The Hackers Manifesto(spoiledtechie.com)
spoiledtechie.com
The Hackers Manifesto
http://www.spoiledtechie.com/post/The-Hackers-Manifesto.aspx
11 comments
I prefer this one "Imagine a school with children that can read and write, but with teachers who cannot, and you have a metaphor of the Information Age in which we live."
I had one teacher was trying to teach us about the moon landings. She threw up a picture of the Lunar Lander and said, "Oooh, look, it's a Moon Walker!"
That's wrong on three levels at least.
Mush-for-brains imprecision is one thing when teaching history. Now imagine that applied to teaching about technology. Ugh.
That's wrong on three levels at least.
Mush-for-brains imprecision is one thing when teaching history. Now imagine that applied to teaching about technology. Ugh.
Wow. Flashback to 9th grade.
Glad I'm not there anymore.
Glad I'm not there anymore.
Enough pointless raging against "the machine" or "the man." Create something useful or beautiful or both.
It can be both useful and beautiful to rage against the man.
No, it's just old and might get a few heads turned from some people who say, "Yeah, that guy's a nonconformist. Just like me!" Then nothing happens.
We need to do something against the man.
We need to do something against the man.
There's a quote from Steven Bond, some guy whose web site I read a while ago, regarding why he critiques awful movies:
"Why do I review crap? Simple: for pleasure. For the sheer joy of it. Every piece of crap you like is an immense world of delight waiting to be explored. Crap is a driving force, crap is inspirational: nothing urges me to set things right more than seeing them done wrong. I'm especially pleased when the crap is so bad it makes me angry — for anger is a pleasant sensation. To feel your bile rise and your blood boil, to feel a rush of fury — why, it's the pleasure of being alive, of feeling some actual emotion instead of the constant dull fuzz of the easily contented."
http://plover.net/~bonds/stupidresponses.html
Partly it's that. Anger towards the system very often gives you the energy, motivation, and experience enough to make something great. The two big projects I've done - the book I wrote last year, and the site I'm building the beta of now - both had some element of hate against the system that was preventing me from doing something. It's not good to dwell in the emotion, but using it is useful.
"Why do I review crap? Simple: for pleasure. For the sheer joy of it. Every piece of crap you like is an immense world of delight waiting to be explored. Crap is a driving force, crap is inspirational: nothing urges me to set things right more than seeing them done wrong. I'm especially pleased when the crap is so bad it makes me angry — for anger is a pleasant sensation. To feel your bile rise and your blood boil, to feel a rush of fury — why, it's the pleasure of being alive, of feeling some actual emotion instead of the constant dull fuzz of the easily contented."
http://plover.net/~bonds/stupidresponses.html
Partly it's that. Anger towards the system very often gives you the energy, motivation, and experience enough to make something great. The two big projects I've done - the book I wrote last year, and the site I'm building the beta of now - both had some element of hate against the system that was preventing me from doing something. It's not good to dwell in the emotion, but using it is useful.
Then don't dwell. Innovate or fix. Open source or sell.
I don't think dwelling is a good solution. But neither is ignoring it if it genuinely upsets you.
Teen angst.
"You build atomic bombs..." Oh, not you Mr. Feynman. You're fine.
"You build atomic bombs..." Oh, not you Mr. Feynman. You're fine.
I find it amazing that many of these people complain about the school system leaving them behind, behind in the sense that it didn't fulfill all of their curiosities. I felt the same way, but I didn't complain; I went to the library.
The system doesn't leave you behind. It locks you into your seat with your eyelids taped open with turgid pap being projected onto a screen in front of you.
Any creativity or individual initiative which resists the system is swiftly punished.
Any creativity or individual initiative which resists the system is swiftly punished.
I read books while many of my teachers lectured. They knew there was only so much they could do for me without seeming to neglect the rest of the class. I was left alone to read or do what I wanted as long as I did the work that was assigned.
I was put in detention for reading in class, I had books taken from me and thrown away, I had long lectures from teachers in front of classes to humiliate me. I was sent down to several offices and lectured by several administrators who told me something like, "We understand you can do this, but it's disrespectful to your teachers and the school operates in loco parentis while you're here." And I thought the school system was a very good one overall.
If you can get away with that stuff, it's great. But more often than not you don't have a choice.
If you can get away with that stuff, it's great. But more often than not you don't have a choice.
More or less the same experience here, except that I don't think the school I went to was very good at all.
I tried really hard to get my school to let me test out of classes and be in classes where I would actually be learning something, they refused. I spent the entire time there pissed off and frustrated at having to sit through a whole lot of boring, and in many cases inaccurate shit when there was so much out there to actually learn about.
