The Null Device

Some website runs a poll to find "the sexiest man in tech" (presumably meaning "the sexiest CEO or venture capitalist in tech"; the actual backroom geeks are not considered sexy). A staff member from SixApart subsidiary LiveJournal posts to a user-feedback forum, urging LiveJournal users to vote for SixApart CEO Ben Trott. Which makes me wonder whether, somewhere on MySpace, there is a similar post urging users to vote for James Murdoch.

¶ ben trott livejournal myspace polls sexy sixapart 0

Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the web, is #12 on a list of 100 greatest Britons ever, created by the BBC by polling over 30,000 people. Though, for some reason, Julie Andrews is #2 (behind only Alfred the Great) and David Beckham is at #9 (ahead of such luminaries as Chaucer, Dickens and Shakespeare). Ah, I get it.. it's in alphabetical order. Which makes the claim of Berners-Lee being in 12th place sound a bit daft.

Other odd entries include Aleister Crowley (didn't know he had that much of a following), Paul "Bono" Hewson (hang on, isn't he Irish?), and the "Unknown Soldier". And I'm not sure if people like Robbie Williams (wasn't he a former boy-band dancer or something?) belong on a list of "greatest Britons of all time". Ah well, at least they didn't accept Ayn Rand, L. Ron Hubbard or Jesus Christ as "Britons".

¶ bbc crowley lists polls tim berners-lee uk 4