***Geek Club History Draft***

[BiPolarBear 495]

Nice. You and I were thinking along similar lines this round.

 

You probably know that David "Honeyboy" Edwards was alive until 2011. He knew Robert pretty well and has some good stories on youtube.

[vuduchile 1,945]

Drug dealer, philanthropist, murderer, soccer enthusiast, king of the US cocaine trade; killer of politicians, police officers, rival criminals, judges, and journalists; head of the Medellin Cartel and a member of Forbes list of the ten richest men in the world.

What a muthafocka.

Pablo Escobar - Criminal

[vuduchile 1,945]

You probably know that David "Honeyboy" Edwards was alive until 2011. He knew Robert pretty well and has some good stories on youtube.

Yes. I've seen some of his interviews. I've always been fascinated by those early blues pioneers.

[Voltaire 5,392]

If Bear hasn't made a selection by the time TBBOM wakes up... Just go.

[vuduchile 1,945]

Scientist: Other

Nicéphore Niépce

 

 

Could be classified as a jack of all trades or an inventor, but I need a strong player in the Scientist category.

 

 

Nicéphore Niépce (born Joseph Niépce; 7 March 1765 – 5 July 1833)^[1] was a French inventor, now usually credited as the inventor of photography and a pioneer in that field.^[2] Niépce developed heliography, a technique he used to create the world's oldest surviving product of a photographic process: a print made from a photoengraved printing plate in 1825.^[3] In 1826 or 1827, he used aprimitive camera to produce the oldest surviving photograph of a real-world scene. Among Niépce's other inventions was thePyréolophore, the world's first internal combustion engine, which he conceived, created, and developed with his older brotherClaude.^[4]

 

I think I need to declare Joe's brother Claude as collaborator since he was also involved in creating the first internal combustion engine.

[BiPolarBear 495]

Two Olympic Medals (Silver and Gold)

 

Two sets of twins (one set girls, one set boys)

 

Most people involved with playing, coaching, or commenting on the sport say he is the best ever to play.

 

17 Grand Slams.

 

Roger Federer - Athlete

[titans&bucs&bearsohmy! 2,745]

Jeremy Bentham - Social Scientist

 

Jeremy Bentham (/ˈbɛnθəm/; 15 February 1748 [O.S. 4 February 1747][1] – 6 June 1832) was a British philosopher, jurist, and social reformer. He is regarded as the founder of modern utilitarianism.

 

Bentham defined as the "fundamental axiom" of his philosophy the principle that "it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong".[2][3] He became a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism. He advocated individual and economic freedom, the separation of church and state, freedom of expression, equal rights for women, the right to divorce, and the decriminalising of homosexual acts.[4] He called for the abolition of slavery, the abolition of the death penalty, and the abolition of physical punishment, including that of children.[5] He has also become known in recent years as an early advocate of animal rights.[6] Though strongly in favour of the extension of individual legal rights, he opposed the idea of natural law and natural rights, calling them "nonsense upon stilts".[7]

[jerryskids 6,974]

Jeremy Bentham - Social Scientist

 

Jeremy Bentham (/ˈbɛnθəm/; 15 February 1748 [O.S. 4 February 1747][1] – 6 June 1832) was a British philosopher, jurist, and social reformer. He is regarded as the founder of modern utilitarianism.

 

Bentham defined as the "fundamental axiom" of his philosophy the principle that "it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong".[2][3] He became a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism. He advocated individual and economic freedom, the separation of church and state, freedom of expression, equal rights for women, the right to divorce, and the decriminalising of homosexual acts.[4] He called for the abolition of slavery, the abolition of the death penalty, and the abolition of physical punishment, including that of children.[5] He has also become known in recent years as an early advocate of animal rights.[6] Though strongly in favour of the extension of individual legal rights, he opposed the idea of natural law and natural rights, calling them "nonsense upon stilts".[7]

 

Interesting dood; like many here, I hadn't heard of him prior to this, which is why I enjoy this thread so much. Anyway, the bolded part seems fairly unamerican, as it flies in the face of one of our greatest qualities -- our willingness to put the rights of the individual above the will of the majority.

