[2003-05-09]
In this document, which I will update from time to time, I will try to describe myself; who I am, what my likes and dislikes are, and how I view the world. The first section, which follows, I've modelled after The Jargon File: Appendix B - A Portrait of J. Random Hacker.
But first, let me explain the following; I don't call myself a hacker. To me, hackerdom is an honour that must be earned. As far as I'm concerned, I am not yet a hacker. Whatever I am, I do share a large amount of the traits typically found in hackers; obsession with computers and computing, an almost religious view on knowledge and information, appreciation of novel ideas, coupled with a high regard of science and general skepticism. This is not emulation from my side, I simply am what I am; only later have I found out that many people who are like me, are hackers. Because of this, all these traits shared between myself and those who are called hackers, I suspect, and dare I say - hope - that hackerdom is where I'm destined. It is true that you are a hacker not when you say that you are, but when others say that you are. However, in this day and time the term hacker is used by many who do not know of what they are speaking, and so I feel that I must set a higher standard for myself.
There will come a day, maybe years and years down the road, when I will look at myself, what I am, what I've accomplished, what I do, and think... I am a hacker. There will be no big announcement. No official ceremony. I will simply have found the missing piece, and with it, myself.
That said, let's continue outlining my personality.
I'm on the fat side of the spectrum, though not an extreme in any way. My hair is either very short (if recently cut) or half-long -- I tend to cut my hair less often than most people. I seldomly shave, 'cause it's a boring chore which is mostly pointless; it will grow out again regardless, so what's the point? Consequently, most of the time you will find me in a beard.
Generally, I dress for comfort, not appearance. I prefer to wear t-shirts and loose fitting sweaters with as few visible logos as possible. When leaving home, I almost always wear jeans. I never wear suits.
I seldom wear a watch, I'm used not to, and I've always found them uncomfortable. I wear no jewelry. I wear glasses.
I already have my book reviews section, but it only touches the surface. I prefer fantasy over sci-fi, though I have the classic works of Asimov and Clarke on my ever growing reading-list. I don't subscribe to any magazines because it's so damned expensive. However, I read Scientific American and a variety of other publications at the library once in a while. I read quite a lot of papers on various topics, though mostly in the field of Computer Science (and that's a pretty broad field). In addition I read fidonet and usenet regularly, and in copious amounts. I plan on building an extensive personal library in the future.
Music, of course. I'd really like to do some conventional (not live) role-playing, but none of my friends are in to that. Apart from the obvious computer related interests; programming, artificial life/societies, games (a definite hobby, both playing them and thinking about their design and implementation), cryptography, reverse-engineering, and so on, I'm somewhat interested in religion, of all things. Primarily comparative religion and the study of the origins of various religions -- though this is something I keep mostly to myself. I enjoy writing shorter articles and essays, and I would really like to get into novels and short stories some day.
I'm not a big fan of sports, though I'm not "militant" about it as maybe I was in my youth, a time in which I detested being forced to participate in events I found intellectually unstimulating and out right boring. Contrary to J. Random Hacker, I actually prefer team sports to individual sports. Volleyball and land-hockey are my favorites from gym-class. I sometimes - only half-joking - suggest that Tetris would be a sport in my taste.
I'm pretty much self-taught. From sixth grade and on I found most of school boring, and I seldom did any homework or crammed for tests. I've never been in a class where I've found the tempo too high. I did have one peculiarity though, and that was math. I have this love-hate relationship with math, where I'm interested in it, but in school I had a knack for failing math tests, which was pretty odd because I had no problem keeping up in class. I've never really understood what that was all about, but I guess it has something to do with my low self-esteem, where I would psyche myself before each test, or something like that. I was lucky though, I had a great teacher who saw that I understood everything even though I failed to "prove" it on the tests, and so I came out of 9:th class with an average mark. Since then I've read up on my own, and grok more than most people with my formal education.
Let's see, there's enough of this to fill a book or two, but some things are; All forms of offensive cuteness, bureaucracies, stupid people, dishonesty, incompetence and BASIC. These from the aforementioned portrait of a J. Random Hacker. I don't detest television, on the contrary, I can often be found in front of the television... working with a computer and listening to music. Why do people assume one can only do one thing at a time? In fact, I'm writing this very sentence sitting in my bed in front of the television with a laptop before me.
