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Is the Seeking of Lost Skills/Arts a Hacking Analog?
bigattichouse asks: "Having just finished my first batch of home-brew beer, I've been thinking about my attraction to 'lost arts', and collecting books on 'how to do stuff'. Some I try, some I just read: metalsmithing, sewing, baking bread, making soap, knot tying, brewing beer, woodcarving, yogurt and cheese.. there are so many skills 'lost' in the modern 'american' lifestyle... but I find my fellows tend to have books on these subjects lying around, too. Is this common in geekdom? Is this an expression of 'hacking' outside of machinery/engineering?"
I've been hacking over 30 years. I also brew beer, distill whisky, hunt, grow food, etc. These are definitely all the same expression: to know how things work.
-- Rich
Free your mind and your Ass will follow -- George Clinton
Engineers love to tinker, find out how it all works, rip it apart and put it back together. Whether it's mechanical, chemical, or physical we want to understand. The only expression of the Renaissance Man left...
Isn't it obvious? Hacking is an expression of our inner need. And the inner need we are expressing is for Knowledge, pure and simple. The people who hack, today, are the people who would have been working on their cars 30 years ago. :)
For me it is just an expression of curiosity. Of wanting to know "how does this thing work" or "how the hell do they make this".
Computers are (for me) the uber-want-to-know. They are just more complex than every other thing in your direct environment, so we are attracted to them (like a moth to a bulb, if you ask me).
I guess you could consider it related to hacking if one considers hackers to be just people who "thirst for knowledge." I know I rarely sit in one discipline for long and I want to know everything about anything. I don't consider that being a hacker, or part of a "hacker" nature though...I'm just nosy.
After giving some thought to the issue, I think that the answer is quite simple: for the same reason why I go to FreshMeat to get the source code of the programs I use. I could download the binaries, but I don't; I prefer to go through the pain of ./configuring, making and make-installing, to say the least. In other words: I want to control the process of creation as much as possible. The same spirit of OpenSource which animates most geeks is present in each and every aspect of their lives, not only in computing.
Self-made-making and Open Source are all about the same: to keep control of our own lives.
Strength, balance, courage and reason. If you know what's this about, contact me!
My theory is that geeks have more imagination than the average bear. They look at lines of programming but see not only the code, but also the manipulation of the screen. If you think about it, all a computer really is is a device for changing pixel colors on a screen. Geeks see how the pixels ought to look.
Its that same imagination that makes reading so popular within the geek community. They "see" what the words convey. That's also why SciFi and fantasy is so popular as well. Every piece of fiction written involves a choice by the author. For something like 90% of them, they choose to set their story in either the world we know or the world we knew. The remander toy with the setting. It is that, I think, which so appeals to the geeks. The boudries are no longer boudries.
The point of all this, then, is that geeks like to use their imaginations. What better way to do that than to try a variety of different hobbies each of which provides a different sort of stimulous and memory? In so doing it also allows the imagination to be that much more real when it comes to dealing with any of the skill sets involved in the hobby.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
They're pretty much the only people left in the world who make battle-quality chain mail, scale mail, and plate mail in the medieval style.
Not to rain on the SCA parade, but the skills that these guys use isn't what we're talking about.
Metalsmithing, perhaps. Making "battle ready" chain mail is nothing more than time consuming, and I seriously doubt that any of them (I know of a few, one who makes most the mail in the area) actually know how to make the rings. They know how to put them together quickly.
Their swords are nothing in comparison to traditional Toledo steel (exclude The Factory, for those in the know.) or Japanese steel. It's really half-assed, industrialized-support endeavors. I've seen SCA steel, and it really isn't anything special.
The last thing that I want given the unlikely circumstance of needing to know how to do things like make soap, distil water, survive without modern devices, is SCA members running around.
I think the purpose of this ask Slashdot is not about people running around pretending their in a medieval bubble that is roughly supported by industrialization, but to just learn how worldly things work.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
- Why am I so fascinated by the old computers of generations gone by?
- Why are those old mainframes that can do less than a PDA so fascinating?
- Why would I rather save up money to buy a personally crafted writing table as opposed to a $50.00 one made out of particle board by machine?
- What is so "magical" about UNIX-like operating systems?
- Why is it fun to spend a weekend hiking in the desert, where there is no running water, freezing your butt off, sleeping in a tent with all kinds of weird things crawling on you?
- Why is some really complex source code, script, configuration file, etc. so interesting?
- Why does code, highly optimized beyond readability (especially assembly) have a "feel" to it?
- Why is some PDP-11 with tape for storage so intriguing?
- What is so interesting about Lord of the Rings?
- Why is it so much fun to play games with words, making up double-meaning phrases and the like?
