
The Glider: An Appropriate Hacker Emblem (2014) - prajjwal
http://www.catb.org/~esr/hacker-emblem/
======
fishnchips
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.

~~~
c3RlcGhlbnI_
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.

~~~
Retra
The Game of Life was first implemented on Go boards.

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sramsay
The page says May 2014, but this is quite old. ESR proposed it in 2003 and it
. . . failed to catch on.

~~~
lambda
It definitely caught on in some circles; I've seen a number of other blogs
that contain a badge with this emblem. Hasn't by any means become universal
among hackers, but isn't a complete flop either.

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sanqui
I love the glider as a hacker emblem. Here's a tiny version with Unicode
Braille: ⠠⠵

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Rhapso
This, along with a life-long fascination with cellular automata, inspired me
to get a tattoo of the glider sequence a few years ago. It is a tattoo that is
occasionally difficult to explain to innocent bystanders but it constantly
reminds me of what motivates and inspires me.

~~~
Sophistifunk
Yup, I have one too. It's timeless, does not resemble any sort of contemporary
physical artifact of technology, like a bar code or a circuit board, and to
anybody who doesn't recognise it, it's just a small decorative piece.

------
gonzo
"I believe, but cannot prove, that global “AIDS” is a whole cluster of
unrelated diseases all of which have been swept under a single rug for
essentially political reasons, and that the identification of HIV as the sole
pathogen is likely to go down as one of the most colossal blunders in the
history of medicine." \-- Eric S. Raymond.

~~~
DonHopkins
"In the U.S., blacks are 12% of the population but commit 50% of violent
crimes; can anyone honestly think this is unconnected to the fact that they
average 15 points of IQ lower than the general population? That stupid people
are more violent is a fact independent of skin color." -Eric S. Raymond
[http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=129](http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=129)

~~~
DanBC
Homosexuals are child abusers
[http://armedndangerous.blogspot.co.uk/2002_06_16_armedndange...](http://armedndangerous.blogspot.co.uk/2002_06_16_armedndangerous_archive.html?m=1#77834003)

~~~
DonHopkins
"Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow." -Eric S Raymond

"My favorite part of the "many eyes" argument is how few bugs were found by
the two eyes of Eric (the originator of the statement). All the many eyes are
apparently attached to a lot of hands that type lots of words about many eyes,
and never actually audit code." -Theo De Raadt

The little experience Raymond DOES have auditing code has been a total fiasco
and embarrassing failure, since his understanding of the code was incompetent
and deeply tainted by his preconceived political ideology and conspiracy
theories about global warming, which was his only motivation for auditing the
code in the first place. His sole quest was to discredit the scientists who
warned about global warming. The code he found and highlighted was actually
COMMENTED OUT, and he never addressed the fact that the scientists were
vindicated.

[http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond)

>During the Climategate fiasco, Raymond's ability to read other peoples'
source code (or at least his honesty about it) was called into question when
he was caught quote-mining analysis software written by the CRU researchers,
presenting a commented-out section of source code used for analyzing
counterfactuals as evidence of deliberate data manipulation. When confronted
with the fact that scientists as a general rule are scrupulously honest,
Raymond claimed it was a case of an "error cascade," a concept that makes
sense in computer science and other places where all data goes through a
single potential failure point, but in areas where outside data and multiple
lines of evidence are used for verification, doesn't entirely make sense. (He
was curiously silent when all the researchers involved were exonerated of
scientific misconduct.)

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ajarmst
We're nonconformists! You can tell by our uniform!

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praptak
I cringe at the idea of using it myself. I believe the title of hacker shall
be earned from peers ("Cool hack!") not self-assigned.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
"When you put the glider emblem on your web page, or wear it on clothing, or
display it in some other way, you are visibly associating yourself with the
hacker culture. This is not quite the same thing as claiming to be a hacker
yourself — that is a title of honor that generally has to be conferred by
others rather than self-assumed. But by using this emblem, you express
sympathy with hackers' goals, hackers' values, and the hacker way of living."

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wslh
Don't forget to read the "The idea of using Life patterns as an emblem was
semi-anticipated by some hackers in Argentina" part. I would say it was
anticipated... it uses a still life instead of a moving pattern.

[1]
[http://swain.webframe.org/tshirts/conway_life_zoom.jpg](http://swain.webframe.org/tshirts/conway_life_zoom.jpg)

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ChuckMcM
I hadn't realized esr was suggesting the glider as a sort of hieroglyph of
hackerness. I think it, like the Kline bottle shape, evokes a certain kind of
resonance in folks who enjoy algorithms and mathematics.

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agumonkey
These linked ones are quite pleasing
[http://swain.webframe.org/tshirts/conway_life_zoom.jpg/](http://swain.webframe.org/tshirts/conway_life_zoom.jpg/)

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gonzo
I'll take Alan Turning over the Glider, anytime.

[http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1046#comment-236592](http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1046#comment-236592)

~~~
dllthomas
At the intersection of both the objects mentioned in your post, I still find
it amazing that one can build a UTM in Conway's Game Of Life.

~~~
DonHopkins
Life is overrated. Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science" goes a lot further and is
much more amazing than that, with much simpler rules than life.

~~~
dllthomas
Life is particularly interesting because it's something I've been toying with
(off and on, not in any particular depth) for all my life. It's certainly not
pushing the limits of simplicity.

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robotkilla
I've long felt that some variation of the anarchy symbol would be more
appropriate for a hacker symbol being that hacking represents total freedom
(in my mind).

~~~
acjohnson55
Not all hackers are anarchists, though.

~~~
jsilence
If you consider that the basic meaning of Anarchism is "no hierarchies!" and
compare that in a not-too-strict sense to core principles of the hacker and
maker community, it becomes clear that a hacker culture and anarcism are not
too far apart.

High emphasis on collaboration, egalitarian mindset and a "respect stems from
knowledge" attitude come to my mind.

But still most of the hackers I know don't want to be associated to anarchy,
even though they act like anarchists. I think the reason is that their acting
like anarchists simply is appropropiate for what they are trying to achieve
and not a political act or message by itself.

~~~
jacknews
Absolutely. Anarchism in the popular imagination means wearing funny headgear
and throwing bombs, but the real meaning is as you say, "anti hierarchy", or
perhaps more accurately, "anti hierarchy-that-can't-justify-itself", since I
guess some forms of hierarchy are necessary and mutually beneficial"

Anyway, in the spirit of totally ignoring Raymond's pedantic and arbitrary
missives, we (a hackerspace, somewhere) have produced our own variation, which
is still part of the "game of life" glider sequence, but looks much better,
looks sort of like an 'h' for hacker, or someone sitting typing, or a group of
people (of different shades!) listening to a presenter, etc, etc, etc:
[http://i.imgur.com/ba7o9i0.png](http://i.imgur.com/ba7o9i0.png)

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ForHackernews
Isn't this document much older than 2014?

Edit: Here's an archived copy from 2003:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20031202225527/http://www.catb.o...](https://web.archive.org/web/20031202225527/http://www.catb.org/~esr/hacker-
emblem/)

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Schiphol
A still life would be even better. The emblem would be doing what it is
supposed to be doing: stay put.

~~~
skj
That is very difficult to google for.

~~~
sp332
There's a whole wiki that just documents shapes, ideas, and software for
Conway's Game of Life.
[http://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/Still_life](http://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/Still_life)
[http://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/List_of_common_still_lifes](http://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/List_of_common_still_lifes)

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drew-y
I like the idea, not really into the emblem.

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cognitive-waste
Might have caught on if it were hackable in plaintext. The graphic is
abhorrent.

