
Where are all the alpha geeks and what are they doing? - ghurlman
http://benjaminste.in/post/1223476561/hey-guys-whatcha-doing
======
chime
Being a geek / hacker at heart is not about using the latest whizbang gadget.
It is also not about using the newest medium of communication or hanging out
in the places tech journalists write about in exquisite detail. It is about
mastering one field and using the experience gained from it to jumpstart into
the next one. The problem is that it is often impossible to tell what will be
the new thing of today that we will fondly look back on tomorrow.

Some may say today it is Twitter streams or Facebook walls or they may say it
is the startup culture like we have here on HN but nobody knows. It could be
something as benign as upvoting only thoughtful comments here on HN instead of
funny ones like on reddit/fark/digg that could bring about a long-lasting
effect on the future of open discussion on the Internet. We could be the guys
that beat Eternal September while sharing our code and ideas with others. We
don't have to phreak or use IRC to be considered true geeks. We could use the
same tools as our moms (I'm using an iPad right now, I got one for my mom too)
and still be doing very different things. She plays Farmville while I'm trying
to create apps that help the disabled.

The fact that our tools have matured to the level of flexibility and stability
that both hackers and their moms can use them is something to be proud of, no
despair. After all, I use the same faucets as my mom and the same washing
machines. 60 years ago the geeks made their own electronic devices. Oh and we
still do that too. Check out the Arduino forums.

~~~
adrianwaj
So Alpha geeks are failing fast and failing cheap (or failing expensive on
somebody else's dime) whilst making stepping stones across the pond for others
to follow (or see)?

~~~
pendragon
I don't think the Alpha geeks are failing. I do think that computer literacy
has increased as younger generations have grown up with technology and also,
because a lot of smart alpha geeks have improved the usability of the
technology (two forces meeting so to speak).

It is a little bit like the motorists of old - they were first really weird,
then being good was largely regarded as being ultra cool as others battled
with the new cars, then they were sponsored in races and now they still exist.
They exist as kitset car builders, engineers, racers, and oh dear... boy
racers. The alpha geeks may not use the latest technology (some Linux users
manage to keep their machines going with their skills) but hasn't it always
been the skills and knowledge of the geek? If that's the case, I think we are
doing very well. The improvement in usability of the internet and easy
availability of knowledge means the barrier to entry is lower which means more
geeks. On the other side of the spectrum it also means more non-geeks know how
to fix their computers etc. Rather like cars. However, being able to replace a
battery doesn't make you a car enthusiast, nor does being a savvy Facebook
user mean you could build it.

------
zach
We are all geeks now.

This is sort of like the disappearance of the "jet set" as air travel became a
commodity. People no longer dressed up to go on a flight, jobs involving
flying all over were no longer so glamorous, and socializing on a plane or in
an airport wasn't as fascinating.

But the huge benefit is what happens when so many have access to the power
only a few had before.

So now that "everyone" is a geek, being a geek is not that distinctive
anymore. But as the technology is a lot closer to people's lives, the impact
of the alpha geek has become much larger.

~~~
jacquesm
If internet access is enough to declare yourself a 'geek' then we're not there
yet, only ~29% of the world now has internet access:

<http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm>

If just having a cell phone counts then we're there at least for the majority
of the population, apparently we now have 5 billion cell phone subscriptions.

<http://cellphones.org/blog/interesting-stats-on-cell-phones/>

~~~
tomjen3
Thats pretty useless - you have to remove the couple of billions of people
from the pool who are too poor to feed themself, stuck in refugee camps or
otherwise unable to live their life. It sounds heartless, but they don't
really matter in any sense since they have to live life by the rules others
make.

------
Kliment
The alpha geeks are into transforming old-world technologies into geek-
friendly forms. The field I'm personally familiar with is desktop
manufacturing. Robotics used to be expensive and arcane. Machinists used to be
either old graybeards or undereducated trade school graduates. Custom plastic
parts were something you got made in China at great delay and expense. Now,
there is a new wave of machinists who read Make and have 3d printers and buy
lathes for their garage. There's people with a software background putting
robots together out of hardware store parts and arduinos. The whole field is
transforming from high-capital professional only to geek and hobby friendly.
So I think that geekdom has moved out of computing and software to some
degree, into the rest of the world because frankly, computing for the sake of
computing is a solved problem, a boring field, now.

~~~
jcromartie
Exactly.

> the rest of the world

This is what fascinates me. I want to know how to get my programs to reach out
into the world and do something "real." That's been the most interesting thing
to me for a while.

