Geek Pin-ups

In the course of general office chit-chat it was asked “who was your favourite childhood pin-up?”. Being a bit of a geek I struggled for any kind of answers and muttered something vague and non-committal. As a mini-child geek I didn’t do pin ups of pop-stars and other such normal, healthy juvenile obsessions. I was too busy sticking paperclips in the back of my Commodore 64 just to see what it would do.

So I got to thinking - what would be the pin-ups of geeks. What should adorn the grey walls of our work pods?

ZX Spectrum

It’s every geek’s first love. Squishy keys, the size of a postage stamp and graphics that give migraines. Hours wasted with our Jet Set Willys. If you’ve every wondered why the average geek doesn’t have a girlfriend until they’re 25 then this probably goes a long way to explaining why.

Space Invaders
Big as a refrigerator, monochrome graphics and 10p a go to you, young fella my lad. If you have just floated your new Web 2.0 company for millions on the NASDAQ then you’ll have a whole room full of these kind of machines. For everyone else, it’s a poster on your cubicle wall and some warm, fuzzy memories of summers spent in darkened rooms playing this. Sunlight, pah, that’s not for geeks.

Mandelbrot Set
It’s like maths but it’s beautiful. It’s numbers with colours. It’s algebra with swirls. Pin it up and then spend hours explaining to colleagues the bizarre recursive mathematics that generates it. Everyone loves a maths whiz (possibly).

C-3P0
The golden translator droid of Star Wars surely deserves a place on every geek wall. The more rebellious geek may opt for the more edgy R2-D2 but I think everyone will agree that hours spend staring at C-3P0 in wonder are hours well spent.

Blog Hero
What geek wall would be complete without a picture of an IT blog hero doing his thing. Mmmmmm – a step to far maybe.