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9 Semi-Famous Nerds to Follow on Twitter

I have yet to reach a conclusive opinion about Twitter.

Finding itself on my list of 5 Technologies That Will Be Gone in Five Years, I don’t see this social-media/micro-blogging concept staying ahead of the spammers who ruined AIM, Craigslist, and MySpace.

Personally, I could care less about what celebrities think about seasonal Starbucks coffee flavors, or what “FKAS – FOX Kansas” is up to.

But despite the spam and naval-gazing aspect of Twitter, I have to admit that I do enjoy hearing about the day-to-day’s of some of my favorite famous brainiacs.

So for those who actually want to get some quality and intelligent* posts out of their Twitter experience, I present my top 9 Semi-Famous Nerds to Follow on Twitter.

*^{quality and intelligence not a guarantee.}

Adam Savage, MythBuster

@donttrythis

Adam Savage of MythBusters fame tweets regularly about the show and his standard Adam-style antics.

"Did I mention that I'm dressed as Darth Vader right now?" 

Grant Imahara, MythBuster

@grantimahara

The robot-crazed Grant tweets about his many hours working on MythBusters — and the resulting headaches.

"Test driving a 1984 Ford Fiero to use in an upcoming myth. Stranded on 280. Typical."

Phil Plait, Bad Astronomer, Skeptic

@BadAstronomer

My daily stop at BadAstronomy.com is never a regret. Phil’s skeptical sense of humor and level-headedness found in his articles are reflected in his tweets. Hey, he has a new book!

"Sometimes, you just need to sit and watch "They Live". I feel marginally better now."

Jeff Huber, Google Senior Vice President of Engineering, Dad

@jhuber

Working dad Jeff provides some cool tips and hints about getting the most out of the Internet from Google’s never-ending list of free products.

"At kids' 1st swimmeet. If the chaos could be canned as energy, oil woes would be history."

Kari Byron, MythBuster

@Kari_Byron

Kari appears to still be figuring out this whole Twitter thing, but between juggling the show and taking care of her new baby daughter we’ll let her slide.

"i want shark week to last a month"
[UPDATE: Fake!]

Kevin Rose, Founder of Digg.com

@Kevinrose

Kevin Rose is probably the most accessible tech-savy millionaire on the web. Very bright and funny, Kevin converses regularly with his followers.

"watched district's 1-8 last night on dvd, very excited to see the finale tonight in the theater"

Mike Massimino, NASA astronaut

@astro_Mike

Astronaut Mike Massimino tweets about his flight training and other interesting NASA “stuff”.

"Just got done flying in a T-38 with instructor pilot Jeff who used to be Frank Sinatra's personal pilot"

Rebecca Skloot, Writer, Contributing Editor, Popular Science

@RebeccaSkloot

Rebecca Skloot’s tweets are an extensive tome of amazing chin-stroking science and tech stories.

"Confirming suspicions of cat owners worldwide, experts identify existence of "Manipulative Purr" 4 controlling humans"

Stephen Hawking, Theoretical physicist

@prof_s_Hawking

Weird. You’d expect Stephen Hawking, the smartest man alive, to tweet about his theoretical views of physics and the universe.  Instead, Professor Hawking seems to tweet exclusively about what he’s watching on television.

"BBC3 - 9pm - "18 Pregnant Schoolgirls". That's really what I'm basing my viewing around this evening. Great!"

 

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Comments? Other famous geeks or dweebs that we should be following?