[sureglymop]

I think the word has been used in so many different ways... that maybe it's better to just create your own definition.

Mine would be this (for both nerd and hacker): Someone with an almost insatiable curiosity, who will tinker around with hard- and software even in their free time, next to work and studying for example. Someone who has side projects... Someone who is so interested in the inner workings of the things and technology around them that even encountering normal everyday technological things will result in ideas popping up in their head on what out of the ordinary but interesting things could be done with those things.

Personally, I identify with it because of that endless curiosity. I think that in a way it may seem a bit weird because... the curiosity is so burning that we just can't stop tinkering and hacking around until we get what we want to do.

Also I believe that a black hat hacker is the same... I'm not talking about the ordinary small criminal but about the guy who hacks something that is thought of being safe and unhackable. Because that is the guy who just couldn't stop and couldn't accept that, his curiosity was so overwhelming that he even did something ethically questionable.