For your amusement: PBS fans who don't understand the word "hacker" | Hacker News Reader

For your amusement: PBS fans who don't understand the word "hacker"

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20 pointsburtherman19 comments

    the most common meaning of the word, the one 
    that 99% of all people who read it are going to 
    think is computer criminals. Perhaps PBS 
    should consider the power and pervasiveness of 
    the common tongue before writing articles.

Sadly, I agree. Outside certain subcultures--the ones that dominate HN, for instance--hacker means cracker. You really can't blame the average PBS watcher or Facebook user for not knowing this.

> "You really can't blame the average PBS watcher or Facebook user for not knowing this."

No -- but you can blame them for:

1) failing to read the article, which is about development rather than breaking into things

2) insisting that their definition is correct even after it's been pointed out that PBS wasn't using the word that way

3) getting defensive/upset that other people would dare correct their ignorance

Totally with you on this, sadly. I bet if I told some non-techie type that I read/posted on a site called "Hacker News," I'd get seen as some sort of nerdy deviant.

If you ever need to win over a non-techie, just remind them that macgyver was a hacker. And then get them free cable.

Doesn't work with people younger than twenty. I've tried.

Just replace MacGyver with MacGruber. Problem solved.

I get this once in a while if I have it up on my screen while somebody walks into my office.

"OMG hacker news? So do you like...break into banks and stuff?"

sigh.

"If 95% of the country assigns a meaning to a slang term, well, isn't that what defines it?" As much as I want to disagree, what's wrong with this viewpoint? Could it be that it's time to give up on sending letters RMS-style to journalists who use the term "incorrectly?" The technology community is creative; why not just let it go and come up with a new word? Not really being a hacker myself, I don't feel qualified to have a serious opinion, but I'm interested in yours.

(I do recognize the silliness inherent in asking this question on _Hacker_ News)

Having both meanings is fine. In fact, it can serve as a useful shibboleth.

"If 95% of the country assigns a meaning to a slang term, well, isn't that what defines it?" As much as I want to disagree, what's wrong with this viewpoint?

Depends on who you are, I guess. Not to conflate or compare the examples in any way, but consider: the ratio of blacks to whites in the US is close enough to the quoted comment's sphincterrific, if probably low, 95%. (It's actually 75:12, per Wikipedia; ~6:1 isn't quite 20:1, but it's still a pretty vast majority.) I can think of a word or three in that neighborhood where the majority's preferred meaning is, while perhaps not wrong, at least in the sense you use the term, not exactly what I'd call right, either.

In the immortal words of Michael Bolton: "Why should I change, he's the one that sucks."

Hacking has always had elements of criminality. For example, the 1984 book Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution included people who hacked into university systems and used blue-boxes.

It's kind of like car hot-rodding. There are always people who drive hot-rodded cars on public roads illegally, and that colors public perception of the term.

I really don't think it matters as much as people seem to think it does.

Haha, as I was reading this my dad came in and read the first sentence of your post. "Hacking has always had elements of criminality." He pointed to the word criminality and I asked, "What?" His response was that it meant that you were a freaking criminal if you hack.

That's not at all what that sentence means... did you at least explain that to him?

In other news, large Facebook page commenters are the new YouTube commenters.

I did an AOL News article analyzing pages and pages of Sarah Palin comments for trends a month or so ago and it was one of the more mind-numbing things I've done in my life. (Most interesting trend: Commenters were across-the-board Palin supporters who only got mad when Palin didn't support one of their candidates.)

My finding is that comments on large Facebook pages tend to devolve into large, cordial (because names are attached) flamewars.

I'm still trying to figure out how "hackers are like political dissenters" .... =)

Amusing read nonetheless. Reminds me why I'm very thankful for the friends I have with similar interests/lingo. Not that I introduce myself as a hacker, but the word comes up in conversation—any non-programmer immediately thinks I'm talking about some crazy Neo wannabe.

It's interesting how different vocabularies can really set people apart.

I was describing my degree to a non-techie who replied 'so your basically a hacker'? I said 'well yeah that's what I'm in to' before realising what was going through his head. D'oh.

I think you could safely substitute "Your average American" for "PBS fans" and have it stay just as true. 20+ years of Kevin Mitnick and WarGames haven't done term any favors.

I am now going to compose several paragraphs that I will copy and paste onto any forum/board/chat-area that has mistaken the definition of 'hacker' with this as a basis which people that frequent the /g/ board of 4chan might be familiar with:

I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.

Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called "Linux", and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.

There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called "Linux" distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.

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