Interesting how some of his criteria for new equipment, which rule out buying a computer, are very much consistent with the hacker spirit:<p>3. It should do work that is clearly and demonstrably better than the one it replaces.<p>4. It should use less energy than the one it replaces.<p>6. It should be repairable by a person of ordinary intelligence, provided that he or she has the necessary tools.<p>7. It should be purchasable and repairable as near to home as possible.
While I appreciate many points of the article, I find it ironic that I read this rant on... the Internet. (of course it is old, and most likely transcribed by someone else, but still hilarious)
I saw this guy speak at my university my freshman year. He seemed like a bit of a technophobe. Also this article is 20+ years old, not that I think he has changed.
"My final and perhaps mv best reason for not owning a computer is that I do not wish to fool myself. I disbelieve, and therefore strongly resent, the assertion that I or anybody else could write better or more easily with a computer than with a pencil. I do not see why I should not be as scientific about this as the next fellow: when somebody has used a computer to write work that is demonstrably better than Dante's, and when this better is demonstrably attributable to the use of a computer, then I will speak of computcr with a more respectful tone of voice, though I still will not buy one."<p>Well, if he were writing with a computer, odds are good that it would have caught the typos "mv" and "computcr".<p>Frankly, this is a lot of hypocritical horse-puckey. If the author truly didn't want to be shackled to the "energy corporations", then he also wouldn't have a website, nor many other modern conveniences.