~~~
Kliment
Grab an Arduino. Make it blink things. Then make it move things. Then make it
move itself. Then make it interact with the things around it. Then your
creativity's the limit.

------
muhfuhkuh
How can one say "where are the alpha geeks" and then say "please don't mention
Linux on the desktop" in the same damn posting? Unix is where they all headed.
That OS X has a GUI that you can _completely_ ignore while you're in the
perfectly usable terminal with bash is a sexy proposition. Then again, there's
always Fedora with GNOME.

The geeks that I knew first started with .mod files. Remember those? Those
were terrible-sounding representations of music. The beat tracks were mixed
with "instrument packs" that approximately recreated the melodies of songs.
They were passed around usenet and on places like Undernet IRC. Then we all
moved to .mp3 and the Napster beta. Then AudioGalaxy. Then eDonkey. Then
gnutella, then bittorrent. All the while, alot of the geeks stuck with usenet.

While "everyone else" played Playstation, we were making quake mods and "total
conversions". While the rest were chatting on AOL, we were IMing with ICQ.
When the public zigged with Windows, we zagged with Linux. Now, there seems to
be a strange convergence toward OS X. Maybe _that's_ what Benjamin is talking
about? The convergence?

Here's what happened. Geek culture merged into mainstream culture. The geeks
that used to be shut-ins and social outcasts are suddenly normal in the
suburbs. Put them in some big scary city with a questionable populace that has
a perhaps less-than-honorable stance on high intellect and literacy and
they'll be the same outcasts they were before the Social Network was #1 at the
box office. But for now, geeks are the EF Hutton of modern culture: They talk,
the masses listen. And retweet. And Wall. And submit to reddit/HN/etc. And,
when an alpha geek suddenly gets attention, I believe they stop being a geek.

Maybe the bible had it wrong: it's the _g_eek that shall inherit the earth.
Perhaps we're at the tail end of the "hey, let's all be/act stupid as hell
like we're rich heiresses or supreme-court appointed drunken presidents, derp"
phase. We're now entering our "meritocracy or bust", Libertarian-ish hyper-
intellectual Vulcan mind meld phase. The geeks stopped living in the basement
and started living in the now. They know the future of business, hell
_America's_ future, is in technology. The geeks he's talking about are now
Mark Zuckerberg, are Paul Graham, are Elon Musk and Steve Chen and Notch.
They're building. They're launching. And, they're monetizing. It's a great
time to be a geek. So much open source software and open APIs to hook into. So
many frameworks and languages to evangelize and adopt and exploit and forget.
The world is gigantic breadboard from Radio Shack, and we're all Captain
Crunches looking for the right frequency for our Blue Box.

Perhaps the alpha geek is post-"user". Now, they're (we're?) trying to be
Creators.

~~~
frou_dh
I read the Linux disclaimer to mean that he doesn't want to hear

"Now + 1 will be the Year Of The Linux Desktop for the mainstream".

~~~
NickPollard
We've moved on anyway, this is the year of Linux on the Smartphone.

------
iamelgringo
The OP is asking what the alpha geeks are doing?

Hardware:

<http://thecrucible.org/kinetics-electronics>
<http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/004214.php> <http://www.arduino.cc/>
[http://shopping.netsuite.com/s.nl?c=ACCT88394&sc=2&c...](http://shopping.netsuite.com/s.nl?c=ACCT88394&sc=2&category=1&search=el%20wire)

Software:

Clojure, Haskell, Scala, Any of the NoSQL's, Startups of any variety

Go to the Maker's Faire. You'll see a swarm of R2D2 robots, people making
scale miniature battleships that shoot 1/4" ball bearings at each other, robot
battles, physical pong games that play like the original video game, etc...

I strongly disagree with the premise that alpha geeks are doing anything other
than what alpha geeks have always done. We're trying to build stuff that makes
our friends say, "That's awesome!".

~~~
nickpinkston
Yea, I see the Maker movement as in the alpha geek phase, but it's certainly
becoming mainstream. Now MS, Intel, TI, etc. are all embracing it with their
own products. I guess we'll see where it goes.

------
petercooper
_But then something strange happened. Lots of people switched to Apple
laptops. But the nerds didn’t move on. My nerdiest programmer friends use the
same computer as my wife._

No? He circulates in a different universe to mine where it feels more like a
50/40/10 Mac/Lin/Win mix among the "nerdy programmer" group.

