1950s

The Hacker Ethic

history, language & literature, technology / /

From Steven Levy’s Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (Penguin Books: 2001): 40-46:

Still, even in the days of the TX-0 [the late 1950s], the planks of the platform were in place. The Hacker Ethic:

  • Access To Computers — And Anything Which Might Teach You Something About The Way The World Works — Should Be Unlimited And Total. Always Yield To The Hands-On Imperative!
  • All Information Should Be Free.
  • Mistrust Authority — Promote Decentralization. The last thing you need is a bureaucracy. Bureaucracies, whether corporate, government, or university, are flawed systems, dangerous in that they cannot accommodate the exploratory impulse of true hackers. Bureaucrats hide behind arbitrary rules (as opposed to the logical algorithms by which machines and computer programs operate): they invoke those rules to consolidate power, and perceive the constructive impulse of hackers as a threat.
  • Hackers Should Be Judged By Their Hacking, Not Bogus Criteria Such As Degrees, Age, Race, Or Position. This meritocratic trait was not necessarily rooted in the inherent goodness of hacker hearts–it was mainly that hackers cared less about someone’s superficial characteristics than they did about his potential to advance the general state of hacking, to create new programs to admire, to talk about that new feature in the system.
  • You Can Create Art And Beauty On A Computer.
  • Computers Can Change Your Life For The Better.
  • Like Aladdin’s Lamp, You Could Get It To Do Your Bidding.

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The origin of the word “munge”, “hack”, & others

history, language & literature, technology / /

From Steven Levy’s Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (Penguin Books: 2001): 23:

The core members hung out at [MIT’s Tech Model Railroad Club in the late 1950s] for hours; constantly improving The System, arguing about what could be done next, developing a jargon of their own that seemed incomprehensible to outsiders who might chance on these teen-aged fanatics … When a piece of equipment wasn’t working, it was “losing”; when a piece of equipment was ruined, it was “munged” (Mash Until No Good); the two desks in the corner of the room were not called the office, but the “orifice”; one who insisted on studying for courses was a “tool”; garbage was called “cruft”; and a project undertaken or a product built not solely to fulfill some constructive goal, but with some wild pleasure taken in mere involvement, was called a “hack.”

This latter term may have been suggested by ancient MIT lingo– the word “hack” had long been used to describe the elaborate college pranks that MIT students would regularly devise, such as covering the dome that overlooked the campus with reflecting foil. But as the TMRC people used the word, there was serious respect implied. While someone might call a clever connection between relays a “mere hack,” it would be understood that, to qualify as a hack, the feat must be imbued with innovation, style, and technical virtuosity.

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An elderly Eskimo & his unusual knife

history / /

From Wade Davis’ “Wade Davis: an Inuit elder and his shit knife” (Boing Boing: 26 September 2008):

The Inuit didn’t fear the cold; they took advantage of it. During the 1950s the Canadian government forced the Inuit into settlements. A family from Arctic Bay told me this fantastic story of their grandfather who refused to go. The family, fearful for his life, took away all of his tools and all of his implements, thinking that would force him into the settlement. But instead, he just slipped out of an igloo on a cold Arctic night, pulled down his caribou and sealskin trousers, and defecated into his hand. As the feces began to freeze, he shaped it into the form of an implement. And when the blade started to take shape, he put a spray of saliva along the leading edge to sharpen it. That’s when what they call the “shit knife” took form. He used it to butcher a dog. Skinned the dog with it. Improvised a sled with the dog’s rib cage, and then, using the skin, he harnessed up an adjacent living dog. He put the shit knife in his belt and disapp eared into the night.

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Origins of the interstate highway system

commonplace book, history / /

From Robert Sullivan’s “An Impala’s-Eye View of Highway History” (The New York Times: 14 July 2006):

Another traveler, Dwight D. Eisenhower, spent two months in 1919 driving a military convoy across the country; the shoddy roads left a lasting impression on him. After World War II he studied Hitler’s autobahn and concluded that the American military should have one. In 1956 he signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act, which, the president recounted in his memoir, resulted in enough concrete to build “six sidewalks to the moon.” The new highways were originally meant to loop around cities that could be skirted should they be destroyed by atomic bombs. Instead, the loops started a suburban construction boom that continues to this day. [Robert] Sullivan reports that Phoenix, a city that virtually rose out of the Interstate, currently gobbles up land at the rate of 1.2 acres per hour.

In the 1960’s state toll roads entered into the system, extending the web to all corners of the country. Today almost 47,000 miles of Interstate highways – with attendant motels, fast-food courts and construction projects – have paved over the continent with such efficiency that one can move from sea to shining sea with speed, economy and almost zero interpersonal interaction.

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Sleazy books

cool stuff, history, language & literature / /

From sleazy and how!:

I’m a sucker for a sleazy mystery or a trampy romance novel from the 1950’s-60’s. I usually buy these silly books more for the covers than the stories, but sometimes both are equally bizarre.

This is a gallery of some of the better books I’ve come across. Some have book summaries, others I just liked the covers.

Passion Prize Here are some of the ones I liked: Women’s Doctor. Chinese Lover. Come Sin With Me. Studio Apartment. Musk, Hashish and Blood.

Frenchie, with this exciting passage: “He was all ready to go. The easel was under one arm. Suddenly she couldn’t think about what she should have done. There was no right or wrong way to act, there was only one way. She ran to him and pulled him down toward her. Her fingers bit into his arms. ‘No, no,’ she murmured brokenly. ‘You mustn’t go. You can’t. I couldn’t live…'”.

Illicit Desires, which includes this blurb: “Passion’s Slaves! There’s many a sizzling tale about the ‘farmer’s daughter’, but never has the truth been told so revealingly as in this story of Eva, a member of ‘Ja-Ja” Steinhart’s household; of Mazie, her buxom, full bosomed rival, and their spirited fight for their mutual lover, Joe.”

And Call Her Wanton (“She was fair…she was frisky…she was oh, so much fun…A lusty novel of wilderness passion and a wife too naughty to be true!”).

Or The Manatee (“He had a passion for his ship’s figurehead that no living, breathing woman could satisfy.”).

I think the prize for blurb writing goes to Shady Lady: “Some people called Leslie Fentris a shady lady and most people thought that was putting it mildly. She had money and brains, and plenty of lure. Yet she was mixed up in one shameful scandal after another. Actually, she was a fine and honest person who acted the way she did for very good reasons.

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