Geekery

Geek God – Shigeru Miyamoto

Posted on 15. Jul, 2009 by Jake.

If you have never heard of Shigeru Miyamoto, the chances are you have heard of at least one of his creations. Originally joining Nintendo as an artist in 1977, he is the man responsible for launching the modern era of gaming and creating some of the most beloved and well-recognised gaming franchises of all time.
 
Miyamoto’s quest to revolutionise gaming began when he was tasked with redesigning an unpopular arcade game called Radar Scope. Repurposing the software from Radar Scope, Miyamoto came up Donkey Kong, a game which was to set the template for video games for years to come.
 

Donkey Kong introduced the “platform” element to gaming and offered vastly improved gameplay when compared to other games of the time. Platform games went on to become the dominant game genre of the Eighties, and early Nineties, while Donkey Kong itself proved to be a massive hit. It was the profits from Donkey Kong that allowed Nintendo to enter the home entertainment market with the NES in 1983.
 
Aside from being hugely innovative and massively profitable, Donkey Kong also introduced the character of Mario. After producing a sequel to Donkey Kong, Miyamoto took the Mario character and created what is perhaps the best-know game of all-time: Super Mario Bros.
 
Super Mario Bros, with was released with the Nintendo Entertainment System, set the standard for home video games and has been one of Nintendo’s most successful franchises. The original Super Mario Bros is the second best selling Nintendo game of all time, and total sales from all Mario games exceed 140 million units. Mario helped popularise the concept of home gaming; without Miyamoto’s creation it’s unlikely that gaming technology would have had the drive to evolve to where it currently stands.  
 
While Mario may be Miyamoto’s most successful property, his artistic triumph has been his involvement with the Legend of Zelda series. Miyamoto created the first Zelda title for the NES in 1986 and, with it, introduced many elements that have come to define the RPG genre. His crowning achievement, however, was the creation of Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time for the Nintendo 64.
 
Along with another Miyamoto creation, Mario 64, the Ocarina of Time heralded the transition from 2D gaming to the next generation of 3D. It regularly ranks near the top of “best game” lists and has the highest score of any game on review aggregator Metacritic. To date, it is the only game to ever receive a perfect score from the highly-rated Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu.
 
Having pushed the limits of what was possible within games, Miyamoto then turned to producing consoles. His latest innovation, the Nintendo Wii, revolutionised gaming with its use of motion-sensitive technology and left Nintendo’s rivals struggling to catch up. The Wii is currently the best-selling seventh-generation console, having sold a total of 50 million units worldwide and is credited with introducing gaming to a broader, more mainstream audience.
 
With the video game industry currently experiencing massive growth in profits and popularity, it’s safe to say that none of it would have happened without Miyamoto. No wonder the man is known as “the father of Modern Gaming”.

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Geek God: Neil Turok

Posted on 01. Jul, 2009 by Jake.

On his academic credentials alone, Neil Turok is a candidate for Geek God. He was born in Johannesburg and studied in Cambridge. He received his PhD from Imperial College in London. His supervisor was David Olive, whose seminal contributions to string theory make him a Geek Hero or a Geek Villain, depending on your point of view.

Turok then did work in the United States, where he rose to become a physics professor at Princeton. In 1997, he took the Chair of Mathematical Physics at Cambridge.

He is considered one of the world’s top cosmologists. He made signifcant contributions to testing for the a cosmological constant  (an idea that was initially suggested, and then retracted, by Einstein) and, working with Stephen Hawking, developed the Hawking-Turok instanton solutions.  He and Hawking are both recipients of the Maxwell medal for excellence in physics – Hawking in 1976, Turok in 1992.

Among the weirder consequences of his theories is the idea that the universe didn’t begin with the Big Bang. Turok claims that the Big Bang – generally considered the moment at which the universe, and time itself, came into being – is merely one moment in an infinite cycle. And even weirder: it follows that perhaps time doesn’t always run forward. 

