"Bad hair, pocket protector--and proud" was how the Boston Herald headlined the event, kind of a people's computer celebration. The mostly male crowd noshed on Fritos corn chips, played computer games, got free massages, caught up on the electronic music revolution, and railed against Wall Street's attempts to take over the Internet. The throng also gushed over Linux, the "anti-Microsoft" operating system, which is distributed free and has an "open source" setup that allows users to tinker with its code.

The nerds, sporting many a beard and pierced eyebrow, reveled at being with so many kindred souls. "I've been to other things, like Star Trek conventions," said Brad Polant, there with his wife April and their "fetal geek," Michael, now 3 months old. "But this is the first for geeks alone."

"We just wanted to have a party for geeks," said Susan Kaup, a Boston freelance programmer who put the event together with Tim McEachern, founder of the Internet radio show Geek Nation. Partygoers were treated to a stream of speakers, ranging from establishment sage Sandy Pentland of MIT's Media Lab to Rob Malda, founder of the geek news site Slashdot.org. "Most of the time when I go to a party, there are people I don't like and they're talking about things I'm not interested in," said Malda. "No one's going to bug me about sports here, but I can find a guy who collects video games."