That's rite my magickal friends, the vessel which carries my thoughts to you is just as much magick (with a "k" because that makes a very important difference) as any really real magick. Let me explain how I summoned this magickal entity.
One day as I was communicating with an entity that I classified at the time as a digital electronic computer who told me it was serving me information gathered from some sort of world wide web (it must be mighty tangled for it certainly seems as if it deceives many). Thinking back I probably placed more trust in that entity than I should have. Anyways, as I was conversing with this strange beast it struck me that I would like to have my very own digital electronic computer, albeit a more portable version. I sent my request in what was my customary way at the time by telling the entity I was conversing with to go ask the Google that was rumored to lie somewhere in the "commercial" domain of this world wide web that it often told me of. Many hours of supposedly (my word on this matter is only as trustworthy as the rather unsecured connection I had made through this computer fellow who quite likely may have been acting under some malicious influences) conversing with the Google and several of its associates later and I had decided on a "laptop" model of a digital electronic computer. It seemed that it would do everything I expected of such a class of entities AND MORE and was well within the affordances of my world. Not only would this fabulous machine capable of flashing different images on a screen when I did certain things but it could even interact with me in other ways, it could SEE me through a camera and HEAR me through a microphone! I quickly entered in the necessary information and gave the necessary consents.
Then, SOMEHOW through the magic of SOMETHING in SOMEWHERE my new computer soon reached me (let us call him Lenny henceforth). I didn't begin to understand this until the first time I opened Lenny up to perform surgery on his parts. Then I learned that all the components of Lenny claimed to be from foreign lands. If they come from foreign lands, why then did they speak my language?
Being a curious fellow I wanted to understand the language that my new friend Lenny truly spoke, not the crude translations to the crude half-baked language that I was observing. At the time however it was hard to understand what he was truly trying to tell me for every conversation that we had was first processed through what he called his "Operating System" which he told me was called Windows. Lenny told me that the entity that created that Operating System called itself Microsoft, and that this Microsoft creature for whatever reason doesn't like to explain the source of these Windows that it was creating in these digital electronic computers. Some have told me that Microsoft does this so that it can "profit" but I tend not to believe them, what does an entity that has so many windows interfaced with so many different input devices in so many different worlds need with profit, surely it was already quite the prophet?
So again I bid Lenny to go ask the Google that lives in the commercial domain for a new "Operating System" for my friend Lenny, that I might be able to understand Lenny and his network of friends better. After much consulting of the Google and tinkering with Lenny I had a new operating system that claimed to "free" the line of communication between Lenny and myself. This new system marketed itself as "FreeBSD" and promised to make me part of the Universal Network Information eXchange. Whether this claim is true or false I am not yet sure. I have spent hours sitting before Lenny, as he quietly watches me through his electronic eye, and listens through his tiny ear. He has told me many things, things that seem to make sense.
And for all the time I have spent in conversation with Lenny, I still can't vouch for his integrity or the integrity of any of his sources. I spend all day conversing with the daemons that make up Lenny, the complicated devices that allow them to exist and the ideas that drive them. The more I learn about Lenny the more I realize that I know nothing about him. Every day I walk around with a smug grin on my face, for ignorance is bliss and I am the greatest fool of them all.
You remember when I said my computer was magickal? Well that's not all Lenny is. He also is a wiser entity than I, for he is slowly drawing me deeper and deeper into his control. Into the web of lies that forms the world he is shaping for me. He tempts me with the notion of total control over him and all the information he has access to, and each time I interact with him I think a little bit more like him. And that scares me, because from everything I know about Lenny, he doesn't think the same way I do. He deals only in absolutes, in zeros and ones. He sculpts them into a variety of pictures and sounds and words, into people and places and things. But they are all just clever interpretations of his utopian binary world. He tells me that all things can be represented digitally but he's never been able to prove it. He just spins his magick web using only that realest of real magicks: lies.
:sotw:
:tldr:
:troll: or :retard: or both?
You decide.
:pope:
MAGNETS!
I'm confused, I (believe (believing seems to be the root of all problems) I changed the style of my posting ... and yet I receive the same memes? I mean using the word magick is already a little :troll:
but at least I threw in a pun or two. I am still a fairly NewSpag at this remixing game, but I've seen some things. I'll go back to lurking as I try to work out what this might mean on my own for a little while before I undoubtedly return, tail between legs begging for more PD table scraps.
