Hacker News Reader

Comment by imok20 | Hacker News Reader

Really? Let's call this "cracked," not "hacked" – we're only furthering the misunderstanding by using the incorrect term here, too.

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I think that ship has sailed, unfortunately. You might as well try to reclaim the word "gay" for happy/cheery.

How about hackers everywhere give up on reclaiming this term. It's not going to happen. That way I don't have to see this post on every single story about malicious intrusion that comes up on social news sites.

The difference is that this site is called "Hacker News."

I appreciate that whoever runs the site can call it whatever they like, but I wish they hadn't chosen 'Hacker News'. I know that it's my own prejudices at play here but it's simply embarrassing to have 'Hacker News' staring out from the top of my browser window. It's so ridiculous I can't even bring myself to say it, when I discuss links with a friend who also checks this site the conversation starts with 'did you see that article about X on the, er, the YCombinator news site?'.

Also note that it's possible for a single word to have multiple meanings depending on context, this includes even opposite meanings with opposite connotations. In the context of news.yc.com the term "hacker" generally has a different meaning than the term has elsewhere, especially in the context of unauthorized, malicious intrusion into a computer system.

Similarly a term such as "killer" may have an extremely negative connotation in the context of a grisly homicide yet the same word may have a positive connotation and a completely different meaning (dominant, superlative, desirable) in other connotations. Such is the dynamic, flexible, and adaptive nature of language (outside the realm of the pedant).

Main Entry: hack·er Pronunciation: \ˈha-kər\ Function: noun Date: 14th century

1 : one that hacks 2 : a person who is inexperienced or unskilled at a particular activity <a tennis hacker> 3 : an expert at programming and solving problems with a computer 4 : a person who illegally gains access to and sometimes tampers with information in a computer system

Three out of four possible Merriam-Webster definitions are negative.

Only the 4th one seems negative to me... 1) is neutral (since hack has atleast 1 +ve meaning), is positive and 2) is as similar to inexperienced/unskilled whose connotation is context dependent(imho)

This isn't slashdot; I don't think we make the distinction here. Crackers can still be hackers.

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