Along with his amazing looks, Shermer has one heck of a sexy brain. He’s the author of several books, has appeared on Penn & Teller’s Bullshit, talked at TED, has biked across the US five times and that’s just the short list! We hope you’ll enjoy his SGA interview as much as we did.

You recently went on a tour for your latest book “The Mind of the Market”. What was that like? Highlights and cool stories?

The 9/11 “truthers” put out an all-points bulletin to show up at every one of my book events and ask questions and make statements about how 9/11 was an “inside job” by the Bush administration. My response to them was this: “Do you know how we know that the Bush administration did not orchestrate 9/11? Because it worked!”

What is your newest book about?

The Mind of the Market is about why people believe weird things about money and markets, and thus follows from what I’ve been doing for the past 15 years as a professional skeptic. There’s no reason to believe that people, who are so irrational in all other areas of life, would suddenly become rational when they go to Wall Street or Wal-Mart.

You describe skepticism as an approach and don’t self-identify as “a skeptic”. You use a similar distinction for science. Can you explain the distinction?

Science and skepticism is something you do, not something to be.

What do you geek out on?

Brain scans, evolution, the expanding cosmos, black holes, the beginning of time, the mind, the brain (oh, wait, those last two are the same), consciousness (okay, throw that into the previous two as well), what happens when we die, and the newest cycling technology for my bike.

You’ve made a profession out of a favorite geek pastime: asking questions and thinking about the answers. How’d you pull that off?

Beats me. I just do my thing. I guess its one of those Joseph Campbell deals where you “follow your bliss and the money will follow”.

Much of science fiction is based on things which aren’t in existence now, but which are theoretically possible. Do you think there’s any contradiction in being a skeptic who likes Battlestar Galactica or the X-Men?

A science fiction author once explained to me that the further into the future that a story is set the more willing we are to suspend disbelief. Thus, skeptics were pretty hard on X-Files because it was set in the present, but we love Star Trek, because it is set centuries hence. I suppose it is because such powers might be possible, given enough time.

You’re called in frequently to debate creationists. It seems like such a Sisyphean battle. Why is it important for you and other scientists to divert time away from other work and expend spend so much energy on that?

I do it so that professional working scientists don’t have to bother with the creationists, and instead can keep on doing real science.

We started SGA in great part to bring attention to people who are often overlooked or dismissed. You were doing the same things when you wrote about Darwin’s partner, Alfred Russel Wallace in “Darwin’s Shadow.” Do you want to highlight anything about him to our readers?

Wallace was one sexy geek, that’s for sure, and July 1, 2008 marks the 150th anniversary of the announcement at the Linnean Society of London the discovery of natural selection, one of the half dozen most important discoveries in the history of science, and Wallace got equal credit with Darwin for that, so he’s an Important Sexy Geek (ISG).

What was it like being at TED among all those big thinkers? Did it spark new ideas for you?

It was more than a little intimidating to be there, but once I started talking my brain sort of forgot that they were out there in the audience and I just went on autopilot and did my thing. But afterwards was pretty incredible talking to such interesting people. Rick Warren turned out to be the world’s nicest guy, and Al Gore turned out to be the world’s funniest guy, so you never know what is going to happen at a place like that

What technology do you use often? What tech do you depend on? (button holes count ;-))

iPhone, the greatest invention since the bicycle (and would be even better if we could use carriers other than AT&T, whose service sucks where I live: Pasadena.)

Who do you think is a sexy geek?

Neil deGrasse Tyson

What do you think is sexy - in general terms?

Self-confidence, poise, fitness, strength, naturalness, intelligence.

I hear you bicycle a lot. What do you think about on your rides?

I think about what I’m going to do when I’m done riding, like go to Starbucks for an iced Venti Latte. When I ride alone I usually listen to audio books. I’ve listened to about 400 books since I started doing that in the early 1990s (starting with a Sony Walkman–ancient technology indeed!)

What’s the longest bicycle ride you’ve been on? What was it like to finish the ride?

3,180 miles from Los Angeles to New York, nonstop in the Race Across America. One races RAAM because it feels so good to stop! (And sleep, and eat…). I did that race five times. The most memorable one was in 1982 when we finished at the Empire State Building (starting at the Santa Monica Pier). I had no idea if I could even finish the race, so when I crossed over the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan after a very long night in New Jersey, on an early Sunday morning with no traffic, I was so happy and relieved and emotional that I could hardly talk at the end. Diana Nyad was there to interview me with the camera crew from ABC’s Wide World of Sports, who covered the entire race (and won an Emmy award for sports programming for their two-hour documentary special they did on the race). My comments were really lame and afterward I felt like an idiot for not coming up with something clever and funny to say, but I had a serious case of what I call “train brain,” where all your blood is in your legs and your brain doesn’t think too clearly. Add to that 10 days of sleep deprivation and extreme fatigue, and you get what I mean. I rode the 3000 miles in 10 days, 19 hours.

You are in a skeptic pinup calendar looking quite sexy. How did that come about? Tell us more!

That was for the Skepchicks calendar for skepchicks, which means they needed skepdudes. Apparently there aren’t that many sexy skeptics because I made the first cut, and I don’t think of myself as very sexy at all. In any case, we were suppose to do something unique to our hobbies or interests, and since I like riding bikes the photographer asked me to ride my bike up this really steep climb, over and over, while he photographed me sweating and straining. But in those apparently I wasn’t sweating and straining in a very sexy manner, because he had me take off my shirt and then just photographed in focus my hand on the brake handle of my bike. Woo woo, nothin sexier than a bare-knuckled hand on a brake handle!

What is your favorite thing to eat?

Granola with fruit. Or a fine New York cut steak (they balance each other).

In 10 words or less, can you describe Richard Dawkins?? We think he’s quite sexy too.

The most intellectually courageous person I have ever met.

The Laughing Squid party was definitely the geek event of the month of May - at least in San Francisco. It was a celebration of 13 years of Laughing Squid - a blog/list of all things art, culture and technology.

Needing dinner, I went to Blowfish Sushi a few doors down prior to attending. Unfortunately, some good conversation and slow service led to showing up rather late for the party. I missed a lot of the stuff that maybe Cianna can fill us in on. She arrived much earlier than I did.

