Now it’s ON, baby! Voting for Round 2 of the Do’Urden Regon is now open, and will close on Sunday, January 18th at 7 pm, at which point the next round (Bombadil Region, Round 2) will begin. This round’s winner will be the first to advance to the prestigious Geek 16. All results so far are on the main Geek Madness page.
Review all the matchups and go vote, after the break.
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MATCH #1:
Linus Torvalds vs. Simon Pegg 
Linus Torvalds: Founder of the Linux kernel; notable standard-bearer of the Open Source revolution.
Notes: Extra points for coming from off the beaten path (Finland); married a Finnish national karate champion. Defeated Mr. Peabody in Round 1.
Simon Pegg: Actor/writer; co-creator/star, “Spaced“, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz.
Notes: Portraying “Scotty” in upcoming Star Trek reboot; staunch opponent of Star Wars prequel trilogy; no danger of influence from powerful zombie special interest groups. Defeated Peter Parker in Round 1.
[poll id=56]
MATCH #2
Patton Oswalt vs. Randall Munroe 
Patton Oswalt Comedian, actor; voice of “Remy” in Ratatouille; noted comic book and Dungeons & Dragons enthusiast.
Notes: Highly respected in comedy circles as “comedian’s comedian;” articulate, fervent, and unafraid to voice his opinion; diminutive, troll-like stature; will not rest until George Lucas is made to pay for Star Wars prequels. Defeated Paul Allen in Round 1.
Randall Munroe: Creator of webcomic xkcd.
Notes: Has graduate degree in physics; captures the nuances of geek life by investing his rudimentary stick figures with keen and often poignant observations; occasional stick figure sex. Defeated Kevin Smith in Round 1.
[poll id=57]
MATCH #3
Kaylee Frye vs. Tricia “Trillian” McMillan 
Kaylee Frye: Character, Joss Whedon’s TV series “Firefly” and film Serenity; ship’s mechanic.
Notes: Prototypical geek girl who has a great love of and intuitive talent with technology; feminine without being entirely “girly;” only partially aware of how stupefyingly attractive she is. Defeated The Professor and was top vote-getter of Do’Urden Round 1.
Tricia “Trillian” McMillan: Character in Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series; brilliant astrophysicist and mathematician; one of two remaining living Earthlings.
Notes: Keeps company with Zaphod Beeblebroz; eventually ends up with hapless, well-intentioned Arthur Dent, giving hope to similarly hapless, well-intentioned geeks worldwide. Defeated Rick Moranis in Round 1 in a tight race.
[poll id=58]
MATCH #4
RMS vs. Steve Jobs 
RMS (Richard Matthew Stallman): Founder of the free software GNU project; software and political activist; hacker extraordinaire.
Notes: Extremely strong tech geek credentials; could be difficult keeping him “on message.” Defeated Gadget in Round 1.
Steve Jobs: Co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Apple Computer; former CEO, Pixar Animation Studios.
Notes: Fearless competitor, constantly leading market in technology and design innovation; don’t know what he was thinking with the whole NeXT thing; allegedly kind of a dick in person. Defeated Cast of Revenge of the Nerds in Round 1.
[poll id=59]
35 Comments
This is a pretty weak region compared to the others. I think most of these folks will be out after the next round.
Yes, Jack F. After next round 3/4 of these people will be out.
My votes:
1) Pegg, 2) Oswalt, 3) Frye, 4) RMS
I’m definitely voting with my emotions on 1 and 2. They’re totally less qualified (though still bonafide, passionate geeks), but I just love them both so much. 3 was easy for me. RMS was just an anti-Jobs vote.
Randall Munroe going all the way!
Ugh. I’m not even going to vote in the last one.
Actually, I take that back. Down with Jobs!
Hmm, most of these were pretty easy, I voted for the one I’d heard of before this competition. The last one… well, RMS is a very entertaining speaker, and has some nice ideas, but he takes them way too far; he needs a large dose of YAGNI. I’m a little afraid that if he were elected he’d take away my freedom to use not-free-enough software. Or explode in a flaming ball of contradiction trying.
And besides, I’m an Apple fangirl who also rather likes NeXT and Pixar (though I don’t think Pixar’s success has much to do with Steve Jobs.) So I voted for Jobs (not meaning to imply forgiveness for killing the Newton.) But I imagine this will be close.