Continuing, I dislike people who state the obvious, people who are narrow-minded and people who never seem to do their own research. I hate telephones and pagers, I hate people who assume they have a god-given right to communicate with me whenever it suits them. I detest cars, dance clubs and conventional drink-till-you-drop parties.
I'm not picky, I can eat most anything, though if I have to make it myself, pasta is very dominating. I'm interested in the art of cooking, and tend to watch that kind of shows on TV. But like programming, it's more the knowledge in itself, not so much the doing that entertain me. This might well change in the future, I believe I could be a pretty good cook if I put my heart into it. Really!
I'm very apolitical. In discussions I usually end up playing the Devil's Advocate, taking whatever side my opponent(s) do not. I'm definitely "liberal", and I detest both the hard left and right. If I had to pick, I'd say I'm more to the right than to the left, because the leftists strike me as incredibly naïve. I'm against the death penalty which I view as incredibly inhumane, and I'm a strong believer and supporter of civil liberties and consumer rights. I'm fairly unconvinced by the feminist rhetoric that women are always repressed and what not.
Male, Caucasian (Swedish). "Racial and ethnic prejudice is notably uncommon and tends to be met with freezing contempt." Right on.
None, I'm an atheist. Religion is a crutch for the weak and feeble-minded.
No thank you. I detest smoke and people who smoke in my presence. In fact, the second hand smoke makes me nauseus. I drink moderately because I don't like the feeling of my brain going numb, and I have yet to find a real tasty alcoholic brewerage to compete with a simple glass of coke and a slice of lemon or orange. I do drink cider (non-alcoholic if you have it) and liqueur (mostly on the big holidays). Beer? Won't touch it.
I'd say I'm decidedly better in written language than in spoken. I don't like speaking in front of an audience, and my person-to-person communication skill is probably pretty poor. I often find that I have trouble expressing my thoughts vocally, and even more weird, when talking and writing in my native tongue Swedish, I sometimes find myself thinking in English and having a hard time retrieving Swedish words. That is why I'm often found mixing in English in my written Swedish. I also do it when I feel that English would better convey my feelings or thoughts. Unfortunately, my written English is deteriorating for some reason.
I'm fairly intelligent, though much less so than I would like. For this I blame my parents. :-). I see myself as a person who is curious on how people and the world function, and I do appreciate novelty. I'm relatively individualistic and anti-conformist. Not to the extent that I go out of my way to be non-conforming, though.
I sometimes find myself reading things that I cannot fully understand, but I often continue anyway, working under the assumption that later experience may come in to "connect the dots" so to speak. I've also been known to do "bulk downloading". For instance, I taught myself the programming language PHP by reading the complete manual. Everything, even APIs I'm likely never to use. It only took a work-week (not effective time), and proved quite effective.
I agree with, and more or less fit, the rest of the description of J. Random Hacker in the Jargon File under this heading.
I guess I'm relatively bad at identifying emotionally with other people. I do tend toward self-absorption, intellectual arrogance, and impatience with people and tasks perceived to be a waste of my time. I can be quite cynical. I don't like confrontation in live situations (but I can live with them as my "net-persona"), and I'm not really much of a "people-person", though I've noticed that I can be if for instance my professional life dictates that I ought to be.
I do have a strong belief in doing The Right Thing, but I'm not very intolerant or bigoted on technical issues in general. I've since long realized that platform/os/editor/whatever wars are meaningless, though I'm sure there do exist some wars I could participate in with great zeal.
I do believe I prefer cats over dogs, but I cannot see myself owning either, not at this time. I have terrible handwriting, though I do not block-print everything, but instead use a flowing script that can be hard to read.
There is certainly more to me than what I have written down here, but it will have to do for a first revision. For instance, I have asked some people I know to enumerate my worst traits. I hope to be able to present the outcome of my informal query here at a later date.
Anything to add? Do you recognize yourself in the above? Write me.
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