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April 08 2011
Vatican Says Computer Hackers Are More Saint Than Sinner
I like the habit because it makes me
look like the Linux penguin.
From elite hackers, to white-hat hackers, to hacktivists, hackers don’t generally have sterling reputations as upstanding citizens—at least as far as the general public is concerned. That’s why it may come as a surprise that the Vatican has published an essay that redeems computer hackers and even compares hacker philosophy with Catholic theology.
In his article published in the Vatican-vetted Civilta Cattolica, technology expert, literary critic, and Jesuit priest Antonio Spadaro draws similarities between hackers and Catholics (via TechWorld):
Hacker mentality implies a joyful application of intelligence to problem solving, rejecting the concept of work as repetitive, burdensome and stupid, Spadaro wrote. Hacker ethics rejected a capitalistic, profit-oriented approach to work, eschewing idleness but favoring a flexible, creative approach that was respectful of the human dimension and natural rhythms, he said.
In addition, hacker philosophy fosters creativity and sharing, and is both committed yet playful. “Under fire are control, competition, property. It’s a vision that is … of a clear theological origin,” writes Spadaro. He argues (rather vaguely) that many of these characteristics are also, as odd as it ...
October 15 2010
Get Your Steampunk On: This Guy’s Building a Computer From 1837
What would you do with a spare $640,000? John Graham-Cunning would build a steam-powered computer invented in the 1830s.
And instead of waiting around for this mysterious spare money to show up, he’s started soliciting donations. The plan: Raise the money by January 2011, build the analytical engine from Charles Babbage’s original design, then donate the machine to a museum. Graham-Cunning knows this idea sounds crazy, but it won’t deter him, as he wrote in an article for the O’Reilly Radar:
It might seem a folly to want to build a gigantic, relatively puny computer at great expense 170 years after its invention. But the message of a completed Analytical Engine is very clear: it’s possible to be 100 years ahead of your own time.
If the analytical engine had been built when Babbage thought it up, it would have satisfied all the requirements for a computer, Graham-Cunning told The Telegraph:
“What you realize when you read Babbage’s papers is that this was the first real computer. It had expandable memory, a CPU, microcode, a printer, a plotter and was programmable with punch cards. It was the size of a small lorry and powered by steam but it was recognizable as a computer.”
But the designs were never built, and the world had to wait more than 100 years for the invention of mechanical computers in the 1940s. The analytic engine was designed to replace “computers”–people who wrote out mathematical tables–which would also have been the first example of a person’s job being replaced by a computer. Graham-Cumming explained the machine to The Independent:
“The big difference between it and machines which came 100 years later was that the programme was stored externally, in punch cards,” explained Mr Graham-Cumming. “It is basically a giant number-crunching machine–which is effectively what modern computers are today, it’s just that those numbers appear to us as words or images on a screen.”
And while it sounds like it shouldn’t be that hard to recreate something from the 1800s, there are plenty of confounding factors complicating this project, including the fact that a working model has never been built, says Gizmodo:
Babbage may’ve passed away in 1871, but more than a hundred years later and his computer (which would have run on punched cards containing the programs) still hasn’t ever been fully built. In 1910 his son built part of it, which was able to calculate an incorrect list of pi multiples—but it wasn’t programmable. And who needs a computer than calculates false numbers?
Oh, also, there are no firm set of plans with which to build one from, so they are going to have to go through all of Babbage’s documents to figure out a working design. The plan is to test the designs on a (modern) computer before going through the building process.
When it is fully built, the machine will be about the size of a small steam locomotive, and will be powered by steam. If the project hadn’t been scrapped, imagine how Victorian society would have changed, and how much more evolved technology would be today. We might even have had flying cars by now! Frig!
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Image: Flickr/Gastev
August 11 2010
Prosecutor to 4Chan Founder: Please Explain the Meaning of “Rickroll”
When a Tennessee man hacked Sarah Palin’s e-mail account and wrote of his exploits on the forum 4chan, federal investigators asked the site’s founder Christopher “Moot” Poole for server logs. Court testimony from April and published yesterday shows that federal prosecutors had other pressing questions for Poole: for example, the meaning of “peeps” and “rickroll.”
Assistant to the U.S. Attorney Mark Krotoski questions Poole:
Q. Certain terms, have a meaning unique to 4chan?
A. Yes.Q. Like “OP,” what is “OP”?
A. OP means original poster.Q. Are you familiar these terms, having been the founder and administrator of the 4chan site?
A. Yes.Q. What would “lurker” mean?
A. Somebody who browses but does not post, does not contribute.Q. What do the words “caps” mean?
A. Screenshots.Q. And is there any significance to “new fags”?
A. That is the term used to describe new users to the site.Q. What about “b tard”?
A. It’s a term that users of the /b/- Random board use for themselves.Q. What about “troll”?
A. Troublemaker.Q. “404″?
A. 404 is the status code for not found. It means essentially gone or not found.Q. Not found on where, the 4chan site?
A. 404 is the http status code for not found, a page not found by the Web server.Q. In what about “peeps”?
A. People.Q. “Rickroll”?
A. Rickroll is a mean [sic] or Internet kind of trend that started on 4chan where users — it basically a bait and switch. Users link you to a video of Rick Astley performing Never Gonna Give You Up.
Bonus humor points for the fact that the court reporter had apparently never heard the word “meme” before. The story went viral yesterday; we found it on Gawker’s Valleywag and the complete testimony on The Smoking Gun. Apologies to those hoping to find a reference to LOLcats: relevancy?
Check out DISCOVER on Facebook.
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Image: flickr /Andrew Dupont
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