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Comment by fishnchips | Hacker News Reader

I'm not convinced that the glider represents the 'hacker community' as a whole - I know a good few folks (not only 'web developers') who have no idea about Game of Life. Damn, I know at least one good coder who never heard of IRC. So much for shared experience.

In all fairness I don't think a 'hacker community' as such exists any more - if there ever was one.

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The article is by ESR and in his mind "hacker community" is a very specific group. A group who happened to have their heyday when the game of life had just been published and Conway was still offering a prize for an infinitely expanding pattern. This makes it really more of a coincidental thing rather than a representation of any inherent trait of the community.

Though even for that community(and people now who really like the game of life) I don't think it is a great logo. Circles are not a very pretty or pleasant way of representing the game of life and it makes me think of a board game when I look at it.

The Game of Life was first implemented on Go boards.

And the glider continues off into infinity, unconcerned, unchanged by its lack of neighbors.

Until...

I'm totally unconvinced that Eric "The Flute" Raymond represents or speaks for the 'hacker community'.

For one thing, very few people I know of in the hacker community are as racist as ESR. He's out there with Terry Davis when it comes to being racist and mentally ill, but he can't hold a candle to Terry Davis's hacking ability.

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