Hey, I just noticed that all my votes were the opposite of Michael Wiczer’s.
I think Match #3 shows my age…as an old fart, I think Trillian and “Hitchhiker’s” is way better than that youngin’. 😉
one – Real geek vs. Plays one on TV. I went with real geek.
two – Tough one for me. Bottom line is that I laugh more often at xkcd than at Patton Oswalt’s comedy routines.
three – Kaylee Frye. In a no-brainer. As in my brain had nothing to do with that match-up.
four – RMS. Mainly because I voted for the Revenge of the Nerds cast.
Oh, and Michael W., how are 3 out of 4 going to be eliminated in two matchups next round? Are we switching to a round robin group tournament format?
I’m dumb. That was three quarters. Never mind. *sits quietly in the corner*
Match 1: Linux. I like his kernel, it’s nice.
Match 2: Got to go with Ramdal. XKCD is just really great.
Match 3: Tricia. I voted against the other person last round, no sense in me voting this round.
Match 4: Oh RMS, of course.
Time for another round of ill-informed voting commentary from me! Because it wouldn’t be the internet without ill-informed opinions, would it? 🙂
1. I still stand behind the importance of a cabinet officer with experience in dealing with the undead, but the influence of Mr. Torvalds not only extends to my job, but also my hobbies, culture, programming talents, and the fact that I can save around $200-$500 on building a computer and not have to fight with potentially (most likely) bogus registration keys. Torvalds takes it.
2. I’ll have to default to Munroe here, as I’m terribly unfamiliar with Oswald’s work. And Munroe has enough in his geek resume to back himself up.
3. Trillian gets to rock with the president of the universe. AND pilot a ship that uses improbability as its main propulsion. Win.
4. While neither RMS nor Jobs are anyone I’d want anywhere near a cabinet position, RMS is definitely the geek. Jobs is really more of a marketer.
@CaptainSpam The reason you have that freedom is as a result of Richard Stallman and the GNU project way more Linus and his crew. Remember that free software is software that respects the users freedoms to run, modify, and share it. Linus’s kernel only filled in a very small part of what eventually came to be called the GNU/Linux operating system/kernel combo.
1. Linux Torvalds. C’mon, Mr Linux himself. Should there be any contest??
2. Munroe. it’d be really hard to vote against xkcd
3. Gotta go with HGTTG
4. RMS: open source all the way!
@Michael “Open Source” misses the point.
Come on! Torvalds versus RMS!
RMS will make a rebound!
XKCD and Trillian. Don’t make Marvin even more depressed!
1.) Pegg: Like his work, however I don’t think he will last much longer.
2.) Munroe: Anti-Oswald vote, I can’t stand the guy, he is the bad type of geek, whiny, and bitchy.
3.) Frye: Not a fan of the character, but I like Jewel Staite and she is hotttttt
4.) Jobs: Though Wozinak was the cool one of the pair, you have to admire the empire he’s created, and the tech revolution he started is amazing.
@Roman: But the question is, who would you rather want representing the geek population as a whole? In my opinion, one has to consider the person as well as the work. Sure, RMS may be the one responsible for the philosophy and Linus responsible for a product whose implementation and very soul depends on said philosophy. However, at times, it seems RMS more often than Linus can be a bit…
Actually, never mind, this whole exercise is a bit silly to begin with and my question will most likely be answered in the next few rounds of the Do’Urden Region, so I guess we’ll see conclusively then. 🙂
1) Linus. Had to go with hardcore geek over funny geek.
2) Randall. Patton would be fun to throw some 20-sided-die around with, but Randall’s XKCD is very geeky.
3) Trillian. C’mon! HGTTG is a foundation of geekdom! You couldn’t have Kaylee without there having been a Trillian first!
4) Steve. RMS is decidedly geekier, but Steve’s got a vision that’s… I dunno. This one might have been my “emotional” rather than “logical” pick.
@CaptainSam No actually RMS IS reponsible for the software. In a given GNU/Linux operating system, GNU is the vast majority of the project. The Linux kernel, when it was released under the GNU General Public License in 1992 simply filled in the last part to make a fully functional free (as in freedom) operating system.
