What is the average age of GeekHackers?

[ozar]

Hey guys, I've been curious about the ages of the members here at GeekHack.org, so how about picking your age from the poll?

[D-EJ915]

I'm curious too but am too old and wise to vote first.

- Ripster

you know you can vote without having to post...and this isn't a public poll anyway

[ozar]

you know you can vote without having to post...and this isn't a public poll anyway

Yeah, I wouldn't have dared to make it public because too many might not vote.  :lol:

[ozar]

Well, there's a good chance you guys are 20 year olds....

Since I've revealed myself I'll vote a bit later.

- Ripster

Show Image

That's funny that you posted that Ripster, because that's exactly the way I had you pictured!  :lol:

[ozar]

Oops... a slight goober in the poll:

It should have been 20 and under at the top position, and 71 and over at the bottom position.  Didn't mean to leave out the 20 and 71 year olds.

[zwmalone]

I'll be the first to put my age.  I'm 16 :peace:

[o2dazone]

no shame, im 25

[xyzzy]

35 and counting :hat:

[lam47]

I think if you have a keyboard that is older than you then you should be banned. Its just not right!

[cchan]

Nearly seventeen, and I have two 1391401's that are older than I am. One by three years, and one by only a few months.

[wellington1869]

technically i think the groupings should have been "20 to 29" etc instead of "21 to 30" because people usually group themselves as "in their twenties" or "in their thirties" and the former grouping style works for that. Not that its important. I'm on the border between decades so I was glad to be able to choose the lower group

I think there are a lot more 'older' people here than the poll indicates. Tho probably "in their twenties" will be the group with the most members.

I agree, if your keyboard is older than you, you are required to give it up.

[ssb]

I feel so old at 44.

[zwmalone]

Thank god my Evolution is younger than me.

[wellington1869]

I feel so old at 44.

life is basically over after 30.  
my only consolation is that its going to happen to *everyone*, even the snot-nosed 20 year olds here

"We've all got it comin'" as clint eastwood said.

[wellington1869]

so far it looks like about half are in their twenties and about half are not.
I still think the over 30 crowd is underrepresented.

[wellington1869]

three groups -- the good, the bad, the oooooold.

[rdjack21]

Some of us old farts have our original keyboards that we purchased when we were young punks. Wish I would have known how valuable some of those keyboards would be back then. I would have horded a bunch of them NIB for my retirement

[o2dazone]

nice dodge

[Mercen_505]

34.

[cchan]

I agree, if your keyboard is older than you, you are required to give it up.

no big loss, I'm not a huge BS fan anyway. My main keyboard has cherry browns and was made post-2001. (Cherry MX8100)

[ozar]

technically i think the groupings should have been "20 to 29" etc instead of "21 to 30" because people usually group themselves as "in their twenties" or "in their thirties" and the former grouping style works for that. Not that its important. I'm on the border between decades so I was glad to be able to choose the lower group

Yes, you're right, the poll should have been set for teens, 20's, 30's, 40's, and so on.  Hopefully, we'll be able to get some idea of the age stats as is, because it's probably too late to adjust it at this point.

Before posting the poll, I was thinking that a large number of the membership might be past their teens, and that seems to be playing out as expected, but so far nobody older than 60 is participating.

[msiegel]

phew, i'm only 39

creeeeeak! listen to those tendons creaking

[bhtooefr]

Best way to do it is:

Under 18
18-22 (covers normal college age)
23-29 (covers the rest of the 20's)
30-39 (covers the 30's)
40-49 (covers the 40's)
50-66 (covers the AARP pre-retirement crowd)
67+ (covers the retired)

Oh, and I'm 21, and my oldest STANDALONE board is my AEK2, made in 1990-W50. But, I do own an Apple ][+ keyboard, so that's circa 1978-1982...

[wellington1869]

Show Image

His obituary said he died at 39.

Anyone who gets this joke is WAY above the average Geekhacker age.

- Ripster

lol i got it but only because i watched a jack benny A&E biography episode recently ;)

[lowpoly]

<--------- 45

[wellington1869]

In my day... we didnt have forums and twitter... we wrote letters and hand-carried them to each other and filed them in shoeboxes -- and we liked it!

[o2dazone]

old people always make the same face when playing the Wii

me mum on the day the wii came out

[wellington1869]

lol. it takes a lot of concentration

[o2dazone]

Alright fine hows this



You can verify her age by the bouffant

[ozar]

The forum index page shows that we have 293 currently active members, but only 44 have voted with their age as of this post, so we still have a ways to go to see how the age factor really works out.  I'm still wondering if we have any over 60 year olds.

[cchan]

Sir, you're doing it wrong.

- Under 18 M/F
- 18-21 F --> Browse&upload picture
- 22-29 F --> Browse&upload picture
- Other M/F

How old is eherzog again?

[pmyshkin]

Yeah, if my statistics class recollection is correct then after a sample size of 30 we should be looking pretty gaussian.  Which we are.

Central limit theorem says that the mean of iid samples will approach a normal distribution, not the samples themselves.

[pmyshkin]

WIKIPEDIA, wish you had sat in front of me in probabiity.  I might have passed that class!

Corrected.

[lowpoly]

Is an active member someone who posted at least once? Or someone who logged in for ex. last month?

