Famous Geeks: You might be surprised.
There's an article today on computerworld.com, under "careers," called Geek stars: The secret (nerdy) life of celebrities. It lists forty celebrities with "some serious science and technology chops."
There are some I knew about and some I didn't, but it's an interesting little read. Obvious ones to geeks like me include Wil Wheaton, Natalie Portman, and Danica McKellar. One of my sister's childhood heroes is listed (Bill Nye the Science Guy), as well as her could-be neuroscience colleague, Mayim Bialik.
I feel like they cheated by listing Weird Al... he was an architecture major. I don't think architecture is particularly geeky or nerdy by itself (correct me if I'm wrong) but everyone knows he's a geek otherwise. Dr. Demento's Tom Lehrer is also on the the list, but he actually left Dr. Demento to pursue a career in mathematics! Most other people on the list started out studing math or science and then left for acting, music, or whatever.
Other quick notes: Sharon Stone is a self-described nerd? Interesting. Robin Williams is a big gamer and gadget freak? Well, he had to replace his crack habit with... another potentially dangerous crack habit (albeit with an admittedly lower death rate). Kurt Vonnegut and Huey Lewis studied engineering, Alfred Hitchcock studied mechanics and navigation, Trent Reznor studied computer engineering, Art Garfunkel has a masters in math, and Mr. Bean (Rowan Atkinson) studied electrical engineering. There are many more names that you may or may not recognize.
The most surprising to me was Hedy Lamarr, the Black and White movie actress whose name I really only know because it's included in the lyrics of the "Little Shop of Horrors" musical number "Feed Me" (...How about a date with Hedy Lamarr? You gonna git it...)
She was a pioneer in spread spectrum technology... the stuff behind two little things called Ethernet and cell phones. So maybe we could blame her for the resultant txt msg cultr and interweb sp33k. It seems that she wanted to become an inventor, but was instead encouraged to smile and shake her booty for soldiers to raise war bonds.
Also, her full first name is Hedwig, which was also my great-grandmother's name before it ever became associated with a snowy owl. She just jumped to my own personal "cool people" list.