The good news is that I can look through everything I missed. We hired super star photographer Andrei Z to cover the event. You can see the full archive of photography HERE

So, what did I not miss? I ran into lots of local SF icons that I’ve known over the past 10 years. People I haven’t seen in at least five of those past 10. So, it was a reunion of sorts. This was the same commentary I heard from a few other people. 1/3 of my life was in that room. Pretty interesting

There was a non-stop supply of grilled cheese sandwiches. They would appear randomly just when you needed one but didn’t know you did. A robot that served you beer, stilt walkers, Frank Chu, R2D2 and some spinning cool LED thingers.

I missed the Nerdcore rapper and the yoyo performer, but I got there just in time for swing dancing, a marching band and some zombie cheerleaders. I have loads of video from the zombie cheerleaders that I’ll upload to YouTube soon. They were fascinating. I almost missed the band, because I was saying goodbye to everyone, but then they came roaring out of the back hall and I was captivated for another hour.

Overall it was a fantastic event. Scott Beale knows how to throw a party.

Happy 13th birthday Laughing Squid and a late happy birthday to Scott.

I contacted Audacia, and she was very helpful, pointing out several sites to browse for information on gatherings of Sexy Geeks in NYC. However, she was unsure whether or not she qualified as a “Sexy Geek” because, although she says she is very geeky about sex, she does not not think of herself as a particularly technical person.

This seemed odd to me, as Audacia uses quite an array of computer tools to publish her writings about sex and the sex industry. I found myself wondering, “How could someone who writes regularly for internet publication not consider themselves to be a tech geek?” Then it hit me. She doesn’t think of herself as being particularly skilled technically, because the Internet is mainstream now, and these skills are common (at least among the people she knows).

One of the weird things about my life is that I have had knowledge of fringe computer technical things from a very early age. My mother taught college computer courses while I was growing up, and two of my aunts worked with computers, one at a university, and one at IBM. I have been sending electronic messages to friends and relatives for over 30 years now, and have been called a computer geek since I was maybe 7 or 8 years old. So my perceptions have lagged behind social reality. Where at one time, anyone who even knew what email was could be considered a tech geek, now days people who regularly play around with HTML, CSS, and maybe even a little Javascript and/or PHP, just to get their personal blogs to look cool, may consider themselves to have only the minimal required computer skills to get by in modern western culture.

In a previous post (What is a sexy geek?) I took a serious look at the concept of “geek” and concluded that what had started as a derogatory term aimed at people with obscure technical knowledge had been embraced and turned into a positive word. It now occurs to me that one of the things that allowed this to happen, is that those bizzare technical ideas eventually won people over - they created useful technology that became mainstream. And this is what Sexy Geeks always do - they have ideas about how the world could be better, and they pursue them, even in the face of some level of social disapproval, eventually making the world a better place. They prove that they are right and the world is wrong.

So Audacia is not a tech geek - at least not by her own standards - but she is absolutely a Sexy Geek. One who just coincidentally happens to be geeky about sex. Specifically, she is geeky about communicating on the topic of Sex. She does not believe that something that has the potential to make people very happy should be a taboo subject. She believes that a world in which people share information about sex (and how sex can be better) is a better world to live in. So she is boldly going out there and increasing the level of existing communications on a topic that some people might feel should be talked about less.

Many people in the world might wish to suppress what she has to say about sex, sexuality, and ending the feelings of shame that various cultures tell us we should have about our bodies and the things we like to do with them. But she is right, and they are wrong - and the world will be a better place as soon as everyone finally realizes it.

And that is what makes Audicia Ray one of the Sexiest Geeks Alive.

Of course it certainly doesn’t hurt that she is also realy realy hot…

Furthermore, one has to wonder, if self described “computer nerds” are well known for being extremely competent with their computer skills, what then must a self described “sex nerd” be like in bed?

* * *

Check out Audacia’s blogs, Waking Vixen and Naked City.

Also her recent book, “Naked on the Internet - Hookups, Downloads. and Cashing in on Internet Sexploration.”

It’s funny - Violet Blue actually named me to her list of Top Ten Sexy Geeks for 2006, and when I saw that I was on her list, my first thought was, “I’m really more of a nerd than a geek.” I think that my geekiness about tech and the like is very much learned, while my nerdiness about books and learning and stuff is very much innate. I don’t think there’s anything particularly nerdy or geeky about my sexuality as an entity, but I am very nerdy about the topic of sexuality.

2.) Of the many types of Geek in the world, what other Geek categories do you put yourself into?

History and media, and the combination thereof. I have a BA in Cultural Studies and a MA in American Studies - so I’m one of those interdisciplinary, interconnectedness of all things people. I’m especially fond of nineteenth century medicine and sexual politics. And the history of vaudeville and the circus!

3.) What types of Geeks are your favorites? Why?

I like people who get really excited about their projects. Doesn’t even really matter what the project is - if you’re passionate bordering on obsessive about stuff you work on, that energy is infectious. In a good way.

4.) Do you find Geekieness to be a sexy quality in others? When/Why?

Definitely. Especially the aforementioned obsessiveness.

5.) What else do you think is sexy and why?

Glasses and open-toed shoes/well-maintained feet on women. Kinda husky dudes. On both sexes - a slight oblivion to the world around them and a disregard for societal expectations/norms. Sharp writing and unpretentious eloquence get me every time, especially when combined with a filthy fucking mouth.

6.) Other than yourself, who is the Sexiest Geek Alive? Why?

I think naming names is a little gauche. So I’m going to play my elusive and mysterious card here.

7.) From all of multimediadom, what are your all time favorite things to read, watch, listen to, etc? Why?

Though I never used to be a TV type, there is some bad reality TV I love, like I’ve been pretty obsessed with Celebracadabra, on which c-list celebrities compete to be the best magician. Totally awesome. That was probably a terrible foot to start off on, now I have to redeem myself.

Though sometimes I tire of reading sex blogs that are one orgasm after another, I love reading personal blogs, especially about sexuality, that are intensely personal and exploratory.

Though it isn’t precisely media - I love visiting peculiar museums, especially anatomical museum that have archaic medical devices on display.

