Gemmell (August 1, 1948 – July 28, 2006) wrote over thirty novels and has sold millions of copies worldwide. Interestingly, he grew up in a poor, urban area of London and his father left at an early age, which led to him being mercilessly teased as a child. However contrary to those who may think that due to his status as a Geek God David Gemmell must have been weedy, he was actually very tough and hardcore. Although he preferred reading books to physical activity his dad convinced him to take up boxing as a way of toughening up. It worked. Gemmell was expelled from school at the age of sixteen for organizing a gambling syndicate and was arrested several times while still under 20. He later became a construction worker and a bouncer at nightclubs, before his mum set him up an interview with a London newspaper. Apparently, Gemmell was hired despite having no experience because he was very arrogant during the job interview, which his future employers mistook for confidence. At any rate, this job started him on a journey as a writer, which would culminate in Gemmell having his first novel published at age 36.

Gemmell’s first and most successful book, called Legend, was published in 1984. Since then he churned them out, until his unexpected death from a heart attack in 2006. His books, as those who have read them will know, are heroic fantasy novels, usually with tons of violence and a super-macho hero who kicks ass and takes names throughout. Why do geeks love reading about men so far removed from their own world of desks and PCs? Whatever the reason, the amount of bona-fide geeks who have become obsessed with the worlds Gemmell created for you to escape to earn him his place in the pantheon of Geek Gods.

The original inventor at Apple HQ

A major oversite (geddit?) took place on this blog when I declared Steve Jobs a Geek God. Sure, the guy deserves some credit for turning Apple into the global mega-brand it is today. But the real geek genius, the inventor, is his partner Steve Wozniack.

Known affectionately as ‘The Woz’, ‘iWoz’ and the ‘Wonderful Wizard of Woz’, Wozniack is a geek’s geek – he was the one whose bedroom as a young man was filled with bizarre electronic devices of his own invention, who would invent cool gadgets just to impress his friends at parties and who had to be convinced by the more business-savvy Jobs that there may actually be a market for this ‘personal computer’ idea he’d been tinkering with. If The Woz would never have become a multimillionaire (back in 1980 when that was still a lot of money) without Jobs and his business sense, then the same goes the other way around – none of Apple’s true technological innovations could have taken place without the Wonderful Wizard of Woz.

The invention that made him famous was the first PC, the Apple 1. The machine sounds like a joke now – a  $25 microprocessor (MOS 6502) on a single-circuit board with 256 bytes of ROM, 4K or 8K bytes of RAM and a 40 character by 24-row display controller. The user was expected to supply the case, power supply, keyboard and display themselves. The Apple 1 was fairly expensive $666.66 (Wozniack says he has no idea of the supposedly satanic connotations of the number and just chose the price because he ‘likes repeating digits’). Apple 2 introduced innovations such as high res and the floppy disk drive. Wozniack designed all the software as well as the hardware for these early machines.

Since his early innovations iWoz has been quite low key. An aircraft accident gave him amnesia in 1981, and when he eventually returned to Apple in 1983 he was just employed as an engineer. He has been involved with pioneering useful things such as early GPS technology as well as the universal remote control. He still receives a paycheck from Apple (even though he stopped being a full-time employee in 1987) and is a shareholder in the company.

The Woz is a true geek icon, proving that with enough tech savvy you can be a success in life without an iota of business or dress sense. Respect.

Comic book geeks will know him mainly for the incredible Sandman series, a fantasy comic so layered and well-versed in myths and legends that it makes most other adult-oriented graphic novels look like Richie Rich. The series is based on the exploits of the endless, a group of mythical beings who existed since time did and who embody different natural forces of the universe, called Dream, Desire, Delerium, Despair, Destruction, and Destiny. Dream, or the Sandman, is the main character. The comic inspired one of the most respected writers who ever lived, Norman Mailer, to remark “along with all else, Sandman is a comic strip for intellectuals, and I say it’s about time.”

Those who prefer their books without pictures may know him for his novels, all of which have been heaped with critical praise. There was 1990’s ‘Good Omens’ a collaboration with the ultra-prolific king of fantasy-comedy , Terry Pratchett, followed by 2001’s ‘American Gods’, and 2005’s ‘Anansi Boys’. He has also written a bunch of books for kids, including his latest, ‘The Graveyard Book’, rated by some as his best yet, ‘The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish’, ‘Stardust’ and ‘Coraline’, both of which have become major films, the former staring Claire Daines and Robert De Niro and the latter a stop-frame animation.

