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Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who are the greatest geeks of us all? That question -- posed in an Australian iTnews article, "The Top 10 Greatest Geeks of All Time" on Monday -- sparked quite a discussion in the blogosphere last week, garnering more than 1,300 Diggs and 280 comments by Friday. Who was top of the list? We'll give you a hint: He's the father of our favorite operating system. Other notables on there? Richard Stallman in 9th position, and Paul Allen at 10.
I would say the top geek should be Marc Andreessen who wrote the MOSAIC web browser and opened the internet to all of us.
Gates, a head geek?
PUH-LEASE!!!
I don't like the man, so maybe I am somewhat prejudiced. Let me try hard to be fair.
Yes, Gates was a visionary. Yes, Gates is quite a businessman. Yes, Gates has negotiated a marginal toehold in the computing industry, into a a mega-giant corporate power. A lot of things can be said, both good and bad, about Bill Gates.
But - geek?
Sorry. Bill Gates, to my knowledge, simply is NOT A GEEK!
No matter how efficient a business shark might be, he is not a geek. The greatest shark on earth? Maybe. Geek? Certainly not.
PUH-LEASE!!!
I don't like the man, so maybe I am somewhat prejudiced. Let me try hard to be fair.
Yes, Gates was a visionary. Yes, Gates is quite a businessman. Yes, Gates has negotiated a marginal toehold in the computing industry, into a a mega-giant corporate power. A lot of things can be said, both good and bad, about Bill Gates.
But - geek?
Sorry. Bill Gates, to my knowledge, simply is NOT A GEEK!
No matter how efficient a business shark might be, he is not a geek. The greatest shark on earth? Maybe. Geek? Certainly not.
Really, what's the point?
And what is with the obvious computer tech bias -did IT hijack the definition of geek while I was asleep?
Surely the likes of Torvalds, Allen, Wozniak, and Stallman (and the others) pale in comparison to the contributions of Pythagoras, Avogadro, Newton, Einstein, Bohr, Curie, Cantor, Kepler, Zadeh and numerous others who were "geeks" long before modern day computing.
Yes, the question was asked on a Linux IT site, but the question itself did not narrowly define "geek" to be a computer geek. Perhaps the question should have read "The Top 10 Computer Geeks of All Time". Then I might agree.
And what is with the obvious computer tech bias -did IT hijack the definition of geek while I was asleep?
Surely the likes of Torvalds, Allen, Wozniak, and Stallman (and the others) pale in comparison to the contributions of Pythagoras, Avogadro, Newton, Einstein, Bohr, Curie, Cantor, Kepler, Zadeh and numerous others who were "geeks" long before modern day computing.
Yes, the question was asked on a Linux IT site, but the question itself did not narrowly define "geek" to be a computer geek. Perhaps the question should have read "The Top 10 Computer Geeks of All Time". Then I might agree.
