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The New York Times - A Toy With a Story
by Decius at 1:26 pm EST, Dec 20, 2004 |
] There is a story behind every electronic gadget sold on
] the QVC shopping channel. This one leads to a ramshackle
] farmhouse in rural Oregon, which is the home and circuit
] design lab of Jeri Ellsworth, a 30-year-old high school
] dropout and self-taught computer chip designer. This is kind of a cool story, although I continue to be frustrated by the propagation of Richard Stallman's lie about the definition of the word hacker. The work hacker, in computerdom, orginally (ie in the 60's) meant a poor programmer, or someone who broke into a computer. It was in the 70's that the word was applied with respect. In the 80's Stallman attempted to separate the word as it is applied with respect from the word as it is applied to people who break into computers. Its hard to apply this split consistently, (for example, which one is Woz?) because what Stallman meant to do was separate boomers and Xers. This has resulted in endless fallacies, such as people who parrot the phrase "hacker in the original meaning," the concept of "white hat and black hat hackers," etc... More infuriating to me is "The Hackers Conference," at which self proclaimed "good hackers" have created a closed and reculsive culture that serves no one but themselves, while so called "bad hackers" have create a wide open culture that is vibrant and reaches out to anyone who has an interest in the subject matter... Stallman's damage to the word must be repaired. |
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RE: The New York Times - A Toy With a Story
by Dolemite at 9:12 am EST, Dec 21, 2004 |
Decius wrote:
] More infuriating to me is
] "The Hackers Conference," at which self proclaimed "good
] hackers" have created a closed and reculsive culture that
] serves no one but themselves, while so called "bad hackers"
] have create a wide open culture that is vibrant and reaches
] out to anyone who has an interest in the subject matter... One reason, though not the predominant one, why PhreakNIC is no longer billed as a "Hacker Conference" but a "Technology and Culture Exhibition." It's just too hard to convince hotel managers, potential sponsors, etc. and to expand the fan base when there's such a negative bias against the word to begin with. |
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The New York Times - A Toy With a Story
by k at 9:13 pm EST, Dec 20, 2004 |
] There is a story behind every electronic gadget sold on
] the QVC shopping channel. This one leads to a ramshackle
] farmhouse in rural Oregon, which is the home and circuit
] design lab of Jeri Ellsworth, a 30-year-old high school
] dropout and self-taught computer chip designer. This is kind of a cool story, although I continue to be frustrated by the propagation of Richard Stallman's lie about the definition of the word hacker. [ My interest in the politics of the word hacker has reached an all time low. It's a losing battle, like every other silly flamewar topic. this one's got so much traction because of the culture associations people have invested in it, but i think the hacker-as-intruder definition has won in the public conciousness. too bad. sidetrack asisde, the story's interesting because it shows what a motivated individual can do, without the generally presumed benefits of a formal degree. it's impressive. i wish more people were like that. shit, i wish *i* was like that. -k] |
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A Toy With a Story
by noteworthy at 11:34 pm EST, Dec 20, 2004 |
First of all, this NYT is well worth reading. You might actually be interested in buying the product! k wrote:
] My interest in the politics of the word hacker has reached
] an all time low. An all-time low, perhaps, but it hasn't bottomed out yet. Who cares? Why not focus on something Important, like wordsmithing the GPL? ] sidetrack asisde, the story's interesting because it shows
] what a motivated individual can do, without the generally
] presumed benefits of a formal degree. Her motivation is admirable, but strong motivation is not a substitute for the college experience, any more than good looks are a substitute for kindness. When you use a phrase like "generally presumed benefits of a formal degree", it certainly sounds like a disparaging remark about classrooms, or books, or the System, or the Shaft, or somesuch. While most college students do encounter all of these things, they also encounter each other, in an environment that promotes scientific exploration and open collaboration. If you go to the best college you can get into, and seek out the best students there, you are likely to learn as much from them as from the professors. Working alone, Jeri has accomplished something impressive. If she had finished high school and gone on to MIT, Stanford, or any of several other schools with a rich spirit of entrepreneurship, she might well have become a legendary Internet billionaire extraordinaire, instead of a gadget guru hawking her warez on QVC. She may still get there, and I wish her all the best. |
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RE: A Toy With a Story
by k at 10:10 am EST, Dec 21, 2004 |
noteworthy wrote:
] Her motivation is admirable, but strong motivation is not a
] substitute for the college experience, any more than good
] looks are a substitute for kindness.
]
] When you use a phrase like "generally presumed benefits of a
] formal degree", it certainly sounds like a disparaging remark
] about classrooms, or books, or the System, or the Shaft, or
] somesuch. [ No, i didn't intend that exactly. Merely, i meant it to challenge the presumption that college is a prerequisite for success. In the general case, i would never argue against college, and I advocate it widely at least as much for the social reasons as the literal academic ones. However, I feel like it's common to assume that someone who didn't go to college is incapable of achieving success, particularly in an engineering discipline, and I think that's too bad. Not everyone fits in well with college life, and i don't feel like that's necessarily a character flaw. She may have been the billionaire you describe, or she may have gotten distracted, disenchanted or discouraged by the culture there or suffered a burn out and never continued. Point being, I dunno, and i find it encouraging when I see that it's still possible to start from scratch. -k] |
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The New York Times - A Toy With a Story
by cred at 11:48 pm EST, Dec 21, 2004 |
Inspiring... |
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