Speaking of film, Gaiman has become increasingly involved as a screenwriter, co-writing the script for 2007’s ‘Beowulf’ with Roger Avery, and is currently working on a script based on Nicholson Baker’s novel ‘The Fermata’ alongside Robert Zemeckis. He also wrote ‘Neverwhere’, a ’90s BBC television series.

Gaiman has won so many awards that the idea of listing them all bores me. His extremely obsessive fans (such as me) and penchant for black clothes and leather often causes people to refer to him as the ‘rock star of the literary world’. But Gaiman’s too intelligent to be a rock star, so I declare him a Geek God instead.

The man could not be described as an underachiever. He set up his first business, which specialised in Internet Security, in 1995, and had sold it for 3.5 billion by 1999. He has since helmed two similarly successful businesses, not to mention becoming the first African in Space, where he got to chat to Nelson Mandela via radio. And, believe it or not, he was born in Welkom. He has undoubtedly come a long way.

While he is now best known more for making a ton of money and visiting space, Shuttleworth’s geek credentials are formidable. As a student at UCT, in the early nineties, he was involved in setting up the varsity’s first residential internet connection at his res, Jan Smuts house. Proving he has skills over and above his obviously strong business sense, he was one of the developers of the Debian operating system. And, from 2001, he has championed the Open Source revolution, first through the Shuttleworth Foundation and then, in 2005, as the founder of the now internationally famous Ubuntu.

He seems like a good guy, too. His mission into space wasn’t a selfish one, and his time spent at The International Space Station included his participation in experiments relating to AIDS and stem-cell research. While he was in space, he found time to chat to Michelle Foster, a terminally ill 14 year old Cancer patient who has since passed away (she asked him to marry her, and he responded by politely changing the subject). And, proving he has a sense of humour, his title at Ubuntu, rather than CEO or director, is Self-Appointed Benevolent Dictator for Life.

Coming from Southern Africa, where the dictator who gets the most mentions in the news is far from benevolent, we need all the good PR we can get. So Shuttleworth is ours, even if he does insist on setting up camp in the land of grey weather and fish and chips.

Initially, his story had tragic overtones, making it all the more interesting. Pajitnov invented Tetris in 1985 in Russia, while working at a government organisation called the Computing Centre of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Because Russia was still under Communism, Pajitnov didn’t earn a cent for his invention, as everything he made was owned by the state. He distributed Tetris all around the USSR and other Eastern bloc countries for free.

So, Pajitnov ended up an alcoholic living in extreme poverty. Well, not really. Actually, he got co-opted by the Yanks, who brought him over to America in the early 90’s, where he started the Tetris Company and began earning royalties from his creation. By 1996 he was employed by Microsoft and making millions. So much for the tragedy.

But while Pajitnov didn’t achieve technological martyrdom, he did invent possibly the most successful game of all time. It has sold more than 70 million copies. Electronic Gaming Monthly’s 100th issue named Tetris the ‘Greatest Game of All Time’. And Tetris has a way of getting people to think about the big questions. In 1988 a thesis by John Brzustowski asked ‘Is it possible to play Tetris forever?’ (the thesis deduced that no, it isn’t). And, recently, research by neurologists Dr. Michael Crane and Dr. Richard Haier showed that playing Tetris improves your brain function, boosting one’s “critical thinking, reasoning, language and processing”.

That’s that then. Tetris makes you clever. So logic dictates that its inventor must be uber-clever. All hail the brilliance of Alexey Pajitnov.

Tyson is not mere window dressing – the guy’s importance as an astrophysicist is beyond reproach. Just a few selected highlights of his career follow. Tyson received the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal, the highest honor awarded by NASA to a non-government civilian, in 2004. In the same year, he was selected as one of the 50 Most Important African-Americans in Research Science. An asteroid, 13123 Tyson, has been named after him. In 2007 Time Magazine declared him one of the ‘100 Most Influential People’ in the world. He has received honorary doctorates from more universities than George Bush dropped out of. You get the idea.