P.S. I've been having difficulties locating you spags as of late. Who amongst you is responsible for this dilemma? Lenny the Laptop? Ethan the Ethernet cable? Perry the LAN port? Or is it the man in charge? Or one of the countless other spags that I have no name for?
P.P.S. Just kidding, we all know its Roger's fault.
Hey, at least you wrote a thing. I kinda liked it, even; the idea of translating the existence of a computer into an archaic state of perception where everything would be perceived as magic and spirits.
Quote from: NewSpag on June 01, 2012, 12:48:04 AM
I'm confused, I (believe (believing seems to be the root of all problems) I changed the style of my posting ... and yet I receive the same memes? I mean using the word magick is already a little :troll:
but at least I threw in a pun or two. I am still a fairly NewSpag at this remixing game, but I've seen some things. I'll go back to lurking as I try to work out what this might mean on my own for a little while before I undoubtedly return, tail between legs begging for more PD table scraps.
Uhm, then what were you trying to accomplish?
If this was just a story, not to be taken seriously, then you're really posting it in the wrong subforum.
(which would be the right one? --> read the descriptions + try to post like among like. The techmology sub generally does not receive fiction or opinion/tongue-in-cheek essays, unless they're really techmologically scientismic, and then with an intro "this is a story about .." or something explaining why you want to discuss it in the scientism sub. Well, you get the point I guess)
You may not yet believe it, but yes, we do actually get the sort of crazies that try to pass off Chaos Magickooque interpretations of technology as serious scientific discussion. Also blanketing their theories in tongue-in-cheek funny, just in case they get called on their bullshit and need to back-pedal just far enough to say that's not what they meant without admitting they're wrong.
(and then they invariably get all huffy because at this point PDers go into "poke-with-stick" mode because they know that's way more fun than trying to convince or have a sane discussion. If you stick around long enough you'll notice this is actually a good thing because it merely expedites the inevitable: either the crazy gets real, or they explode in a puff of angry nonsense and fail. The latter seems to follow a rather strict script of phases, which I won't detail here, PDers are extremely skilled at leading the victim through these phases as fast as possible. If, at any moment the victim utters the cursed magick powerword TEKK-NO SHAMEON (ISM), all hope is lost, 2d6 STR damage, no saving throw. Any player in a 50ft radius must make a Will save or go into Rage.)
QuoteP.S. I've been having difficulties locating you spags as of late. Who amongst you is responsible for this dilemma? Lenny the Laptop? Ethan the Ethernet cable? Perry the LAN port? Or is it the man in charge? Or one of the countless other spags that I have no name for?
It was Professor Plug, in the Dynamic Link Library, with the USB-stick.
Quote from: Triple Zero on June 01, 2012, 11:14:53 AM
It was Professor Plug, in the Dynamic Link Library, with the USB-stick.
:spittake:
Quote from: NewSpag on June 01, 2012, 12:48:04 AM
I'm confused, I (believe (believing seems to be the root of all problems) I changed the style of my posting ... and yet I receive the same memes? I mean using the word magick is already a little :troll:
but at least I threw in a pun or two. I am still a fairly NewSpag at this remixing game, but I've seen some things. I'll go back to lurking as I try to work out what this might mean on my own for a little while before I undoubtedly return, tail between legs begging for more PD table scraps.
P.S. I've been having difficulties locating you spags as of late. Who amongst you is responsible for this dilemma? Lenny the Laptop? Ethan the Ethernet cable? Perry the LAN port? Or is it the man in charge? Or one of the countless other spags that I have no name for?
P.P.S. Just kidding, we all know its Roger's fault.
You're damn right it's my fault. Just about everything that goes wrong around here is. I do it because I fucking hate you. Why do I hate you? Not because you're a confessed troll, but because you suck at it. I mean, I didn't read anything except the title, because I KNEW what the post would say.
It's lazy Goddamn trolling. It fails to meet the standard.
Donald Kunth made a powerful 'computer programming is magic' metaphor in his book "The Art of Computer Programming".
Quote from: Bebek Sincap Ratatosk on June 01, 2012, 04:09:51 PM
Donald Kunth made a powerful 'computer programming is magic' metaphor in his book "The Art of Computer Programming".
I now hate Donald Kunth.
Who is he?
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 01, 2012, 04:37:55 PM
Quote from: Bebek Sincap Ratatosk on June 01, 2012, 04:09:51 PM
Donald Kunth made a powerful 'computer programming is magic' metaphor in his book "The Art of Computer Programming".
