I am the nerd, the geek, the hacker. In most aspects, I am the stereotypical nerd. I wear glasses, a belt, a button down shirt, and a pocket protector. I play Dungeons and Dragons. I’m smart and have a passion for computers. I keep mostly to myself. However, in contrast to the stereotypical nerd, people like me. While I would expect myself to have some friends, the acceptance I have among my peers is something that continually surprises me. This is not something that has always been true, but has been for most of high school. The most logical reasons for this seems to be the emotional maturity of high-schoolers, combined with the publics’ increasing acceptance of nerds. Still, it feels like I’m doing something wrong as a nerd, and that I’ve betrayed my people.
The quality of my relationships with other people seem to vary inversely with quantity. For much of my life I have had a small inner circle of friends that I was very close to. As I branched out, the I have drifted from the friends I was once extremely close to. That is not to say that I am not still close to them, but that we are not as close as we once were. Since I mostly keep to myself, most of my friendships seem to form by others seeking to be friends with me. For this reason it is not infrequent that I am not sure whether I am currently friends with someone who I once was.
I am mildly insane. Somehow that became my concession. In Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart the character desperately insists that he is sane. I gave up on that plea long ago, now it’s, “don’t worry guys, I’m only slightly insane.” It’s okay though, I’m sane enough to function, but insane enough that it’s interesting. To delve into precisely in which way I am insane is neither something that would fit in this document, nor something I am entirely comfortable sharing.
I am a hacker. I think. I used to tell people that I was aligned with the hacker ethic, and followed the practices of hackers, but that I felt the term denoted s level of proficiency that I had not reached. I’m not sure I’ve progressed significantly since then, but I now feel comfortable telling people that I am a hacker.
I should probably clarify what “hacker” means. A hacker is someone who enjoys hacking, and subscribes to the hacker ethic. Now I must define “hack,” which is an incredibly hard word to define. To quote hacker Phil Agre, “The word hack doesn’t really have 69 different meanings. In fact, hack has only one meaning, an extremely subtle and profound one which defies articulation. Which connotation is implied by a given use of the word depends in similarly profound ways on the context.” I would say that most accurately, but least helpfully, hacking means “creative problem solving.” Hacker esr characterizes hacking as “an appropriate application of ingenuity.” Some hackers do apply this to breaking computer security, many, many more do not. I should also note that when hackers do break security, it is not with malicious intent, to do that would be a violation of the hacker ethic. Hacking normally applies to computer programming, but it can be applied to anything.
When I inform some people that hacking does not mean security breaking, as the mainstream media has them think, they act like I am nitpicking at a definition, or being stubborn. Let me assure you that when I hear hacker used in such a way, I am confused for a moment before I realize that many people use the term to mean security breaker.
I am lazy, but smart. Perhaps I am using a slightly different meaning of “lazy” than is normal, it is not that I avoid work, but tend to do other work instead, or avoid unnecessary work. It is commonly said that laziness is a sign of a good programmer; he will put thought into the design of his code to avoid more work later. When I don’t do a school assignment, it isn’t because I idly wasted my time; I was probably up until the wee hours of the morn working, but on hacking instead of another exercise that I don’t perceive to benefit me (other than the grade). Perhaps rather than lazy, this could be described as having bad priorities. This is probably true, and the reason I haven’t changed is that I still get away with it. I’ve gotten reasonable grades in classes by getting a “0” on homework, then setting the curve on the test. This isn’t the usual situation, though, I can usually get the work completed in a few minutes before class.
This brings me to my attitudes towards school. I enjoy learning, but I don’t care about grades. I know that they will help me out later; I know I’ll wish I did care when I’m applying to colleges; but they don’t matter to me. I come to school to learn, not to play some game with grades. Once I learn a topic I am not likely to spend more time on it doing 150 more practice problems, when I could be hacking, teaching myself, reading, researching, or teaching someone else.
I’m informed that many of these attributes are not atypical of people of my intelligence and passion for learning. However, I do not believe I have met anyone (in my age group, at least) that remotely fit this description.