To my fellow hackers

As I woke up this morning, I found myself assessing where I stand with today's computing / IT industry / whatever you want to call it... I got interested with computers in the early 80s. I didn't see WarGames or any other movie with computers. I didn't go to movies. I discovered computers through the programmable calculators of my secondary school peers, whose mum or dad had given an "old" Sharp or a TI-57, without the user's manual. I got intrigued. The system and combinatory gears of my brain got something new to put their teeth in, after having exhausted the 1001 ways to build steering kits for cars of various sizes and making vehicles as fast or torquy as possible with my Lego Technic set. The combined pleasure of curiosity and discovery was my fuel. Any class was good in order to further my quiet investigations, depending on how much attention the teacher had to divert to others. The usual balance. My mates –the owners – were not interested in the least in learning what their…