When coupled with babies in jars, I’m ecstatic. To that effect, I totally love the blog “Morbid Anatomy“.

8.) What are your favorite personal gadgets, web tools, and computer programs? How have these things changed your life?

I don’t use any super obscure or elaborate tools. I’m always armed with my iPhone and a digicam, and usually my MacBook Pro. I’ve been taking my Canon HV20 with me more and more these days too, especially since I started doing a video blog for the Village Voice as part of NakedCity.com, the blog I edit for them. On the web, I use Twitter, Flickr, Blip TV, Bloglines, have a few sites that run WordPress, and I run almost all my office applications through Zoho. I like tools that let me consume, create, and communicate about interesting content on a variety of different levels, depending on what my brain can handle.

9.) What is your superhero power?

My steel trap of a brain. Recently, in starting to prepare to write my second book, I realized that I have terrible note-taking habits because I’ve always relied on my ability to remember things like what page of a book a particular paragraph is on, who wrote the book, what color its cover is, and where it is on my book shelves. This is very useful if it all functions perfectly, but incapacitating if it fails.

10.) If you could have any additional superhero power, genetic modification, augmentation, etc…, what would it be and why?

Teleportation. I think schlepping my shit around would be a hell of a lot less stressful if I could just friggin teleport around. Then I could spend more time working and doing my thing instead of sweating my ass off on the subway and running perpetually 10 minutes late.

Centerfold pinup image available as wallpaper for

VGA 4:3, WVGA 8:5, and HD 16:9 screen formats.

For more great pictures, check out Audacia Ray on Flickr.

]]> http://sexiestgeeksalive.com/audacia-ray-centerfold/feed/ http://sexiestgeeksalive.com/karma-runs-over-dogma/ http://sexiestgeeksalive.com/karma-runs-over-dogma/#comments Sat, 14 Jun 2008 17:06:37 +0000 Sean Hastings http://sexiestgeeksalive.com/?p=108 My dog, Wasabi, is now almost 13 years old and is beginning to feel his age. He is starting to have trouble climbing stairs and has become prone to skin infections and other health problems - sometimes requiring him to wear a cone around his neck to keep him from chewing on himself. He is a large breed dog (Labrador / Chow mix) weighing about 80lbs, and as such, he has probably already reached his average life expectancy.

So, knowing that he is on his way out, I recently purchased a new puppy - a pure breed chocolate lab named Bosco - both as a replacement, and also to help keep Wasabi young. I figured that having an energetic puppy around would encourage Wasabi to play, and that he would get more exercise. I hoped that Bosco would keep Wasabi healthier and happier for longer than he would be without such an energetic young companion.

Sadly however, it turns out that Bosco is an asshole…

I mean, he is cute and lovable, but he is not easy for Wasabi to live with.

Bosco likes to play fetch, but he apparently does not understand that while we are happy to throw a toy for him, Wasabi does not have the necessary physical equipment, or understanding, to perform this task. Bosco will regularly bring a toy over to wherever Wasabi is trying to take a nap, and drop it next to him. He will then start whining and barking incessantly at Wasabi, even after Wasabi starts to growl and even sometimes snaps at him. If Wasabi gets up and leaves to find someplace more peaceful to nap, Bosco will soon find him again. When I try to separate them, Bosco will climb over any barricade I errect or seriously scratch up any door I close.

I have been feeling kind of bad that instead of making Wasabi healthier and happier, Bosco may just be turning Wasabi’s final years of life into an annoying ordeal. I have been trying to make it up to him in any way I can, but until recently I have had no really good ideas abut how to make things right.

But that changed recently, when I found out that Dog Cloning has now finally been perfected, and is being offered to the general public. It seems that despite the ongoing resistance to cloning technology by various religious types, it continues to improve. The price is still well out of my range, as the first auction for one of the first 5 commercial canine clonings, starting on July 5th at 11:00 AM PST, has a minimum bid of $100,000. However, it occurred to me that I can have Wasabi’s genetic material frozen and stored indefinitely at very low cost, so it is actually very likely that I will be able to bring him back when the prices come down in a decade or so.

So that is what I can do for Wasabi - I can have him resurrected.

Now, a clone of myself would not really be Sean Hastings in a meaningful sense, but rather, would be a separate individual much like an identical twin. However, unlike a human being, a dog does not have very much memetic content, and what it does have could be more easily recreated, so a clone of Wasabi would almost certainly behave very much the same as Wasabi does.

It would be far more (even if not entirely) accurate to consider Wasabi’s clone to be the same dog than it would be to consider my clone to be the same person.

And it would certainly be poetic justice if the dog cloning process becomes affordable for me in say, 10+ years, and I can bring Wasabi back as a puppy when Bosco is then approximately the same age that Wasabi is now. Then Wasabi can have his revenge by being the rambunctious puppy that harasses the poor tired old Bosco.

Now If that’s not karma, I don’t know what is.

Centerfold pinup image available as wallpaper for
VGA 4:3, WVGA 8:5, and HD 16:9 screen formats.

Patri Friedman Centerfold Data Sheet

Chest: Unknown Waist: 28″ Hips: Unknown

Height: 5′ 4″ Weight: 118 lbs

Birth Date: 7 / 29 / 76 Birth Place: Blacksburg, VA

Ambitions: Make cheap, turnkey new countries on the ocean. Have at least 3 kids. Live a free and happy life.

Turn-Ons: Brains, muscled backs, blinking lights, health, competence.

Turn-Offs: Beer, cigarettes, people who don’t like children.

IQ: ~145

Political Compass Test Results: Economic: 6.00 Social: -4.92

Jungian Personality Type Test Results: ENTP (Strong NT, weak E/P)

Purity Test Score (Version & results): 500 question version, 40.4% pure.

Geek Code (Version & results):

—–BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK—–
Version: 3.1
GB/CS/M/MD d+@ s–:- a C++$ UL++$ P++ L+$ E$ W+++$ N o? K !w– !O M++ !V PS+++ PE++ Y+ PGP t+ !5- !X R* tv– b+++ DI+ !D G- e+++ h—- r+++ y+++
——END GEEK CODE BLOCK——

I first met Patri Friedman in person in 2002 when he was visiting the East Coast and he came to crash at my apartment in NYC for a few days.

