8 Jul 2016

Hacker culture

The "hacker culture" is a subculture that emerged in 1950-60s among computing academia. Nonetheless, the word "hacker" is negatively associated in media with the "black hat crackers" (in hacker slang), usually seen as against true "hacker" spirit.

As a computing major, I was always interested by the hacker ethic. Searches for "hacker flag" will only return pirate or Anonymous flags, that, in my humble opinion, doesn't embrace the whole hacker culture.

So I decided to make a flag by my own. Unfortunately, my flag is not a "hack", but a repurposing of Eric Raymond's proposal for a hacker emblem: the "glider", an interesting pattern often found in Conway's Game of Life.









From now, I'm sorry if that all that's Greek to somebody. Flag is coming next!

Based in that proposal, I designed the following flag:

















I've rotated the table, making a cleverer use of space, in my opinion. I've chosen an exclusively black and white pattern not just for chromatic minimalism, but also because it's nearer "glider's" most common representation, and permits many different associations: 0s and 1s, black and white hats, the often-seen link with anarchism, and probably many more.

Said that, variations could be made replacing background colors, or even using a national or rainbow flag as background.

I've tried different rotations and common representations of the "glider" pattern,but I guess it's by far my favorite.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.
Any corrections or clearance in hacker culture is also very welcome.

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