IEEE Spectrum September, 2010 - 20

geek life
the engineers of comedy

"I ran a red light once. Tried
to talk my way out of it by
explaining that the light looked
green because of the Doppler
effect. Now, here's what's wrong
with that argument. I would
have to be doing 144 million in
a 25-mile-per-hour zone."

six high-tech comics share their best jokes

"Nuclear fission is the
energy source behind atomic
weaponry. To start the process,
you need a fissile material, such
as uranium 235. Uranium is
inherently unstable, and it has
a certain probability of just
breaking down and ejecting a
neutron at its neighbor. Which
destabilizes the neighbor,
causing it to eject multiple
neutrons, and the process is
propagated in a chain reaction.
I've actually seen the same
thing happen at a Raiders bar."

"In two years, supermarket shopping carts are going to have TV
sets in them. I read this. Someone
has cracked the problem of
getting a TV into a shopping cart.
Is that a priority? I'll tell
you what. How about
we get the fourth wheel
to work first, then we
start thinking about
the TV."

Tim Lee holds a Ph.D. in
ecology and evolution and
worked as a software
engineer for HewlettPackard, Borland, and
several Silicon Valley
start-ups before turning to
"PowerPoint comedy" for companies
like Microsoft.

"When I applied for the job at
Intel, they said, 'You're Indian
and Japanese...you don't even
have to interview! ' "

Dan nainan was a senior
technical marketing engineer
at Intel when he took a
stand-up comedy class to
overcome his fear of public
speaking. Today, he's likely the
world's sole Japanese-Indian
comic, appearing in The Last
Airbender, an Apple commercial, and nearly
200 gigs a year.

20

NA * iEEE SpEctrum * SEptEmbEr 2010

After studying electrical engineering
at the University
of Pennsylvania,
wayne CoTTer
worked at a New
Jersey computer
manufacturer by day
and Philadelphia's
comedy clubs at
night. He hosted
Fox's "Comic Strip
Live" and Discovery
Channel's "Amazing
America" before taking his engineering
anecdotes to corporate audiences.

By day, norm GoLDbLaTT
is a senior optical engineer
at OptiMedica Corp., an
ophthalmic laser systems
designer in Santa Clara, Calif.
By night he tackles Silicon Valley
and science onstage. He's also
written jokes for Jay Leno.

"I'm a recovering engineer
now. I had my pants lowered
in a series of 12 operations-
that was the hardest part. I was
slowly disappearing into my
trousers. Didn't even wear
shirts; there was no point.
Turtleneck pants. Had to undo
the fly to shake hands."

Don mcmiLLan turned to
high-tech comedy after
earning a master's in electrical
engineering from Stanford
and designing chips, first for
AT&T Bell Laboratories and
then for VLSI Technology (now
NXP Semiconductors). He seriously
upped his geek cred with stints on "Star Trek:
Voyager" and "Babylon 5."

"Galileo did not invent the
telescope, but he was the first
to turn it skyward and make
astronomical observations with
it. Before that-like all new
technologies-it was mostly
used for porn."

A recovering premed
who once sold
computer accessories,
brian maLow is now
a Time magazine science
video correspondent and a
USA Science and Engineering
Festival adviser. He does corporate
comedy for science associations and
technology giants.
spectrum.ieee.org

CloCkwise from top right: the Darkroom; mike Carano; DominiC hart/
nasa ames researCh Center; Jim Brogan; mike pointer; aBigail miller

Y

ou rarely see the words engineering and comedy together in a job résumé.
But these stand-up comics found new careers mining old lives in technology.
Collectively, they've appeared in movies and television shows, but it's only at
corporate events held by the likes of Apple, Genentech, and Intel that they can joke
in shorthand. "Engineers have minds that break things into components and see
connections between parts," explains comic Wayne Cotter. "Comics apply the same
kind of analysis to everyday life."
-Susan Karlin
http://spectrum.ieee.org
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum September, 2010
