I suspect those of us not offended are generally on the lower side of the 40 year old divider. Nerd and Geek used to be insults, and in fact, still were when I was in (the equivalent of) high school. But the world has shifted, and *everyone* has to be a little nerdy/geeky to get through life today. We all have to know *something* about computers, and jobs have become hyper-specialised to the point where you are expected to be an expert on your job's scope, regardless of your position of seniority. Even bob, the 'jock' in sales, has to be a bit nerdy about your company's products if he's to do his job, and he has to be able to operate Excel like everyone else - even if he does do stupid stuff like deleting sheets instead of inserting a row every now and then
So to those of us under about 40 years old, being a nerd or a geek isn't quite a bad thing.
[Snip stuff about me...]
Your points 1 and 2 are essentially the same thing, although perhaps with a level of formality implied by point 2.
I actually think 'being a nerd' falls into somewhere in points 1 or 2, although point 3 can imply it too, I think the key factor about a 'nerd' is that it is someone that has an interest or obsession about a subject, and that they are willing to spend their own time pursuing that interest.
In many ways, this makes being a nerd something to be proud of.
You can have someone that has a formal education in computer science, but still doesn't actually care about the subject other than as a method of getting a job. They would not be a 'computer nerd' (or geek).
However, coming back to what I said at the opening of this post, such a person wouldn't do well in a computer science related job, and may not even do well in any desk job - and lets be honest, almost all jobs have some element of being a desk job these days, even farmers have lots of technology and data to manage.
Hence why I think that we're all becoming nerds/geeks, and it just isn't an insult anymore.
The older among us, however, may not quite have been exposed to this change in society yet (although how they'd manage that other than being self-employed is anyone's guess, but even owning your own business is likely to incur all manner of nerdy stuff), or they may be clinging to the segregation of 'jocks and nerds' that there was in their youth.
Even being a 'train nerd' is something that can have positive effects these days. The internet has made it so that anyone can write a book for example. Are you a 'foamer' who knows everything about freight movements through Waco, TX in the 90s? There's probably someone that will buy a book about that information.
