&#62; Non-geeks might perceive such behavior as rude and arrogant, like the geek is trying to show his smartness and be a 'know-it-all'.<p>It's only perceived as rude when it comes across as rude.  For example, if you interrupt someone mid-sentence to correct something insignificant, then that's rude.
Waiting for the person to finish talking and then immediately correcting something they said earlier gives the other person the impression that you weren't listening to what they were saying.  There are better ways of dealing with this in conversation.  One of them is simply to ignore irrelevant inaccuracies.<p>Calling it "altruistic behaviour to educate" is also disingenuous.  I've met many geeks who thrive on expounding minutiae about irrelevant or insignificant topics at the most inappropriate moments, all for the sake of recognition.  It's the same as when jocks try to impress others by being macho.  Obviously not all geeks are like that, but they definitely exist.  My dad is geek who is like this but for him it's also about self-affirmation.<p>Finally, I often see articles on the net trying to explain "geeky" social interaction, but I rarely read articles specifically targeted at people with these tendencies describing how to improve their social skills.  That's because, IMO, people who have these skills recognize that intelligence has little to do with it.