So Brilliant You're Nuts

[Talon87]

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/237

... you only need to see this man in action for 10 seconds, but it gets better if you wait a minute. He talks like a cartoon character, and moves like one too!

[The Morg]

Cliff Stoll is my hero, he is one of the reasons I decided to become a mathematician many years ago. It's cool that he's as funny in real life as he is when talking over the internetz.

[Talon87]

He seems like a very kind soul (I watched the entire video, and his story about the Berkeley riots was pretty moving), but damn if he wouldn't be considered over the edge by most people in our society ... hell, even me! Even I would say, "If this guy were an otaku, he'd be the fringe of the fringe crazies in the convention hall." He'd be the one who would happily jump up and down and bump into you and raise his hand to give you a high five and you'd be all like "Who the fuck are you? What's your problem? " and then he'd get disheartened and trudge off, broken-hearted.

I dunno. He just ... he seems nice, but he's too damn smart for his own good. He's borderline professionally dysfunctional, and I even wonder if he hasn't progressed in that direction as he's gotten older because I hear that all he does now (2 years after the TED talk) is teach those 8th grade kids and make more glass Klein bottles, i.e. he's not teaching in any formal capacity at any US institutions of higher learning right now.

[Doppleganger]

I didn't see anything unusual for how he acts; he's just a tad more eccentric than my own behaviour and a lot of the people I went to school with. I was irritated with something he did at one point, but that went away. It took me a long time to get through the video because I kept losing interest though. Everything he does sounds horribly interesting, though - from the education of the middle school kids (fudge yeah! He's just like my tenth grade biology teacher! Good on you!! ) to the KGB incident, wow. He reminds me of Bill Nye in some respects. Oh, and his story about getting chanced on campus sounds very similar to what happened to my Dad at Berkeley around the same time period - those police were nuts! Anyone who didn't look like the stereotypical 1950's college kid was gonna get harassed.

That line "For those physicists in the audience, I can hear you roll your eyes, bear with me please." is gold.

[Jerichi]

I love these kinds of people because they make me feel like I'm not a total nutjob.

[Betagold]

That video was awesome. I hope to meet someone as interesting as him. Also, when he pulled out that slide rule? PURE GENIUS.

[Doppleganger]

Originally Posted by Betagold

Also, when he pulled out that slide rule? PURE GENIUS.

THAT'S WHAT IT WAS?

[Doppleganger]

Interesting note.

The first experiment in my "Quantitative Analysis of Chemical Methods" class required our group to use an oscilloscope to measure the voltages of several circuits - this was the second time I had ever seen an oscilloscope, the first was this very video naught three weeks ago! Thank you Dr. Stoll, your presentation helped save me eight hours of grief over the past week.