I love hearing this stuff. There was something so wonderful about Star Trek and Superman, et al. It was good vs. evil with no gray areas, and good always prevailed. I think these wonderful stories had a very positive impact on the young people who followed them and imprinted good things on their character. I am very happy to hear that Mr. Obama was a fan. It bodes well and may be more important than we think.

I'm not American so I wont talk politics, but I am a comic book nerd and interested in how different the White House is going to be portrayed in comic books after 8 years of the Authority, the Ultimates and Civil Wars.

Good Nerdbama!!!

even more important is the rumor of his being up on old school memes like all your base.

supposedly an aide said to him during a discussion on old school games, and zero wing in particular "all your base are belong to us"

to which he replied "what you say"

Maybe the wrong the post in which to use the word "uppity." Just sayin's all.

Great, now my paranoid grandma is going to send me "FW:FW:FW:FW: Obama secret Vulcan?!?!?" emails.

I worked as an attorney for his campaign in Florida on election day.

Obama is awesome.

I knew it was the right thing to vote for Obama! I love stories like this.

Dammit...he's Treky!!!

but I do know one thing—Hayden Panetierre still doesn't want to shake his hand.

I saw reports that after shaking his hand, President Bush pulled a Panetierre. Guess W hates nerds, too.
Also, at some dinner or other - I forget what/where it was, but McCain was there as well - Obama addressed all of the "messiah" talk by explaining that he isn't the messiah, rather as an infant he was sent to Earth in a rocket by his father Jor-El to escape the destruction of the planet Krypton.

@Heimdall - Yup, he did indeed riff on the Superman mythos at that dinner:
http://www.entertonement.com/clips/33810/Born-on-Krypton

Now that he's finished his presidential campaign, maybe a D&D campaign is in his future. I'd game with him.

My absolute favorite conformation of his nerdosity is the following quote from the recent Newsweek series "Secrets of the 2008 Election" (http://www.newsweek.com/id/167755/page/6):

"'That's an interesting belt buckle,' he said to Michelle, mischievously. She feigned offense and said, 'I am interesting, next to you. Surprise, surprise, a blue suit, a white shirt and a tie.' Obama grinned and bent down until he was almost at eye level with her waist. He jabbed a playful finger toward her belt buckle, and let loose his inner nerd. 'The lithium crystals! Beam me up, Scotty!' Obama squeaked, laughing at his own lame joke as Michelle rolled her eyes."

The reporter was not enough of a nerd to catch what Obama must have really said.

McCain was already in his mid-20's when Spider-Man hit the newsstands for the first time.

Great post!!!

That said, the title is wrong. Herbert Hoover was actually the first nerd-Pres. He proved this when he dressed up as Wonder Woman at a white house christmas party.

Nice compilation of evidence. I hit on this at my blog earlier, but you really explored The Big O's full geek credentials.

Oh, and Hayden won't shake his hand, but you can bet that lightsaber-dueling, comic book-producing geek Milo Ventmiglia will!

A-ha! I thought so. As my girlfriend and I watched the election night coverage - both of us more than a bit misty-eyed and emotional - at one point I turned to her and said something about Obama being our first nerd president. I'm happy to learn I was more correct than I knew.
The thought of him collecting Spider-Man and Conan comics... Wow.
And that photo by the Superman statue just warms my heart.
Live long and prosper, President Obama!

ONE OF US! ONE OF US!

For true comic book sooperhero street cred he needs to have the appellation "Black" before his name.

oh and...

"I will ban you hard your mother won't recognize your username"

-fail

I'm not American so perhaps I don't count for this, but, just when I thought I couldn't like him any more than before...this.

:D

I love him even more than I already did.

The force is strong in him.

Who else loved Stephen Colbert's 'Obama Bait' yesterday :p?

This was my favorite heartwarming Obama story. I'm glad he won, because I was not hearing all of this before the election.

Fantasy Football with Obama
http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=3653401

Obama ROCKS! All I know is the sooner we get Dictator Bush out of the White House, the better off we will all be!

jess
www.anonymize.kr.tc

Xvi wrote:

That said, the title is wrong. Herbert Hoover was actually the first nerd-Pres. He proved this when he dressed up as Wonder Woman at a white house christmas party.

Herbert Hoover was president and an engineer, J. Edger Hoover was head of the FBI and a cross-dresser.

Obama is da' man.

Obama is clearly a big, awesome nerd.

So, will we now see a swing back from "dark and gritty" to a more Utopian or at least better balanced view of the world? Choosing between our two futures, Blade Runner or Star Trek, I think we now know which way Obama will take us.

I hope he beleive sin some of the economics lessons in Star trek.

One episode where reincarnated people where told how technology had made access to things nearly ubiquitous and explained that accumulating personal wealth was no longer needed and the goal became to improve yourself is particularly important for our near future.

Very soon - sooner than people think. Robots will be able to self manufacture and print on demand machines will change a lot of the economic equation.

When the need for labor is so drastically lessened either we will live in a world where those benefits of nearly laborless production will be shared as in Star Trek or will be horded with the rest of the population living in misery.

I hope the next president begins the move toward an economy where the benefits are shared.

In a world of near perfect recycling and laborless manufacturing the only raw material becomes energy and with long lasting personal solar power modules even that is no longer a commodity.

In such a world ownership structures need to change.

Well, well, well... That is just plain awesome.

I totally agree with Geo, and AndyG. I would like to expand on the self-replication though. There are multiple projects, I am sure you all heard of Reprap, but there are others they are working on for the celluar level, and blocks that can rearrange into any structure. In theory, companies will have to sell you the blueprints before you can make a limited amount of it, or as many as you want, as long as you do not sell what you make. In theory, hackers will illegally get the blueprints and post them everywhere, thus destroying the industry. I am not sure if that dooms the future of that, or if it goes towards a money-less economy. Only the government can decide that, regardless, they are also developing very strong security measures, that should be impossible to break.

Either we will have a future that is like living with EA, but not just for video games, or a star trek one.

I personally would hate it to be like EA's limited download, you have limited productions of a certain product... star trek future, no one can debate is wrong, except for greedy, wealthy, capitalists.