(no subject)

[kradeelav]

I was going to argue to thin air that I thought the author of The Hacker Crackdown (mostly a v interesting book) wrote Kyrie (phone phreaker, hacker gang leader) with not as much good-faith attention as I felt he gave the other LoD hackers ...

but this blurb found googling her handle was way more interesting: 




( hmmmm )

( me @ me w/a load of honkin' magnets in my ear: we knew this) 



grrrrh! I need to get ahold of this paper, then.

Probably a lot of academic waffle bullshit in between but this is not the first time i've run into this connection.

(my style of reading nonfiction is like some people's wikipedia link clicking: endless bookmarks to other places. :P ) 

Comments

[lukadian]

Oh that is *very* interesting! How common is this connection between hacking adjacent activity and disability? Is it something you come across often or simply more than occasionally?

[queenlua]

damn, now i also need to get a hold of this paper. thank you for sharin!

(and lmao absolutely same method of nonfiction reading here lol)

[kradeelav]

sometimes there is just a whole ass mood to tear through what feels like ten books on the basis of one really good line, ahaha.

goodreads and the internet can't decide whether the above quotes are from a book or a paper - but it's called "When Technocultures Collide: Innovation from Below and the Struggle for Autonomy". Happy readin'. : D

[kradeelav]

Occasionally! It's interesting because the hacking/disability connection comes in several veins:

a) not neurotypical - this one's well documented with folks on the autistic spectrum and plenty of them being in the highest ranks of engineers/founders.

b) amount of phone phreakers early on who were blind - phone phreaking was a *very* hearing intensive activity (essentially listening to phone lines and being able to replicate specific beep sounds), and also required a lot of patience/focus so it doesn't surprise me too much to see that people who had time on their hands and a drive to connect with friends over long distance would gravitate to this.

c) other varieties of physically disabled - iirc i know the founder of 8chan would fit into this category, as well as a surprising majority of wikipedia editors as well as a few other founders. doesn't take much reasoning to see how somebody mostly stationary would get restless in the mind and screw around online to the point of building something (very likely a large reason why I'd be in this category, tbh.)