You know that you're really a nerd when ...

[NiHaoMike]

...You buy all sorts of cheap gadgets to modify...

...While helping your friend with a physics problem involving swimming up a river, you turn the problem into a phasor analysis problem involving the series connection of two AC voltage sources...

...You're convinced you can build a radar out of a defibrillator, a microwave oven, and a satellite dish...

...You think that by adding an Arduino to the above setup, you can talk to E.T. If you believed in E.T., that is...

...At every Eta Kappa Nu meeting, all you seem to talk about are engineering projects and ideas...

...Your best friend is a model, and the part you like most about her is her engineering skills...

[74HC04]

...study the Wikipedia article about the worlds different power plugs in your lunch hour.

...And get a great feeling of satisfaction when you correctly recall the UK plug is a BS1363 or that cloverleaf is actually an IEC type C5!

[slburris]

...Your best friend is a model, and the part you like most about her is her engineering skills...

None of the models I ever met had any engineering skills.  And none of the engineers were
models.  But this was back in the early 1980s, maybe things have improved since then :-)

Scott

[.o:0|O|0:o.]

Any minor skill becomes a talent when she's a model.

Then again, sometimes the pretty ones do look at books as much as mirrors (see Rachel Riley ;-)

.o:0|O|0:o.

[Uncle Vernon]

To any true nerd a model is a creation by air-fix which comes with glue and decals.

[Bored@Work]

To any true nerd a model is a creation by air-fix

Or Estes.

[Zad]

...You see side cutters as a perfectly reasonable way to trim your hair and wonder why people look at you funny.

[djsb]

...Your best friend is a model, and the part you like most about her is her engineering skills...

None of the models I ever met had any engineering skills.  And none of the engineers were
models.  But this was back in the early 1980s, maybe things have improved since then :-)

Scott

They're all training to be designers.

[NiHaoMike]

None of the models I ever met had any engineering skills.  And none of the engineers were
models.  But this was back in the early 1980s, maybe things have improved since then :-)

20-30 years completely changes engineering... For the record, I also know some engineers (Susmitha Gouni, Amanda Patterson, Sarah Thibodeaux, et al.) who are not models (as far as I know), but look like they could be.

And note that modern engineering focuses a lot more on looks than it has in the past. For example, the circuit board in a USB Flash drive is designed with traditional engineering, but the casing is something the models and fashion designers work on. (Although mechanical engineering also plays a part in making it tough enough to withstand mishandling.)

To any true nerd a model is a creation by air-fix which comes with glue and decals.

To circuit simulation engineers, models are just files. (Actually, it is said that UNIX represents just about everything as files. In theory, I could create a virtual character device file ("/dev/ptyTiffanyYep", perhaps?) that lets me talk to Tiffany Yep using the cat command.)

[CryptLordGR]

...you go to a place and the first thing you check is if there is WiFi

[quantumfall]

You wake up and there is a work bench with a hot soldering iron 24'' from the end of your bed.  I shared a flat (apartment) and only had a room for myself twenty five years ago

[Excavatoree]

You wake up and there is a work bench with a hot soldering iron 24'' from the end of your bed.  I shared a flat (apartment) and only had a room for myself twenty five years ago

Sounds like my dorm room at the university.

[arcom]

...you dream SPICE simulations and change component values to improve your dreamy design

[JohnS_AZ]

... over dinner you try to explain that you could cook the turkey more accurately if the oven had a PID controller, and the thermal feedback loop was tightened significantly.

[Uncle Vernon]

Really a nerd when you feel bitter and twisted, and you begin creating conspiracy theories after not winning a multimeter giveaway. 

[NiHaoMike]

... over dinner you try to explain that you could cook the turkey more accurately if the oven had a PID controller, and the thermal feedback loop was tightened significantly.

The new ovens with digital controls probably do have some form of very basic PID control. All it takes is some software in the microcontroller.

[apex]

... if you buy parts for "historical reasons"
... if you collect multimeters (who could that be  )
... if you wake up a few hours too late because there was a error in your self-built alarm clock
... if you wake up a few hours too late and the only reason you woke up was the self-built power supply of your self-buit alarm clock exploding... (I had this one. Seriously.)

[Simon]

well what about buying house deliberately with one more bedroom that you would need for the forseable future just to turn the whole bedroom into a lab ?.

investigating the electronics that your company buys and telling them whats wrong with it.

doing pcb design during your lunch hour and making sure that your "electronics files" are alwayswith you and that the nearest pc has your PCB software installed. of course carrying you laptop EVERYWHERE no solves that once and for all so you could even work on a pcb whilst on "holiday"

[williefleete]

you can use every last byte in a PICAXE for something (eg some of my projects)
you can optimise said code in your sleep and wake up at 2 am to update said code and try the firmware
you can drive 64 LEDs using no more than four output pins and less than 256 bytes of picaxe code
you can fit a 32 character "rom" on above for a 7 segment display character set and bell character

[marianoapp]

well what about buying house deliberately with one more bedroom that you would need for the forseable future just to turn the whole bedroom into a lab ?.

haha I'm looking for a house with two bedrooms for that exact same reason

[GeoffS]

haha I'm looking for a house with two bedrooms for that exact same reason

I'm about to vacate my 2 bedroom house and one of the jobs I have to do before leaving is to restore the second bedroom from a computer/electronics workshop back to a bedroom. There's a full length bench along one wall that has to come out. Fill all the holes in the wall, repaint.

And then do it all in reverse in my new home!