This is probably the most important question in your tour…
Why Did You Start atlHack?
There are a lot of good reasons for starting atlHack, but there are two really big, glaring ones that need to be tackled here:
- There is no reason for computing to be a solo activity. People are social; computing should be social. To this end, we (make sure to shower,) meet up every week to talk to others face to face, drink coffee (Octane is now selling beer as well), and write about what we do. These are normal, everyday things that are surprisingly uncommon at GeorgiaTech, especially in the CoC. Come, normalize yourself – you’ll be a happier person.
- Computer Science, especially in the States, has an overwhelming monoculture. What I mean is, most people could pick a "computer person" out of crowd of people. Why is this? Everyone uses computers! And, why are there so few girls in computing? I think that the strange culture of computing is holding us all back. So, I would like to "Open Source" the computing culture of Atlanta – put it all (well, all thats appropriate) on the web, and invite everyone to join in.
Why Did I Not Start atlHack?
Ok, there’s two sides to every coin… what will make me not want to continue atlHack?
- Becoming a free computer repair shop. I’m sorry if you are having computer problems. If we’re feeling nice, we might show you the Yellow Pages. You wouldn’t expect someone to fix your car for free, please don’t ask us to solve your problems. There are companies like Geek Squad and Retrotechs that can help you out. Fixing computer problems is work, and work is not exciting. If there are people who are interested in volunteering, they will let you know.
- Becoming everyone’s soapbox. Yes, we sometimes talk about religion, politics, and Mac vs Windows vs Linux. No, I don’t want to talk about this every week – that’s boring. You’ll notice that I often say atlHack is whatever you want it to be. Well, its actually going to be whatever *I* want it to be, and a weekly yak fest is not high on my list. I’m listening for other people’s ideas, but I’ll put my own goals first. My goals are to encourage creativity, innovation, productivity, and diversity. If you are just wasting people’s time, we’re not interested.
Why Can’t You Decide How to Capitalize ATLhack?
Well, it should probably be ATLhack, since ATL is an airport code, and airport codes are uppercase, but I think that it looks a lot nicer in camelCase, and I like things that look nice. Sometimes I write ATLhack to emphasize where it referrs to, but most of the time I will use atlHack. If you see atlhack, its probably a domain name or a typo.
How Do You Say "atlHack"?
Think "paddle", without the "p". Why? I don’t know why, it just sounds better than "A, T, L, hack".