – On my 4G 20GB iPod, but I should really upgrade the HDD too… or just buy a new one.
4. Jailbreak an iPhone – I haven’t done it (I’m not an iPhone-r), but I’ve read every article I have seen come across on it.
5. Wire your house for Ethernet and Coax cable – Cat5e and RJ6, although I’m running 802.11n now.
6. Use BitTorrent and RSS to automatically download new shows from trackers
7. Use an A/V receiver to its fullest capability (every port is taken)
8. Calibrate an HDTV without the manual
9. Use a DSLR in full manual mode
10. Hack the encryption and mooch your neighbor’s Wi-Fi – Not that many people actually encrypt their wireless… or their PCs.
11. Solder cleanly enough to get around a circuit board
12. Use your 3G phone as a Wi-Fi access point – Better—using someone else’s 3G phone to get wireless!
13. Shove the guts of a modern game console into a retro game console – I’m not a gamer, but a case mod is a case mod is a case mod.
14. Design a webpage in HTML by hand that features a picture of your cat – I do it in notepad!!!
15. Use Photoshop to imperceptibly doctor a photo –I prefer Paint Shop Pro and Gimp.
16. Abstain from buying extended warranties
17. Know where to buy cheap cables and accessories
18. Fix your parents’ computer over the phone without looking at a computer – Not just my parents’….
19. Enter the Konami code
20. Comment on Gizmodo from your phone
21. Type quickly using T9 texting – At one time… but now I have a full keyboard on my phone!
22. Program a universal remote
23. Contribute code to the Linux kernel
24. Hide porn from your significant other – Not that I’d have to, but yes….
25. Avoid DRM on everything
26. Know how to back up your data to networked storage—and actually do it – And I know how to recover it too, just in case.
27. Watch TV shows on the internet for free – People pay for content?
28. Edit together digital video ripped from YouTube
29. Play any SNES game on your computer through an emulator
30. Reset expired trial software by messing with the registry – Even better if you can set it from “trial” to “purchased” via the registry.
31. Hackintosh your PC – Just twice, then I went back to DOS.
32. Download pre-release movies from Usenet – Maybe…
33. Hack the Wii to play homebrew games
34. Get around web content filters on public computers – No Comment… 😉
35. Get into a Windows computer if you forgot your password – You DO know what I do for a living, right?
36. Securely erase your data so it can’t be recovered – Don’t ask….
37. Share a printer between a Mac and a PC on a network
38. Build a fighting robot
39. Write your own Firefox plugins
40. Navigate and reorganize the files on your computer in DOS – PUSHD is your friend.
41. Get something on the front page of Digg
42. Get through to executive customer service – I’m not allowed to speak to this in public….
43. Rip a CD to V0 quality MP3s – Using Lame to VBR2, actually.
44. Rip a DVD to DivX – Usually with DVD Decrypter and Dr. DivX
45. Build your own computer from parts – Several times….
46. Swap out the hard drive in your DVR for a bigger one
47. Get an NES cartridge working again by blowing in it – Ahh, childhood memories….
48. Calibrate a 7.1 surround-sound system
49. Play downloaded games on a Nintendo DS
50. Talk about things that aren’t tech related – Sex!

Some things Man was never meant to know. For everything else, there’s Google.