[Voltaire 5,392]

Bentham's corpse has more fun than I do. It's true! College pranksters notoriously steal his head all the time and take him to frat parties and amusment parks and such. What can I say, they enjoy hanging out with the head of Jeremy Bentham.

[Voltaire 5,392]

St. Peter

 

So I was looking at who's next up for my Religious Leader board. One of Jesus's 12 disciples. The fisherman who became the Fisher of Men. The Rock on whom Juesus built his church, The first pope. Every Pope nowadays lives in St. Peter's Basillica, named after him, built on his grave site, and designed/decorated by some of the greatest aritists of all time.

 

Him.

 

He ran afoul of Nero who famously didn't like Christians, got captured, and was crucifed upside down.

 

St. Peter - Criminal

[Voltaire 5,392]

Because sometimes one Peter isn't enough ...

 

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Composer

 

This guy gets high marks from the sites that I rely on for advise in composers.

[titans&bucs&bearsohmy! 2,745]

Yes Volty, I was going to take Tckaiovsky or however the fock you spell it eventually. The 1812 overture is enough on its own, but I think he composed the Nutcracker as well.

 

I will keep taking Social Scientist/Philosophy/Thinker types.

 

I choose...

 

Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Social Scientist

 

 

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (/ruːˈsoʊ/;^[1]French: [ʒɑ̃ʒak ʁuso]; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a philosopher, writer, and composer of the 18th century. His political philosophy influenced the Enlightenment in France and across Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolution and the overall development of modern political and educational thought.

Rousseau's novel Emile, or On Education is a treatise on the education of the whole person for citizenship. His sentimental novel Julie, or the New Heloise was of importance to the development of pre-romanticism^[2] and romanticism in fiction.^[3] Rousseau's autobiographical writings — his Confessions, which initiated the modern autobiography, and his Reveries of a Solitary Walker — exemplified the late 18th-century movement known as the Age of Sensibility, and featured an increased focus on subjectivity and introspection that later characterized modern writing. His Discourse on Inequality and The Social Contract are cornerstones in modern political and social thought.

 

____

 

I read A Social Contract in college. Basically, the premise is that we as citizens, have a tacit agreement with government. We agree to give up a small portion of our freedom in order to have an entity (government) to protect the rest.

 

Pretty obviously a book that influenced Jefferson and Monroe and all those guys.

[Voltaire 5,392]

When Bear took Satre, I panicked a moment when I saw Jean- XXXX. Oh thankfully it was Satre and not Rouseau. Wrong Jean. Relax.

 

He's been my next SS pick all along, one of the traffic jam picks backed up for miles and I sat on him too long. Bentham was really high as an alternative as well. Good job here. And you alredy have Marx, my God, you are liquid death in this category. This isn't exaclty my deepest category and you just swiped 1 and 4.

[Voltaire 5,392]

Give Bear another hour or so. I'd like to see some movement before the eveing is out.

[Voltaire 5,392]

OK Vudu, feel free to og, see if we can get some movement this evening.

[BiPolarBear 495]

This guy invented a pizza warmer. Oh, and a window defroster like they use in cars.

 

Paul Eisler - Inventor

 

There was something else...oh yeah, the printed circuit board.

 

http://p.globalsources.com/IMAGES/PDT/B1062504898/Printed-Circuit-Board-Assembly.jpg

[iam90sbaby 2,720]

Billy Mays (artist - performing) - Television personality. Born William Darrell "Billy" Mays on July 20th, 1958, in McKees Rock, Pennsylvania. Mays is best known as a television pitchman and host of informercials for products like Oxiclean, Orange Glo, and more. Mays spent the majority of his childhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. For a short time, Billy attended West Virginia University, but he dropped out and began working at his father's hazardous waste company. Mays began his sales career on the Atlantic City boardwalk in 1983, selling the "Washmatik" portable washing device to passersby. Along with the "Washmatik," Mays also sold several other "As Seen On TV" products. Mays attributes much of his style and success as a salesman to the older pitchmen that taught him the trade during this time. After a while on the Atlantic City boardwalk, Mays began traveling to home shows and state fairs across the country selling products.

