This month’s Geek You Should Know is billionaire entrepreneur and engineer Elon Musk. Born in South Africa, he began his career by selling computer code for a video game at age twelve. By age seventeen he had moved to Canada to pursue a college degree, eventually graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in economics and physics. During the Dot Com boom in the mid 1990’s, he founded Zip2, which was later bought for just over $300 million—not bad for a guy in his 20’s. For most people, these accomplishments would be enough, but that same year Musk co-founded X.com, which we all know now as PayPal. Three years later Musk sold PayPal to Ebay, and moved on to even bigger projects. Lately he has been making waves with both SpaceX and Tesla Motors.
Why We Should Care
This guy is basically Tony Stark without (at least as far as we know) the Iron Man suit. While he has been fortunate to get involved in tech companies at just the right time, Elon Musk has also made a startling habit of taking on industries dominated by monolithic companies and revolutionizing the business right in front of them. Before PayPal, banks and credit card companies were the only way to make payments on the internet. Musk challenged that and forced the industry to play by his rules. Many of the services that have come about in online banking since 1998 are directly or indirectly a response to PayPal.
Not only is PayPal listed with all the big name credit card companies, but their name is the biggest. That’s impressive.
Musk’s current projects are taking on two industries at once: automotive and aerospace. Currently, wannabe astronauts have to spend years training, studying, hoping and praying that they can get accepted into NASA and get to be part of a mission. If Musk has his way—and there is every indication that he will—NASA’s monopoly on space travel will quickly become non-existent. SpaceX has recently announced its desire to construct a permanent space port in southern Texas where they can launch commercial space flights.
As for the auto industry, Musk’s Tesla Motors has been making huge strides in the electric car market. Although Tesla has had a few high profile incidents lately, their cars are miles ahead of the competition. With Musk’s vision leading the company, Tesla is not only looking at the cars themselves, but also at the infrastructure required to make these cars viable while still maintaining their green designs.
Tesla has also been involved in some legal battles recently due to its business model. Most states have laws requiring that cars be sold from dealers who buy from the manufacturer. Tesla would like to remove the middle man, and sell the cars directly to the general public. This fight has been particularly rough in Texas, which has deeply entrenched laws. I’m pretty confident that Tesla will win in the end, though it may get messy before it’s all done.
The world needs more people like Elon Musk. Men and women like him are the kinds that drive industries to do new and different things and that’s why Elon Musk is a Geek You Should Know.
We were very excited to be nominated for the Dragon’s Loyalty Award by Gene at The Sourcerer, and since it’s the first time we’ve had any acceptance into the blogging community, it has taken me a little while to calm down and compose my thoughts. This time around I’ll post some facts about myself and maybe next time I’ll let Tracy have all the fun share my misery. 😉
I spent four and half years at a military college and then have worked for the Navy for the last six.
I have a bad habit of collecting stuff. I use to collect card games and have sixteen 800 count, full card boxes still sitting in a dresser drawer. Now I collect comics, and they don’t fit in a dresser drawer.
So many cards…
My sister and I look so little alike that when she lived with me for six months people thought we were dating. However, once they spend some time around us, most people discover that we have very similar mannerisms and even use the same turns of phrases.
I tend to name my pets after characters from things I like. My cats are Spider (Transmetropolitan) and Kaylee (Firefly). In high school I had a cat named Mara (from the Star Wars expanded universe).
I once blew off Geraldo Rivera. He was with his nephew on a tour of my college while I was pulling onto campus. I honked my horn and waved to a friend who was standing behind him and Geraldo got excited because he thought I recognized him. With a couple of quick hand gestures I made it clear I was trying to get the attention of someone else. He looked very disappointed. I didn’t find out who he was until about an hour later.
I’ve played four instruments in my life: piano, alto sax, tuba and guitar. I’ve never been great at any of them, but I was best at tuba and would pick it back up if they weren’t so damned expensive.
For years friends of mine have been threatening to record my rantings and post them on the internet. I started the blog after a similar conversation with Tracy got me thinking on the long drive down to southern Georgia. The blog kept me sane for the two months I was in Georgia for work.
I don’t really have a great method for picking other blog nominees, aside from the fact that these are ones that I have found interesting, inspiring, or are written by people I’d like to get to know better.
The list of nominations for the 2014 Academy Awards was released yesterday, so Andrew and I decided to make it into a game. We originally thought about gambling for pennies, but have now come up with a ridiculously complex system of points by which one of us will be named the winner (ok, it isn’t that complex). Below is a transcript of our Oscar conversation, slightly edited for content and brevity. -t
Best Actor Leading Role
A. Christian Bale, because of his epic beer gut that is on display in several scenes. It’s disturbing but Oscar worthy
T. Chiwetel Ejiofor for 12 Years a Slave. Oscars eat that stuff up. (I’m also really excited to see an actor from Serenity nominated for anything at all!)
His beer belly has a personality all its own.
