No matter what people may think, geekishness did not spring into being with the invention of the computer. There have always been geeks among us. Johannes Keplar and Isaac Newton and the other inventors of modern physics were geeks. The medieval philosophers who eagerly debated how many angels could dance on the head of a pin were far less interested in the spiritual capacities of angels than in the purely scientific question of whether there was any limit to the number of immaterial objects that could be packed into a given space. Imhotep, who designed the first Egyptian pyramid, was a geek of such outstanding abilities that he came to be worshipped as a god after his death. We will never know how many other craftsman gods and culture heroes in the many pantheons of Earth were also deified geeks.
Most of the greatest artists, musicians, and philosophers have been geeks as well. If they succeeded well enough at their art, they are likely to be adopted retroactively into the ranks of ordinary folk and portrayed in the movies by the pretty people of Hollywood. But anybody who takes the trouble to find out about their awkward childhoods, their obsessive concern with detail, or their uneasy relationships with their fellows will know them for what they really were.
This section of the site is a bit thin at the moment, and not likely
to grow quickly. However, my eventual hope is to provide a panorama
of examples which collectively demonstrate that at every major evolutionary
junction in human history, there has been one or more geeks with a problem
that they just couldn't let go of until they'd found an appropriate solution.
"Tools for Brains" From the July 1939 issue of Astounding Science-Fiction comes a science article more astonishing than any of the stories -- a true account of the days when the leading edge of computer technology involved hand-cranks, gearshifts (three speeds forward, one reverse), and speedometers (so you wouldn't go too fast and spin out on the curves.)
The Net as Universal Metaphor "The Net" means so many different things to so many people, that to talk about it at all is to get into very deep waters. But once we acknowledge that we are speaking in metaphors and not in hard facts, the complexities become somewhat easier to navigate.
Background courtesy of Eos
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