 

BUT WAIT THERES MORE!

 

In 1993, Billy struck up a friendship with Max Appel, a salesman and founder of Orange Glo International. The two agreed to partner together, with Mays as the company's pitchman, to sell Orange Glo products like OxiClean, Orange Clean, and Orange Glo on the Home Shopping Network (HSN) in St. Petersburg, Florida. After just one day on the Home Shopping Network, Mays experienced immense success. His enthusiastic style led to a sharp increase in sales. He was not, however, well received by critics and the media. The Washington Post referred to Mays as "a full-volume pitchman, amped up like a candidate for a tranquilizer-gun takedown. The negative press didn't effect Mays. Instead he pressed on, helping to make Orange Glo International one of the top 10 privately growing companies from 1999 to 2001. His success on HSN also helped propel the buyout by Church and Dwight of the Orange Glo International. In addition, he continued to lend his pitchman skills and voice to many products on the Home Shopping Network, including Zorbeez, Mighty Putty, Turbo Tiger, Kaboom! and The Grip Wrench

 

In late 1999, Mays moved to Dunedin, Florida, and started his own company called Mays Promotions, Inc. There he began pitching and appearing in commercials for several products. Mays then landed his own reality show with Anthony Sullivan on the Discovery Channel in 2009. As the host and executive producer, Mays helped inventors fine-tune and market their products.In recent years, Billy Mays appeared as a television personality on shows such as ESPN360 and ESPN and ABC's college football bowl coverage. He also appeared on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. But just as everything was coming together for May, his life came to a tragic end. On June 28th, 2009, Mays was found dead in his Tampa, Florida, home. According to the autopsy report, hypertension and cocaine contributed to his death.

 

 

 

Steve Wozniak (thinker) - Steve Wozniak was born in San Jose, California, on August 11, 1950. In partnership with his friend Steve Jobs, Wozniak invented the Apple I computer. The pair founded Apple Computers in 1976 with Ronald Wayne, releasing some of the first personal computers on the market. Wozniak also personally developed the next model, Apple II, which established Apple as a major player in microcomputing.

 

The son of an engineer at Lockheed Martin, Stephen Gary Wozniak, born on August 11, 1950, was fascinated by electronics at an early age. Although he was never a star student in the traditional sense, Wozniak had an aptitude for building working electronics from scratch. During his brief stint at the University of California at Berkeley, Steve Wozniak met Steve Jobs, who was still in high school, through a mutual friend. The two later paired up to form Apple Computer on April 1, 1976, prompting Wozniak to quit his job at Hewlett-Packard. Working out of a family garage, he and Jobs attempted to produce a user-friendly alternative to the computers that were being introduced by International Business Machines at that time. Wozniak worked on the invention of products, and Jobs was responsible for marketing. Not long after Apple was founded, Wozniak created the Apple I, a design built largely in Jobs' bedroom and garage. With Wozniak's knowledge of electronics and Jobs' marketing skills, the two were well-suited to do business together. Wozniak went on to conceive the Apple II as part of the company's personal-computer series, and by 1983, Apple had a stock value of $985 million. Wozniak ended his employment with Apple in 1985.

In February of 1981, Wozniak was injured when the private plane he was piloting crashed while taking off from the Santa Cruz Sky Park. His painstaking recovery lasted two years, as he suffered from a variety of injuries and amnesia. Not one to flaunt his personal life, Wozniak is married to Janet Hill, an Apple education development executive. The less-notorious of the original Apple duo, Wozniak has nevertheless made appearances on the reality show Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List and ABC's Dancing with the Stars (Season 8).Following his accident and subsequent recovery, Wozniak went on to found numerous ventures, including CL 9, the company responsible for the first programmable universal remote control. Called one of "Silicon Valley's most creative engineers," in 1990 he joined Mitchell Kapor in establishing the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization that provides legal aid for computer hackers facing criminal prosecution. Wozniak also founded Wheels of Zeus (WoZ) in 2002, a venture started with the aim of developing wireless GPS technology. After WoZ closed in 2006, Wozniak published his autobiography, iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It. In 2008, he joined the Salt Lake City-based start-up Fusion-io as its chief scientist.