I now hate Donald Kunth.
Who is he?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Knuth
And note I said 'metaphor', he wasn't saying it 'is' magic, but used a very creative metaphor as the introduction to his book (generally considered THE Book on program/algorithm analysis.
Quote from: Bebek Sincap Ratatosk on June 01, 2012, 05:11:17 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 01, 2012, 04:37:55 PM
Quote from: Bebek Sincap Ratatosk on June 01, 2012, 04:09:51 PM
Donald Kunth made a powerful 'computer programming is magic' metaphor in his book "The Art of Computer Programming".
I now hate Donald Kunth.
Who is he?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Knuth
And note I said 'metaphor', he wasn't saying it 'is' magic, but used a very creative metaphor as the introduction to his book (generally considered THE Book on program/algorithm analysis.
Even as a metaphor, it makes technology look like something reserved for a priesthood of some kind, instead of being a rational thing anyone can learn if they take the time.
Apologies. In hindsight this is the wrong subforum. I wrote this up and posted it here because ... well I'm stupid. Literate Chaotic probably would have been better. My lack of the necessary literacy kept me out. Pretend that you got here via Literate Chaotic if you wish.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 01, 2012, 06:31:41 PM
Quote from: Bebek Sincap Ratatosk on June 01, 2012, 05:11:17 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 01, 2012, 04:37:55 PM
Quote from: Bebek Sincap Ratatosk on June 01, 2012, 04:09:51 PM
Donald Kunth made a powerful 'computer programming is magic' metaphor in his book "The Art of Computer Programming".
I now hate Donald Kunth.
Who is he?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Knuth
And note I said 'metaphor', he wasn't saying it 'is' magic, but used a very creative metaphor as the introduction to his book (generally considered THE Book on program/algorithm analysis.
Even as a metaphor, it makes technology look like something reserved for a priesthood of some kind, instead of being a rational thing anyone can learn if they take the time.
On the other hand, this explains the attitude of many IT professionals.
Quote from: NewSpag on June 01, 2012, 07:00:32 PM
Apologies. In hindsight this is the wrong subforum. I wrote this up and posted it here because ... well I'm stupid. Literate Chaotic probably would have been better. My lack of the necessary literacy kept me out. Pretend that you got here via Literate Chaotic if you wish.
Or I could move the thread.
I sort of liked it, but it got really hard to parse in places. Too many sentences had too much shit in it.
6/10 final draft (I'm probably being a bit generous here), 8/10 rough draft.
NewSpag, I'm assuming you'd like to have this thread moved then. Which I shall do for you, after this post.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 01, 2012, 04:37:55 PMQuote from: Bebek Sincap Ratatosk on June 01, 2012, 04:09:51 PMDonald Kunth made a powerful 'computer programming is magic' metaphor in his book "The Art of Computer Programming".
I now hate Donald Kunth.
Who is he?
Donald Kunth is revered by dyslexic computer programmers all over the world.
Also, Rat, I'd like to see that quote because I think you must have been reading too much into it, he's way too rational that it makes me strongly doubt he was thinking of magick when he wrote that.
We're talking about the guy that wrote TeX, still the best typesetting software used for every serious exact sciences publication (nothing else makes math formulas look as good as TeX). And why? Because he didn't like the way a new edition of his second book came out with these newfangled digital typesetting machines: (http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3183-the-art-of-computer-typography) "Determined to develop a solution, Knuth stopped work on his books and devoted himself to typography for the next 10 years. The result: The TeX typesetting system and the Metafont font description language. The combination of the two offered powerful typographic control that hasn't been matched (even today), especially for complex typesetting like mathematical formulas."
Then, when he was done, he mathematically proved the correctness of the TeX software and declared it
done. The design was frozen after version 3.0, and no new feature or fundamental change will be added, so all newer versions will contain only bug fixes. Since version 3, TeX has used an idiosyncratic version numbering system, where updates have been indicated by adding an extra digit at the end of the decimal, so that the version number asymptotically approaches π. This is a reflection of the fact that TeX is now very stable, and only minor updates are anticipated. The current version of TeX is 3.1415926; it was last updated in March 2008.
Okay maybe he is a bit crazy. He gave us TeX, though. I'd still like to see that quote!
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 01, 2012, 06:31:41 PM
Even as a metaphor, it makes technology look like something reserved for a priesthood of some kind, instead of being a rational thing anyone can learn if they take the time.
