the nerd merit badges I’d make

Posted on by Luis Villa

I like the concept of nerd merit badges– I even want the inbox zero one- but the execution is a little weak. Seeing this started me pondering on what I’d do if I were going to make my own.

The temptation, of course, is just to have a logo per organization- gnu, gnome, moz, fedora, etc. But the core of the merit badge idea is that you’re indicating skills learned, not organizations. (Yes, I’m an old boy scout on top of all my other nerdiness.) So I tried to think along those lines, and here are some of the skills I’d like to decorate my bag/laptop with:

  • GTD: a david allen head, natch.
  • emacs: emacs logo?
  • bugmaster: old gnome bugsquad logo? (mosquito with crosshairs)
  • infolaw: scales, or something (yeah, I know… pretty weak.)
  • perl: a very short obfuscated perl program
  • peer production: (because open source just isn’t right for some reason) (but hell if I know what that logo would be; nerdmeritbadge uses github’s octocat but that seems… weak)
  • lego: you know it!
  • family tech support: nerdmeritbadges has this one, and it isn’t a bad concept, but their logo for it is terrible.

I bet you could do a passable job of them with this cafepress option and some decent gimpery, but if people have decent suggestions I’m all ears. :)

Published by Luis Villa

7 thoughts on “the nerd merit badges I’d make”

  6. Thaytan: eeeenteresting. I’d been thinking of this for a bag, so stickers weren’t my first thought, but still… that might work. Hrm.

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