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Week 12

The history of hackerdom shows how much the real hackerdom differs from stereotypes about it. The real one is a culture, not a job. It is a bit bigger than a hobby, but as money-based as a job should be. And comparing the first idea of hackerdom to hippy culture is actually a very good comparison and not humiliation. Because both cultures share similar values and beliefs. In cases, where the main idea of hackerdom is followed (“The world is full of fascinating problems waiting to be solved”), and when a hacker is ruled by pure curiosity and desire to make both virtual and real worlds a better place, these commandments really work. Moreover, they strive not only to improve the ability to hack but apply it to all aspects of life. To learn other things outside the hackerdom, to improve soft skills.  However, in my opinion, now the world is a more competitive and materialistic place. Because tons of information are available to everyone, and everyone can do with this information whatever t
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Week 13

The story of Linux is a phenomenon, where totally altruistic intentions won over commercial ones, leading to an invention of a truly ingenious operating system. Moreover, the different distributions meet the needs of a huge spectrum of IT specialists. I would like to observe the most popular one, and the distribution I find interesting. These are Ubuntu and Manjaro. Ubuntu was released in 2004 and comes from Debian, the largest distribution branch, while Manjaro is released in 2011 and is from Arch Linux. Both of them have pretty similar target audiences - people with no or not much experience and knowledge. Although, Ubuntu covers a lot bigger range of competencies, and that is what makes it an absolute hit. Ubuntu is known for its stability and user-friendliness, and Manjaro is for its flexibility and high speed. Both distributions are free, however, Ubuntu may have some proprietary device drivers.  One of the differences between Ubuntu and Manjaro is their scheme of release. While U
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Week 4

  After reading the book, I clearly see the things predicted there, which are getting pretty common now. The transition from valuing routine work to valuing creativity, social skills becoming as important as competence, treating everyone fairly, teaching not only study material but also planting crucial everyday skills in students in schools and colleges, and making work more balanced - I cannot agree more with these ideas. And they really work in most developed countries. However, the world took a bit another branch to grow. I am a supporter of the SPOD-VUCA-BANI theory. It is about how the modern world was developing. The first stage, which ended in the 1970s is SPOD - Steady, Predictable, Ordinary, Definite. Then, the new term emerged - VUCA - Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity. A huge technological revolution started, giving birth to new technologies and the Internet, the world became a bit less stable and more flexible. It is the period the book was written in. The pre
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Week 14

Accessibility in technologies really made a great long way to being able to serve people with different needs. I see more and more websites adding functions to become more accessible for people with dyslexia or visual impairments. And I think the most ingenious device was invented to serve one of the most ingenious people - Stephen Hawking. The story of adaptation devices to Stephen’s state of health is long. He lost his voice in 1985 after severe pneumonia, but was still able to move his fingers and used a special clicker. Then, his hands became too weak to use them, and it was needed to invent a new way to communicate. It was the first time his cheek was responsible for his speech. He was able to generate about 15 words per minute, and also surf the internet, write books and communicate. Unfortunately, the illness was unstoppable and this method became non-effective as well in 2011. A long period of brainstorming and experiments began. Intel were the volunteers to help. The best engi
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Week 15

Among the ethical theories, the one about the Subjective Relativism reasons with me. It also describes the impossibility of creating the sole set of ethical rules. And even people who clearly do amoral things, sometimes are convinced they don’t. There are many online shopping platforms in Ukraine, and all of them are pretty safe to use. However, one of them is considered a hole of scammers, and people try to avoid buying stuff there. But it has a huge range of products, and sometimes that is the only choice to buy or sell specific products. I tried to sell my guitar there, and brushing away scammers with their phishing links became a common thing for me. However, once, I decided to understand what is going on in the heads of these people, because they all are people at the end of the day. And I started a dialogue with one of them. What I didn’t know is that most of the scammers are not loners, but people working for someone and getting presents of profit from their work. And there is w
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Week 11

Censorship and privacy are definitely very important aspects of the Internet culture. However, sometimes censorship can be rather silly or manipulative, and privacy sometimes turns out to be a well-disguised opposite. China is one of the leading countries that censors both what is needed to be censored and what is not. One of the bright examples of online censorship in China is the fact that you cannot google “big yellow duck”. It is made after some pranksters edited a famous photo of Tiananmen Square, and changed tanks there for huge yellow ducks. But I find another example a bit more interesting. As conflicts between Taiwan and China are constant, the Chinese government decided to make an illusion of their win over the Taiwanese independence. It appears if you try to google “Taiwan Visa” in China, you won’t get any results covering it. On the contrary, googling it outside China takes you right to the topic. If you dig a bit into that conflict, you will find out that China does not re
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Week 7

Looking at the commandments of netiquette, it is easy to assume that all these rules are similar to the ones in real life. That is because people were inexperienced in a social network at the beginning of its era, and didn’t know how to interact with each other without both verbal and nonverbal language, using only text and sometimes emojis. However, in my opinion, now interactions on the Internet are quite a natural thing for everyone, and these commandments seem pretty obvious. But I would like to observe the second commandment: “Adhere to the same standards of behavior online that you follow in real life”. In two words, “Be yourself”. This rule surely applies to both the virtual environment and real life, but when it is in-between, it may lead to some harsh conflicts. During the pandemic, people started looking for friends or dates on social networks, and many seemed to neglect this rule to seem the better version of themselves. I can recall a few situations when people I know met t
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