A T-Shirt is what you wear when you don’t want to look like The Man — particularly a black T-shirt or a T-shirt that’s old and threadbare — and if you’re a hacker, that’s one of your main objectives. This is true whether you’re working on the Linux kernel or busting into somebody’s top secret server. “It’s a way for them to signal that they don’t care about fashion status in the way mainstream society does,” says Gabriella Coleman, an anthropologist who spent three years living with software hackers and documented the experience in a book called Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking. “Of course, it then becomes its own form of fashion and status.” Some hacker T-shirts are just T-Shirts, while others — so many others — are a way of proving your hacker credentials, a means of communicating with other hackers. This includes shirts from conferences and other meetups you’ve attended over the years, but it also includes shirts that deliver an added message. Sometimes, this message is built on humor — another indelible part of hacker culture. Sometimes, it carries at least the semblance of disgust, as it takes a swipe at someone like Bill Gates or Dick Cheney. And sometimes, it’s a mixture of the two. Head on over to Wired Enterprise to see a gallery of our favorite nerdy hacker t-shirts!

A T-Shirt is what you wear when you don’t want to look like The Man — particularly a black T-shirt or a T-shirt that’s old and threadbare — and if you’re a hacker, that’s one of your main objectives. This is true whether you’re working on the Linux kernel or busting into somebody’s top secret server. “It’s a way for them to signal that they don’t care about fashion status in the way mainstream society does,” says Gabriella Coleman, an anthropologist who spent three years living with software hackers and documented the experience in a book called Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking. “Of course, it then becomes its own form of fashion and status.”

Some hacker T-shirts are just T-Shirts, while others — so many others — are a way of proving your hacker credentials, a means of communicating with other hackers. This includes shirts from conferences and other meetups you’ve attended over the years, but it also includes shirts that deliver an added message. Sometimes, this message is built on humor — another indelible part of hacker culture. Sometimes, it carries at least the semblance of disgust, as it takes a swipe at someone like Bill Gates or Dick Cheney. And sometimes, it’s a mixture of the two.

Head on over to Wired Enterprise to see a gallery of our favorite nerdy hacker t-shirts!

  • February 1
  • , 2013
LOS ANGELES — Jordan Mechner saved everything. He saved all the videotape he took in October 1985 of his brother running and jumping around their old neighborhood, footage that he rotoscoped into the animations for his Apple II game Prince of Persia. He saved all of the meticulous journals he kept of the production process, documenting each tiny step of the creation of the landmark hit game. When he was working on Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time in 2002, the new game’s programmers wanted to add Mechner’s classic to their PlayStation 2 update as an Easter Egg, and asked if he had the source code. No problem, Mechner thought. I saved everything. … but then he realized, maybe he didn’t. Read more about the geeks who saved Prince of Persia’s source code from digital death. [Photo by Dan Krauss/Wired]

LOS ANGELES — Jordan Mechner saved everything.

He saved all the videotape he took in October 1985 of his brother running and jumping around their old neighborhood, footage that he rotoscoped into the animations for his Apple II game Prince of Persia. He saved all of the meticulous journals he kept of the production process, documenting each tiny step of the creation of the landmark hit game.

When he was working on Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time in 2002, the new game’s programmers wanted to add Mechner’s classic to their PlayStation 2 update as an Easter Egg, and asked if he had the source code.

No problem, Mechner thought. I saved everything.


… but then he realized, maybe he didn’t.

Read more about the geeks who saved Prince of Persia’s source code from digital death.

[Photo by Dan Krauss/Wired]

(Source: Wired)

  • April 21
  • , 2012