[Viett]

If we're talking stats, this poll suffers from extreme volunteer bias. In order to get a true age estimate, we have to take an SRS of all Geekhackers, or maybe those who have a certain number of posts, if you want to exclude people.

[iMav]

Is an active member someone who posted at least once? Or someone who logged in for ex. last month?

An active member is one who has logged into geekhack in the past 30 days.

[ozar]

Hmm... wonder why nobody over 60?

Surely the folks in those age groups know that there is a difference in keyboards.

Maybe they do know, but just don't care anymore?  

[ozar]

My dad has a IBM Selectric Typewriter as his main computing device.

Ah, sounds like he and xsphat should get along well then... better tell him to sign up for an account here and then let him vote in the age poll.  :lol:

[ch_123]

I'm 19, turning 20 (the age that doesn't exist according to the poll) in less than two months. And yes, my beloved Model F is two years older than me...

[keyb_gr]

I've already analyzed everybody's true gender!

That is interesting. I put in some writing of my own and was finally found out to be male, but not overwhelmingly so (about 80:60). Some of my drier non-fiction yielded about 50:50, and at first I pretty consistently got "female".

I guess being a native headphone and/or sensitive person will distort the result. Results with some text written by native speakers were much less ambiguous.

[xsphat]

2) Old people don't vote (where's Xsphat and Bigpook - this is a local election)

Show Image

How old do you think I am? I'm 36 and my wife is 28.

[keyb_gr]

We're just trying to get the above 30 numbers up, as of right now the poll is 58% under 30.  A little younger than I expected getting into this.

It's not like it would be terribly surprising. The proliferation of PCs (not to mention home computers before that) produced a number of computer-addicted youths back in the early to mid '90s or thereabouts, and chances are you'd still get to know a decent keyboard at the time. That's much of the 21-30 and 31-40 groups. Therefore I predict that we'll see the age profile shift over time.

We have more folks under 20 than I expected though.

[bhtooefr]

I think the under 20 thing might be partially explainable by the retro trend. Old stuff is cool now.

[bigpook]

But isn't old stuff always cool? It just depends on what time frame we are talking about.

[wellington1869]

But isn't old stuff always cool? It just depends on what time frame we are talking about.

i love old stuff more every day. I swear I almost wish I had my record player and rotary phone back.  
I spent 2 hours the other day trying out old style 'green screen' editors.
I long for the mechanical simplicity and tactical certainty of old technology. I totally understand xs's interest in typewriters.

Its not just the tactility and predictability and simplicity of old school gadgets; I really believe the psychological effects of using them are different too (I think they provide a more 'linear' experience, metaphysically speaking, as compared to the ADD experiences we get with gadgets today).

I'm really developing a distaste for gadgets today. My mp3 player's buttons annoy the hell out of me. I'd barely even call them buttons. They activate on their own all the time or I have to use the tiny hold switch while its in my pocket (and hope i dont hit one of the other buttons while i'm feeling around for the hold button). I hate the menus that pop up for everything. I hate the non-stop distractions and interruptions of the internet.

The other day I voluntarily (i think for the first time ever) turned off my tv and just listened to silence for a minute. Oh my god, it was like a revelation.  My thoughts focused, I felt better about everything, I got inspired about work.

I know i cant function without all the information and speed we have available today, but I want to start policing the way I access it - the UI is so crucial to the overall experience. And I definitely want a more mechanical, predictable, simpler UI to the contemporary world.   And that may well mean retro-fitting old school gadgets into new school work flows.  I can live with that. I hope more companies realize this and start producing older-fashioned tech once again.

[bigpook]

I feel so old at 44.

Its just a number, really.

As an old mentor used to tell me (he is probably dead now):
Anthony, if you have health, then you have wealth.

I'm 46 and still feel good.

[wellington1869]

pook, why do you need 3 model m mini's?

[bigpook]

pook, why do you need 3 model m mini's?

I don't. : )

I think its a neurotic obsession. But not in a bad way.
The model m mini is the epitome of keyboard design for me. Purely my opinion. All other designs
fall short when compared to it. Some come close, but there can be only one. In this case, its the model m mini.

One of my varied goals in life, is to get an NIB for each model year they were produced.
That could change at any time though. But as of now, not likely. It would be neat to have them all though.

[ozar]

Hey Pook, I think you just took us "over 30s" over the top.

If you assume these midpoint ages (16,  25, 35, 45, 55) and run the numbers (sample size = 51) I get an average age of:

30.235

Which makes me feel CONSIDERABLY better.

Now watch another 16 year old come in and spoil the whole thing.

- Ripster

Wait... but I haven't voted yet and am only twelve, but soon to be thirteen (in a couple of months).

Hope that doesn't mess up your averages?  :jaw:

Haha... just pulling your leg, Ripster.

[wellington1869]

I don't. : )

I think its a neurotic obsession. But not in a bad way.
The model m mini is the epitome of keyboard design for me. Purely my opinion. All other designs
fall short when compared to it. Some come close, but there can be only one. In this case, its the model m mini.

One of my varied goals in life, is to get an NIB for each model year they were produced.
That could change at any time though. But as of now, not likely. It would be neat to have them all though.

so i take it they're not for sale?