MIT geek culture

Suddenly, the outside world cares a lot about it because of Star Simpson.

Chris Csikszentmihalyi, who directs the Computing Culture Group at the MIT Media Lab, discusses that culture, how Star Simpson fits in and what, exactly, that circuit-boardish thing she was wearing is (it wasn't a circuit board, to start). He also photographs some Fox News reporters who were hounding people on the MIT campus Friday.

... Sure, Star was being kind of dumb. Or absentminded. But Norbert Wiener, one of the most famous professors from MIT, used to forget if he'd eaten lunch or not. After speaking to someone in the hallways, he would ask what direction he'd been walking when they'd met, so that he'd know if he was coming from or going to the canteen. I find that pretty dumb - MIT is full of people who are math smart but socially naive. That's why we have a charm school - though not enough students enroll. ...