~~~
Groxx
Pretty similar here, and rapidly edging closer to your ratios. My parents are
Win, but my sister and her husband are Linux, my brother, my wife, and almost
all of my geekier friends are Mac, and nearly every other geeky person I
encounter with Windows is planning for their imminent escape.

------
andre3k1
It's important to note that during each "nerd phase" that the author cites
there were also other technologies being developed that simply never exploded.
That doesn't mean that nerds weren't toying with them.

That same concept applies today. There are tons and tons of startups out there
with plenty of alpha geeks playing with each. Some will inevitably take off
while others won't. Regardless, the alpha geeks will not serve as an indicator
of what will go mainstream as the alpha geeks will play with everything.

 _> In those days, it was really easy to see where consumer technology was
going. You could just look at the nerds and know that’s what you’d probably
look like in 2-5 years._

I heavily disagree with that statement. No one knew that the internet (or any
other example the author cites) was going to be THAT big. Let's look to more
modern times... No one in 2007 was watching the "nerds" play on Twitter and
thinking to themselves: "that's what I'm going to be doing 2-5 years from
now."

Ultimately, this post is indirectly asking what's going to be the next big
thing. That's a question that only time - and not the nerds or alpha geeks -
can answer.

~~~
5teev
I know geeks who use IRC and Usenet way more than the average person. So I'll
probably be re-explaining this stuff to my brother-in-law all over again in a
couple of years.

------
AngryParsley
We've hit a bit of a plateau when it comes to gadgets. We have laptops, which
fit in a backpack and are more than fast enough for most purposes. We have
smartphones, which fit in a pocket and are a decent tradeoff of portability vs
speed/features. And we have desktops, which can have more storage than
laptops, but for most stuff they're not much faster.

Now which one of those three things can you build yourself?

That's why nerds/hackers are using the same things as everyone else. They
simply don't have the resources to build or customize tightly-integrated
devices like laptops and phones. So they buy what works best for them. Lately,
a lot of the time macs work best for them.

I'm probably being overconfident, but I think there's a new frontier for nerds
and hackers. Advances in microdisplays and embedded computing have made
wearable computers a somewhat practical idea. And individuals can build them.
And the costs are decreasing. A few people have already hacked their own
together from video goggles (like the Myvu Crystal) and single-board computers
like the BeagleBoard. The biggest problems with wearables are fashion and
software. The fashion issues will probably be resolved as technology gets
better and people become more used to them. Software for wearables has to be
really really responsive, since the idea is to completely integrate the
computer with your life. Smartphone software has a similar constraint, but not
to the same degree.

I think as wearable UIs and software improve, people will see the advantages
of them. It would be incredibly useful to have a local cache of Wikipedia,
e-mail, personal notes, and other data sources and software. You could become
the smartest person in the room, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Lifelogging (don't you wish you had video of the first time you met your
significant other or best friend?), augmented reality, etcetera etcetera.

------
sliverstorm
Why is it logical to presume all the geeks would/should switch to OSX/Apple?

1) it doesn't fit with classic geek- you pay a lot of extra money for shiny
hardware. Classically, a geek did it on the cheap and 'hacked' something
together.

2) I consider myself pretty geeky, and yet I run Windows exclusively now. (and
my servers run Linux, and I agree with OSX for media computing) Why is this?
Well, to start all the tools I care about run on Windows. CAD programs, Matlab
(USED to work on OSX. Key word USED), development tools, and to some extent
games.