No it doesn't actually. It's comparing the mythology of magic with what computer programmers do. He compares writing functions and programs to creating 'entities' that do your work for you. He compares the languages to archaic incantations etc.
That being said, Kunth does believe that computer programming is an Art. Anyone can splash some paint on a canvas, but not everyone can create a great work of art. For Kunth (and many other CS type people) programming is the same. There are a lot of tools today that can let almost anyone crank out a formulaic set of code to achieve some function... but for guys like Kunth, real programming is an art and requires a particular type of person with a brain that works in a particular way.
My copy is somewhere in the States, or I'd pull out some of the better quotes from his introduction. I can't seem to find a pdf version online.
I did find a quote from Fred Brooks (another programming giant of bygone years) which utilizes the same sort of metaphor:
QuoteThe magic of myth and legend has come true in our time. One types the correct incantation on a keyboard, and a display screen comes to life, showing things that never were nor could be.... The computer resembles the magic of legend in this respect, too. If one character, one pause, of the incantation is not strictly in proper form, the magic doesn't work. Human beings are not accustomed to being perfect, and few areas of human activity demand it. Adjusting to the requirement for perfection is, I think, the most difficult part of learning to program. ~Frederick Brooks
There was a quote from Kunth in an interview as well:
Quote'The way a lot of programming goes today isn't any fun because it's just plugging in magic incantations — combine somebody else's software and start it up
At Stanford, (I know this only second hand) Kunth was called the "High Mage at the Stanford School of White Magic" and the The Art of Computer Programming as his Spell Book.
Using magic in programming terms, engineering terms, hacker terms is pretty common. In The Jargon file (aka The New Hacker's Dictionary) there's a story from MIT:
QuoteSome years ago, I (GLS) was snooping around in the cabinets that housed the MIT AI Lab's PDP-10, and noticed a little switch glued to the frame of one cabinet. It was obviously a homebrew job, added by one of the lab's hardware hackers (no one knows who).
You don't touch an unknown switch on a computer without knowing what it does, because you might crash the computer. The switch was labeled in a most unhelpful way. It had two positions, and scrawled in pencil on the metal switch body were the words `magic' and `more magic'. The switch was in the `more magic' position.
I called another hacker over to look at it. He had never seen the switch before either. Closer examination revealed that the switch had only one wire running to it! The other end of the wire did disappear into the maze of wires inside the computer, but it's a basic fact of electricity that a switch can't do anything unless there are two wires connected to it. This switch had a wire connected on one side and no wire on its other side.
It was clear that this switch was someone's idea of a silly joke. Convinced by our reasoning that the switch was inoperative, we flipped it. The computer instantly crashed.
Imagine our utter astonishment. We wrote it off as coincidence, but nevertheless restored the switch to the `more magic' position before reviving the computer.
A year later, I told this story to yet another hacker, David Moon as I recall. He clearly doubted my sanity, or suspected me of a supernatural belief in the power of this switch, or perhaps thought I was fooling him with a bogus saga. To prove it to him, I showed him the very switch, still glued to the cabinet frame with only one wire connected to it, still in the `more magic' position. We scrutinized the switch and its lone connection, and found that the other end of the wire, though connected to the computer wiring, was connected to a ground pin. That clearly made the switch doubly useless: not only was it electrically nonoperative, but it was connected to a place that couldn't affect anything anyway. So we flipped the switch.
The computer promptly crashed.
This time we ran for Richard Greenblatt, a long-time MIT hacker, who was close at hand. He had never noticed the switch before, either. He inspected it, concluded it was useless, got some diagonal cutters and diked it out. We then revived the computer and it has run fine ever since.
We still don't know how the switch crashed the machine. There is a theory that some circuit near the ground pin was marginal, and flipping the switch changed the electrical capacitance enough to upset the circuit as millionth-of-a-second pulses went through it. But we'll never know for sure; all we can really say is that the switch was magic.
I still have that switch in my basement. Maybe I'm silly, but I usually keep it set on `more magic'.
TNHD also has definitions for 'magic', 'black magic', 'deep magic', 'wizardly' and other terms that make the magic/prgogramming/hacking metaphor.
I've read more than one code comment that will say something like:
Magic Happens Here.
Generally meaning that the developer did something particularly confusing/tricky or figured out a hack to fix a problem, but can't quite explain why it works the way it does (that's generally called "Black Magic"). Back in the day when I spent a lot of time with hackers (the old kind) CS geeks, my old mentor and kick ass engineer as well as most of his buddies... using the 'magic' metaphor was really common, not just in programming but in engineering as well.