Was going to put Wozniak at inventer but my thinker category i weak... plus not many better thinkers in the world than Wozniak.

[Voltaire 5,392]

It's Vudu's turn... so these are unsecured picks.

 

Anyways, I had Woz on my radar pegged as an engineer.

 

Steve Jobs didn't do programming, he was competent but it wasn't his thing. Didn't matter though with techie-genius Woz on the team. Woz was behind the keyboard while Jobs was the visonary of where to take the company. They really complemented each other well.

 

Woz is also a Tetris superstar, take him as athlete

 

----

 

If Vudu doesn't claim one of these guys, he gets two picks.

[vuduchile 1,945]

I'll be in my office in about an hour and will post my picks then. Iam90's picks are fine.

[vuduchile 1,945]

Statesman:

 

Franklin Delano Roosevelt - He gets more credit than he deserves for ushering the U.S. out of the great depression, but he's still one of the most respected and widely revered Presidents of all time.

 

He was elected 4 times, and held the office for 12 years.

 

While in office, he created: The New Deal, The Fair Labor Standards Act, The FDIC, and The Civil Works Act,

 

He helped many Americans restore confidence in their country in the wake of the depression, and gave them hope throughout the country's toughest times.

 

He was also commander in chief during the better part of the our involvement in WW2. Hitler was defeated by Allied forces 10 days before FDR died of cerebral hemorrhage.

 

Oh yeah. He did all this while battling a crippling disease called polio.

 

 

 

 

[vuduchile 1,945]

Philosopher:

 

George Berkeley (/ˈbɑrklɪ/; 12 March 1685 – 14 January 1753), also known as Bishop Berkeley (Bishop of Cloyne), was an Anglo-Irish philosopher whose primary achievement was the advancement of a theory he called "immaterialism" (later referred to as "subjective idealism" by others).

 

Some of his Quotes:

 

"If a tree falls in a falls in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

 

"Few men think, yet all have opinions."

 

"The same principles, which at first view lead to skepticism, pursued to a certain point, bring men back to common sense."

 

"Truth is the cry of all, but the game of few."

 

"That thing of hell and eternal punishment is the most absurd, as well as the most disagreeable thought ever entered into the head of mortal man."

 

 

 

[BiPolarBear 495]

If this guy can't rule the Wild Card Category, who can?

 

Russell Brand - Wild Card

[jerryskids 6,974]

Billy Mays (artist - performing) - Billy attended West Virginia University, but he dropped out...

 

 

Steve Wozniak (thinker) - During his brief stint at the University of California at Berkeley...

 

A side comment: has anyone noticed how many of the highly successful people in America don't make it through our college education system? It almost seems like it is set up to weed out the most talented. That seems wrong.

[iam90sbaby 2,720]

 

A side comment: has anyone noticed how many of the highly successful people in America don't make it through our college education system? It almost seems like it is set up to weed out the most talented. That seems wrong.

People of that intelligence it is just a commoity. I know of many people who dropped out of HS and are smarter than the students that went to UCF. Its just another money pit. Ive learned more from the History Channel than I have in any school Ive been to

[Voltaire 5,392]

I 'd rather teach history in the US than English in China. But I was a history major not a teaching major. Now that I've got 14 years experience teaching English in China, I wonder if I'm qualified or not.

[Voltaire 5,392]

We're getty close to the halfway point. Since we're doing a mid-draft report now, just before we start, is the best time to double check me.

