Slashdot Mirror
CodeCon, Placebos, Fear, Yoyo-hacking, Dune, etc.
doom writes "Annalee Newitz rambles about CodeCon, placebos,
random numbers, fear, yoyo-hacking, Dune and more.
This is what it means to be a geek:
Techsploitation."
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A true geek would've also taken the time to personally post their article on slashdot.
Is yo-you hacking like cracking severs while lissening to Vanilla Ice?
*sighs contentedly*
Takes me back to the days when internet connections were text-based and being a hacker meant being a proud explorer of a new frontier.
Where has all the magic gone eh? Thank goodness there are people out there who are keeping the magic alive!
A little planning goes a long way...
Only on slashdot have these been combined in a single sentence.
Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
Is that when you hack a server to bring it down, wait for it to come back up again then down, up, down...
There's a link to "Nude Beaches" on the same page, which has got to be a lot more inteersting than guys modifying yo-yos :-)
i know
if i wanted articles of this level of intelectual calibre i would get my lowdown from "TechTV" or "the Screensavers"
... what is not journalism. It's mostly a rambling trend of thought that, unfortunately, is very publishable on the internet.
"Hacking YoYos" ??? Hardly. That's not new, and it certainly wasn't invented at this conference. People (and self) have always 'modified' a yoyo when it wasn't performing well.
I won't even go into the logic the writer espouses while complaining that doctors are allowed to cause pain in the name of science. Anyone remember the 'call for volunteers' that NASA wanted to lay on their back at a negative incline for months to simulate weightlessness? That's a hell of allot more intrusive and damaging than being poked or heated.
Enough New-Age crap.
... as soon as the site loaded I couldn't help from clicking the "Nude Beaches" link.
I have no idea what that article was about. What is CodeCon? Nevermind the shiny LED's and the yo-yo's, someone find that writer an editor. In fact, speaking of editors, how the hell did this get posted in the first place?
Oh, and for some reason, the Shmoo site is down. *goes in search of a mirror*
Although she's been writing for the Guardian for a while, she's been writing, at least occasionally, on geek subjects/the web since Bad Subjects, 1995. If you want to fault /. for posting it, why bother commenting on how, presumably as a 'true' geek, that you're completely and utterly unimpressed with Newitz's writings/geek credentials?
Amor omnia vincit. Occasionally.
I read the "article" and then I read the replies and noticed everyone talking about how horribly written and short it was.
I liked it.
-------
"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
She does make a good point about how arbritrary perceptions are. I think the most interesting thing she said was that the brain ceases to interpret pain as pain, because this indicates some understanding that the signals are still being processed, just not in the normal way. Thing about it for a second. That's not even the normal "ignore your pain" ideal, it goes even further. What if we really do have the ability to interpret our senses as we see fit?
Using glue, you can install Linux on your yoyo.
You don't need a lab to make mud.
"Is it such a slow day at Slashdot? Why is this dump of mental diarrhea "news for nerds" or "stuff that matters"? Someone is at some geek conference, throws a bunch of sci-fi references with a couple of buzzwords and some piece about a software that doesn't work but "will do soon" and suddenly we have a truly wondrous article about how good it is to be a geek."
Not every article on slashdot is revolutionary brilliant. Neither are all replies. Get over it. I for one can't see what's so insightful about your whining.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Heh... note the email address Annalee Newitz is using here... she evidentally creates a new mail alias for every column: sugarpill@techsploitation.com
Ah, slash ids pushing a billion and whining about what a sewer it's become...
I loved this article! Of course, I was at CodeCon, at the Google reception, and I stuffed my face at Sparky's. Would anyone like some origami paper (or foil?), I always have some with me...
In case anyone is wondering, CodeCon is what Bram Cohen (of BitTorrent fame) started after getting tired of conferences where you pay a ridiculous fee to hear some marketeer ramble on about some vaporware that won't ever see the light of day. CodeCon is a conference for hackers to show off their projects; the presentation must be made by a developer and you must demo some working code. It was also less than $100 for three days of presentations.
burris
it reminds me of that cool scene in the movie Dune, when Paul sticks his hand in the pain box for a really long time and you hear that spooky voice-over intoning, "I will not fear; fear is the mind-killer."
Yeah, it was a great movie... Now if only someone would write one of those novelized adaptations. That would be great!
Somehow "hacking a yo-yo" seems much more in the spirit of what hacking (as opposed to cracking) is all about -- playfully seeking to improve the way things work.
;)
But then I suppose that I'm just grasping after an earlier halcyon age, when everything was somehow better (including spelling)