An example: I got suspended for correcting a teacher that told the class that Germany was a communist country during WWII.
I tried really hard to get my school to let me test out of classes and be in classes where I would actually be learning something, they refused. I spent the entire time there pissed off and frustrated at having to sit through a whole lot of boring, and in many cases inaccurate shit when there was so much out there to actually learn about.
An example: I got suspended for correcting a teacher that told the class that Germany was a communist country during WWII.
In that case I would take all the detention they would give me. The truth is the truth.
Yeah, but "the truth" only goes so far before some level of anger, if not cynicism, begins seeping in. Once you get used to this idea that you'll be punished for doing the right thing, either you start deciding that the right thing isn't really right (which I find despicable, but which happens pretty often), or you decide that the system itself is flawed in some way, which is what happened to me.
It's tough to keep yourself an idealist when your parents tell you it's not worth it to get in trouble for things - I suppose they might have had a point, especially since if they did I'd still be too stubborn to cave in to somebody that was wrong - and when you get scolded across the board for what you do. I spent 3 years mainly under the radar at the school, then in my senior year was threatened with suspension three times: once for making a rude gesture at a teacher who over-the-top ranted at me for not standing during the pledge of allegiance, once for telling the teacher in charge of the literary magazine that I was the editor of that the magazine was bad and that he was refusing to fix things, and the last time for posting on Facebook about my dislike of the yearbook magazine (on a private note, of course).
I left still trying to do the right thing, but the result is a profound dislike for that school, despite the excellent handful of teachers that actually shaped me as a person. That's really sad, when you think about it.
Anyway, the point is that unlike most systems - unlike, say, the world of entrepreneurdom, where all that matters is idea and execution and getting ahead - some systems are designed intentionally to cripple the people within it. The school system is the worst, because a, focusing on the best students would hurt most other students and that would be unfair in a manner of speaking, and b, it's much easier for the teachers when they can create a bland routine, force everybody into it, and have everybody come out unharmed if not much wiser. The teachers who didn't do that at my school were incredible, but there were always unspoken hints at how difficult the administration was making things.
I entered school wanting to be a teacher. I left it realizing that it simply wasn't worth the sheer cost fighting the system would be worth.
It's tough to keep yourself an idealist when your parents tell you it's not worth it to get in trouble for things - I suppose they might have had a point, especially since if they did I'd still be too stubborn to cave in to somebody that was wrong - and when you get scolded across the board for what you do. I spent 3 years mainly under the radar at the school, then in my senior year was threatened with suspension three times: once for making a rude gesture at a teacher who over-the-top ranted at me for not standing during the pledge of allegiance, once for telling the teacher in charge of the literary magazine that I was the editor of that the magazine was bad and that he was refusing to fix things, and the last time for posting on Facebook about my dislike of the yearbook magazine (on a private note, of course).
I left still trying to do the right thing, but the result is a profound dislike for that school, despite the excellent handful of teachers that actually shaped me as a person. That's really sad, when you think about it.
Anyway, the point is that unlike most systems - unlike, say, the world of entrepreneurdom, where all that matters is idea and execution and getting ahead - some systems are designed intentionally to cripple the people within it. The school system is the worst, because a, focusing on the best students would hurt most other students and that would be unfair in a manner of speaking, and b, it's much easier for the teachers when they can create a bland routine, force everybody into it, and have everybody come out unharmed if not much wiser. The teachers who didn't do that at my school were incredible, but there were always unspoken hints at how difficult the administration was making things.
I entered school wanting to be a teacher. I left it realizing that it simply wasn't worth the sheer cost fighting the system would be worth.
I didn't get in trouble at school, but I constantly got in trouble at home for choosing not to do chores so that I could read more. Thankfully my mother and stepfather didn't realize that grounding me to my room was not a punishment but rather what I wanted all along. The thing is, make do with what you have. Don't let people take things or time away from you.
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This is to hacking what The Cure's "Disintegration" is to popular music.
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What is the significance of the image at the end?
It's a screenshot of logs showing someone trying a brute-force attack so gain entry via ssh. They used the username "Hitler."
It's on Windows. That spoils the whole page.
I mean you can go work on Windows when you have calmed down and want to make money (or actually explore the system etc). But an angry young hacker on Windows?
I mean you can go work on Windows when you have calmed down and want to make money (or actually explore the system etc). But an angry young hacker on Windows?
I got that but...what does that have to do with the rest of the article?
I had this memorized at one point..
Such a long time ago....
Oh and if anyone has "Assembley for Cracking" I'd love to read it again! :)