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The Glider: An Appropriate Hacker Emblem (2014)
- Schiphol 12y agoA still life would be even better. The emblem would be doing what it is supposed to be doing: stay put.
- skj 12y agoThat is very difficult to google for.
- tgb 12y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life#Examples_of_patterns http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life#Example...
- sp332 12y agoThere's a whole wiki that just documents shapes, ideas, and software for Conway's Game of Life. http://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/Still_life http://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/Still_life http://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/List_of_common_still_lifes http://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/List_of_common_still_lifes
- dllthomas 12y agoI like the notion that you can't tell whether it's a snapshot or running. But on the flip side, a still life isn't getting much done.
- sanqui 12y agoI love the glider as a hacker emblem. Here's a tiny version with Unicode Braille: ⠠⠵
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- sramsay 12y agoThe page says May 2014, but this is quite old. ESR proposed it in 2003 and it . . . failed to catch on.
- aroman 12y agothe article says this in the first few sentences
- lambda 12y agoIt definitely caught on in some circles; I've seen a number of other blogs that contain a badge with this emblem. Hasn't by any means become universal among hackers, but isn't a complete flop either.
- 1ris 12y agoI saw it once or twice at the 31c3. It didn't catch on, but it's not unknown either.
- fishnchips 12y agoI'm not convinced that the glider represents the 'hacker community' as a whole - I know a good few folks (not only 'web developers') who have no idea about Game of Life. Damn, I know at least one good coder who never heard of IRC. So much for shared experience. In all fairness I don't think a 'hacker community' as such exists any more - if there ever was one.
- hobs 12y agoAnd the glider continues off into infinity, unconcerned, unchanged by its lack of neighbors.
- jonsen 12y agoUntil...
- c3RlcGhlbnI_ 12y agoThe article is by ESR and in his mind "hacker community" is a very specific group. A group who happened to have their heyday when the game of life had just been published and Conway was still offering a prize for an infinitely expanding pattern. This makes it really more of a coincidental thing rather than a representation of any inherent trait of the community. Though even for that community(and people now who really like the game of life) I don't think it is a great logo. Circles are not a very pretty or pleasant way of representing the game of life and it makes me think of a board game when I look at it.
- Retra 12y agoThe Game of Life was first implemented on Go boards.
- DonHopkins 12y agoI'm totally unconvinced that Eric "The Flute" Raymond represents or speaks for the 'hacker community'. For one thing, very few people I know of in the hacker community are as racist as ESR. He's out there with Terry Davis when it comes to being racist and mentally ill, but he can't hold a candle to Terry Davis's hacking ability.
- robotkilla 12y agoI've long felt that some variation of the anarchy symbol would be more appropriate for a hacker symbol being that hacking represents total freedom (in my mind).
- acjohnson55 12y agoNot all hackers are anarchists, though.
- robotkilla 12y agoThat's why we shouldn't adopt the anarchist symbol as is. A variation would be needed.
- TheOtherHobbes 12y agoYou could put an H inside a circle, but a lot of people will think you're trying to be a hospital. I'd suggest (λx.t), but that's not very anarchic, I guess.
- atomicfiredoll 12y agoA lambda in a circle is the mark of the Lambda Complex and a symbol for the Resistance in Half Life. Adopting that would be pretty nerdy, but I don't know if it says "Hacker."
- stevekemp 12y agoA lot of people might thing you were referring to a certain dead hologram too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Rimmer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Rimmer
- jsilence 12y agoIf you consider that the basic meaning of Anarchism is "no hierarchies!" and compare that in a not-too-strict sense to core principles of the hacker and maker community, it becomes clear that a hacker culture and anarcism are not too far apart. High emphasis on collaboration, egalitarian mindset and a "respect stems from knowledge" attitude come to my mind. But still most of the hackers I know don't want to be associated to anarchy, even though they act like anarchists. I think the reason is that their acting like anarchists simply is appropropiate for what they are trying to achieve and not a political act or message by itself.
- Rhapso 12y agoThis, along with a life-long fascination with cellular automata, inspired me to get a tattoo of the glider sequence a few years ago. It is a tattoo that is occasionally difficult to explain to innocent bystanders but it constantly reminds me of what motivates and inspires me.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- Sophistifunk 12y agoYup, I have one too. It's timeless, does not resemble any sort of contemporary physical artifact of technology, like a bar code or a circuit board, and to anybody who doesn't recognise it, it's just a small decorative piece.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- cognitive-waste 12y agoMight have caught on if it were hackable in plaintext. The graphic is abhorrent.
- agumonkey 12y agoThese linked ones are quite pleasing http://swain.webframe.org/tshirts/conway_life_zoom.jpg/ http://swain.webframe.org/tshirts/conway_life_zoom.jpg/
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- wslh 12y agoDon't forget to read the "The idea of using Life patterns as an emblem was semi-anticipated by some hackers in Argentina" part. I would say it was anticipated... it uses a still life instead of a moving pattern. [1] http://swain.webframe.org/tshirts/conway_life_zoom.jpg http://swain.webframe.org/tshirts/conway_life_zoom.jpg
- ajarmst 12y agoWe're nonconformists! You can tell by our uniform!
