Hacker in the old meaning; someone who knows computers well, not someone who exploit this knowledge for greed.
When I bought my first computer, a VIC 20, I got so hooked that I hardly slept for several weeks. In that time I learned Basic, figured out software design and wrote my first application, a word processor. My next interesting application, ready a few years later was a multi-user BBS written in C for the QNX operating system. I know hackers from that time with skills magnitudes better than mine - and the all sound like that. If people on "Hacker News" can't tolerate hacker speak, then either they, or the hackers, don't really belong here.
Well, sometimes I don't speak like this. I can be dull and boring and polite and say all the right tings; when I'm surrounded by snowflakes and people without any original toughs.
> Learning how to be a decent person ain't harder than learning to use a computer.
Being a decent person is actually quite hard to learn, and even harder to practice. Being polite and /pretending/ to be a decent person, is something any idiot can manage.
Mine was a Commodore PET (VIC 20 precursor), while I worked with PDP-11 and CDC Cyber machines on the side .. you don't speak for a generation and you could use some manners.
One of the few things in life I really feel depressed about, is never getting the opportunity to work with one of those.
> you don't speak for a generation
I speak only for my self, and in this thread only of my own direct experiences.
My experiences from working with some really extraordinary people (hackers, editors, adventurers) is that they are often anything but nice on the surface. When you speak, you can speak to please, or you can be honest. You can be dull, or you can use rhetoric to spice up your points. Personally, I find dishonest people despicable and dull people boring ;)