So far this could describe any of a (very small) number of elite academic scientists. What sets Turok apart – what makes him a Geek God – is another kind of contribution to the understanding of science.

A sense of social responsibility runs in Turok’s family. His parents were  prominent anti-apartheid activists, and his father, Ben Turok, is currently a member of parliament in South Africa.

This might partly explain Ben’s decision to launch the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Muizenberg, Cape Town.

The Institute offers postgraduate education for students from across Africa. It’s formation was made possible through a collaboration of top local and international universities. In addition to boosting scientific literacy in Africa, the school also attempts to promote science amongst women. The school does not have a permanent faculty, but some top scientists – including Turok himself – have taught there.

Anyone who has noted the poor performance of South African schools in maths and science will appreciate how important these efforts are. The next generation’s Mark Shuttleworths aren’t just going to magically appear – they need the training and support that will allow them to innovate. 

This contribution has not gone unacknowledged. Next to the MacArthur Fellowship – the so-called Genius Award – the most exciting award for creative and intellectual achievment is probably the TED Prize, which Turok received in 2008 for his work with the institute and for his contributions to science.
Of course, no number of training colleges, however well-meaning, are going to produce lasting changes without improvements in science education at primary school level.

This remains a huge challenge – but not for the dubious reasons some claim. 

In an interview with Wired, Turok was asked about comments made by James Watson about African intelligence.

Watson is a great scientist – he and Francis Crick discovered DNA – but even the smart people can say some pretty dumb things.
Turok’s response: “I think he’s nuts. My students are highly motivated and have a very high success rate. If he really believes they’re inferior, he should just come to the institute. I guarantee that if he spends an afternoon with these students, he’ll revise his opinion.”
It’s wonderful to see concrete evidence of Africa’s potential rather than just hopeful talk.

Not many South Africans get to study at the world’s top institutions. It’s great to see those who do giving something back – not just their expertise, but the chance for others to become experts too!

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Geek God: Charles Simonyi

Posted on 22. Jun, 2009 by Jake.

I had often seen Richard Dawkins, the famous biologist and public atheist, grandly described as the Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford. I’d assumed that Charles Simonyi was some 17th century British grandee, the equivalent of parliamentarian Henry Lucas, after whom the Lucasian chair at Cambridge – which was once held by Isaac Newton, and is currently held by Stephen Hawking - is named.

So I was surprised to discover that Simonyi is a sixty-year-old software designer from Eastern Europe.

Charles Simonyi was born in Hungary in 1948. He learned to code software while still in school, going on to get his first degree at Berkley and a PhD from Stanford.

Simonyi’s big business break came when Bill Gates hired him to work at Microsoft. He rose to become senior developer and oversaw the production of the Microsoft Office programmes.

I think it’s fair to say this package has been revolutionary, bringing highly powerful data tools to ordinary users. Without Word I wouldn’t be writing this post. Without Excel you wouldn’t be at the office desk at which you’re reading it.

Simonyi eventually left Microsoft to start his own business, which produces intentional programming software.

But it’s Simonyi’s extracurricular activities that distinguish him from all the other high-priced developers.

Unlike maybe any other IT billionaire in history, Simonyi was romantically linked to a convict. (Granted it was homemaker magnate Martha Stewart.)

He is a committed philanthropist, establishing the professorship that Dawkins held (and which is now held by mathematician Marcus du Sautoy, who has presented TV shows on the history of mathematics.) He has also established a professorship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (where Einstein and Gödel used to take walks together).

His philanthropy is not limited to tech stuff, though, and he has made substantial donations to the arts, including to the Seattle Symphony.

Oh, and he’s has also been to space. Twice.

In 2007, Simonyi spent time on the International Space Station, and experience that he said ‘blew him away’. He returned again this year, coming back to earth on 8 April 2009, to spend time enjoying his contemprary art collection or just hanging out in the jacuzzi of his German-built superyacht.

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Geek God: Mark Zuckerberg

Posted on 04. Jun, 2009 by Jake.

What makes someone a geek god?