What had drawn us together online was our mutual interest in the possibilities of colonizing the oceans of earth. We both believed that while outer space might be the “final frontier” that the oceans could well be the next frontier. We also shared a feeling that a frontier was something that was currently missing from the world, that the existence of a frontier had been very useful to human progress in that past, and that opening a new frontier for people to explore would be very beneficial to the future progress of humankind.

During his visit we talked almost non-stop during our waking hours. His infectious laughter, and boundless enthusiasm were quite contagious, and the place felt emptier when he was gone. Although he did leave something of himself behind - he had dyed his hair blue shortly before his visit, and when he was gone I noticed a blue smudge on a wall he had leaned his back against for many hours while typing on his laptop. I left it there to remember him by for just as long as my wife would let me keep it…

So what makes Patri one of the Sexiest Geeks Alive?

Its not just his occasional purple mohawk, sometimes stylish goatee, or muscular physique (see pictures), nor even just his brilliant mind. Patri even comes from a line of great thinkers, being the grandson of Milton Friedman, and the son of David Friedman. But his good breeding is not his sexiest quality either.

What makes Patri one of the Sexiest geeks alive is his ability to ignore “common wisdom” in the pursuit of a good idea, and even overcome the burden of “common wisdom” in others.

New ideas can not happen without someone who is not just brilliant, but also strange enough to either lack, or to be able to ignore, that part of the mind that acts as a governor concerning what is considered normal by others. The sense of what is normal is what defends old ideas from new ones, and it is only by overcoming this that new ideas can evolve. People who can not overcome their inhibitions about not being “normal” are not capable of having great ideas, or if they do have them, they are incapable of acting on them. They are too busy worrying about what their neighbors will think to ever be great.

In order to have new ideas, and act on them, one has to be something of a freak, and in order to produce good ideas, one has to have a logical mind. And that is just what Patri is; he is a very logical freak. Patri can follow a chain of logic beyond the point where most people stop because it is drifting into an area that seems strange. He is not only capable of acting on strange but logical ideas, he can also use his enthusiasm for such ideas to inspire others - to overcome their inhibitions about what is normal and make them see what might be better.

Patri’s current project, The Seasteading Institute, is a good example of this.

Patri has taken the ideas that he and I (and many others) have discussed concerning colonizing the oceans, and he has built a plan of reasonable sized steps to make this happen. He has created a non-profit institute to pursue these goals, and has even raised enough money to get started.

Patri is capable of thinking that the world can be a better place, coming up with a logical plan to make it happen, and convincing other people to help make his dream a reality.

And that is what makes Patri Friedman one of the Sexiest Geeks Alive.

What isn’t sexy about the idea?

Let’s start with the idea of pioneering a new frontier - obviously something that takes drive, cleverness, vision, muscles, and lots of other sexy attributes. In this case, we’ll also have to develop some new technologies, which (for geeks) is quite sexy. And we may get to fight pirates, as well as The Man! But I’d say the sexiest thing about it is far more general - it’s a passionate idea about how to make the world a better place, and that’s always sexy.

I’d better not mention fish farming - that’s not so sexy. Oops, too late!

Types of geek involved - Pioneer Geek, Entrepreneur Geek, Mechanism Design Geek, and I guess it’s time for a new category - Seasteading Geek!

2.) Of the many types of Geek in the world, what other Geek categories do you put yourself into?

I’m definitely a BoardGame Geek, a Poker Geek, a Computer Geek, a Dad Geek, Search Engine Geek, and an Economics Geek.

3.) What types of Geeks are your favorites? Why?

I’ve always admired those who are good at hands-on creation of cool stuff, b/c, well, they make cool stuff! (and I’m bad at it). I guess that would be a Tech Shop Geek? In general, I’m a fan of anyone who is really good at useful things. Like First Aid Geeks - they’re great to have around!

4.) Do you find Geekiness to be a sexy quality in others? When/Why?

Definitely! I’ve often had crushes on people based primarily because they were damn good Geeks. And the occasional snorting laugh is kind of cute! Awkwardness is a mixed bag though, some is endearing, but too much is, well, too much. But Geeks are often really good at things, and that’s always sexy!

5.) What else do you think is sexy and why?

I’ve always been very attracted to people who were in touch with their bodies and comfortable with their physical/sensual nature. That’s been at least as much of a factor as appearance in my short-term relationships. Muscles are sexy, especially back muscles. Other things…art, talent, passion, dancing, weightlifting (CrossFit!), rock climbing, parenting, math puzzles…

6.) Other than yourself, who is the Sexiest Geek Alive? Why?

I’m not so comfortable making universal judgements like that, but I will say that the artist Bathsheba Grossman’s work is hella sexy!

7.) From all of multimediadom, what are your all time favorite things to read, watch, listen to, etc? Why?

My favorite fiction writer, by far, is Lois McMaster Bujold. (My son’s middle name is Miles, after the main character in her books). I’m also a big fan of Heinlein’s SF, and Georgette Heyer’s Regency Romances. I like too much non-fiction to pick a favorite, the best books I’ve read recently are Presentation Zen, Made To Stick, The Blank Slate, Good Calories Bad Calories, and The Happiness Hypothesis.

Currently the TV shows my wife & I keep up with are House and Battlestar Galactica, and I’m halfway through Buffy. My other favorite shows are Firefly and The Simpsons (but not recent seasons). I’ve also been TV-free for almost 10 years, I only watch shows on DVD and computers.

8.) What are your favorite personal gadgets, web tools, and computer programs? How have these things changed your life?

I love the keyless locks on my new car (BMW 328i convertible), and its convertible hardtop is awesome - the roof breaks into 3 pieces and goes into the trunk, it’s crazy transforming action. I have a love/hate relationship with my iPhone, I love the screen, browser, and iPod functionality, I hate the closed system and crappy reception. The web tools I use the most are LiveJournal (which helps me be efficiently social, keeping in touch w/ lots more people than I have time to see in person), Gmail, Google Search, and Google Reader (I work for Google, BTW). I’d say my favorite computer program I picked up in the last few years is Python. It lets me code without having to think about what the computer needs (”executable pseudocode”).