~~~
sliverstorm
I should mention I'm into hardware more than software. Unlike software dev,
with hardware dev tools, Windows is the common denominator (and often the only
supported platform period)

~~~
seltzered
Yeah, I'll agree to that. For HW Dev, It's still easier to talk myself into
buying a laptop with a docking station and a bunch of different ports than to
buy a beautiful, clean, yet limited mac.

Thank god Virtual Machines feel fast enough and do usb i/o these days, I'd go
nuts if I still had to dual-boot Windows and Linux.

------
bpodgursky
"So my question is, why haven’t the nerds moved on?" + "Please don’t mention
Linux on the desktop. Seriously." ?

Let me paraphrase the post: "I have a random thought that is edgy but not well
thought enough for me to permit reasonable counterexamples."

------
olefoo
The people that I think of as 'alpha-geeks', that is the ones for whom
technology is their creative outlet have moved from doing things with the
internet to doing things with the physical world. Whether building 2-d tables
for homebrew lasercutters, enthusiastically joining the cult of arduino, or
more mundane things like building houses they want to live in or learning to
fly, the common theme seems to be getting physical. That's just my take.

------
pkaler
My "nerd" friends (I hate that term) are fiddling around with robots and
hardware. Stuff like Arduino and mbed. I'm trying to spec out a DYI book
scanner robot that can automatically scan all of my old books.

But frankly, I don't think that's very nerdy. My blue collar friends that
welders and electricians build stuff like that all of the time.

------
ecaradec
You are looking for something computer related, because it's the last change.
The world is probably not going to evolve twice in the same way. That would be
ungeek ;). Alpha geeks seems to be in space rocketship and biology today. May
be this is where we will see the big changes in the future ?

~~~
Figs
My bet is on 3D printing, personally. Can you imagine how the world will
change when _that_ hits the mainstream?

------
Tyrannosaurs
I think the issue is that things move faster these days which means the gap
(in terms of time) between early adopters and mass market has shrunk.

Part of this is because of the internet, but it's also down to the fact that
the changes are largely software rather than hardware and can be adopted
faster and cheaper.

This means that where in the past alpha geeks would have adopted a behaviour
and had it as their own for several years before the man or woman on the
street, that period is now several months and the gap between something being
identifiable as a geek trend and going mass market is so small that it's
effectively disappeared.

This isn't true for everything but I think it accounts for why there are less
solid non-mass market geek trends than there might have been.

------
robryan
Sure the mac is pretty mainstream but I'm sure the hacker is using it
completely differently to the mainstream he talks about.

------
frou_dh
Perhaps the nerds will in fact take root and be the only ones still running a
full "desktop" OS in the coming future.

I like iOS but I do not want my primary computer to go that simplified route.

~~~
chime
Your main computer will not run iOS till you can build iOS from within iOS.
When that is possible, iOS can be considered a full desktop. Till then, you
will need an OS that can build iOS.

~~~
adw
Most people's main computer won't be a computer, it'll be a games console and
a Tivo-niche filler (maybe the same thing, it's Sony vs Microsoft vs Apple vs
the cable and satellite companies, and a pox on all their houses) paired with
a smartphone.

Why do most people need a computer? I can't remember the last time I _had_ to
send a personal letter - all my bills are electronic and if someone really
needs my signature they send a form. And my entire extended family does email.

~~~
stcredzero
_Most people's main computer won't be a computer, it'll be a games console and
a Tivo-niche filler_

How long before that's just running on the TV, with the TV acting as a thin
client?

For what most people do, why doesn't a HD TV, a smartphone, and a bluetooth
keyboard suffice hardware-wise? Just put the PC in the TV and make it capable
of nice 3D graphics.

~~~
gaius
The idea of computer-as-integration-point is really a Western one. In Japan
you have your smartphone, your console, your camera, etc, and they all overlap
more than Western counterparts on what would otherwise be done by a PC.

That's why Sony make great hardware but lousy PC software. Their core market
in Japan doesn't need to plug their phones into their PCs to manage their
music, they do it all on the device...

~~~
stcredzero
_In Japan you have your smartphone, your console, your camera, etc, and they
all overlap more than Western counterparts on what would otherwise be done by
a PC._

So, for reasons of user-habit, there's no single point of integration in
Japan? I'd like to be able to use my smartphone to tell my TV-attached device
to record show X or download its bittorrent, and have it all just work.

~~~
gaius
Just that the assumptions are different. Actually, the West is becoming more
and more like Japan in this regard. In the past people started with a computer
and built out from there. Now I know people with a smartphone and a games
console and a Sky+ box and no actual "computer".

------
charlesju
To examine this I think we need to think about the stereotypes in modern terms
and apply them to future trends.

Here are my top 3:

1\. Startups - Nerds these days are worshipped more-so for their mainstream
accomplishments than their underworrld ones. It's cool and sexy to own your
own startup in the nerd world and it's still for the elite. The best data
point for this is the movie The Social Network. All around the world people
are envious of Mark, who is portrayed as the ultimate alpha geek. Moving
forward, startups are going to be further romanticized and every fanboy is
going to want to try their own (more-so than the common trend already).

