Geek Stars From Atkinson to Zappa 320
Ian Lamont writes "You probably remember reading about Brian May getting a PhD in Astrophysics, but may not know about the many other celebrities from the music, TV, and film worlds who have studied science and technology in college and grad school, or are simply serious gearheads who like gadgets, games, and other geek pastimes. Computerworld has identified about 50 celebrities who fit the bill, including Dan Grimaldi (Patsy Parisi, The Sopranos) who has a Bachelor of Arts degree in math, a master's in operations research and a Ph.D. in data processing; Rowan Atkinson, who has a master's in electrical engineering from Queen's College, Oxford; and Todd Rundgren, who developed an early paint program called Utopia. Other folks on the list: Dr. Demento, Montel Williams, Natalie Portman, Curt Schilling, and Huey Lewis."
Portman (Score:4, Funny)
Hey Editor! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hey Editor! (Score:3, Funny)
Don't forget Britney Spears! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yawn (Score:3, Funny)
Comic Guy voice: "I like to refer to these people as "closet geeks", their many faux friends call them "interesting"...pffft!"
Psych papers (Score:1, Funny)
Linkage? (Score:4, Funny)
A Bachelor of *arts* in Mathematics? (Score:3, Funny)
"e^i*pi = -1. How does that make you feel?"
"Pythagoras' Theorem is a^2 + b^2 = c^2. What do you think he was trying to convey by that?"
Re:Don't forget Britney Spears! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yawn (Score:3, Funny)
Re:A Bachelor of *arts* in Mathematics? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:A Bachelor of *arts* in Mathematics? (Score:4, Funny)
Part 2, law: outline a case for suing
a) The driver of the first train,
b) The manager of the railway company,
c) A contractor working on the signalling system,
d) A passer by,
e) Your grandmother,
f) The insect.
Show how you would win each case.
...and what about George Clinton? (Score:2, Funny)
He apparently has a BA in Mathematics [xkcd.com].
Psychology (Score:3, Funny)
Natalie Portman isn't a geek, she's just a girl who was smart enough not to spend four years with a bunch of Star Wars fans.
Re:Zappa on music (Score:2, Funny)
I mean it's not rocket science to work out the Shannon limit for a phone line with the filters in the exchange tweaked would give DSL like speeds, or to notice that a frequency domain compression algorithm should be feasable for music and should compress raw PCM data from a CD by around 10:1. So would clearly be possible to send a digital copy of a song over a phoneline in about real time.
Which is a terrible idea of course, because then the guy that paid have something which they can send to all their friends.
Re:Portman (Score:4, Funny)
As long as Winnie Cooper made the list ... (Score:3, Funny)
She was recently on NPR talking about what she was doing with her degree in mathmatics
Poor Kevin Arnold! How'd he let her slip away?
Re:Also expert driver (Score:3, Funny)
Re:PhD !=geek (Score:3, Funny)