[aklug] Re: Open maker night at Anchorage Makerspace

IMO, the ship has sailed on the word "hackers". Words mean what people
think they mean and that word now means someone doing bad things with
computers. Does it really matter that that was not the original meaning?
I know an old guy who still insists on using the word "gay" to mean
happy. You don't want to be that guy.

I don't think there should be any question that you don't want to use
the word "hacker" to publicize an event. Most people hearing that
hackers are getting together would probably hope the FBI was keeping an
eye on the gathering. People would be like, "Well, they are publicizing
the event so they are probably not going to do anything too bad. Even
so, I hope the FBI is there just in case." Suppose you heard about a
convention for gay birdwatchers. And then it turned out that they
just meant they were cheerful birdwatchers, they'd always called
themselves the gay birdwatchers, and they weren't about to stop. You'd
think that was kind of dumb, wouldn't you?

Whether we should stop using the term among ourselves is less clear, IMO.

On 02/20/14 00:48, Christopher Howard wrote:
> On 02/19/2014 09:59 AM, Tim Johnson wrote:
>> * Greg Schmitz <greg@amipa.org> [140219 07:11]:
>> Blacks that I know hate that word including when one black person
>> uses it with another.
>>
>> Having said that - I will wave my "hacking" flag proudly. I've
>> even gotten used to the word "geek" even though my heart goes out
>> to those poor chickens at the carnival.
>>
>> BTW: "Hack" is a term used in a number of disciplines and
>> occupations, including radio technology. Two of my brothers are
>> radio techs and use the term proudly in there work.
> These days, if you are labeled a hacker, you will be feared by
> businessmen, and villanized by politicians, and all your non-techie
> friends (and enemies) will have grandiose, romanticized ideas about your
> awesome technological powers.
>
> So, what's the downside here?
>

-- 
===
John Heim, john@johnheim.net
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