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This is Hackernews, as in whites, blacks, and gray hats. Some people here make money through cool silicon valley startups that make for great success porn but
by supermw 8y ago
This is Hackernews, as in whites, blacks, and gray hats.
Some people here make money through cool silicon valley startups that make for great success porn but don't forget that some people here also make money doing shady or even downright illegal things.
What we have in common in this community is our technology interests, not our morals or values. If you accept this fact, you can open your mind up to some great content and conversations.
- gridspy 8y agoYou're thinking of Crackers. Hackers are people who create things. http://www.paulgraham.com/gba.html http://www.paulgraham.com/gba.html
- supermw 8y agoI'm not thinking of crackers. Hackers do create things. Sometimes malicious things and sometimes things that offer no real benefit to society, but things all the same. In this definition you have to take the good with the bad.
- BigChiefSmokem 8y agoThe actual definition is in the dictionary and this is how it would be described in a legal sense as well. hack·er 1.a person who uses computers to gain unauthorized access to data. INFORMAL an enthusiastic and skillful computer programmer or user.
- rhizome 8y agoI would reverse those as to which one is formal and which is informal.
- supermw 8y agoWhat year were you born? Because it's pretty clear there must be a generation of programmers who never grew up with the whole hacker mythos of the 90s or early 2000s. Some people's only experience with the word "hacker" is a person who makes cool nice things with code. There was a time many ages ago when the word "hacker" was reserved only for the most dangerous and reckless breed of computer programmers.
- ethbro 8y agoI think you might have your timelines a bit reversed. Afaik: From the 1960s to early-80s, it meant someone who creates. From the mid-80s to mid-00s, it meant someone who breaks into systems (driven by media reporting on FBI prosecution of the first network-enabled cyber crimes). From the mid-00s to now, it seems to be turning the corner again (co-mingled with the rise of maker culture).
- nikanj 8y agoWords mean what the majority of people take them to mean. The fight for Hacker vs Cracker was lost well before the turn of the millennia.
- realbarack 8y agoWhat? No, words mean different things in different contexts. For example, to most people a "graph" means a thing with an x and y axis, but to computer scientists it means a thing with nodes and edges. So yeah, in certain contexts hacker means someone who breaks into computers. In the context of this site (and MIT culture where the term came from) it means someone who draws on their creativity to make something cool.
- PakG1 8y agoA niche population vs the general population. When paths cross, who wins? For matters of communication, usually the general population.
- rhizome 8y agoDo you mean to imply that prescriptivists are completely illegitimate?
- cellularmitosis 8y agoThe fight happened on multiple fronts. Yes, it was lost on cnn.com, but it wasn’t lost in the comment section of HN.
- james_s_tayler 8y agoI'm laughing at thinking about how "CrackerNews" might sound somewhat hilariously off color.
- em-bee 8y agoyou crack me up ;-)
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- nullandvoid 8y agoI mean no one likes spam.. it's adding negative value to anyone other than lining spammers pockets That's not something I see celebrated on hn not sure what you mean
- ssalazar 8y ago> some people here also make money doing shady or even downright illegal things. No thanks.