Why being a computer geek is so cool now-a-days

There was a time when being one of those people who sat at their computer doing... anything other than work seemed nerdy, those of us who sat at their Windows 95 crappy PC playing doom or Fury 3 recognise the stigma associated with those passtimes. However, things are not the same anymore! I'm not sure precisely why, but i have a strong suspicion that it has something to do with the media. If we look at the medium of film, it is easy to pick ut at least a handful of positive role-models, who are pasty faced computer nerds, and dozens more who are muscular toned sexy computer nerds (do such nerds exist?, i hope so it would make me happy to think some of us out there are actually getting laid) For instance, the film Swordfish, Hugh Jackman (the same actor who plays Wolverine, possibly the coolest character ever written) plays a computer hacker, THE computer hacker, and pulls it off with a never-before-seen degree of suave-(ness)? This example is but the first and probably the worst example, for a better one, one needs only look as far back as 1999, with the release of the Matrix and the casting of Keanu Reeves as Thomas A. Anderson Alias Neo, the most awesome computer hacker/cracker known to Man. It's hard to get any cooler than Neo, i mean he's the ONE for crying out loud. But is this media representation of 'hackers' really enough to account for the shifting views of society as it pertains to pasty thin reclusive uber-neeks? My answer, No.

Perhaps the reason people are more accepting of computer geekism is that a growing number of people are becoming computer geeks. People are drawn into the internet world by networking sites such as Facebook or Myspace, and prefer to spend hours at a time messaging contacts and bad mouthing others anonymously than going out and interacting with real people. Who am i to talk though? I'm here, im writing a blog, i have a facebook, i even use it occasionally. But am I infact indicting the system? No. I believe that in some strange way, the internet has brought people closer together. Using my own diatribe here as an example, this is something that I think, but i dont rationalise until i put pen to paper, or finger to keyboard. And so this diatribe is a stream of consciousness that did not exist until i typed it down. Therefore i can never have shared these thoughts with anyone before. YOU are the first people i have ever shared this with. You ought to feel honoured!

As I'm writing this the world is a changing place, its late 2007 and I'm pretty sure that within the next 10 years government and international watchdogs will monitor everything on the internet, scanning for piracy, references to terrorism and the like. Recently a website (www.tv-links.co.uk) was shut down by English Police and F.A.C.T. for linking to websites containing copyrighted material. TV links itself contained no material which breached copyright laws. It is this world which i believe ought to lead to an increase in hacker activity. That means that those of us that arent currently up to the same standards as super hacker Thomas Anderson will need to step up our games, otherwise lose the ability to watch prohibited material forever! That's a right im not willing to give up! If i want to watch a film thats not released for 6 weeks on the internet, i will, if i have to break any number of laws to do so.

As i sign off i urge you all, pick up a copy of "Hacking for Dummies" because in 10 years, you wont be able to surf the net how you do now without it.