roomthily

The Top 50 Gawker Media Passwords

At least two popular passwords are science-fiction references: “trustno1″ was Special Agent Mulder’s password on “The X-Files,” and “thx1138″ is a George Lucas film that envisioned a dystopian future. (There’s no way to tell, but these were likely created by users of Kotaku, Gawker Media’s popular gaming site.) Other popular passwords are just plain-old geeky: “dragon,” “superman,” “princess,” “starwars” and “nintendo.” W00t!

The set of Gawker Media passwords differs significantly from a cache of 10,000 Hotmail passwords that leaked online last year, though “123456″ was the most popular among both groups.

via WSJ

The myth of “programming is the only creativity”

I’d argue, in fact, that the history of computing teaches us the exact opposite: the less people are required to learn programming in order to be creative with computers, the more creative work you get.

The history of computing over the past 30 years is a move away from requiring people to engage with computers “on their own terms” via programming, and towards enabling users to do creative things through applications. The flowering of creativity this has enabled has been the main creative triumph of the computer. Think of how much less creativity there would be without Photoshop, QuarkXPress, iMovie, or Final Cut, to pick just a few.

These tools have democratised creativity for millions of people. To claim that simply because a platform doesn’t have simple programming tools makes it “only for consumers” is as absurd as claiming that a platform which doesn’t have a easy-to-use DTP package is “only for consumers”. It’s the arrogance of assuming that your chosen mode of creativity is the only mode of creativity.

[…]

The geek era is over

The geeks – the people who have, so far, been the dominant part of culture in technology and the Internet – are like priests of a religion that finds themselves no longer the centre of their culture’s world. They are displaying all the standard behaviours of a dying religion: Flocking to new prophets, who aggresively promote their message; lashing out bitterly at the heretics who are “betraying” them; and even trying desperately to preserve their way of life by saying “look how easy it is to become a priest!”

What they don’t understand is that their place in the universe has changed. They’re still an important part of the culture, but they no longer run the world. They’re just a part of it, and their creativity is no more – or less – important than anyone else’s.

via Technovia