alt Hacker NewsThe thing that struck me about "GNU John Dearheart" was how it feels like it _really_ deeply captures hacker culture, like Pterry wasn't just referencing the culture, but that he really got it. Which is remarkable, because he gave me that impression about many, many topics. Such a loss.
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When clacks got introduced, the description of people who just enjoyed being there and spending time on coding messages and talking to unknown remote people.. well, it felt like early internet, fidonet, perhaps AM radio amateurs.
It really seemed like Pratchett knew something of this niche cultures, way more than I expected.
On the flip side it is so crushing that the Cluely guys go to fancy school to help people cheat and, essentially, get away with not reading. I can't imagine an ethos so short sighted, not least because the technology they use was made by people who love science fiction and did a lot of extremely difficult homework their whole lives. These guys are the opposite of hackers, they're just hacks.
And to what end? To make less money than their moms do in internal medicine?
Terry loved his characters in a way that's hard to express - unless they were pure evil (and he had a few) he did his best to understand their motivations in such a way that he came to portray them sympathetically.
This is most noticeable in his caricatures that became characters that became badasses over multiple novels; the Watch has a few of these, but there are others.