But it is status as a celebrity, having appeared on John Stewart’s The Daily Show and The Colbert Show countless times, as well as hosting educational science show NOVA scienceNOW, that elevates him to god like status. He went from studying the stars to becoming a star himself. More than anyone, he has popularised the field of astrophysics and made it seem cool. It’s not for nothing that People magazine called him ‘the Sexiest Astrophysicist Alive’

He was also one of the first astrophysicists to question Pluto’s status as a planet, a decision which earned him no shortage of hate mail at the time, probably mostly from obsessive Disney fans. He was eventually vindicated, with the International Astronomical Union relegating Pluto to ‘dwarf planet’ in 2006, confirming that Tyson was right all along.

And finally, helping prove that not all geeks are athletically challenged, Tyson excelled as both a wrestler and a rower in college. Helping to prove that not all geeks spend their entire lives in their bedroom, he is a gourmet and wine enthusiast. In 2005, famous wine magazine ‘Wine Spectator’ featured his collection. And, helping to prove the romantic allure of geekdom, he has been quoted as saying that taking his telescope up to the roof and showing ladies the constellations was one of his main techniques for getting laid before he got married. Truly, an inspiration to us all.

Svartholm is a 24-year old Swedish computer genius and the co-founder of an ISP.

He’s a libertarian and has been called a ‘boy genius’ by no less than Vanity Fair. He’s also, technically speaking, a criminal who has been sentenced to a year in prison.

Juicy story….read on!

In 2003, Piratbyrån (a Swedish group concerned with ‘liberating’ intellectual property) established a file-sharing website called The Pirate Bay. The site had evolved into its own entity when, in May 2006, Swedish police raided the Pirate Bay offices.

Many believe that the police were acting under political pressure from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) – similar to RIAA, the body responsible for upholding the intellectual property rights of musicians in the States – and that Pirate Bay had angered too many powerful industry players. If you’re picturing Mafioso and MacCarthy era politicians, then you’re probably a hacker-minded geek too.

It’s no secret that piracy thrives on the amorphous entity that is the internet, but the Pirate Bay offices were a tangible locus, a headquarters of file sharing, and the industry was only going to let this slide for so long.

Svartholm and his associates, Fredrik Neij and Mikael Viborg, were taken in for questioning and the site was closed down. Hundreds of young Swedes, mobilised by liberal youth groups, demonstrated against the action. They were protesting against the raid itself and in favour of the principles of freeing the world’s information, ostensibly the principle on which the Internet was founded. Or maybe they just wanted to ensure an uninterrupted supply of free movies, pop music and pornography. Hey, who can say?

In January 2008, Svartholm, Neij, computer expert Peter Sunde, and businessman Carl Lundström were charged with abetting the infringement of copyright laws. The following trial became a sensation in the online community.

One of the more amusing legal strategies was the counsel’s ‘King Kong defence’.
This goes to the heart of the issue: whether Svartholm and his collaborators are responsible for piracy themselves or whether they are merely an innocent third party, facilitating free action among internet users.

He argued that to be liable, the web administrators must have been personally involved in users’ activities – he must ‘initiate the transfer’. So if someone, say a surfer with the username ‘King Kong’ downloads a Hollywood movie, “the prosecutor must show that Carl Lundström personally has interacted with the user King Kong, who may very well be found in the jungles of Cambodia”.

Unfortunately, the court was underwhelmed by this argument and in April 2009 the defendants were found guilty and sentenced to a year in prison, as well as being heavily fined.

Many had expected a guilty verdict, but the strength of the sentence was surprising.
The verdict is currently under appeal.

Whether or not you believe the Swedish authorities were acting under pressure from US industry, it’s clear that the harsh steps taken against Pirate Bay were intended as a deterrent to others operating similar services.

Will it work? In the short term, many similar file-sharing sites have chosen to close rather than risk being penalised.

But the case has raised the profile of copyright freedom campaigners and, as an aside, been a clear demonstration of the power of industry – of special interest groups – and the relative powerlessness of the consumer.

So, our question: Is Svartholm really a Geek God?
Even if you believe that information should be free and available to all, as I strongly do, the Pirate Bay crew were still breaking the law. More importantly, it seems unfair – and against the very principles of the Piratbyrån – that a small elite should profit from their users’ file-sharing.

But Svartholm is a different kind of hero. In many ways, he’s just another cocky computer nerd. But the heavy hand of the Swedish courts have turned him into a symbol of the struggle to define the internet.