Blogs (like LJ) have definitely changed my life, since it was through a reader of my blog, Jeff Lonsdale, that I was put in touch with Peter Thiel and able to get funding for seasteading. And Google has changed my life as an inspirational employer - I’ve had 3.5 years to watch one of the most amazing companies the world has ever seen grow at an insane rate. That showed me that great things can happen when you have great geeks working on a great idea that is widely needed. And the way they take care of employees has definitely helped - my seasteading work has been accelerated by some of the leadership courses I’ve taken, and my being able to go onto 80% time last year (I took a pay cut to only work 4 days a week, to have more time for seasteading).

9.) What is your superhero power?

I’ve always had a bit of a reality distortion field - my enthusiasm and hedonism tend to be contagious. In college they created a special dorm office for me, the Proctor of Vice, responsible for making sure people have a good time. 10 years later, it’s still an official dorm position.

Which reminds me, I should tell you about Patri Numbers, because it’s a very geeky and sexy topic. You’ve probably heard of Erdos numbers, based on who has published academic papers with who. And Kevin Bacon numbers, based on appearances in movies and on TV. Well, in college we came up with Patri Numbers, based on connectedness in the graph of sexual relations. I have a Patri Number of 0, my past partners have a P# of 1, their partners a P# of 2, and so forth. I just went to my 10-year reunion, and the current students are still joking about P#s! It feels good to have a lasting impact on the world, even if it’s just in the creation of stories that continue to circulate :).

10.) If you could have any additional superhero power, genetic modification, augmentation, etc…, what would it be and why?

I’d love to be able to rewind time, 5 minutes, or even a whole day. A day might be too much for my attention span, though, maybe an hour? Not only could you go back every time things didn’t go the way you wanted, but over time, you’d learn (at least for the short term) how different actions and interactions get different results, so that you could get it right the first time more often.

Plus, it would be great for picking up other sexy geeks!

See, I don’t like roller coasters. I’m a big roller coaster wimp, which is so strange because I absolutely loved them as a child. You’d think that my love for roller coasters would have aged with me, but not so much. My last coaster was in Santa Cruz at the Boardwalk. I walked away from that coaster and said “never again”. That was 10 years ago.

Yesterday I went on my first coaster in 10 years. It was 6 feet off the ground and went incredibly slow. To call it a coaster would be incorrect actually. That’s kind of a lie. It was more of a self propelled Lego car that made you pretend you could cycle to make it go forward. So, really, not a coaster at all. But, hey, it makes me feel better. I was 6 feet off the ground! Actually, there’s this one part that might be like 15 feet off the ground. Whoa!

LEGOLAND is for geeks and makers. It is a place where we can get lost and revert into children. I did this yesterday and it was really a lot of fun. I highly recommend it to anyone. Hell, I’m now a card carrying member.

So yeah, I bought like 100 Lego men. Not sure what I’m going to do with them yet, but stay tuned. For 30.00, you can get a box of 50 various lego men with their safety gear. It comes with some motorcycles and various other vehicles. Ideas anyone? I was thinking of getting one of those Lego studios and trying my hand at an animated lego movie. Those are so cool.

Here’s a competitor to our Nrrrd Grrrl video that was quite good:

I had not previously read io9, but was going to meet up with Editor in Chief, Annalee Newitz, whom I knew from her previous incarnation as a writer on technology. Since she certainly qualifies as a Sexy Geek, and had once written a column about a party that she attended at my house during CFP 2003, it seemed only fair for me write something for SGA about the party she was having in NYC for the readers of her new blog.

The gathering was actually a fairly special occasion, Annalee and the other two io9 editors were appearing in the same place at the same time for the very first time ever. In fact, in a brief discussion with Meredith Woerner (third editor on the io9 masthead and also a very sexy young geek lady) I had the distinct impression that she had never met Annalee before that very night. So this was a get-together at which the three editors were not only getting a chance to meet their adoring fans, but also a chance to actually all meet each other.

Oh, and the second editor, Charlie Jane Anders - yet another very sexy (and in her case, also very tall) geekgrrl.

Coincidence? I think not…

If this trio of sexy female science fiction obsessed ladies is not part of a deliberate formula by Gawker to guarantee success with Science Finction Fandom, then it definitely should be. Gawker’s stats for i09 show an 80% male audience, and I know that when I was a young male science fiction geek, there was nothing more attractive to me than a woman who could hold her own in a conversation that ranged from Asimov to Zelazny. In fact I will confess to still being a bit turned on by an SF literate woman, even now that I have matured into a middle aged (still male) philosophy and economics geek.

But please don’t think that these editors were chosen just for their lack of external genitalia. Annalee is an excellent writer who also brings tech cred to analyze the science inside the fiction, and while she is most definitely my favorite (maybe just because I have had a crush on her longer) the other two ladies are both also very bright, well informed, and great writers. I only skimmed a bit of the content on io9 (and boy does it have a lot of content - more posts per day, maybe, than any blog I have ever tried to read) but from what I did read, each of the editors, and pretty much all of the other contributers, are well worth reading at a more leisurely pace. (And I intend to go back and do just that.)

My favorite post was one of Charlie’s entitled, “Posthumans, Rise Up And Destroy Hollywood!” in which she examines the way in which SF movies are much more biased against transhumanism than the SF found in books.

But back to the event…

To my eye it looked like a great success - lots of happy geeks enjoying each other’s company - talking about all sorts of wild and wonderful things.

Personally I did not mingle as much as I would like, but NYC bars are always too loud and crowded for me, and my natural instinct is to flee from them. Science Fiction geeks are wonderful company one on one or in small groups, but when you get this many of them together, they could become an angry mob as fast as any other group of people. The sociophobic monster in me always fears that the villagers are going to break out the torches and pitchforks, so I did not stay long.

But I might try it again if there is ever another one of these events. Maybe a few extra drinks can mute this feeling I get, when there are too many bodies pressed together in a closed space, that makes me want to charge through the crowd like a bull on a Pamplona street - knocking everyone to the ground and trampling them a bit. Either that or the extra drinks might remove the inhibitions that normally prevent me from doing this… in any case, I will have more fun.

Final analysis:

io9 - A great blog if you are into science fiction.