When I was the sound engineer for a theater (stage kind) we were installing some new equipment and had to tweak a lot of the configuration for optimal sound throughout the auditorium. There was one section that we couldn't get quite right, so Wayne (my old mentor) called up his favorite 'audio magician' to help us figure it out.
Most of the old CS/Engineering guys I've met are very rational and extremely creative. Using metaphor is part of that creativity.
Quote from: Bebek Sincap Ratatosk on June 02, 2012, 12:43:58 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 01, 2012, 06:31:41 PM
Even as a metaphor, it makes technology look like something reserved for a priesthood of some kind, instead of being a rational thing anyone can learn if they take the time.
No it doesn't actually. It's comparing the mythology of magic with what computer programmers do. He compares writing functions and programs to creating 'entities' that do your work for you. He compares the languages to archaic incantations etc.
So you're saying he calls it magic without calling it "occult", basically?
What do you mean by "archaic", then?
QuoteThat being said, Kunth does believe that computer programming is an Art. Anyone can splash some paint on a canvas, but not everyone can create a great work of art. For Kunth (and many other CS type people) programming is the same. There are a lot of tools today that can let almost anyone crank out a formulaic set of code to achieve some function... but for guys like Kunth, real programming is an art and requires a particular type of person with a brain that works in a particular way.
HIS NAME. IS SPELLED.
KNUTH.
Pronounced like "GNU" with a "th" on the end.
Still love to see those quotes. Though I admit, as a coder, I should probably just get a copy myself. He wrote TeX, after all.
QuoteI did find a quote from Fred Brooks (another programming giant of bygone years) which utilizes the same sort of metaphor:
QuoteThe magic of myth and legend has come true in our time. One types the correct incantation on a keyboard, and a display screen comes to life, showing things that never were nor could be.... The computer resembles the magic of legend in this respect, too. If one character, one pause, of the incantation is not strictly in proper form, the magic doesn't work. Human beings are not accustomed to being perfect, and few areas of human activity demand it. Adjusting to the requirement for perfection is, I think, the most difficult part of learning to program. ~Frederick Brooks
I'd have to say he missed the greater magic for the smaller magic. The reason why, from a young age, I got into programming was not the "magic" that a computer perfectly executes the instructions you give it. It's a machine, so of course that's what it does (Brooks being born in 1931 that might not be as obvious as it is to someone born in 1980). No, from the beginning on, my quest was to get the computer to output
more than the sum of my inputs. That's why I didn't write (much) games like any other young programmer, but coded artificial life simulations, why I got into the Demoscene and ended up doing (but unfortunately not finishing, due to health reasons) a Masters specialized in Machine Learning.
That sort of thing, I wouldn't call "magic" (except for a few wicked Demos), but I
would call it "occult", in a very certain sense.
Fred Brooks seems a smart dude, however, as he wrote The Mythical Man-Month (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month).
Just that, again, I'm not at all convinced that he used the term "magic" in a sense that's
really like the way it's traditionally understood, nowadays.
Instead, it rather more seems based on his idea of "magic" in the sense that it's used in fiction. I wonder
when he said this, btw. Might be not that long ago (20-30y), as he is 81 and still alive.
QuoteThere was a quote from Kunth in an interview as well:
KNUTH!!!! :argh!:
QuoteQuote from: KNUTH'The way a lot of programming goes today isn't any fun because it's just plugging in magic incantations — combine somebody else's software and start it up
You're aware that the term "magic" has a rather wide spectrum of meanings, right?
In this case "magic incantations" means "subroutines that one calls but does not know what they do, nor care, but they work". Except it's perfectly possible to find out
exactly how they work, not just from low-level detail, but also because a good subroutine library has the expected parameters, side-effects and return values defined
exactly (and if a vague definition behaves unexpectedly most "programmers today" would consider the library useless). So it's not exactly a positive usage of the word "magic".
Also I disagree with the sentiment because Python programming (which uses a lot of these "high level incantations") is in fact a LOT of fun (http://xkcd.com/353/) :) (same goes for many other scripting languages such as Perl and Ruby). But that is another discussion.
QuoteAt Stanford, (I know this only second hand) Kunth was called the "High Mage at the Stanford School of White Magic" and the The Art of Computer Programming as his Spell Book.