 

I hope you guys can help me out and count to make sure that you have - when we get there- 72 names. Now I have three posts at the top of page one. The first one is almost surely accurate. The next two, divided by rosters and categories, I've caught mistakes. Usually errors of omission. So check that so we're ready to roll.

[titans&bucs&bearsohmy! 2,745]

Charles de Gaulle - Statesman

 

As the leader of the powerless free French, a proverbial King without a Country, de Gaulle managed to secure France a seat among the Allies, and an evevtual occupation zone of Germany and seat on the UN Security Council. He managed to walk the fine line with the Anglo Saxons and the Soviets, keeping France's interests on the table.

 

He ultimately became leader of a restored French Republic, and implemented his "politics of grandeur" in which he refused to rely on America itself. France ultimately, under his leadership, became the fourth nuclear power.

 

Under his leadership, France also joined NATO.

[titans&bucs&bearsohmy! 2,745]

Dwight Eisenhower - Administrator

 

Eisenhower was, of course, Supreme Allied Commander of the Western Front. Think about what that means.

 

He had tens of millions of troops, from the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, Czeckoslovakia, Poland, and elsewhere.

 

Can you imagine what answering to all those governments was like?

 

Can you imagine having a chain of subordinates that huge, spread out as far as they were, with the animosities and language issues that existed?

 

He once backed Churchill down, threatening to resign unless Britain yeilded command of their air force for operation overlord.

 

After the war, he became the US military governor in southern Germany, responsible for rebuildingthe war ravaged country.

 

And later, of course, he became President of the United States.

 

He was obviously extremely good with logistics, supply, and administration.

[Voltaire 5,392]

John Maynard Keynes - Social Scientist

 

Economics was a it of a mess until he came along

 

Jane Austen - Great Woman

[Voltaire 5,392]

My connection is total crap right now. Has been for about 18 hours. I can barely get in. When I try to update in this situation, I get errors and lose color so I'm not keen to attempt that right now.

 

I hope the situation is temporary. I'll go keep Ed's board up to date.

[Voltaire 5,392]

I'm moving Thomas Jefferson out of Thinker and into Statesman. Oh, what a heavyweight category that one is.

[Voltaire 5,392]

If you guys have people you want to move to different categories or want to change the order of your people let me know. The order actually really doesn't matter but I feel psychologically better seeing the strongest one on top down to the weakest one. It helps me organize my thoughts.

[Voltaire 5,392]

Another couple of hours...

[BiPolarBear 495]

Gregor Mendel - Scientist (other)

Gregor Mendel is the father of genetics. He:

• Founded the science of genetics.

• Identified many of the rules of heredity. These rules determine how traits are passed through generations of living things.

• Saw that living things pass traits to the next generation by something which remains unchanged in successive generations of an organism – we now call this ‘something’ genes.

• Realized that traits could skip a generation – seemingly lost traits could appear again in another generation – he called these recessive traits.

• Identified recessive and dominant traits which pass from parents to offspring.

• Established, momentously, that traits pass from parents to their offspring in a mathematically predictable way.

[Voltaire 5,392]

Outstanding pick. One of the two I was looking at next in that category.

 

It's lacking your typical juicy analysis... A humble monk with a garden, he published a paper about some of his observations in growing pea plants that didn't get much attention in his lifetime and he died in obscurity.

 

The paper didn't generate a buzz. One guy who was intrigued was a graduate assistant but his department professor had no interest so he dropped the subject. I don't recall the name.

 

Years later, there was a problem, so many of Queen Victoria's grandchildren were suffering from hemophilia. Neither the queen nor her children were hemophiliacs but 1/4 of her grandchildren were.

 

So the grad student is now head of the department himself, recognizes that curious 1/4 ratio he'd seen before and is reminded of the forgotten paper regarding peas from long ago demonstrating the exact same thing, looks it up, and goes to monk's home to discuss it with him. Well the monk is dead now but his papers from all his experiments remain and are turned over to him. He stays for dinner that evening where he gets to dine on the very peas from the very garden that Mendel conducted his experiments in.

