Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to Become a Hacker

zalberico.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 132 posts

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#41

Post by nomoreusernames »

zitterbewegung wrote: post #37
cutler wrote: post #26

Sometime last year I was taking a short bus ride home from a local supermarket in Leytonstone (London) when a passenger boarded with a slightly louder American voice. I thought he looked familiar then it hit me - Richard Stallman. I didn't have much time to decide what to do as he was about to get off at the next stop so I left the bus at the same stop and caught up with him. After an introduction and short conversat…

Does this make me a hacker? Donald Knuth was giving a presentation to celebrate someones birthday by debugging his old FORTRAN code. He was having trouble giving it since his PDF of his presentation was autoforwarding using Adobe Acrobat. I figured out that Preview would avoid this outcome. I think this is the largest contribution I will have to Computer Science.

yes.

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#42

Post by sillysaurusx »

ProAm wrote: post #24

Being a programmer is not being a hacker. This article is about how to become a decent programmer .

I think any decent programmer is also a decent hacker. Because it's hard to imagine someone being a decent programmer if they can't get the computer to do what they want. Which is the classic definition of a hack: to force the computer to do what you want, whether the computer wants to or not.

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#44

Post by elwell »

m1117 wrote: post #27

This is confusing. "Hacker" is a person who uses computers to gain unauthorized access to data. "Software Engineer" is the right approach. "Hacker Spirit" lol

If you believe that, what are you doing on "Hacker News"?

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#45

Post by sacks2k »

cutler wrote: post #26

Sometime last year I was taking a short bus ride home from a local supermarket in Leytonstone (London) when a passenger boarded with a slightly louder American voice. I thought he looked familiar then it hit me - Richard Stallman. I didn't have much time to decide what to do as he was about to get off at the next stop so I left the bus at the same stop and caught up with him. After an introduction and short conversat…

"Sometime last year I was taking a short bus ride home from a local supermarket in Leytonstone (London) when a passenger boarded with a slightly louder American voice"

The stench didn't give him away?

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#46

Post by cutler »

zitterbewegung wrote: post #37
cutler wrote: post #26

Sometime last year I was taking a short bus ride home from a local supermarket in Leytonstone (London) when a passenger boarded with a slightly louder American voice. I thought he looked familiar then it hit me - Richard Stallman. I didn't have much time to decide what to do as he was about to get off at the next stop so I left the bus at the same stop and caught up with him. After an introduction and short conversat…

Does this make me a hacker? Donald Knuth was giving a presentation to celebrate someones birthday by debugging his old FORTRAN code. He was having trouble giving it since his PDF of his presentation was autoforwarding using Adobe Acrobat. I figured out that Preview would avoid this outcome. I think this is the largest contribution I will have to Computer Science.

Absolutely.

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#48

Post by UweSchmidt »

A hacker might be the modern independent scholar. You can follow your tech curiosity, self-study and work on your own little projects and be intellectually and creatively rewarded.

Start anywhere, any programming tutorial, or any arduino project recipe. Get immersed and always figure out how the stuff really works. You are most likely smart enough to do it.

If employment is an issue, well, what you learned from the above should take you at least halfway to a job and probably make your career better.

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#49

Post by booleandilemma »

cutler wrote: post #26

Sometime last year I was taking a short bus ride home from a local supermarket in Leytonstone (London) when a passenger boarded with a slightly louder American voice. I thought he looked familiar then it hit me - Richard Stallman. I didn't have much time to decide what to do as he was about to get off at the next stop so I left the bus at the same stop and caught up with him. After an introduction and short conversat…

I love how, this being Richard Stallman, I actually believed the sword thing.

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#50

Post by elwell »

mettamage wrote: post #13
hummel wrote: post #2

If you need to ask How to Become a Hacker, you are not going to be one. It all depends on your personal curiosity, either you have it or you don't. PS: Found 0day on Paypal when I was 12 in the early '00s, never got paid or recognized for it :(

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I normally don't call people out on this as we are human and we need wiggle room for conversation and the formulation of opinions. Plus, everyone is guilty of this, me included. In fact, the previous statement is me doing it as well. We are human after all. But I do tend to call people out on this when people stifle curiosity with these type of claims. Knowing myse…

> Some people claim God exists. And I therefore should live quite differently than I am right now. I require extraordinary evidence.

Just curious, theoretically speaking, what are some evidences that would be 'extraordinary enough' for you to believe? For sake of argument, let's assume we're talking about the Judeo-Christian god as described in the standard Bible.

Post reply on HN