Annalee, Charlie, and Meredith - Three very sexy geek grrls and wonderful writers.

io9 meetup - A very sexy event with an excellent turn out for a Wednesday evening, and probably a great deal more fun for anyone who is just a little bit more comfortable in a crowd than I am. (That is to say - pretty much everyone else in the world.)

Oh, and I will try to dig up some pictures of the girls of io9. I brought my camera but forgot to take any pictures. Hopefully my journalistic skills will improve with use…

I, dear readers, am a mere 0.0201 Coultons famous. My Coultonic state is sub-coultonic.

We then talked about how several of us did find that showers were such fertile ground for thoughts and ventured into our various theories about why that was true for each of us.

I felt such joy being surrounded by my people. Did I mention that I love geeks?

…Ok, here is what I came up with:

* * *

When I told all my friends that I was now officially one of the “sexiest geeks alive” I received many interesting responses ranging between:

We already knew that.

and

I still don’t think you’re sexy. Or a geek really.

But the response that made me do the most thinking was what my friend Rex Kerr wrote. (Please note that I am using the term “friend” here based on a most peculiar definition - inspired by such internet phenomena as social networking sites, online forums, and mailing lists - which means roughly “A person for whom I inexplicably feel genuine affection, even though I have never actually met him, often get into heated arguments with him, and seem to experience no guilt whatsoever when I find myself publicly quoting his email without permision…”)

Anyway, he is the guy that wrote:

Congrats!

Although I wonder whether a “sexiest geek” is something like a “most peaceful general”, “most mathematical art historian”, or “ditziest chemistry Nobel prizewinner”.

–Rex

So this made me wonder, Is the term “sexy geek” actually an oxymoron? Just what does it really mean?

Cyan invited me to this blog, so I should probably be using her definition, whatever it might be. I could just ask her, but first I thought I might try to pin down a more objective (widely understood) definition. So I went to my favorite (because it has the shortest url) online dictionary m-w.com, where I found the following definitions:

SEXY

1 : sexually suggestive or stimulating : erotic
2 : generally attractive or interesting : appealing

I think it is obvious that the first definition here can be folded into the second one, so I am just going to assume the broader case of general attraction or interest in my understanding of what it means to be a “sexy geek.” For example: when Cyan declares that someone is sexy geek, she may not actually be having erotic fantasies about them (although I certainly wouldn’t rule it out), but she probably, at a minimum, finds them to be quite interesting.

GEEK

1 : a carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake
2 : a person often of an intellectual bent who is disliked
3 : an enthusiast or expert especially in a technological field or activity

I am pretty sure that Cyan did not have definition number one in mind when she said that I was a sexy geek. Now, I am not denying that I have ever bitten the head off of a live chicken or snake, but it is not something that I am likely to ever do in public as part of a carnival show, and I seriously doubt that this is an aspect of Cyan’s mental picture of me (or at least it wasn’t until now.)

It is pretty clear that definition three is the way that Cyan would intend the term “geek” to be understood in the phrase “sexiest geeks alive” and it certainly gives us a nice result. The combination of sexy2 geek3 with a superlative emphasis added to the former and a plural version of the later, produces a definition of:

The most attractive or interesting enthusiasts or experts especially in technological fields or activities.

But as nice as this definition is, we skipped over definition two, and I think it contains some information worthy of consideration. It certainly reveals the degree of oxymoronicism (is that even a real word?) that Rex noticed in the term “sexy geek,” as we can plainly see in the combination of sexy2 geek2 which yields:

A generally attractive or interesting person of an intellectual bent who is disliked.

There is clearly some serious contradiction here between the terms “attractive” and “disliked.” There is no denying that the word “sexy” has almost entirely positive connotations, while the word “geek” definitely carries a negative undertone.

The reason for this is that the word “geek” as it has been applied to intellectuals, experts, and technology enthusiasts, did not start out as a friendly term of affection. As the order in which the three given definitions are listed suggests, it started out as a term of derision that any social group might use to brand an outcast or outsider with different ideas or customs, and came to be used by groups of less intelligent and less educated people to brand those who stood apart from the crowd due to greater intellectual capacity.

That we can now refer to our friends affectionately as geeks, is a phenomena seen in oppressed cultures throughout history. The smaller oppressed group tends to adopt the hurtful words of the larger group and turn them into friendly terms of endearment - thus removing the sting of the word. For example, homosexual men have no difficulty referring to each other affectionately as “Faggots” and African Americans often use the word “Nigger” or the slightly altered term “Nigga” in a friendly and affectionate way, even though these words started out as hurtful and derisive terms.

Geekdom has embraced a previously insulting label.

But that does not mean that the underlying problem has gone away. While Cyan, in thinking that I am a geek, almost certainly means “enthusiast or expert in technological fields or activities,” the same “intellectual bent” that gives me technological enthusiasm and expertise, certainly also makes some people tend to dislike me. I am willing to examine, with honest intellectual curiosity, the real underlying basis for ideas that many people like to think of as unquestionable truths. This often creates anger in faithful believers. Such anger comes from the same root cause as the feeling that there is some degree of oxymoronicism (again, sorry if that’s not a word) expressed in the term “sexy geek.”

“Sexy,” is a term that can have strong roots in collectivist thought. Although we each personally generate our own ideas about what is and is not attractive, these ideas are strongly influenced by the ideas of those arround us. Our likes and dislikes, which are a large part of the basis for our individuality, are also a basis upon which we are judged according to the standards of a larger social construct. The collectivist impulse is that all people should exhibit the same behavior, and for this to happen, they all must have the same desires - the same ideas about what is and is not sexy.

From an evolutionary standpoint, the ideas that hold a social group together have evolved resistance to new ideas that might replace them. But being a “geek” is to embrace different ideas - particularly new ideas. New technology - and especially technology that involves new forms of communication - disturbs the environment in which old ideas have evolved and to which they are best adapted. It makes sense that old ideas should fight against such change - the ideas are fighting for their lives. So it is no surprise that those who express different thoughts, and particularly those who make it known that their minds are a fertile place for the growth of brand new ideas, should be socially ostracized.