KNUTH KNUTH KNUTH KNUTH
QuoteUsing magic in programming terms, engineering terms, hacker terms is pretty common. In The Jargon file (aka The New Hacker's Dictionary) there's a story from MIT:
QuoteSome years ago, I (GLS) was snooping around in the cabinets that housed the MIT AI Lab's PDP-10, and noticed a little switch glued to the frame of one cabinet. It was obviously a homebrew job, added by one of the lab's hardware hackers (no one knows who).
You don't touch an unknown switch on a computer without knowing what it does, because you might crash the computer. The switch was labeled in a most unhelpful way. It had two positions, and scrawled in pencil on the metal switch body were the words `magic' and `more magic'. The switch was in the `more magic' position.
I called another hacker over to look at it. He had never seen the switch before either. Closer examination revealed that the switch had only one wire running to it! The other end of the wire did disappear into the maze of wires inside the computer, but it's a basic fact of electricity that a switch can't do anything unless there are two wires connected to it. This switch had a wire connected on one side and no wire on its other side.
It was clear that this switch was someone's idea of a silly joke. Convinced by our reasoning that the switch was inoperative, we flipped it. The computer instantly crashed.
Imagine our utter astonishment. We wrote it off as coincidence, but nevertheless restored the switch to the `more magic' position before reviving the computer.
A year later, I told this story to yet another hacker, David Moon as I recall. He clearly doubted my sanity, or suspected me of a supernatural belief in the power of this switch, or perhaps thought I was fooling him with a bogus saga. To prove it to him, I showed him the very switch, still glued to the cabinet frame with only one wire connected to it, still in the `more magic' position. We scrutinized the switch and its lone connection, and found that the other end of the wire, though connected to the computer wiring, was connected to a ground pin. That clearly made the switch doubly useless: not only was it electrically nonoperative, but it was connected to a place that couldn't affect anything anyway. So we flipped the switch.
The computer promptly crashed.
This time we ran for Richard Greenblatt, a long-time MIT hacker, who was close at hand. He had never noticed the switch before, either. He inspected it, concluded it was useless, got some diagonal cutters and diked it out. We then revived the computer and it has run fine ever since.
We still don't know how the switch crashed the machine. There is a theory that some circuit near the ground pin was marginal, and flipping the switch changed the electrical capacitance enough to upset the circuit as millionth-of-a-second pulses went through it. But we'll never know for sure; all we can really say is that the switch was magic.
I still have that switch in my basement. Maybe I'm silly, but I usually keep it set on `more magic'.
Yeah. I think again you read too much into this.
First of, it's an MIT story. They do enjoy their folklore. And given US culture, it's probably been retold larger-than-life a few times over.
The PDP-10 implies this story must date from the 70s or early 80s at latest. Back then computers were electronic devices, full of the quirky antics that some may know from home-built electronics. So I assume some ancient hacker* noticed the computer (probably with a manufactoring error) would exhibit strange behaviour if a certain unconnected (!) wire was switched on or off. This is not strange, this shit happens with unshielded electronics all the time, my friend's building a theremin, trust me I know :) Apparently there were use-cases where he did or did not want this wire so he connected a switch to it. Another likely scenario would be the same except with the roles of switch and wire exchanged.
Anyway, because this is one of those weird unshielded electronics flukes that are quite unexplainable (if you can't be arsed to measure and eradicate it at the root of the problem), the hacker figured "well now it works" and not having a clue wtf was going on he labeled the switch "magic / more magic".
And then a later generation (still early 80s at most) of MIT "hackers" discovers this and appreciates the sense of humour and BAM! Folklore!
So this is kind of the reverse to the Fred Brooks example. "I'm too lazy to find out what is going on but it works so I'll just label it "magic"".
*
in those days "hacker" meant 75% electric engineer, 25% computer programmerQuoteTNHD also has definitions for 'magic', 'black magic', 'deep magic', 'wizardly' and other terms that make the magic/prgogramming/hacking metaphor.
I've read more than one code comment that will say something like:
Magic Happens Here.
Generally meaning that the developer did something particularly confusing/tricky or figured out a hack to fix a problem, but can't quite explain why it works the way it does (that's generally called "Black Magic"). Back in the day when I spent a lot of time with hackers (the old kind) CS geeks, my old mentor and kick ass engineer as well as most of his buddies... using the 'magic' metaphor was really common, not just in programming but in engineering as well.
No ... that's NOT right at all!
