Steve Altes

Last updated

Steve Altes
Steve-altes-2014.JPG
Born (1962-11-13) November 13, 1962 (age 61)
Syracuse, New York
NationalityAmerican
EducationS.B. (Aeronautics and Astronautics), S.M. (Aeronautics and Astronautics), S.M. (Technology and Policy)
Alma mater Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Occupations
  • Writer
  • graphic novelist
  • engineer
Known forhumorous adventure essays, Geeks & Greeks
SpouseDiana Jellinek
AwardsNational Medal of Technology
Website stevealtes.wixsite.com/stevealtes

Steve Altes (born November 13, 1962) is an American writer and former aerospace engineer. He writes humorous essays about his misadventures. [1]

Contents

Early life

Altes was born on November 13, 1962, in Syracuse, New York. He graduated from Fayetteville-Manlius High School in Manlius in 1980. [2] In high school, Altes once ran a track meet in clown make-up. [1] In 2000, when Altes was inducted into the Fayetteville-Manlius Hall of Distinction as one of the high school's "notable alumni", he acknowledged the dichotomy in his career segue from engineering to entertainment, saying, "I owe a tremendous debt to those dedicated teachers for the serious half of my career. For the silly half, I’d like to thank all the class clowns." [3]

Engineering

Altes holds three degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT): S.B., Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1984; S.M., Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1986; and S.M., Technology and Policy, 1986. [4]

In 1982, Altes was part of the MIT team that set a world land-speed record for a human-powered vehicle using a five-person, forty-foot-long "bicycle". [1] His master's thesis, "The Aerospace Plane: Technological Feasibility and Policy Implications", [5] was reviewed by James Fallows in The New York Review of Books in 1986. [6]

After college, Altes worked as a space policy analyst for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. [1] He left Congress for a position as program control manager for the Pegasus air-launched space booster at Orbital Sciences Corporation. In 1991, Altes was part of the Orbital Sciences team that was awarded the National Medal of Technology (the United States' highest award for technological achievement) by President George H. W. Bush for developing Pegasus. [7] He is a co-recipient of the 1990 Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Trophy for Current Achievement in Aerospace. [8]

Due to his varied endeavors in the fields of engineering and entertainment, Altes is sometimes listed as one of MIT's more "notable alumni". [9]

Entertainment

In the mid-1990s, Altes left engineering for a career in entertainment and writing.

Essays

Altes has written a series of first-person participatory adventure essays about experiences such as:

These essays have appeared in magazines and newspapers like Salon , [18] The Washington Post , [12] the Los Angeles Times , [17] The Christian Science Monitor , [19] Capital Style , [20] The Writer , [14] Urban Male Magazine , [21] Funny Times [22] and P.O.V. [15]

Books

In 1997, Altes's The Little Book of Bad Business Advice was published by St. Martin's Press.

In 2001, a sequel, If You Jam the Copier, Bolt was published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. [23]

In 2005, Altes was a contributor to Michael J. Rosen's anthology, May Contain Nuts: A Very Loose Canon of American Humor. His piece satirized his career as a male model. [24]

In 2006, the humor editor Judy Brown selected twenty of Altes's jokes to appear in her anthology Joke Express: Instant Delivery of 1,424 Funny Bits from the Best Comedians. [25]

In 2014, Altes ran a Kickstarter [26] campaign which raised $43,098 to finance the illustration of a graphic novel he had written about hacks at MIT, titled Geeks & Greeks . [27] [28] The graphic novel was illustrated by Andy Fish and was published in 2016 to generally positive reviews. [29]

Film appearances

Altes has appeared in a number of films and television shows after being accidentally "discovered" and cast as a German terrorist in Die Hard With a Vengeance in 1995. [1] [30]

YearFilmRole
1995 Die Hard With a Vengeance German terrorist
1997 Shadow Conspiracy [31] Secret Service agent
1999 Girl, Interrupted Medic
2000 Hollow Man Dad

Altes has worked as a commercial print model and hand model. [13] [32]

Other

Altes has also been:

Awards

Personal

Altes lives in the Los Angeles area and is married to Diana Jellinek, an acting coach. [35]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Massachusetts Institute of Technology</span> Private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Gehry</span> Canadian-American architect (born 1929)