The answer is a bit complex.First of all, things that are crafted together by skilled hands have an intrinsic value that doesn't exist in mass-marketed consumer products designed for an excessively consuming society. It all ties together. The way yogurt is made, the way beer is brewed, the way a unique muscle car is built, the way a particularly crafty piece of code is written (whether new or old), the way an oak writing desk is made, the way a 25 year old 4-bit computer can multiply 16-bit integers faster than the newest Pentium 4's, the way the computer on Voyager II can be reconfigured from a million billion miles away without crashing, the way your personally hacked Linux kernel does something nobody else has thought of... it all happens because of craftsmanship. Yeah, those old mainframes probably crashed more often than Windows does today, but there is some kind of value (for which I cannot find a word) that exists in things made by the truly skilled... by the wizards, the gurus, the master craftsmen.
Secondly, there is something in the "hacker culture" (see the Jargon file) that draws people like us to the values that I'm describing in the paragraph above. It doesn't matter what your other hobbies are, whether they involve nature, ham radio, literature, etc. There is something about freedom, quality, beauty (even if it isn't physical beauty), correctness, practicality, craftiness, challenge... It's a way of thinking that people outside the hacker community have apparently forgotten.
That question is not whether the skills need to be used or not... it's whether the skills being used are like hacking (in the original sense of the word) in some way. I'd say that they are - it's a bunch of people tinkering with things most people don't really care too much about in order to see how they work and have some fun at the same time.
People who hack have other hobbies. Big deal. Lots of people have lots of different hobbies, and hacking doesn't necessarily have to be one of them. Most total slackers I've known have been interested in things like "metalsmithing, sewing, baking bread, making soap, knot tying, brewing beer, woodcarving, yogurt and cheese." Those are the kinds of things they do instead of working.
As to this going to the core of some essential geekness, I think that is just self-centered, elitist garbage. The human race is such a diverse set, that attempting to draw boundaries around groups based on many traits usually ends up being vapor.
So now that the geeks have claimed interesting hobbies, does that mean the cool slackers will have to watch more television or something? Perhaps we could patent all these hobbies, and sue the slackers for infringing on our turf.
I don't mean to be a party pooper. By all means, all of you go ahead. I just won't be participating in the circle jerk. I hope you don't revoke my membership to geekdom. Fleeing elitism and arrogance is what made me an outsider in the first place.
I do these things because I want to be in control. There is nothing worse than a stupid situation that you *know* you could get out of with some basic skill...
This is one of the greatest attractions OSS currently holds for me. I know that anything I learn to do with OSS tools, I will continue to be able to do for a long time without getting permission, paying fees, or dealing with silly restrictions that only benefit companies who have enough already.
On a personal level it makes sense as well. Taking the heat for something you are not directly responsible for sucks.
Anyone willing to stick their neck out in order to champion some proprietary software is just gambling with their career. You think they really care?
They don't, it is just about revenue and nothing more. If your problem is shared by many you can be safe in the knowing it will be addressed. You can even look like you are on the ball while advocating your marginal 'standard' in the box thinking. The real truth is you are more lucky if you stick with the crowd.
This attitude promotes strong in the box thinking combined with a healthy and well refined finger pointing and blame shifing skills. Innovation? forget it. Competitive advantage comes down to how hard you can make your people work and how big of a ball buster you have for a purchasing agent. Boy, that sure makes me want to come to work early... (cough)
I once worked in a shop where one of my job duties was to make sure that what I made was correct and within stated tolerances. This shop had a quality assurance department to help make sure this was true, but it was expected that you had tools, knowledge of the machine and the ability to read and understand the specifications because the quality people sometimes made mistakes too.
Well, one batch of rather large and expensive parts was found to be defective one day. It was right after I had complted my stage of the work.
I was found to be at fault for not making sure the guy before me did his job right. I was pissed at first, but thought about it and it made some good sense. Afterall I had the information and tools to evaluate the work done before --why not?
I made damn sure afterword to have the skill and information needed to evaluate both my own work and those before me just to make sure I had the ability to deal with what I was responsible for.
So take this ethic in the context of systems being sold and used today. It's scary.
On one hand you have to trust the software is designed well and does what it says because you cannot actually see the work of others before you --even if you have the skill.
On the other, the company that pays your way wants you to be held accountable for what those same systems do. You did ok the purchase right?
The creator of the software takes almost all of your rights through the legal wrapper that comes with the package while you take the heat and have to deal with the issues.
So you can evaluate basically nothing, must pay blood money for fixes and updates out of your control and take the heat for the fuckups of one of the most cash rich companies around?
At least with Open Source you can examine what you are getting. You can learn how it works and why it does so. You can implement how you see fit and act in a responsible manner.
I was called the fool for hosing up so many parts. I was asked why I worked so hard at doing the right job on parts that were wrong.
Today when I see all the win32 problems I shake my head and wonder at the foolishness of it all. Who in their right mind would actually step up and take that kind of responsibility understanding that they are more or less powerless to act on it?
I guess ignorance is really an excuse in IT. Can't find any other reason for it.
Franky, the whole mess makes me sick.
So, back to the skills. I like knowing that I can go into the woods and make fire, shelter weapons do just fine. Sometimes th
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