Cultural literacy for hackers
<p>I&#8217;ve written before on the hacker culture as a invisible college defined partly by a network of trust, gatekeepers, and certification authorities.  Jay Maynard ask the next question:  What are the <em>non-technical</em> things every hacker should know?</p>
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<p>Jay wrote in email:</p>
<blockquote><pre>
> It just struck me that this might be an interesting subject for
> exploration. It's pretty obvious that any hacker out there worthy of
> the name would know Monty Python and the Holy Grail backwards and
> forwards. The same goes for Airplane!, Blazing Saddles and Young
> Frankenstein, TRON and now TRON: Legacy, and such written works as
> TNHD and Bored of the Rings and CATB (whether on paper or on the Web
> isn't important), not to mention pretty much the entire Weird Al
> Yankovic corpus (but especially It's All About the Pentiums and White
> and Nerdy).
> 
> But it goes beyond that. How many hackers wouldn't immediately place a
> soft voice saying "I want to boot some head too" and get a chuckle out
> of the thought? Or hear a comment about world domination and think of
> a white mouse with a big head and a dumb sidekick?
> 
> Just what would you say is basic cultural literacy for a hacker? Not
> in the sense so much that a hacker would need to be familiar with the
> works in order to be a hacker, but rather that someone with the hacker
> mindset would be drawn to them innately?
</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>Good question, and I can add a few things.  If you are a hacker or proto-hacker:</p>
<p>* You should know at least a few of Tom Lehrer&#8217;s ditties as well as Weird Al&#8217;s.   Huge style points if you can sing <cite>The Elements</cite> <a href="http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2741">a la Daniel Radcliffe</a>.</p>
<p>* If you are mystified by the phrase &#8220;Hail Eris!  All Hail Discordia!&#8221;, you need to fix <em>that</em> bug <a href="http://www.principiadiscordia.com/">immediately</a>.  </p>
<p>* You should have romped through the logic puzzles in one or more of Raymond Smullyan&#8217;s books.</p>
<p>* You need to know who the dread god Finagle and his mad prophet Murphy are, and be able to recite dozens of corollaries of Murphy&#8217;s Law off the top of your head.  And what &#8220;on the gripping hand&#8221; means and who actually has one.</p>
<p>* Terry Pratchett.  If you need that name or his relevance to the hacker posture of mind explained to you, I pity you deeply.</p>
<p>Thread open for more suggestions.</p>