- ChuckMcM 12y agoI hadn't realized esr was suggesting the glider as a sort of hieroglyph of hackerness. I think it, like the Kline bottle shape, evokes a certain kind of resonance in folks who enjoy algorithms and mathematics.
- drew-y 12y agoI like the idea, not really into the emblem.
- praptak 12y agoI cringe at the idea of using it myself. I believe the title of hacker shall be earned from peers ("Cool hack!") not self-assigned.
- oneeyedpigeon 12y ago"When you put the glider emblem on your web page, or wear it on clothing, or display it in some other way, you are visibly associating yourself with the hacker culture. This is not quite the same thing as claiming to be a hacker yourself — that is a title of honor that generally has to be conferred by others rather than self-assumed. But by using this emblem, you express sympathy with hackers' goals, hackers' values, and the hacker way of living."
- gonzo 12y ago"I believe, but cannot prove, that global “AIDS” is a whole cluster of unrelated diseases all of which have been swept under a single rug for essentially political reasons, and that the identification of HIV as the sole pathogen is likely to go down as one of the most colossal blunders in the history of medicine." -- Eric S. Raymond.
- DonHopkins 12y ago"In the U.S., blacks are 12% of the population but commit 50% of violent crimes; can anyone honestly think this is unconnected to the fact that they average 15 points of IQ lower than the general population? That stupid people are more violent is a fact independent of skin color." -Eric S. Raymond http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=129 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=129
- DanBC 12y agoHomosexuals are child abusers http://armedndangerous.blogspot.co.uk/2002_06_16_armedndangerous_archive.html?m=1#77834003 http://armedndangerous.blogspot.co.uk/2002_06_16_armedndange...
- DonHopkins 12y ago"Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow." -Eric S Raymond "My favorite part of the "many eyes" argument is how few bugs were found by the two eyes of Eric (the originator of the statement). All the many eyes are apparently attached to a lot of hands that type lots of words about many eyes, and never actually audit code." -Theo De Raadt The little experience Raymond DOES have auditing code has been a total fiasco and embarrassing failure, since his understanding of the code was incompetent and deeply tainted by his preconceived political ideology and conspiracy theories about global warming, which was his only motivation for auditing the code in the first place. His sole quest was to discredit the scientists who warned about global warming. The code he found and highlighted was actually COMMENTED OUT, and he never addressed the fact that the scientists were vindicated. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond >During the Climategate fiasco, Raymond's ability to read other peoples' source code (or at least his honesty about it) was called into question when he was caught quote-mining analysis software written by the CRU researchers, presenting a commented-out section of source code used for analyzing counterfactuals as evidence of deliberate data manipulation. When confronted with the fact that scientists as a general rule are scrupulously honest, Raymond claimed it was a case of an "error cascade," a concept that makes sense in computer science and other places where all data goes through a single potential failure point, but in areas where outside data and multiple lines of evidence are used for verification, doesn't entirely make sense. (He was curiously silent when all the researchers involved were exonerated of scientific misconduct.)
- gonzo 12y agoI'll take Alan Turning over the Glider, anytime. http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1046#comment-236592 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1046#comment-236592
- dllthomas 12y agoAt the intersection of both the objects mentioned in your post, I still find it amazing that one can build a UTM in Conway's Game Of Life.
- DonHopkins 12y agoLife is overrated. Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science" goes a lot further and is much more amazing than that, with much simpler rules than life.
- dllthomas 12y agoLife is particularly interesting because it's something I've been toying with (off and on, not in any particular depth) for all my life. It's certainly not pushing the limits of simplicity.
- DonHopkins 12y agoThe historic cellular automata rule that would be MUCH more appropriate than Life to represent hacker culture would be John von Neumann's 29 state cellular automata [1], and the most appropriate pattern to use would be his universal constructor, which can reproduce itself given the right input, thus is a two-dimensional cellular automata quine. He's the ORIGINAL hacker's hacker, who figured all of that out on paper, without the use of computers. And his Universal Constructor [3] is much more beautiful and interesting that a simple Life glider, in my opinion. Now that would make an impressive tattoo! [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann_cellular_automaton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann_cellular_automaton [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann_universal_constructor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann_universal_construct... [3] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Nobili_Pesavento_2reps.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Nobili_Pe... (By the way, it's Alan Turing, not Turning -- a common and understandable mistake!) (Also by the way, children and nice people read Hacker News, so please do not link to ESR's reprehensible web site, promote his racist ideology, or buy into his bullshit that he is a hacker or speaks for hackers.)
- ForHackernews 12y agoIsn't this document much older than 2014? Edit: Here's an archived copy from 2003: https://web.archive.org/web/20031202225527/http://www.catb.org/~esr/hacker-emblem/ https://web.archive.org/web/20031202225527/http://www.catb.o...