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Hack This, Please

Posted by Hemos on from the but-don't-crack-it dept.

Andy Kessler, the author of Wall Street Meat had a recent piece in the WSJ, and now reprinted on his own site. It's a piece about how companies are shifting much more to "hacker" friendly models. It's a particular area of interest for me, as it's something that I've talked about with the folks at BCG for a while.

5 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. In summary.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    he preliminary results of the BCG/OSDN survey reveal that:

    * Participants note extremely high levels of creativity in their projects.
    * Having fun, enhancing skills, access to source code and user needs drive contributions to the Open Source community. Defeating proprietary software companies is not a major motivator.
    * The Open Source community is truly global in composition with respondents coming from 35 countries.
    * Most participants dedicated at least 10 hours per week in their shared programming efforts
    * Contrary to popular belief about hackers, the open source community is mostly comprised of highly skilled IT professionals who have on average over 10 years of programming experience.

  2. Sheesh indeed! by despik · · Score: 5, Informative
    Jesus F. Christ, not Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, better known as Woz. In his own words:
    My company was CL9 and we built the CORE universal remote control. This was before the simple idea of preprogramming all the codes used by the common companies was done. My device looked at the IR signal and analyzed it and recreated it. It also had to determine if certain codes needed to be emitted more than once to work. My device had 16 user buttons and a few more control buttons. They were all large and finger sized. You could put the CORE into one of 16 keyboards, so you really had 256 total keys to use. Any key could have a sequence of any of the other keys and any IR codes that you read in. So a single key could turn on the TV, then turn on the VCR, then select channel 4, etc. More than that, the 'sequence' attached to a key could access all the control buttons. The lessor used control buttons were covered by a slider to keep things looking simpler. This remote control kept it's own time and could emit IR signals at certain times. You could hit "AT-5-PM-6" (4 buttons total) to execute button 6 at 5 PM. Even the buttons that programmed the main user buttons could be included in a program. Thus button 1 could reprogram button 2, etc. This allowed a simple level of programming without normal program loops. You could program the remote control to skip daylight savings time with a sequence like "AT-2-AM-Set-Hour up" (5 buttons). I was able to create a program that would keep daylight savings time going up and down on the right days forever, including leap years, but it was quite an effort and required a lot of keys to hold current states.
    --
    "I seem to have mastered a certain amount of control over physical reality."
  3. Re:Sheesh by Tony-A · · Score: 3, Informative

    The point he misses is that GEEKS DON'T MATTER.

    WRONG!
    The effects are small and subtle, but persistent. There is a difference between something that is worth hacking (to the hackers) and something that is more trouble than it's worth (to the hackers). You don't make money (directly) from the hackers. You gain from reputation and sales to the masses. A lot of things "just working" comes from hackers messing with the stuff. The hackers function somewhat as R&D, but they are working at their own pace for their own interests. It costs very little to make stuff "hacker-friendly" and sometimes you gain a lot more than you spend.

  4. Hack your TiVo! by jkeegan · · Score: 2, Informative

    Seems like a good place for a plug. :)

    Hacking TiVo: The Expansion, Enhancement, and Development Starter Kit, available for $20.99 at amazon.com.

    --

    ..Jeff Keegan
    seven syllables explain TiVo: kee gan dot org slash ti vo
  5. Citroen C2 in europe has this philosophy by rapiddescent · · Score: 3, Informative
    Citroen (a french car manufacturer) recently updated its small hatchback range, the Saxo. The Saxo was designed to be a small affordable car for teenagers and mums - however, quite unexpectantly, the fast and furious cruise crowd who modify cars really liked the cars adaptable engine and so it became, especially the VTR model - very popular.

    So much so, the new replacement for the Saxo, the Citroen C2 GT has been designed so that enthusiasts can modify the car (and keep the warranty). there has even been talk of owners being able to share ECU maps and so on to have different performance characteristics. It is not a WRX fast car - but has been designed for the high-risk-insurance youngsters who want to modify their vehicle. It looks like some big consumer goods companies are beginning to look this way and let the end user tinker with the original format to make something unique and match the end users requirements.

    rapiddescent (who owns a modified WRX turbo)