Hackers and Academia…
Just stumbled across The Hacker FAQ, an “attempt to cover some of the issues that will invariably come up when people without previous experience of the hacker community try to hire a hacker.” Reading it, I’m struck by how the description of a hacker resonates with my impression of the academics whom I admire most (particularly the ways in which hackers let ideas “percolate”, and their task-based nature). This leads to a question, especially in light of the fact that I’m starting to grapple with questions of “what comes next after graduate school”: is academic culture ultimately more hacker-friendly?