2\. Anime. It seems to me that a lot of Alpha Geeks like Anime and Manga. Over
the summer Naruto was the #1 show on Hulu. This trend will definitely continue
to grow. As a general trend, I'd bet on more mainstream adoption of Asian
culture as a whole.

3\. Social Shopping. Sites like thinkgeek.com, woot.com, sparkfun.com are
filled with Alpha Geeks tweaking with the latest gadget (Arudino, which is
still primarily an Alpha Geek toy). This will slowly adapt to other more
mainstream consumer companies as consumers start coming online.

------
defdac
How does old money separates it from new money? I can't think of anything less
nerdy/geeky than an Iphone or Iwhatever - everyone have them now. New money.

Being a consumer of new tech things and download fart apps does not make you a
nerd.

Building a computer within MineCraft or doing something inherently difficult
which seems like a waste of time to normal new-shiny-money-iPhone-people-
without-creative-thinking. That's nerdy.

------
Tichy
3D Printing, for example? Hm, I need to get my hands on one of those
MakerBots...

------
Eliezer
Transhumanism.

~~~
Eliezer
Also, nootropics / smart drugs / neurohacking.

~~~
gaius
For that 90s retro vibe.

~~~
Eliezer
That is, in fact, what the alpha nerds I know are doing that other people are
not doing.

~~~
rms
Hell yeah.

------
lwhi
Largely, this is what I think has happened; the interests of big business and
corporations have aligned with the interests of nerds and geeks.

Geeks like cool technology because it's interesting .. whereas the other
interested (commercial) parties like cool technology because it's enables them
to increase their reach, power and profit.

Society has become more enamoured with technology because a shift was
necessary for commercial enterprise to flourish. In my opinion, the fact that
our families all use the technologies we were championing 15 years ago, is a
result of commercial might.

Therefore, my bet is that the majority of 'alpha geeks' are all working
happily for 'the man'. At the end of the day, most people who have a love for
learning and technology just want interesting projects to work on - if they
can be handsomely rewarded for doing just that, the majority probably wont say
no.

------
nadam
How do you define the alpha geek identity? Is it the guy who writes down a
beautiful piece of algorithm in notepad or on a piece of paper, or is it the
guy who knows everything about the latest cool things, but maybe never
programmed? Is it a 'long-beard' or a tech journalist? Is it Donald Knuth or
Michael Arrington?

As far as I am concerned I was always a geek in the first meaning of the word.
When I was young we were competing with my friends to write the fastest
polygon filler routine in ASM. I was never really a geek in the second
meaning. I was mostly late with the newest gadgets, I don't use yet Facebook
and I am not yet on Twitter. I did not care too much about what OS I use in
case it was not really important.

------
Brashman
He notes at the end to ignore maker culture but why not consider that as
possible to reach the masses? With things like the Arduino and 3D printers
making hacking easier and easier, maybe non-nerds will start (return to)
building things.

~~~
pendragon
One thing to consider is that the usability and maturing of the mainstream
tech has helped it's easy adoption by people who otherwise wouldn't be
bothered. I'd say the same thing will happen with 3d printers. Possibly we
will see an easy abstraction over the top of things like the arduino - roomba
type gadgets which are customizable?

------
dasil003
The biggest change is the improvement of devices, platforms, development tools
and distribution. The bar for playing with new tech has lowered significantly,
in effect shifting the line of "alpha geek" further and further into developer
territory. It used to take a pretty determined geek mindset just to get things
like mp3s working, whereas now it doesn't take much at all to bring some new
idea to the consumer market in a reasonably usable form. In other words tech
is no longer geeky in general.

------
dLuna
I'm a geek and I've always belonged to the late majority when it comes to new
technology. Within my area of expertise (programming) I'm at the frontier, but
outside of that area I see technology as something that should be useful.

Bought my first smart phone (an Android) two months ago, but have been using
Linux as my sole OS for five years now.

And if I look at my nerd friends it seems to be the same thing. The nerds have
the newest and coolest in a thin niche, and outside that niche they don't
care.

------
squidsoup
The computer revolution is over. Today's alpha geeks are hacking genes and
cells, not silicon.

------
cpr
Well, we grey-beard geeks love and use Mac OS X for many reasons, but the most
important is that a very pleasant Emacs subset is hard-coded into the Cocoa
text subsystem. ;-)

