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Comment by Anechoic | Hacker News Reader

He's not mentioned in the article, but Dylan Bruno from Numb3rs is an MIT grad (we both played on the football team) and, coincidentally, acted in a movie opposite Ms. Portman :)

Woodie Flowers always used to say that we need an "LA Engineer" (a play on "LA Law for you younger folks) to bring science and engineering into the mainstream. I always cringe at shows like Big Bang Theory that portray smart folks as socially inept - given that association, it's no surprise that many kids would rather be "dumb and cool" than "smart and nerdy" when in fact smart people are just like everyone else.

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I always cringe at shows like Big Bang Theory that portray smart folks as socially inept ... when in fact smart people are just like everyone else

I think thats what Big Bang Theory does best... portray smart people who are socially inept as someone that anyone can relate to. In the show, they are just regular people trying to get by, find love, etc... well, except for Sheldon.

To me, its amazing that a show that is completely over the top nerdy is incredibly popular.

On the other hand, I'm completely unamazed that a show that reinforces negative geek stereotypes while passing itself off as an accurate and fair representation is incredibly popular.

> "while passing itself off as an accurate and fair representation"

... Wait, what? You know you're talking about a sitcom, right? The whole point of the show is to be ridiculous for laughs.

I'm referring to the GPs attitude towards the show. Despite the near constant stream of jokes at geeks expense, people still somehow think it isn't making fun of geeks.

It's a sitcom. That's what they do... don't take it so seriously.

My point was that people other than traditional 'geeks' find the show amusing. They get the humor. Geek-culture has gone mainstream.

I don't think that's accurate. They're laughing at us, not with us. They don't need to understand "geek-culture" to laugh at us. We just need to be different.

Sheldon is actually played in a pretty high-status way, despite his quirks.

Popular entertainment has tons of smart, cool people- Just none of them spend all their time with solitary, sedentary activities on a computer or in a lab. How many times do you see a 'mission impossible' type hero who goes around kicking ass for most of the movie but suddenly turns into a hacker when he gets to a computer terminal?

Just none of them spend all their time with solitary, sedentary activities on a computer or in a lab

That's just it - the folks that do spend there time on a computer or in a lab (off the top of my head: the goth girl from NCIS, the Law & Order lab techs, Chloe on 24) all have some sort of anti-social nerd personality type.

Why can't there be a computer tech who works hard at his/her job, has a beer after work, watches sports, etc like everyone else?

Well if you want the hard truth most of the people I see doing these jobs on TV are actually better looking and less socially awkward than the ones I work with on a daily basis.

@jhamburger (I can't reply to your post)

Well sure, but the folks on TV are better looking and less socially awkward across the board than their real-life counterparts.

Have a look at Guy Steele's interview with Fran Allen in a recent CACM--John Cocke was fond of beer, and people used to covet his bar napkins, on which he would sketch out new ideas.

I always cringe at shows like Big Bang Theory that portray smart folks as socially inept

Fringe makes science look pretty cool, IMHO.

I'd take Fringe over Big Bang Theory any day. BBT feels like mockery to me.

From what I've seen of Fringe, it makes a mockery of science.

I didn't mean to suggest that it portrays realistic science or an accurate representation of the scientific process - after all this is a show whose main plot revolves around travel between alternate universes and non-human shapeshifting sentient beings - just that the show makes it's scientist character the heroes, and not buffoons to laugh at.

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