Comments on: Hacking and Altering: http://mith.umd.edu/eng738T/hacking-and-altering/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=hacking-and-altering English 738T, Spring 2015 Sat, 12 Nov 2016 04:10:10 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Philip Stewart http://mith.umd.edu/eng738T/hacking-and-altering/#comment-16 Philip Stewart Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:59:21 +0000 http://mith.umd.edu/eng738T/?p=180#comment-16 A note on "tinkering" -- a synonym of "hacking" Mike addresses: I've always thought of my own work with technology (def. 2 from Wikipedia, "hobbyist" or "customizer") as tinkering. I've never thought that term had any affective valence or connotation, one way or another. Now in a dictionary I see it has been used in the past pejoratively. It's not quite the division of meaning you find in the word "hacker" (I've never heard of a tinkerer being regarded as a criminal) -- maybe this is just the way with all language, with differentiations of meaning precipitating out of the mix depending upon one's perspective or role... A note on “tinkering” — a synonym of “hacking” Mike addresses: I’ve always thought of my own work with technology (def. 2 from Wikipedia, “hobbyist” or “customizer”) as tinkering. I’ve never thought that term had any affective valence or connotation, one way or another. Now in a dictionary I see it has been used in the past pejoratively. It’s not quite the division of meaning you find in the word “hacker” (I’ve never heard of a tinkerer being regarded as a criminal) — maybe this is just the way with all language, with differentiations of meaning precipitating out of the mix depending upon one’s perspective or role…

]]> By: Philip Stewart http://mith.umd.edu/eng738T/hacking-and-altering/#comment-15 Philip Stewart Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:52:58 +0000 http://mith.umd.edu/eng738T/?p=180#comment-15 Mike gets right to the point about the ambiguity and ambivalence carried in the idea of "hacking." The Wikipedia page on "hacker" puts it succinctly enough: : Hacker (term), a contentious term used in computing for several types of person: - Hacker (computer security) or cracker, who accesses a computer system by circumventing its security system - Hacker (hobbyist), who makes innovative customizations or combinations of retail electronic and computer equipment - Hacker (programmer subculture), who shares an anti-authoritarian approach to software development now associated with the free software movement I'm inclined to think the third of these definitions reflects current usage without attention to its origins. The lore has it that a "hack" once upon a time referred to a clever adaptation or implementation of software one worked with, essentially a demonstration of mastery of the system one was working within. The people willing to put the work into accomplishing this, however, have a long history of departure from convention, so the Wikipedia is not quite off the mark. This is a classic "more study is needed" moment, for me, because I can only report the strands of etymology that have come my way. What's really useful in this for our present project in the Technoromanticism seminar (to me) is our question about Blake: Did he hack the book? Blake reinterprets the Biblical and radically reappropriates the received Christian tradition. There's some big trouble with authority in this; who asked Blake to say all this stuff? we might ask. The question of hacking captures the question of license and the position of an author in a spiritual and literary tradition: the key phrase, from the Wikipedia entry, seems to me to be "a contentious term." In computer hacking parlance there are "white hat hackers" and "black hat hackers," for one thing. Where is Blake in this... division of labor? Can we hazard a guess about what Blake would say of it? Do Blake's methods potentiate his message(s)? Detract from it (them)? Are they part of it (them)? Mike gets right to the point about the ambiguity and ambivalence carried in the idea of “hacking.” The Wikipedia page on “hacker” puts it succinctly enough: :

Hacker (term), a contentious term used in computing for several types of person:
– Hacker (computer security) or cracker, who accesses a computer system by circumventing its security system
– Hacker (hobbyist), who makes innovative customizations or combinations of retail electronic and computer equipment
– Hacker (programmer subculture), who shares an anti-authoritarian approach to software development now associated with the free software movement

I’m inclined to think the third of these definitions reflects current usage without attention to its origins. The lore has it that a “hack” once upon a time referred to a clever adaptation or implementation of software one worked with, essentially a demonstration of mastery of the system one was working within. The people willing to put the work into accomplishing this, however, have a long history of departure from convention, so the Wikipedia is not quite off the mark. This is a classic “more study is needed” moment, for me, because I can only report the strands of etymology that have come my way.

What’s really useful in this for our present project in the Technoromanticism seminar (to me) is our question about Blake: Did he hack the book? Blake reinterprets the Biblical and radically reappropriates the received Christian tradition. There’s some big trouble with authority in this; who asked Blake to say all this stuff? we might ask. The question of hacking captures the question of license and the position of an author in a spiritual and literary tradition: the key phrase, from the Wikipedia entry, seems to me to be “a contentious term.”

In computer hacking parlance there are “white hat hackers” and “black hat hackers,” for one thing. Where is Blake in this… division of labor? Can we hazard a guess about what Blake would say of it?

Do Blake’s methods potentiate his message(s)? Detract from it (them)? Are they part of it (them)?

]]>