So where “sexy” is taken to be only what current popular culture says it is, and a “geek” is someone who has ideas that go beyond what current popular culture is, and into what it could be, there is an obvious conflict of interest between the collective impulse to conform and the individualistic impulse to create - between the geek and what is accepted as sexy.

What Cyan and the rest of us are doing here, by declaring that there are indeed “Sexy Geeks” in this world, is to not only continue to defuse the word “geek” by using it as a term of affection, but to also reclaim the word “sexy” as something to be defined by individual values, rather than controlled by any collective dictate of what attributes we should or should not find attractive. We are pointing out that some of us place great value on new ideas - on the fruits of logical thought and scientific experimentation - that even if some larger societal organism is not ready for the changes that such new knowledge might bring, some of us are more than ready. Some of us welcome and embrace these changes.

New ideas make some of us quite hot.

I had a political conversation with a random stranger in a bar the other night.

Now, I don’t recommend ever discussing politics or religion with strangers, especially when they are imbibing alcohol or any other psychoactive chemical. Like unprotected sex with strangers, this sort of intercourse can be very dangerous, if also a lot of fun.

However, in this case, no blows were exchanged.

Although this particular conversation wasn’t very interesting or productive, it did cause me to remember a more amusing incident that took place in a different bar, a few years ago, that I thought would be worth posting here.

It happened something like this:

In 2003, after having had to evict a problem tenant, my wife Jo and I decided that being absentee landlords was just too much for us, and we decided to sell our house in New Orleans. Having had some very fun times when we lived down there, and still having some very good friends in the area, I decided to make one last trip down to the house before putting it on the market. This would give me a chance to clean the place up, fix a few things, and to spend some time with old friends. I also invited my best friend Alex, from my home town in Michigan, to come down and hang out with me for a week.

On maybe the second night we were there, Alex and I were hanging out at a bar called “The Erin Rose,” on Toulouse street just off Bourbon - one of my old haunts in the French Quarter.

We were at the rear bar, and were having one of our typical libertarian discussions about evil governments, personal liberty, and the virtues of enlightened capitalism, when the guy next to us announced that he was a socialist.

I turned to him and said, “Really? Like a card carrying socialist?”

“Yes”, he replied, “want to see?”

I nodded and said “Absolutely, I have never seen an actual socialist card before.”

He pulled out his wallet, and produced a white card with red lettering that proclaimed “The person named below is a member in good standing of the Socialist party USA” and named him as Eric G. Witte.

“That’s really cool!” I said, and then had an evil thought (not unusual for me). I said “Can I buy that from you? How about for 50 dollars?” And I pulled out my own wallet and produced a fifty.

I expected this to lead to some sort of awkwardness or an argument about the evils of capitalism, and was instead surprised when he immediately said, “Sure thing!”, and the exchange took place immediately.

Disappointed that I was out $50 with no fun, I then turned to Alex and jokingly said something like “I’ve always wanted one of these!”

Eric G. Witte then said “You could get one a lot cheaper than $50 - I only had to send $10 to the Socialist party to join.” Whereupon he got this faraway look in his eyes as he started doing the math. He said “Wow! It was actually easy to get that card. If I could sell more of these for $50 a piece, I could get almost five times my money back!”

“Aha!” said I, seeing a chance to get my money’s worth of argument, “You are actually a capitalist!”

His eyes refocused and he said “Oops.” Then, thinking quickly, he turned to the bartender and handed her the $50 bill he was still holding.

“Drinks for everyone!” he announced loudly.

* * *

Moral of the story?

“Everyone is a capitalist - until you remind them that they are not supposed to be.”

Following the conference, False Profit put on an amazing event at CELLspace. One of the highlights was an amazing magic-themed fashion show. Here’s the end where models are dancing everywhere:

Cianna was also in attendance and she captured loads of footage. I wish I had a good picture of her all geared up. Maybe someone took one.

False Profit is pretty interesting. Here’s a blurb from their site:

False Profit is passionate about pushing the limits of what a Limited Liability Company can be. Our award-winning products and services enable innovative forms of expression and empower human beings to create and experience the most engaging moments in life. We proudly transcend mere financial success by paying dividends to investors through more powerful currencies: cultural advancements and life-quality enhancements. False Profit has been providing Zero Percent Financial Return, Guaranteed, since 2001.

This was my first time attending one of their events and I can say with all certainty that I’d go again. It was incredibly interactive. A wonderful blend of tech, art and fashion without being too fluffy. Here are some of my favorite finds:

A typewriter:

Legos!

Cool toys that control lights in the room. Move them all to one location to make the room red, blue or green:

Amazing dress (photo by JasonUnbound)

I start this effort with someone who caught my ear with his laugh: Jason Howell.

Jason is a podcast producer at CNET, working mainly on the daily “Buzz Out Loud” and the weekly “Gadgettes.” When I first wanted to meet him, I couldn’t even find a photo of him that clearly showed his face — a true backstage geek, huh? As for why I got hooked on his laugh, if you listen to the shows, you’ll know. Particularly on Gadgettes. He jokes verbally with Molly and Kelly, but he also likes to create sound effects and segment intros that will crack them up. And when he starts laughing, I’m a sucker for it.

“Oh, I’m definitely an audio geek,” he admitted at the start of our interview. He obsesses on audio technology, and uses the free, open source program Audacity to record the CNET podcasts. But he looked almost sheepish when he said that it’s really low tech compared to what he plays with in his home studio. He prefers to play with music creation software, regularly using Pro Tools (loaded with plug-ins of course) and Logic Pro to build his electronic music and for general sound editing. He’s particularly fond of the delays by the OhmBoyz, and has a great time just bending notes. Then he enthusiastically told me about a new plug in, Direct Note Access, for the pitch shifting software Melodyne by Celemony. It will allow him to separate out notes from, say, a chord, and do things he never thought would be possible. Clearly the technology behind it made him just dumbfounded and very eager to try it out.

While he used to listen to music “one hundred percent of the time,” Jason’s world changed with the advent of podcasting. He says that if he’s seen walking around with headphones on these days, he’s probably listening to a podcast. Jason takes note that we are retraining an entire generation of people to think of free, available-anytime, topic specific shows as “normal.” The idea that podcasts can come from anywhere and be on the most specialized topic and still find their audience excites Jason.

