Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse is, Neal Stephenson would have us believe, a stupendous badass. I very much doubt that you or I would actually think this if we had ever met him, but then Neal Stephenson is welcome to his opinions, and a lot of people respect them.

Lawrence is a fictional character in Cryptonomicon, a brilliant book by the aforementioned Mr Stephenson. Lawrence is, in my humble opinion, a super nerd. Now I don't mean Nerd in a pejorative sense. In this case it is a compliment. Lawrence is such a super nerd that he verges on Idiot Savant. The man solves cryptological and mathematical problems in his head and is a good mate with Alan Turing who many of us of the common nerd variety would have heard of.

One of Lawrence's more interesting mathematical accomplishments is the mathematical modeling of the relationship between his concentration state and the frequency of ejaculation that he achieves. Lawrence has no problems discussing this issue as he is, as mentioned, an Uber Geek and therefore has the social graces of a ... well the social graces of a mathematics professor!

Fathering a few children outside the purview of the book has, in the reckoning of Mr Stephenson, made him even more of a stupendous badass and the fact that he is grandfather of Randy Waterhouse does nothing to reduce this level of badassness. Randy is another main character in Cryptonomicon and, while not nearly as good as his grandfather, is also a stupendous badass and Super Nerd.

These two Waterhouse boys are two of the three or four central characters in the book Cryptonomicon along with Bobby Shaftoe and Goto Dengo. I highly recommend this book, especially for people of the common nerd sub species. It's great fun to read about what a mess being good at maths could do to you in the Second World War, or even today.

Oh, and don't forget, Lawrence Waterhouse also likes organs. As in large keyboard having wind instruments. it's about the only thing he thinks he likes other than sex.