This raises another question: how long are we going to fight the losing battle of reclaiming the word "hacker" from its current shady connotation? After reading news like this, I would be really ashamed to call myself a "hacker".<p>Note that I am making a purely linguistic point here. The popular culture has pretty well defined the word already .... think about explaining to your non-technical friend that you were reading about the epilepsy episode in Hacker News!<p>This reminds me of another word, "liberal", which in America means someone who advocates what would be classically considered illiberal economics (government intervention in the economy, protectionism and so on). The Economist still refuses to accept the American hijacking of a fine word, but somehow I don't believe a Ron Paul would ever want to be called a "liberal", which he actually is in the classical sense.<p>As a counter-example, J.K. Rowling seems to have bestowed a different meaning to the word "witch", equating it with "wizard". And then I realize PG was originally a Brit, so may be the Brits can "take English back" :-)
Having read Paul's treatise yesterday on the importance of improving our on-line dialectic, this story also reminds me that it may also be acceptable, if not appropriate, to occasionally refer to people as simply 'assholes'. A much better word in this case than 'hackers'.