He calls podcasting “the fanzine of today.” He let slip during the interview that in high school he once did a fanzine of his own, “Twisted Realities.” He wants everyone to know the art was by his friend Ben Minter, who did “pretty macabre style artwork,” and Jason is still crazy for his work

When not at CNET, he creates “a kind of deep house music” under the name Raygun, and “indie-style guitar oriented music” under “Yellowgold.” As a special treat for SGA readers, Jason hooked us up with a couple of tracks that no one has heard yet: And It Tried and Eons.

And It Tried:

Eons:

As far as other technology, the CNET team uses de.licio.us to tag and share stories for consideration. I keep track of him through twitter where he’s highlighted a few very cool tunes and musicians.

What does Jason find sexy? He did not hesitate to answer, “What I find really sexy is a certain air of confidence in how a woman presents herself. Smart enough to put me in my place when necessary. (What can I say? I’m a glutton for punishment.) Not afraid at all to speak her mind. The ability to open up to me entirely on an emotional level. And being tall and slender certainly doesn’t hurt the equation either.” Why tall? Because he’s 6′8″!

I had a great time chatting with him. He thanks the Gadgettes fans and the Buzz Army. He says his job would be “oh so much harder without them.” But he won’t be just backstage for much longer. CNET’s started to stream Buzz Out Loud live once a week, and the Buzz Army now knows what he looks like. Not that you can miss him. He’ll be the super-tall one who’s listening for a new sound.

No platform has been as social as the Internet. And CNET’s Caroline McCarthy covers that specific medium better than anyone.

I mean, where else can I read about Mark Zuckerberg staring on SNL?

McCarthy covers important stories too, like Microhoo, old school-looking gadgets, and the economy. Her writing style is fun, but informative. I have no doubt that she will continue to shake things up online.

She bounces from NY to SF and many places in between, carving out her niche in social media. She was recently nominated for the Silicon Alley 100.

What makes Caroliiine a sexy geek? Besides the fact that she likes good beer, this New Yorker has helped me to keep up with all the happenings in the web world. The tone of voice on her blog is warming.

Here is a video of with Dan Farber. McCarthy comments about a growing Web 2.0 bubble.

She went to a great school and was editor-in-chief of The Tiger, Princeton’s only humor magazine.

She currently lives and plays in possibly the most culturally rich city in the world. She tumbls, tweets, and has good tastebuds. She’s an amateur videographer too.

Her eyes are almost as big as her heart. Oh yea, and she gives great hugs

Why do you like to blog?

Caroline: I’ve always liked to write, and my background is in creative writing (I minored in fiction-writing in college). I’m also pretty opinionated. But I love being a journalist in the traditional sense, and so blogging affords me the opportunity to do both. My blog is a mix of very straight-up news and then some off-the-wall ridiculous stuff (BeerMenus.com anyone?)

Caroline McCarthy & Owen Thomas, by Laughing Squid.

When you aren’t doing research on the web, what sites do you like to visit?

Lost spoilers, and New York Magazine’s Daily Intelligencer blog for their brilliant Gossip Girl recaps. New York restaurant blogs.

I’m a fan of that odd little niche of branding/trend/design blogs, you know like joshspear.com, psfk.com, and notcot.com. And my friends’ Twitter feeds, which are enough to keep me occupied all day. Also, reading Gawker is so much more bizarre once you know some of the people they write about. But I’m not that much of a huge blog reader, or podcast listener — I really do prefer books.

You literally cover “The Social” web. Is all of this social data
eventually gonna make our heads explode?

Yes, but I don’t think it’s going away any time soon.

If you could have one domain name, what would it be?

Dude, I’d first like to just have my name. An artist in Ireland got there first. So I’d snag that, and then I’d start thinking about all the other ones I want, like pizza.com. I hear it’s worth $2 million. That could buy me a lot of candy.

How are New York and SF different in the tech scene?

Short version: SF uses WordPress and NY uses Tumblr.

Long version: San Francisco seems to have a big, sweeping “tech” culture where everyone seems to know everyone. New York’s tech scene is somewhat fragmented; there isn’t a single “tech” culture. It’s kind of like high school; you’ve got these little crowds that have their own hangouts and activities and whatnot.

At SxSW, photo by Brian Solis

There’s an extremely active videoblogger culture that’s really centered around Blip.tv and Rocketboom, and then you’ve got an extremely close-knit culture rooted in Gawker Media. I think it’s got to do with the fact that there’s so much else going on with massive industries in New York (media, fashion, finance) that it’s difficult for technology to rise to the top in the same way. It’s getting there, though.

There was one idea that took hold of me then and has never let go, an idea which really is best realized now, when both data mining and social networking have become such integral parts of Web 2.0: matchmaking through list matching.

I always had a lot of fun browsing through other people’s lists, particularly those which had a major overlap with mine. I often was introduced to new bands and authors this way, and started looking forward to getting list updates from certain people. Checking out comments and ratings about any item they had was useful for gaining some insight into their personalities, but looking at what someone wanted was even more informative about their current interests and was pretty unique to Switchouse.

Just before the company succumbed to the .com collapse, I was beginning to explore the dating potential of our site. It started when another member wrote to me at one point and asked me out based on what he saw on my lists. We didn’t have the tools at the time to build the kind of interactive site that could really foster this sort of thing, but it was easy to see that this had the potential to develop into something cool. Certainly it could start with just suggesting matches of people based on their lists, but then quickly expand to include ideas like alerting everyone in the area that a certain band was playing and cross-selling the tickets to the show, maybe even suggesting others from the site who might also want to attend. I thought we could organize book clubs or live swapping events to gather together people drawn to certain genres (I did one live swap for geeks and it was a blast!). And then, when two switchers coupled up and moved in together, we could help them sell off the extra copies of whatever they both had in their collections!

I think this is a no-brainer for any company which already has a system for keeping updated media lists on their site (Amazon & Netflix, are you listening?). And if you set it up, let me know. I’m still looking for someone with compatible lists…

For great justice people, take this idea and run with it!! This is one of those flash trend ideas that will be like Lance Armstrong wrist bands. Heck, put little motivational messages on them. Silly slogans like:

“to knit or not to knit”
“knitting > crochet”

etc.