From: emv@msen.com (Edward Vielmetti)
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: (12aug92) Welcome to alt.hackers - NOT.
Followup-To: alt.config
Date: 11 Oct 1992 21:37:25 -0400
Organization: Naphtha-Metabetabottlecap of Edits Pathetic
Reply-To: emv@msen.com (Edward Vielmetti)
NNTP-Posting-Host: nigel.msen.com

Archive-name: hackers-faq-not

This message is automatically posted once a day to make sure that
there's some traffic in alt.hackers.  If you don't want to see this
posting every day, rewrite it and post it yourself.  Thank you.

---
Ed
		Edward Vielmetti - emv@msen.com
		"...Is this a snappy answer?"
- - - - - - - - - -

0) What's a hacker?  This is kind of like asking a Scientologist "Who
was L. Ron Hubbard", or asking Mondo 2000 "What are some good smart
drugs?"  There's a pretty good definition in the jargon file / New
Hacker's Dictionary.  However, one thing is far from clear: hacking may
or may not involve breaking things.  The media image of "hacker" mushes
together ideas of a long-haired hypomanic enthusiast out to save the
electronic frontier from the dullness of homogenized mass-media society
with the picture of a pimply-faced teenager trading stolen credit card
numbers with his pals in the United Kodeworkers Union.  Some people who
picked up enough Unix to baffle their friends believed the heroic
definition, applied it to themselves, and now think they are some sort
of glorious leader of all other heroic hackers (at least those on the
net).  These people are sadly misguided.  Perhaps someday they will
figure out what hacking is really about.  Perhaps reading this
newsgroup will help.  Meanwhile, if one of these people attempts to
validate his self-image by posting the same lame essay month after
month to this newsgroup whining about the incorrect meaning of
"hacker", it is probably best to simply ignore him.

1) What's the newsgroup for?  It's for posting the same old lame stuff
over and over again.  Occasionally you will find newcomers who are not
suitably steeped in the ritual who are actually hacking stuff; they can
be safely ignored.  If you want to play cool throw in an ObHack, like so:

	ObHack: Cleaned the driveway of leaves with the blower 
	attachment on my 25hp Johnson riding mower.

No hack too big, the more horsepower the better.  If you don't throw
in an ObHack I'll post this message again and again until you start.

To cut down on mindless violations of the rule, the group is
self-moderated - marked as moderated, but with no moderator's address.
Anyone who can figure out how to approve a message is welcome to post.
I'm not going to post the (trivial) instructions for actually doing
it.

2) Post clever test messages.  Real clever test messages are read by the
news hackers in misc.test, and they get a real kick out of good ones.
If you want to set things up to the maximum number of news hackers read
your good test postings set your Followup-To: line to point to misc.test.

	ObHack: Wrote an embedded SNMP agent for my Johnson riding mower,
	put in a infrared wireless TCP/IP link, so I can mow the lawn
	with a few keystrokes on my HP95LX.  Works OK so long as the leaves
	don't blow in front of the mower.

3) Rutgers.  The netnews administrators at Rutgers figured out rule #1,
and put together a good hack to get around it.  If they don't cut it out
I'm going to post this message every month and whine and complain at every
opportunity.

	ObHack: Hooked up the mower - actually this is a new mower,
	the first one caused a 15 car pileup when the wind picked
	up a cloud of dust and it went berzerk and headed into the
	street - to a virtual reality system running at the video
	arcade, so now I can have the neighborhood kids pay $2 for
	5 minutes to mow the lawn for me.

4) Cron.  I love cron.
Newsgroups: alt.hackers