Frank Owen Gehry is a Canadian-born American architect and designer. A number of his buildings, including his private residence in Santa Monica, California, have become world-renowned attractions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Smoot</span> Non-standard unit of length

The smoot is a nonstandard, humorous unit of length created as part of an MIT fraternity pledge to Lambda Chi Alpha by Oliver R. Smoot, who in October 1958 lay down repeatedly on the Harvard Bridge between Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, so that his fraternity brothers could use his height to measure the length of the bridge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Infinite Corridor</span> Hallway at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Infinite Corridor is a 251-meter (823 ft) hallway that runs through the main buildings of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, specifically parts of the buildings numbered 7, 3, 10, 4, and 8.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fernando J. Corbató</span> American computer scientist (1926–2019)

Fernando José "Corby" Corbató was an American computer scientist, notable as a pioneer in the development of time-sharing operating systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hope Larson</span> American cartoonist

Hope Raue Larson is an American illustrator and cartoonist. Her main field is comic books.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hacks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology</span> Prank at or by MIT, an American university

Hacks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are practical jokes and pranks meant to prominently demonstrate technical aptitude and cleverness, and/or to commemorate popular culture and historical topics. The pranks are anonymously installed at night by hackers, usually, but not exclusively, undergraduate students. The hackers' actions are governed by an informal yet extensive body of precedent, tradition and ethics. Hacks can occur anywhere across campus, and occasionally off campus; many make use of the iconic Great Dome, Little Dome, Green Building tower, or other prominent architectural features of the MIT campus. Well-known hacker alumni include Nobel Laureates Richard P. Feynman and George F. Smoot. In October 2009, US President Barack Obama made a reference to the MIT hacking tradition during an on-campus speech about clean energy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andy Fish</span> American artist

Andy Fish is a graphic novelist, born Andrew Tiberius Fish, is a comic book artist, illustrator, painter, and educator. He is known for his graphic novels and his series of books on how to illustrate in certain styles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benjamin Banneker Academic High School</span> Public high school in Washington, DC, United States

Benjamin Banneker Academic High School is a magnet high school located in Washington, D.C., that was originally built to serve as a neighborhood Junior High School. The school's name commemorates Benjamin Banneker, an African-American scientist, surveyor, almanac author and farmer. In 1980, the school was converted to a magnet high school for academics. The school is colloquially referred to by students and faculty as "Banneker".

Hagit Borer is a professor of linguistics at Queen Mary University of London. Her research falls within the area of Generative Grammar.

The Jerome C. Hunsaker Visiting Professor of Aerospace Systems is a professorship established in 1954 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. It is named after MIT professor Jerome Hunsaker (1886–1984) in honor of his achievements in aeronautical engineering. The visiting professor is expected to deliver the Minta Martin Lecture in several venues in the United States.

Satya Atluri was an Indian American engineer, educator, researcher and scientist in aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering and computational sciences, who was a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. Since 1966, he made fundamental contributions to the development of finite element methods, boundary element methods, Messless Local Petrov-Galerkin (MLPG) methods, Fragile Points Methods, Local Variational Iteration Methods, for general problems of engineering, solid mechanics, fluid dynamics, heat transfer, flexoelectricity, ferromagnetics, gradient and nonlocal theories, nonlinear dynamics, shell theories, micromechanics of materials, structural integrity and damage tolerance, Orbital mechanics, Astrodynamics, digital Twins of Aerospace Systems, etc.

The Jargon File is a glossary and usage dictionary of slang used by computer programmers. The original Jargon File was a collection of terms from technical cultures such as the MIT AI Lab, the Stanford AI Lab (SAIL) and others of the old ARPANET AI/LISP/PDP-10 communities, including Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN), Carnegie Mellon University, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. It was published in paperback form in 1983 as The Hacker's Dictionary, revised in 1991 as The New Hacker's Dictionary.

America's Top Colleges is an annual Forbes ranking of colleges and universities in the United States, first published in 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph M. Reagle Jr.</span> American academic and writer (born 1972)

Joseph Michael Reagle Jr. is an American academic and writer focused on digital technology and culture, including Wikipedia, online comments, geek feminism, and life hacking. He is an associate professor of communication studies at Northeastern University. He was an early member of the World Wide Web Consortium, based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in 1998 and 2010 he was a fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society.