Match 3 is too tough for me. I can neither support Whedon nor Adams.
1. The member of the Geek Hall of Fame over the somewhat cool actor/comic, however, both are somewhat lacking in the citizenship area for ‘U.S.’ Cabinet post
2. Munroe, because he’s geekier than Oswalt
3. I’m a card-carrying Whedonista, and I voted for Trillian. She’s just way cool, and always has been, going back to the radio play.
4. Jobs. This is something like the massive vote for Wesley Crusher with the clear reason that people want to see Wheaton crush him in the head-to-head. I want to see The Woz crush Jobs.
You know, as true geeks it’s essential not to make the kind of mistakes that only true geeks would notice.
Item 1: Trillian did not end up with Arthur Dent. She used his sperm, which he had sold to pay for intergalactic travel costs, and had a baby, who thought her father’s name was Arthur Frequent Flyer Dent. When the child grew into a sullen teenager, Trillian dumped the kid on Dent. Not a happy ending at all, and certainly not good news for hapless, well-intentioned geeks.
Item 2: The lead character in the show ‘Doctor Who’ is not named ‘Doctor Who’. He’s never called anything but ‘the Doctor’.
Fnord.
MacBeth: While that’s true in the books, perhaps they were going by the movie, in which it’s implied that the two get together at the end (if I recall correctly… it was more than a year and a half ago when I watched it.) I don’t know whether DNA had input in that though.
Roman: I vaguely remember (from almost as far back as the h2g2 movie) RMS saying that it took a lot of convincing to get Torvalds to even release Linux under the GPL. While you’re dispelling myths about free software, I guess you might also want to mention that, if it’s true. (I skimmed wikipedia but didn’t find out whether I’d remembered that correctly, but didn’t find anything conclusive, and I’m too tired to investigate further, though apparently Torvalds said that releasing Linux under the GPL was the best thing he ever did, so even if he did need convincing, it probably doesn’t matter.)
But what do I care? I didn’t even vote for RMS (and I did vote for Linus Torvalds, but that’s easy enough, since I don’t know the other guy and his bio doesn’t even portray him as a geek.)
@Angelastic Originally he had his own license, which did not allow commercial distribution. This does not work with free software, which remember, you can sell. It wasn’t until version 0.12 that he switched over to the GPL. (See the “copyright” section in that link)
@Angelastic [Cont.] Compare that to version .01‘s copyright statement. “You may not distibute this for a fee, not even “handling costs.” (sic.)
Linus, Randall, Kaylee, RMS. First two, no contest. Two fictitious women, a bit of a toss-up; I voted for the one who seemed like the bigger nerd. Trillian kinda started off as arm candy for Zaphod, and that lost her points in my book. The last one was kinda hard, partly because they’re both… abrasive, shall we say. I like my Mac, at least in part because it’s pretty thoroughly GNUified. I finally went for RMS. In hindsight, I *would* love to see Woz smash Jobs, though.
‘Two Fictitious Women’ is the name of Paul and Storm’s emo band
Well, that’s odd. I don’t have any voting links, it just shows the results. I’m on Firefox. Are you limiting by IP address? Because my boss voted before me and we’re in the same office. 🙁
For anyone who doesn’t think that Simon Pegg is a nerd, go watch his show Spaced. Actually, go watch it anyway. It’s fantastic (and nerdy).
Okay, I just watched the first episode (I didn’t realise you could put videos longer than 10 minutes on YouTube!) and didn’t notice anything nerdy, much less anything geeky. But at least he and his co-star did actually write it, so if it does turn out to be nerdy then it reflects on him.
Can’t vote for anyone who beat Mr. Peabody in Round 1. I . . . just . . . can’t!
@mtgordon: but a vote against Trillian is a vote against Douglas Adams, and by the transitive property against Geekdom as a whole.
Blasphemers!
I think Seth Rogan would do awesome against Bill Nye The Science Guy.
In my opinion, Kevin Smith is the man for the job though, he is the one I am trying to reach.
YOU BASTARDS! STEVE JOBS WASN’T SUPPOST TO WIN! I DEMAND A RECOUNT!
I bet most of you don’t even know about RMS? You have now created an open opporitunity for the Ninjas to kill us all!
We’re all doomed!
Randall Save Us!
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