Meet this year's geniuses

[Incandenza]

http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.4536877/

The recipients of this year's MacArthur grants. The only one I've heard of before is Alex Ross. Quite the item to have on your CV--they'll be referred to as a "genius" for the rest of their lives.

[WOM]

Meet this year's geniuses

That Miguel Zenon guy is already blowing his own horn.

[matt j]

Meet this year's geniuses

I think I recognize the Geomorphologist and the two Astronomers. But I think Will Allen's is probably the coolest.

http://www.macfound.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=lkLXJ8MQKrH&b=4513915&ct=5984659

[Incandenza]

Meet this year's geniuses

I wasn't paying too close attention, so I just now noticed that UCLA physics and astronomy professor Andrea Ghez is a recipient. I've come across her name here at work.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Meet this year's geniuses

Yeah, but unless any of them can come up with the solution to pulling the black bin bag out of a pedal bin without ripping it down the side because you've overstuffed it, they'll die in abject poverty like most geniuses. And with shit all over their kitchen floors from split bin bags.

[Eggchaser]

Meet this year's geniuses

WornOldMotorbike wrote:

That Miguel Zenon guy is already blowing his own horn.

If he can do that, genius is hardly a strong enough word.

[Purves Grundy]

Meet this year's geniuses

Quite the item to have on your CV--they'll be referred to as a "genius" for the rest of their lives

Never seemed to do Wile E Coyote much good.

[matt j]

Meet this year's geniuses

to be fair, he wasn't just a genius. He was also a "super-genius".

[Guest]

Meet this year's geniuses

Oh, I thought this was the Labour Party Conference thread.

Silly me.

[diggedy derek]

Meet this year's geniuses

This is basically a list of fairly clever people, isn't it.

Alex Ross's idea of great music for the 21st century is Thomas Ades and John Tavener, isn't it? If those are the answers he's arrived at, then he's been asking entirely the wrong questions.

[Wyatt Earp]

Meet this year's geniuses

I've got a book by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half Of A Yellow Sun, but I stopped reading it because I thought it was going to be too harrowing. Without wanting to get all PPV on your asses: as well as being able to write good, she also seems quite beautiful, from her pictures.

Anyway: "genius" is a bit of a daft word, really, don't you reckon?

[ursus arctos]

Meet this year's geniuses

It certainly has embarassed a good number of the recipients, most all of whom could provide you with a series of cogent arguments as to why that particular label shouldn't be applied to them.

But it has proven to be an incredibly effective publicity tool for the foundation, which is why they haven't tried very hard to eliminate it.

I like to think of them as people who will do a heck of a lot more of value with half a million dollars than pretty much any CEO one can name.

[Bruno]

Meet this year's geniuses

In exchange for being mistaken for a genius by almost everyone, I could live with a little embarrassment.

[Wyatt Earp]

Meet this year's geniuses

I got called it by mates at school, where it meant something like "person who gets high marks in exams without seeming to work that hard". Which even at the time I thought was setting the bar a bit low.

(And embarrassment is, indeed, my overwhelming memory where all that's concerned; that may be a Limey thing, I dunno.)

[ursus arctos]

Meet this year's geniuses

If it is, than I am much more of a Limey than I've ever thought possible . . .

[Bruno]

Meet this year's geniuses

Wyatt Earp wrote:

Which even at the time I thought was setting the bar a bit low.

Which is exactly the sort of thing a genius would think, from his aerial vantage.

[Taylor]

Meet this year's geniuses

"Meet this year's genii," surely?

A genius wouldn't make a mistake like that.

Seriously though, the only reasonable definition of a genius is someone who can innovate effortlessly. That's the only way to use the word with any etymological justification. You sit down at the keyboard (or wherever), and ten minutes later there's a set of ideas which strike everyone else as having come out of a clear blue sky, and which are sufficiently brilliant to influence all others working in that field for the forseeable future.

It's not the be-all and end-all, though: who's the funniest, Spike Milligan or John Cleese? Probably John Cleese. Who's the closest to genius? Milligan, without a shadow of a doubt.

[Incandenza]

Meet this year's geniuses

Taylor wrote:

"Meet this year's genii," surely?

A genius wouldn't make a mistake like that.

Just another reason why the MacArthur folks aren't knocking on my door.

My grad school advisor was a MacArthur grant recipient, though.

[Bruno]

Meet this year's geniuses

Lots of geniuses, though, would tell you that a great deal of effort went into it.