Levy_S-Hackers-Heroes-Computer-Revolution

things look good on television. Tatum said that both values were important, butwhenever the two values conflicted he would choose Value Two.Then Tatum described the image with which the show would begin: a shot of thenighttime Las Vegas neon strip with a wizard symbol of the hacker looming overit, bolts of lightning streaming from his fingertips. An omnipotent New Age icon.This image seemed to impress the computer people, as did the picture Tom Tatumdrew of the benefits of competing in a television event. It might boost them,Tatum said, to the status of household names. "Once this show hits and othershows start to happen, things will start to happen," Tatum said. "You can earnincome from other sources, like advertising products."On the morning of the television show, before the cameras were turned on, themeager audience in the Sands Ballroom was able to witness something that ten ortwenty years before would have been considered beyond the imagination ofHeinlein, Bradbury, or even MIT's resident visionary Ed Predkiif Makeupspecialists casually were applying pancake makeup to the faces of antsy youngcomputer programmers. The age of the media hacker had begun.Tom Tatum had hired a soap opera actress, coined to kill and armed with a toothpolishsmile, to host the show. She had trouble with her opening line about howthis was the first time in interga-lactic history that the world's computer wizardsand techno-ge-niuses had gathered to compete; it took fifteen iterations before atake. Only then did the competition begin, and only then was it woefully clear howboring it was to watch a bunch of hackers sitting at long tables, joysticks betweentheir legs, each with one sneakered foot curled under the chair and the other footextended under the table, jaw slightly slack, and eyes dully planted on the screen.Unlike more compelling forms of video competition, the programmers wereundemonstrative when clearing a screen of aliens or getting wiped out by anavenging pulsar ray. Discerning spectators had to watch very carefully forgrimaces or for squinty frustration to tell when a wrong move ended in a videoexplosion. When players were confonted with the despised GAME OVER signalbefore the five-minute time limit was reached, they would sadly raise a hand soone of the judges would take note of the score. A lackluster agony of defeat.Tatum figured that this videogenic deficiency would be remedied by quick cutting,shots of the computer screens, and pithy interviews with the silicon gladiators. Theinterviews generally went like the one that the soap opera star conducted withSirius' nineteen-year-old Dan Thompson, who quickly established himself as afront-runner.