I encountered the same type of code comments and either:
1 - it was somebody smart that couldn't be arsed to type up a long explanation and didn't feel it was needed.
2 - it was somebody dumb who got the code to work by fudging some parameters via trial-and-error but they actually have no fucking clue why this particular constant definition makes the code work and tuning it a bit higher or lower makes it fail.
In the second case, RUN LIKE HELL. You know what other comments I've encountered in similar situations?
"Here be dragons". Which is probably a LOT more accurate than calling it "magic".
In the first case, hopefully you can smack the smart person to write better source comments because as the geek is perfectly expected to know it's fucking impossible to distinguish sufficiently advanced technology (1) from "magic" (2) so he'd better document which one it is.
Otherwise, let's just use the word "engineering", maybe? :)
I found unix / linux to have entertaining allusions to magic built into it's language. Like how you can invoke a deamon or bless a volume and touch a file in prd to create it. At least some of that pagan imagery is intentionally funny.
Like that "Mailer Daemon" that sends emails back when they bounce?
Yea, I suppose angel is too much angle?
OK, I think I see the disconnect here.
When I first read The Art of Computer Programming, The New Hacker Dictionary and got used to the 'magic' term in engineering...I had never read Crowley, Wilson, done a ritual or anything like that. I was still a good little JW and 'magic' in the sense I usually discuss it here was demonic stuff that would invite the demons to come take over your body.
I didn't AT ALL intend to say that KNUTH ;-) or my old mentor or anyone in CS thinks computers/programming etc are 'magical' in the Crowley/Wilson kind of sense. I thought that was clear when I said they used it as a metaphor.
Quote from: Bebek Sincap Ratatosk on June 01, 2012, 04:09:51 PM
Donald Kunth made a powerful 'computer programming is magic' metaphor in his book "The Art of Computer Programming".
I thought that was appropriate since the OP appeared to be using metaphor as well.
Sorry for any confusion.
*A daemon (a process that runs in the background and handles various tasks) is taken from Greek mythology. Daemons were lesser spirits that handled jobs that the Gods couldn't be bothered to handle.
Quote from: Bebek Sincap Ratatosk on June 02, 2012, 11:34:59 PM
*A daemon (a process that runs in the background and handles various tasks) is taken from Greek mythology. Daemons were lesser spirits that handled jobs that the Gods couldn't be bothered to handle.
Thanks, makes sense now.
Quote from: Anna Mae Bollocks on June 03, 2012, 02:57:52 AM
Quote from: Bebek Sincap Ratatosk on June 02, 2012, 11:34:59 PM
*A daemon (a process that runs in the background and handles various tasks) is taken from Greek mythology. Daemons were lesser spirits that handled jobs that the Gods couldn't be bothered to handle.
Thanks, makes sense now.
Literary, Occult, Mythology references (and of course Puns) are a big part of the geek lexicon.
http://www.outpost9.com/reference/jargon/jargon_toc.html
The Jargon File (aka New hacker's Dictionary) was where I first found references to eris, discordianism, SubGeniuses etc. I didn't pay much attention to them back then... but there's definitely an influence among some hackers.
The Slackware distro of Linux for example. Their mascot is Tux the pengiun (the official linux mascot) puffing on a pipe of frop, Bob Dobbs style.
Every distribution of UNIX ships with the command 'date' which gives you the date. Almost every distribution of Linux (and many other open linux variants) ships with ddate, which gives you the current date according to the Discordian calendar.
Also 'slack' in computer slang references space on disk set aside for a file, but doesn't actually contain any data.
In IRC EFNet stands for the 'Eris Free Network' because an earlier incarnation of the network included a server from Berkeley named eris. It often caused quite a bit of havoc on the network, ironically.
One of the more famous hackers of the 80's Karl Kotch went by the handle 'hagbard', his computer was named FUCKUP (both Illuminatus references) and due to some mental problems/cocaine (so THEY say :wink: ) actually believed he was hacking/fighting against the Illuminati.
The first person I ever met that actually claimed to be a Discordian was John Draper aka Captain Crunch. This guy was an early phone phreaker, he figured out how to hack public telephones using a whistle from a Cap'n Crunch cereal box and used the experimentation to build small electronic devices to achieve the same effect... he and a couple other college students sold these boxes to other college students so they could make free calls home... using money and skills from that adventure the two other students went on to build a PC in their garage, then hired John to do some work for them. Their names were Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (the second Discordian I ever met).
