Geeks Are Sexy
Posted: Wed 06/20/2007 by ramiroAccording to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary the original meaning of the word geek is:
a carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake
Nowadays a geek usually refers to a person who is an enthusiast or expert in a technological field. I wouldn't say that these 2 definitions are mutually exclusive but that is another story. What I am going to present here are some information on and photos of computer geeks to show that geeks are very sexy people.
Celebrities
With celebrities I mean highly influential persons, e.g. those who invented operating systems or programming languages.
Alan Cox
Alan Cox is a computer programmer and major contributor in the development of the Linux kernel since its early days in 1991.
John Gilmore
John Gilmore is one of the founders of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Cypherpunks mailing list, and Cygnus Solutions. He created the alt.* hierarchy in Usenet and is a major contributor to the GNU project.
John Hall
Jon "maddog" Hall is the Executive Director of Linux International, a non-profit organization of computer vendors who wish to support and promote the Linux operating system. According to Hall, his nickname maddog came from a time when I had less control over my temper.
Grace Murray Hopper
Grace Murray Hopper was an American computer scientist and United States Navy officer. She was one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I calculator, and developed the first compiler for a computer programming language. Because of her achievements she is sometimes referred to as "Amazing Grace".
David Korn
David Korn, creator of the Korn Shell is really a cool geek because he often wears Korn shirts.
Eric S. Raymond
Eric Steven Raymond is a computer programmer, author and advocate for the open source movement. I could have taken virtually any photo of Eric Raymond I found, so it was a tough decision to end up with only 4 photos of ESR here.
Richard Stallman
Richard Matthew Stallman, a.k.a. RMS, is a software freedom activist, hacker, and software developer. In 1983, he started the GNU Project to create a free Unix-like operating system. Stallman also developed the original Emacs, the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), and the GNU Debugger.
Bjarne Stroustrup
Bjarne Stroustrup is a Danish computer scientist. He designed and developed the C++ programming language in 1983.
Linus Torvalds
Linus Benedict Torvalds is a Finnish software engineer who initiated the development of the Linux kernel.
Larry Wall
Larry Wall is a programmer, linguist, and author. He is most widely known for his creation of the Perl programming language in 1987. Without Perl I wouldn't be a software developer. So thanks Larry for making it possible for me to pay my rent.
Steven Gary Wozniak
Stephan Gary "Woz" Wozniak co-founded Apple Computer with Steve Jobs.
Famous Couples
The famous couples listed below worked together to achieve something of inconceivable value.
Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie
Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie and Kenneth Lane Thompson were the principal creators of the UNIX operating system. Ken Thompson is responsible for the B programming language and Dennis Ritchie for C.
Bill Gates and Paul Allen
In 1975 William Henry Gates III (Bill Gates) and Paul Allen founded Microsoft. Bill Gates became the richest geek and Microsoft one of the biggest corporations on our planet.
Hackers
People who have done truly evil things, especially Mr. Gates.
Loyd Blankenship
Loyd Blankenship, a.k.a. The Mentor, has been a well known hacker and writer since the 1980s, when he was a member of the hacker groups Extasyy Elite and Legion of Doom.
Riley Eller
Riley Eller a.k.k Caezar is a member of the Ghetto Hackers.
John T. Draper
In 1971 John T. Draper, a.k.a Captain Crunch, discovered that a toy whistle given away inside Cap'n Crunch cereal generates a 2600 hertz signal, the same frequency that was used by AT&T long lines to indicate that a trunk line was ready and available to route a new call. Draper built a blue box that, when used in conjunction with the whistle and sounded into a phone receiver, allows phreakers to make free calls.
Dan Farmer
Dan Farmer is a computer security expert. After graduating from Purdue University he started developing the COPS program for identifying security issues on Unix systems. In 1995, he and Wietse Venema created SATAN (Security Administrator Tool for Analyzing Networks), a network based vulnerability scanners.
Bill Gates
The richest ex-criminal of the world.
Susan Lynn Headley
Susan Lynn Headley a.k.a Thunder is one of the few female hackers and member of the Roscoe Gang.
Vladimir Levin
Vladimir Levin does not only look like a Russian criminal he is one at least in the eyes of the evil Citibank corporation. Levin spent 3 years in jail because of attempting to fraudulently transfer US$10.7 million via Citibank's computers.
Gordon Lyon
Gordon Lyon, better known as Fyodor, is a network security expert, open source programmer (Nmap Security Scanner), writer, and self-proclaimed hacker. He obviously likes skiing and eating low fat foods.
Richard Pryce
As a 16-year-old music student Richard Pryce, a.k.a Datastream Cowboy, was arrested and charged with breaking into hundreds of computers at Griffiths Air Force Base, NASA and the Korean Atomic Research Institute. On the black and white photo Pryce somehow reminds me of Michael Jackson.
Bruce Schneier
Bruce Schneier is an American cryptographer, computer security specialist, and writer. He authored several books on computer security and cryptography, and designed the Blowfish and Twofish algorithms.
Simple Nomad
Simple Nomad calls himself a hacker and a fucking dinosaur.
Peter Shipley
Peter Shipley is a real beauty. He likes to drink Grolsch, a German Dutch beer, wrote the first network scanner NetSweep in 1988 and is the inventor of Wardriving.
Wietse Zweitze Venema
Dr. Wietse Zweitze Venema is a Dutch programmer who wrote the Postfix mail system. He has also written security tools, such as SATAN and The Coroner's Toolkit together with Dan Farmer.
The Root of all Evil
The beginnings of Microsoft. No further statement needed.
Update 1 - Even more Evil
Commentator bloid proposed that I should post some photos of myself to feel less grubby about this collection. I start off with a recent photo being surprised in a somehow embarrassing situation. To get photos from the 70's and 80's, I need to visit my parents, so be patient, I'll post them at a later time.
Then we can compare and contrast (and laugh) fairly, and with slightly less of a grubby feeling (maybe)
Good idea bloid. I'll add three photos of me, one from the seventies when I was a child, one from the eighties when I was a teen and one from this century where I was photographed without being prepared.
I am going to update this post when I have collected the photos. You will be surprised how sexy I look ;-)
Colour me impressed :)
Thanks for the hint Jochem, I corrected it.
I did a lot of Perl programming for some years but now most of the web stuff I do is in PHP. But you are right I am not a Java guy, that's probably one of the reasons why I drive to work with a bicycle and not with a car ;-)
Post new comment