 

Obviously I don't mind taking an amateur scientist who made an enormous discovery seeing as I've already taken the draper who discovered microbiology.

[BiPolarBear 495]

Outstanding pick. One of the two I was looking at next in that category.

 

It's lacking your typical juicy analysis... A humble monk with a garden, he published a paper about some of his observations in growing pea plants that didn't get much attention in his lifetime and he died in obscurity.

 

One guy who was intrigued was a graduate assistant but his department professor had no interest. I don't recall the name but there was a problem, so many of Queen Victoria's grandchildren were suffering from hemophilia in curiously the same 1/4 ratio the anonymous monk had written about years earlier.

 

So the grad student was now head of the department himself, is reminded of the forgotten paper regarding peas from long ago, looks it up, and goes to monk's home to discuss it with him. Well the monk is dead now but his papers from all his experiments remain and are turned over to him. He stays for dinner that evening where he gets to dine on the very peas from the very garden that Mendel conducted his experiments in.

 

Obviously I don't mind taking an amateur scientist who made an enormous discovery seeing as I've already taken the draper who discovered microbiology.

 

 

Love the pea story. Thank you.

 

Have you heard about trinary DNA coding?

 

from wiki:

 

As of 2013, researchers have managed to store and retrieve information encoded in synthetic DNA (including Shakespeare's sonnets and graphic and audio files), and this may actually become a viable means of data archiving in the future. The encoding scheme uses trinary digits (trits), unlike the normal binary-based computer storage systems, as numbers of this base can easily be encoded using the four DNA bases in a system where the same base does not appear twice in a row. A form of Huffman coding is used to code a sequence of bytes (which could in turn be part of any electronic file format) as a series of trinary numbers.

 

If someone were cut off from outside information, they could have vast information stored in their DNA and possibly retrieve it with a small DNA reader.

[Voltaire 5,392]

 

 

Love the pea story. Thank you.

 

Have you heard about trinary DNA coding?

 

from wiki:

 

As of 2013, researchers have managed to store and retrieve information encoded in synthetic DNA (including Shakespeare's sonnets and graphic and audio files), and this may actually become a viable means of data archiving in the future. The encoding scheme uses trinary digits (trits), unlike the normal binary-based computer storage systems, as numbers of this base can easily be encoded using the four DNA bases in a system where the same base does not appear twice in a row. A form of Huffman coding is used to code a sequence of bytes (which could in turn be part of any electronic file format) as a series of trinary numbers.

 

If someone were cut off from outside information, they could have vast information stored in their DNA and possibly retrieve it with a small DNA reader.

Some Chinese kids may figure out how to use their DNA as a way to cheat in their Gaokao test.

[titans&bucs&bearsohmy! 2,745]

 

Some Chinese kids may figure out how to use their DNA as a way to cheat in their Gaokao test.[/quote

 

Please. Chinese kids can't even figure out how to use paper to cheat on their tests. I catch them every time.

[Voltaire 5,392]

 

 

Some Chinese kids may figure out how to use their DNA as a way to cheat in their Gaokao test.[/quote

 

Please. Chinese kids can't even figure out how to use paper to cheat on their tests. I catch them every time.

You don't catch them every time. You only catch the ones you catch.

[titans&bucs&bearsohmy! 2,745]

ame="titans&bucs&bearsohmy!" post="5587169" timestamp="1448075231"]

 

You don't catch them every time. You only catch the ones you catch.

 

My students are retards. They try to write the answers on the desk before the test. They try writing it on their shoes. The copy off each other, so the a whole section of the room will have the exact same answers.

 

For homework, the plagarize shamelessly. The other day, I had them use the phonics words in a sentence for homework.

 

one of the words was "Sue" as in a girl's name. One of my dumber students wrote, "Corporations register trademarks so that they can sue infringers." Like I'm not gonna notice that.

 

The Chinese don't seem to care. It's part of the way things are done here. And frankly, as long as they can manage to cheat on the government exam too, I don't really care either. I'm here for the quai.