The college rivalry between the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) stems from the colleges' reputations as the top science and engineering schools in the United States. The rivalry is unusual given the geographic distance between the schools, one being in Pasadena, California, and the other in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as well as its focus on elaborate pranks rather than sporting events.

Dottie Dartland Zicklin is an American television writer and producer.

Veronica Fish is an American comic book artist and painter best known for her work with Marvel Comics and Archie Comics.

<i>Geeks & Greeks</i>

Geeks & Greeks is a semi-autobiographical graphic novel written by humorist Steve Altes, illustrated by Andy Fish, and colored by Veronica Fish. It includes a foreword by novelist Matthew Pearl and is dedicated to Sean Collier. Geeks & Greeks is set at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and locations in Boston, Cambridge, and the Quincy Quarries. The story was inspired by MIT's hacking culture and the writer's experiences with fraternity hazing. At MIT a hack is a clever, benign prank or unsanctioned public display or installation that requires technical sophistication to execute and often incorporates an offbeat sense of humor. Geeks & Greeks has been described as Good Will Hunting meets Animal House.

The Brooke Owens Fellowship is a non-profit program in the United States that provides paid internships and executive mentorship for undergraduate women seeking a career in aviation or space exploration. The fellowship was created to honor the memory of Brooke Owens, a pilot and space policy expert who died of cancer at the age of 35.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Model/Actor/Scientist Adds Writer to Resume". Lawrence Journal-World. Lawrence, KS. 1998-09-10.
  2. ↑ "Valedictorian Tradition Scrapped at High Schools". The Washington Times. Washington, DC. May 7, 1999.
  3. ↑ "Hall of Distinction Inductees". FMSchools.org. Manlius, NY. June 1, 2000.
  4. ↑ "MIT Graduate Inspires Crowd with Life Experience". The Tech (MIT). Washington, DC. December 1, 1998.
  5. ↑ "The Aerospace Plane: Technological Feasibility and Policy Implications" (PDF). MIT.edu. May 1, 1986. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 5, 2014.
  6. ↑ "The Americans in Space". The New York Review of Books. New York City. December 18, 1986.
  7. ↑ "Technology and the Future Warrior: Protecting Soldiers in the 21st Century". Cambridge, Massachusetts: M.I.T. September 13, 2004.
    - "Rocket Scientist Turns to Entertainment". MIT.edu. Cambridge, Massachusetts. September 1, 2008.
    - "The National Medal of Technology and Innovation 1991 Laureates". USPTO.gov. Washington, DC. January 1, 1991.
  8. ↑ "National Air and Space Museum Trophy Recipients". Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. June 1, 1990.
  9. ↑ "Notable Alumni: After Departing from MIT, Alumni Make their Mark on the World". The Tech. Cambridge, Massachusetts. May 5, 1999.
    - "Notable Alumni". MIT Admissions. Cambridge, Massachusetts. September 4, 2014.
    - "12 MIT Grads that Changed the World". BostInno.com. Boston, MA. February 16, 2011.
    - "Top 10 famous alumni of MIT". TopYaps. September 8, 2014.
    - "MIT's 150th Birthday". FastCompany. April 11, 2011.
    - Fordham, Sara (September 30, 2009). "The Rival Rundown: Caltech vs MIT". College Candy. Retrieved August 6, 2016.
  10. ↑ "Reverend Me". Atheists.org. Los Angeles, CA. June 1, 2004.
  11. ↑ "So, You Want a Piece of Me?" (PDF). Tear Sheet. New York City. June 1, 2000.
  12. 1 2 "Standing In for Brad". The Washington Post. Washington, DC. March 26, 1997.
  13. 1 2 "Guy on the Box" (PDF). Tear Sheet. New York City. December 1, 2000.
  14. 1 2 "How to Become an Author in Four Easy Steps" (PDF). The Writer. Boston. March 1, 1999.
  15. 1 2 "The Fugitive" (PDF). P.O.V. New York City. August 1, 1998.