Is it their influence, their success, or simply the brilliance of their product? Whichever criteria you choose, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg qualifies.

A protégé for the internet age, Zuckerberg was turning down offers from Microsoft while still in high school. It was while he was a student at Harvard, however that he came up with Facebook, the concept that changed the way we interact with each other and made Zuckerberg the youngest person on Fortune’ list of the 400 richest Americans.

Zuckerberg came up with the prototype for Facebook in order to make it easier for new university students to get to know each other. Initially intended for use only by Harvard students, the concept soon proved irresistible, and within two years Facebook was made available to anyone with a valid email address.
Since launching in 2004, Facebook has received a steady stream of investment, as well as several buy-out offers. In 2006, during buy-out negotiations with Yahoo, Facebook was valued at around $1 billion; in the same year Zuckerberg famously turned down a bid of $750 million, money that most 22-year-olds could only dream about.

In 2007, Microsoft purchased 1.6% stake in Facebook. They paid $240 million dollars for the share, putting the value of Facebook as a whole at around $15 billion. Since then, major players such as Google have also expressed an interest in purchasing a stake, although Zuckerberg currently remains committed to keeping his company independent.

The brilliance of Facebook lies in the way it allows users to follow their friends in real time, rather than simply relying on a static profile page like so many other social networking sites. By providing constant updates via the new feed, it gives users an incentive to stay active, as well as to actively keep up with what their friends are doing.
Status updates, “friending” and wall posts and profile pics have now become part of the geek lexicon and finding old friends and making new ones has become a simple matter of entering their names into a search box. Beyond the social sphere, prospective and current employers regularly check out their employee’s Facebook profiles and the website has become an important tool for corporate networking.

In the political realm, Facebook has been used to organise protests and foster activism and is so effective in giving people a voice that it has been blocked by several repressive governments.

In 2008, Mark Zuckerberg was named one of the world’s most influential people by Time Magazine. Given that he has achieved everything he has by the age of 25, he may also be in the running for the title of Youngest Geek God Ever.

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Geek God: Linus Torvalds

Posted on 15. May, 2009 by Jake.

If you meet someone for the first time and need to determine if they’re a fellow geek, there’s a simple way to do this. Just ask them what OS they’re running. If they know that OS stands for Operating System, there’s probably a good chance that they’re a fellow tech traveller. If they answer “Linux” then you’re dealing with a 100% certified geek!
Linux was the brainchild of Swedish computer scientist Linus Torvalds. Torvalds developed the first Linux kernel as part of his Masters thesis at Helsinki University. He wrote the first version of Linux as a way to access his university servers and quickly realised that the program he had written could actually function as an operating system.
Many people in Torvalds’ position would have immediately dropped out of university and rushed to the nearest patent office. Torvalds, however, remained committed to to principle that software should be free and accessible to all.

A year after writing the prototype for Linux, he released Linux 0.99 under the GNU General Public License, which meant that the source code of Linux was available to anyone who needed to modify it to their specific purposes.
The growing influence of Linux and the philosophy associated with free software cannot be ignored. Today, many governments around the world are running Linux systems in order maintain the independence of their information infrastructure.

Recently, South Africa’s own Geek God Mark Shutlleworth’s Linux-based Ubuntu operating system has been laying claim to a share of the desktop market, while the advent of smartphones has seen a surge in the popularity of portable Linux systems. As of this 2006, almost 17% of smartphones sold worldwide were running Linux.
Since writing the first version of Linux, Torvalds has been one of the most prominent advocates of the free software movement. His advocacy has been so powerful that one of the movement’s guiding principles has become known as Linus’s Law, which states that “given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.”
Torvalds was anticipating a world in which the sum total of human knowledge could be harnessed; where the greatest minds on the planet could collaborate and build on their ideas in a free and open exchange of knowledge. His lasting contribution was to develop a platform on which this exchange could take place, and, as the flow of information becomes faster and more powerful, Torvalds’ vision is seeming more and more prescient

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