The Physics of a Lucky Stiff
One rule we’ve found to be true in everything is that there is no creation, nor destruction in this world around us. All that is, is made of what came before, and all that we are, shapes the future because it will be made of us, from our thoughts and art, right down to our carbon.
In recent events, a dear friend I never did meet, destroyed everything we knew of him. In one quick move, his websites, and nearly all his creations, disappeared. We all seem to be a bit in shock by Why The Lucky Stiff’s disapearance. Not to worry, the man behind the curtain is clearly still alive, and surely still changing the world, just not ours anymore. :)
If I know _why at all though, I know he wouldn’t want us to be slinking around as though we’d lost something, or pointlessly buying books to try to bribe him to come back. Those of us who are missing him are pretty confused, because _why never existed. He was a work of fiction, to whatever extent. The author simply stopped writing. What we’re all missing is what _why stood for. Like a superhero, he was a symbol of rebellion and artistry in machine code. He reminded us all that it’s not “Just a job”, that there is something essentially awesome, and cool about bending these transistors to our will, as if bending a spoon with only obscure knowledge and a difficult to understand bizarre secret language.
So, if we want _why back, it’s time to become him. Just as a censored video on youtube is uploaded hundreds of times elsewhere, no ‘author’ can censor _why. We’ve already taken hold of all his software and built teams much more capable of maintaining and building on them than _why ever was. I know many of us have traditional artistic abilities, in music or markers, and I feel every one of us has a rebellious spirit. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t have figured out how to hack our computers in to doing our bidding to begin with. The very essence of programming is that rebellion. That is why it feels so bad to build those endless database apps companies so love to pay us for it. Computers themselves are the best tool we’ve ever had to utterly destroy copyright and all sense of ownership, and have irreversibly altered or destroyed every business model they come in to contact with.
I hope you’ll all join me in becoming the next generation of lucky stiffs. He was only ever a personality, and that has infected us all. We have just as much stiff in us as anyone else on this here planet!
Get your markers and bloopsaphones out, and join the stiffs! No man can take our lucky stiff away. He is us. We are anonymous, just as he always has been. So, it is time to show our appreciation for everything he’s done for us by making his dreams come true! In this true rarity, we all know he’s “up there watching”, and surely laughing happily at the commotion! Everything that drove him for awesomeness needs us. Lets bring programming to kids, and make graphical interfaces fun! And make really awesome chiptunes, and DNS hacks! Change the web to be better, and more obscure. Readability and usability be damned! We’ll inspire awe and make people excited to create!
“Give it away, take it apart, learn-learn-learn without a 2nd thought.” — The First _why
Sounds like a good idea to me? :)