Actor in Supporting Role
A. Jonah Hill. The Wolf of Wall Street as a whole is sooo crazy. The potential for him to walk with the Oscar is high
T. Jared Leto because he’s a rock star!
Actress in a Leading Role
A. Sandra Bullock because of the torture she put herself through for that movie.
T. Meryl Streep. The line about Julia Roberts looking like a lesbian was hilarious to me. Apparently, she also has the record for most Academy Award Nominations.
Actress in a Supporting Role
A. Jennifer Lawrence. She doesn’t deserve it, but she will get it.
T. Jennifer Lawrence. For the same reason, but I’m mad that Andrew said it first.
But she IS smoking hot.
Animated Feature Films
A. Despicable Me 2. It wasn’t amazing, but of the choices, it was the funniest. Minions: that’s all that needs to be said.
T. The Wind Rises. Miyazaki said that this will be his last film and I think the Oscars will want this brilliant creator to go out with a bang.
Cinematography
A. Gravity. As crazy as that movie was, it has to be Gravity.
T. Gravity. It was beautiful and there was little action to take away from the gorgeous shots of space.
Costume Design
A. American Hustle—not for the lack of bras, but because of the god-awful vintage clothes and decor that made me think, “Oh no! Oh god, this WAS the seventies.”
T. The Great Gatsby. The costumes were absolutely stunning, over-the-top, and larger than life (sorry for the redundancy). I absolutely loved the clothing.
Directing
A. 12 Years a Slave. If this guy wins, he’ll be the first African American to win best director, and with Scorsese being out of the picture (no pun intended) on Oscar principle, I think this is an opportunity too good for the Awards to pass up.
T. I’m going to go with American Hustle for this. I think that the Oscars want to give this movie a top honor, but I think other movies will beat it out in other categories.
Steve McQueen (far right) would be the first African American director to win an Academy Award.
Documentary Feature
A. 20 Feet From Stardom, because I want to know what the hell “nominees to be determined” means. Do we not know who made the movie? Did we not watch the movie, but we’re voting on it? Were there only five documentaries this year and all five were nominated?
T. The Act of Killing. I don’t know why, but I’m drawn to that name.
Documentary Shorts
A. Prison Terminal, because the magic eight ball said so
T. Facing Fear, because the Oscars love anything by a Cohen
Film Editing
A. Gravity
T. I’m going with Gravity also. Andrew, stop stealing my picks.
Foreign Language Film
A. The Missing Picture, because I was unaware that Cambodia was making movies. I’m glad to see they’ve moved beyond killing, but this is still a disturbing development.
T. I don’t see any French movies. How am I supposed to pick if there isn’t a French movie? I guess I’ll go with Italy. Which movie was made in Italy? Oh, The Great Beauty. Of course.
No punchline necessary.
**We considered for a while, and decided not to recognize or NOT recognize Palestine as a country. Therefore I Geek will take a stance on many things, but the Middle East peace process is not one of them.
Makeup and Hair-Styling
A. Really? Only three in this category? Fine. Since they half-assed it, so will I. I’m going with Jackass.
T. The Lone Ranger, because it required more makeup on Johnny Depp alone than in the other two nominees combined.
Music (original score)
A. John Williams for The Book Thief. It’s always classical music from him. No way to go wrong with that.
T. Thomas Newman, Saving Mr. Banks. I even commented on the score after I got out of the movie. It was perfectly matched to the mood onscreen.
Music (original song)
A. “Happy” from Despicable Me 2 because I’ve seen the movie. I don’t actually remember the song, though.
T. I haven’t seen Despicable Me 2, but I did hear the song “Happy” and I really like it. So I’m going with that one.
Best Picture
A. I refuse to vote for Nebraska, because when it came out every other interview on NPR was about the movie, and I was tired of it before it even hit theaters. I’m going with 12 Years a Slave. It’s been making a lot of waves
T. How in the world is Megan Ellison nominated as a producer twice? She produced American Hustle AND Her. She basically has twice the likelihood of winning. Just for that, I’m going with 12 Years a Slave.
Production Design
A. Great Gatsby. They nailed that art deco.
T. Great Gatsby. I saw the work they had to do behind the scenes… Everything was on green screen; it was phenomenal.
The top is the final scene; the bottom is the same scene before CGI.
Short Film (animated)
**We considered taking a break at this point and watching all the short films, but after realizing that they probably aren’t that short and also that it might take us a couple of days to find them, we changed our minds.
A. I’m voting for Get a Horse! because it is an imperative sentence.
T. Room on the Broom, because you know exactly what it is about from the title. The whole plot is spelled out in that phrase.
**We lost our place at this point and completely skipped the next category… but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway since neither of us have seen any of the nominated films. Obviously, we came back to it later.
Short Film (live action)
A. I vote for the completely unpronounceable one because I want to see them try to pronounce it; especially if it’s a particularly stupid presenter.