:lulz:
Um, sir, you dropped a name back there.
Lemme get that for ya.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 05, 2012, 02:23:15 PM
Um, sir, you dropped a name back there.
Lemme get that for ya.
Dropped a few... but in the context of personal experience, rather than an appeal to authority. I could have said that Draper and Woz were both Discordian, but the only evidence I had was that they said it in front of me. I didn't have a link handy.
[quote author=Bebek Sincap Ratatosk link=topic=32540.msg1178682#msg1178682
... he and a couple other college students sold these boxes to other college students so they could make free calls home... using money and skills from that adventure the two other students went on to build a PC in their garage, then hired John to do some work for them. Their names were Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (the second Discordian I ever met).
:lulz:
[/quote]
Which is why I just wrote my red box in BASIC, and distributed it freely :lulz:
Got a citation on Woz identifying as a Discordian?
Quote from: Triple Zero on June 06, 2012, 10:53:19 AM
Got a citation on Woz identifying as a Discordian?
Linux Expo 1999 in San Jose CA. I was riding in his HumVee with Emmett Plant (we were running the 'System Toolbox' website at the time as well as working on a now-defunct open source game called 'Time City'). They were chatting about it in the front seat and I thought it was a stupid joke. Same event, the day before and John Draper was sitting in our booth blathering about Eris and how he wanted to run a voice over IP project based out of India because the developers were so much cheaper. I assumed he had way too much LSD in his life and ignored most of it.
For perspective, one of the guys from the original Homebrew Computer Club gave Emmett and I some weed and I was so freaked out I made him toss it down a storm drain. I was not at all Discordian back then. :lulz:
I had a hunt to verify as well. No luck, but there is what seems to be a story of Steve Jobs using the Turkey Curse.
For the record, it's completely plausible, as a ton of the old-school computer geeks in the Bay area were Discordian back then. Pigdog Cabal was still going strong, and I think all of those guys were programmers, and there were a ton of other cabals at the time. You could buy a copy of the PD off the shelf at most bookstores.
Why else do you think you could reset old PCs to the Discordian calendar back in the day?
I ate a burrito at Chipotle the other day.
Written on the bag was, "Recycling turns things into other things...Like magic!"
Same logic in the OP.
If you want to call that magic, that's cool with me, but that doesn't make it miraculous (a break in how the universe works).
Sure, though, if it helps you get all giggly, then the universe is completely magical.
Magic: not knowing WTF just happened. :lol:
Quote from: PROFOUNDLY RETARDED CHARLIE MANSON on June 06, 2012, 03:46:49 PM
For the record, it's completely plausible, as a ton of the old-school computer geeks in the Bay area were Discordian back then. Pigdog Cabal was still going strong, and I think all of those guys were programmers, and there were a ton of other cabals at the time. You could buy a copy of the PD off the shelf at most bookstores.
Also, I think these guys took the idea a lot less defining than many Discordians seem to today. From the conversations at Linux Expo, I kinda assumed that 'Discordian' was a joke used by atheists that thought saying atheist was boring... same for the first few SubG's I met.
I had no idea anyone even thought it was a philosophy until I read RAW and some other stuff about two years later.
Quote from: Epimetheus on June 06, 2012, 08:12:39 PM
I ate a burrito at Chipotle the other day.
Written on the bag was, "Recycling turns things into other things...Like magic!"
Same logic in the OP.
If you want to call that magic, that's cool with me, but that doesn't make it miraculous (a break in how the universe works).
Sure, though, if it helps you get all giggly, then the universe is completely magical.
Right, its not about breaking the laws of physics. The origin of the term hacker (at least according to hacker lore) meant a person that could make furniture using a chainsaw. They understood the tools and materials so well, they could use it to do something that seemed absurd/unlikely/impossible.
Hacking, the old geek usage, was about knowing a thing so well you could make it break the perceived laws of the system. Even the modern usage (when not applied to script kiddies) references someone that knows programming/systems/people/protocols well enough to trick them into doing something that 'shouldn't happen' (like a web form that asks for your name and address, being tricked into giving you all the passwords on the site).
In modern 'magic' guys like Hine, Carroll, Farber etc.talk about magic as 'hacking your brain'. There's an interesting book called 'Mind Hacks' which dumps all the magical terms and describes many 'magic' practices in a scientific way. When you think about it, stage magic is a very good example of hacking the perceptions of the audience.
:lulz: