2 ms·

Don't call him a stupid kid. He represents everything I believe in as a hacker. He's smart, beautiful, talented, and wants to live life pulling off cool stunts

by jart 1y ago

Don't call him a stupid kid. He represents everything I believe in as a hacker. He's smart, beautiful, talented, and wants to live life pulling off cool stunts that inspire the rest of us, with or without permission. Silly rules aren't meant for people like him. It's a travesty that a hacker forum would hate hackers so much and cheer on a scheming third world government stamping out his dream. A good, wise, enlightened government would try to cultivate this kind of curiosity and spunk, rather than seeing it as an opportunity to inflict pain and bleed someone for a small amount of money. When I grew up in America, the movies idolized people like him, and that's one of the reasons America has been so successful. I hope he isn't so traumatized by this unfair abuse that he never wants to be audacious again.

BobaFloutist 1y ago
> everything I believe in as a hacker > beautiful Really?
netsharc 1y ago
It really is a pathetic "hacker" move if the plan was "Let's just flaunt the rules, land in 'hostile' territory and hope the punishment isn't so severe.". So far his talent is operating a plane, lots of people can do that. An actual hacker would figure out something clever to not be caught, be arrested/detained for several weeks (de facto if not de jure), and relying on daddy's dollars to bail him out...
- jart 1y ago
  It is often easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission. Flaunting the rules was probably his only option for getting into Antarctica. I imagine for many hackers in the past, their best hope of getting to play with a serious computer was to hack into one. The motivation is what matters. If your goal is to do crime and profit, then yes, not getting caught is very important. But if your goal is curiosity or to tell a compelling story to your followers about how you did something no one's ever done before, then that comes from a pure innocent heart. Such a person is unlikely to have spent much time in their life developing the skills needed to not get caught. So I wouldn't hold that against them. It's on the system to forgive such persons. If what they did was actually cool and prosocial, then they shouldn't be punished for breaking the rules to do it.
- TimTheTinker 1y ago
  "hacker" just means someone who creatively does new things in unexpected/unintended ways. Any good hacker has a mindset to disregard arbitrary rules -- especially rules like "that's not possible" or "it should always be done this way". That's the mindset it takes to find novel solutions to open problems with real depth. Justine Tunney (jart) is a canonical example of a hacker par excellence, along with characters such as Fabrice Bellard, Richard Stallman, Hector Martin, and Alyssa Rosenzweig. Finding a way to land a plane on all 7 continents is a really cool problem, and while I get that lying to officials on a form crosses an ethical line, we should at least honor the mindset of wanting to achieve something amazing most people would balk at, and give grace given the circumstance. This person should not be treated like a felon. Furthermore, aviation as a field has had far too much of a conformance culture, and as as result we haven't seen any real breakthroughs, especially in (non-ultralight) general aviation since the 1970s. Cessna made GA accessible to middle-class families in the 1960s (a basic Cessna ran roughly $65,000 in today's dollars) -- but is there even a vendor today that sells a decent GA "toyota corolla"-type plane that is affordable for middle-class families? A brand-new Cessna 172 costs roughly $500,000 today, and a used airworthy one from the 1960s will cost at least $75,000. This field, and American manufacturing in general, needs more hackers.

by jart 1y ago

BobaFloutist 1y ago

> everything I believe in as a hacker > beautiful Really?

netsharc 1y ago

It really is a pathetic "hacker" move if the plan was "Let's just flaunt the rules, land in 'hostile' territory and hope the punishment isn't so severe.". So far his talent is operating a plane, lots of people can do that. An actual hacker would figure out something clever to not be caught, be arrested/detained for several weeks (de facto if not de jure), and relying on daddy's dollars to bail him out...

jart 1y ago
It is often easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission. Flaunting the rules was probably his only option for getting into Antarctica. I imagine for many hackers in the past, their best hope of getting to play with a serious computer was to hack into one. The motivation is what matters. If your goal is to do crime and profit, then yes, not getting caught is very important. But if your goal is curiosity or to tell a compelling story to your followers about how you did something no one's ever done before, then that comes from a pure innocent heart. Such a person is unlikely to have spent much time in their life developing the skills needed to not get caught. So I wouldn't hold that against them. It's on the system to forgive such persons. If what they did was actually cool and prosocial, then they shouldn't be punished for breaking the rules to do it.
TimTheTinker 1y ago
"hacker" just means someone who creatively does new things in unexpected/unintended ways. Any good hacker has a mindset to disregard arbitrary rules -- especially rules like "that's not possible" or "it should always be done this way". That's the mindset it takes to find novel solutions to open problems with real depth. Justine Tunney (jart) is a canonical example of a hacker par excellence, along with characters such as Fabrice Bellard, Richard Stallman, Hector Martin, and Alyssa Rosenzweig. Finding a way to land a plane on all 7 continents is a really cool problem, and while I get that lying to officials on a form crosses an ethical line, we should at least honor the mindset of wanting to achieve something amazing most people would balk at, and give grace given the circumstance. This person should not be treated like a felon. Furthermore, aviation as a field has had far too much of a conformance culture, and as as result we haven't seen any real breakthroughs, especially in (non-ultralight) general aviation since the 1970s. Cessna made GA accessible to middle-class families in the 1960s (a basic Cessna ran roughly $65,000 in today's dollars) -- but is there even a vendor today that sells a decent GA "toyota corolla"-type plane that is affordable for middle-class families? A brand-new Cessna 172 costs roughly $500,000 today, and a used airworthy one from the 1960s will cost at least $75,000. This field, and American manufacturing in general, needs more hackers.