T. While I applaud Andrew’s solid method of choosing a candidate, I’m going to pick Helium, because in my head it is about a very annoying young child whose mother gives him too many balloons at a fair and he floats away, never to be seen again.
Sound Editing
A. I want to know what the difference is between sound editing and sound mixing… I’m just gonna say The Hobbit because I don’t care anymore.
T. I think that I will pick The Hobbit for one of these sound ones and Lone Survivor for the other one. Heads for The Hobbit, tails for Lone Survivor. (Andrew flips) He says it’s heads, so The Hobbit.
Sound Mixing
A. I’m still going with The Hobbit.
T. Well, The Hobbit was my pick for sound editing, so I’m going with Lone Survivor.
Visual Effects
A. I’m going with Iron Man 3. Three words, “House Party Protocol.”
T. I think at this point I’ve forgotten to pick things that I think will win and am now picking movies that I hope will win. I hope Iron Man 3 gets SOMETHING from the Oscars, so let’s go with that one.
House Party Protocol.
Writing (adapted screenplay)
A. Before Midnight. I didn’t see it, but Richard Linklater did a fantastic job with A Scanner Darkly.
T. The Wolf of Wall Street, because I think this is the only award they can give that movie without any fear that Martin Scorsese might appear to have been awarded in any way whatsoever.
Writing (original screenplay)
A. American Hustle.
T. I considered Blue Jasmine because of Woody Allen, but the Awards love to encourage indie films in this category and the closest thing to indie that has been nominated is Her.
**The Academy Awards will air on March 2, so stay tuned and see who wins our little Oscar pool (and the comentary that will ensue).
Seeing moments like this on the big screen for the first time was amazing!
Much like Andrew, I enjoy movies as escapist entertainment. I had a very sheltered childhood and didn’t get to watch a lot of movies. We did not have a TV in our house, and I was never allowed to go to movie theaters. (This has bemused many of my friends, especially because I don’t associate popcorn, or food in general, with watching movies). As an adult, I’ve had to catch up on a lot of pop culture references that I just didn’t understand (for instance, I was an adult before I had seen a Disney animated movie and I still haven’t seen all of them). I also often don’t have the nostalgic love for poorly made, cult classic movies and shows.
I’m a little more demanding about consistency and plot than many moviegoers, which drives my movie loving friends a little crazy. However, there ARE cinematic influences on my life. Here are a few of them.
Disney’s Treasure Island –this wasone of the earliest movies that my siblings and I saw. I was probably around nine or ten. We reenacted the movie many times in our backyard, using a large cardboard box as a ship. Our favorite character was Ben Gunn because of a goofy line, “Many’s the long night I’ve dreamed of cheese–toasted, mostly.” We were too young (and not British enough) to know what toasted cheese was, of course.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer—if my mother only knew how many days I would ask to go down the block to spend the afternoon with my friend Alex and her dog… but we were really watching Buffy. That was the beginning of my love of Joss Whedon, although I didn’t know who he was at the time.
Pollyanna—this movie was influential not because of its content, but because in my house every movie was compared to it. It was actually a very perky, overly bright movie about a little girl who was good all the time. We kids were supposed to look up to Pollyanna as an example, but she was mostly just annoying.
NOT The Wizard of Oz—I put this movie in here because it was NOT actually an influence on me. This was my mother’s favorite movie when she was a child, and she made the fatal mistake of introducing it to her children when they were teenagers. Of course, we make snarky comments about how cheesy the movie was, which frustrated her quite a bit.
The Lord of the Rings—these were the first movies that I properly “geeked out” about. The Fellowship of the Ring came out when I was fifteen years old. By this time, even we had the internet, so I was able to follow the process and development of the movies with intense anticipation. I will never forget sitting for over an hour waiting for our 54k dialup to load the official trailer so that we could watch it in all its glory.
Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith—was the first movie I ever saw in a real movie theater. I was nineteen years old, and was living on my own. A friend of mine found out that I had never actually been to the cinema and dragged me along. I enjoyed the experience but thought (and still think) that it was far too loud.
Those are just a few of the movies and TV shows that have had some profound influence on my life. Mine are more like milestones of development, but even so, they each mark a significant piece of my life. What movies have influenced you? Let me know in the comments! -t
This month’s Geek You Should Know is billionaire entrepreneur and engineer Elon Musk. Born in South Africa, he began his career by selling computer code for a video game at age twelve. By age seventeen he had moved to Canada to pursue a college degree, eventually graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in economics and physics. During the Dot Com boom in the mid 1990’s, he founded Zip2, which was later bought for just over $300 million—not bad for a guy in his 20’s. For most people, these accomplishments would be enough, but that same year Musk co-founded X.com, which we all know now as PayPal. Three years later Musk sold PayPal to Ebay, and moved on to even bigger projects. Lately he has been making waves with both SpaceX and Tesla Motors.
Therefore I Geek 