  16. ↑ "Bill Clinton Hit on My Wife" (PDF). Capital Style. Washington, DC. October 1, 1998.
    - "The Basement with Bill" (PDF). New York Post. New York City. September 24, 1998.
    - Gillis, John F. X. (January 1, 2000). "Jove Laughs, They Say: Lewinsky as Text". University Press of America. ISBN   9780761818052.
  17. 1 2 "My Short, Sorry Career as a Spy". Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles. February 24, 2003.
  18. ↑ "Brad and Me". Salon. Washington, DC. April 27, 1998. Archived from the original on October 20, 2007.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  19. ↑ "How I Became a CIA Spy for a Day". The Christian Science Monitor. Boston, MA. March 3, 2003.
  20. ↑ "Capital Style Overcomes Substance". Washington Business Journal. Washington, DC. November 9, 1998.
  21. ↑ "Reverend Me" (PDF). Urban Male Magazine. Canada. Spring 2004.
  22. ↑ "Confessions About My Baby". Funny Times. Cleveland Heights, OH. November 1, 2007.
  23. ↑ "Books Represented". JeffHerman.com. New York City. August 19, 2015.
  24. ↑ "May Contain Nuts: A Very Loose Canon of American Humor". August 12, 2015.
  25. ↑ Brown, Judy (August 2007). Joke Express: Instant Delivery of 1,424 Funny Bits from the Best Comedians (1st ed.). Andrews McMeel Publishing. pp. 7, 23, 37, 45, 68, 107, 108, 110, 137, 181, 189, 218, 220, 227, 233, 236, 239, 260, 265, 272. ISBN   978-0740760471.
  26. ↑ "Geeks & Greeks – an epic graphic novel about MIT pranks". Kickstarter.com. Los Angeles, CA. June 12, 2014.
  27. ↑ "How Stunt Work on Die Hard Led to a Graphic Novel About MIT Hacks". MIT Slice of Life blog. Cambridge, Massachusetts. May 8, 2015.
  28. 1 2 "Humor Writer to Publish Graphic Novel on Hacks". TechnologyReview.com. Cambridge, Massachusetts. April 21, 2015.
  29. ↑ Moore, Karleigh (April 8, 2016). "Book Review: A Tale of Hazing and Hacking at MIT". The Tech (MIT). Retrieved August 9, 2016.
    - Bench, Anthony (August 8, 2016). "Geeks & Greek Review". FanboyNation. Retrieved August 9, 2016.
    - Adkins, Jana (August 1, 2016). "From Aerospace Engineer to Life as a Spy". Santa Clarita Valley Business Journal. Retrieved August 9, 2016.
    - Pachter, Richard (August 11, 2016). "From John Lewis to Jughead, a Roundup of Graphic Novels". Miami Herald. Retrieved October 23, 2016.
    - Cornog, Martha (September 15, 2016). "Altes/Fishs, Beaumont, Clowes, Cornell/Parker, Girard, Jackson, Schulz - Graphic Novels Reviews". Library Journal. Archived from the original on 2016-09-23. Retrieved October 23, 2016.
    - Frank, Casey Rose (April 8, 2016). "Battle of the Geeks". The Post-Standard. Retrieved October 23, 2016.
    - Carreiro, Remy (September 5, 2016). "Animal House for the Tech Gen: Geeks & Greeks Graphic Novel Review". Forever Geek. Retrieved October 23, 2016.
    - Hughes, Johnny (September 8, 2016). "Review: Geeks & Greeks". Comic Crusaders. Retrieved October 23, 2016.
    - Ferno, Clay (August 10, 2016). "Talking Geeks & Greeks with Steve Altes and Andy Fish". Force Of Geek. Retrieved October 23, 2016.
    - Hickey, Patrick (August 25, 2016). "Steve Altes Talks Geeks & Greeks". Review Fix. Retrieved October 23, 2016.
  30. ↑ "IMDB - Steve Altes". IMDB. Los Angeles, CA. September 4, 2014.
    - "Yippie-Ki-Yay, Mr. Falcon". 2 February 2015. Retrieved August 12, 2015.
  31. ↑ "Shooting Charlie Sheen". YouTube. Hollywood, CA. Archived from the original on 2016-03-09. Retrieved May 29, 2015.
  32. ↑ "Goodbye, Modeling" . Retrieved August 12, 2015.
    - Starkey, David (August 12, 2015). "Living Blue in the Red States". U of Nebraska Press. ISBN   978-0803209855.
  33. ↑ "Screenplay deals closed 2006". Ink Tip. Los Angeles, CA. June 1, 2006.
  34. ↑ "Bad Move". National Public Radio. Los Angeles, CA. May 26, 2003.
  35. ↑ "Diana Jellinek". IMDB. Los Angeles, CA. September 4, 2014.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.