No seriously it’s senior year I feel like I should know by this point.

Abigail Gervase in “What Are Computers?” and Other Questions Abby Has

Apr 27, 2019

Reading 10: King of the Ball

When I took the class “Building a High Tech Startup” junior year, one of my big takeaways (along with the fact that I do not want to build a high tech startup) was that the two most important parts of making a successful startup was building a good team and just sheer dumb luck…

Abigail Gervase in “What Are Computers?” and Other Questions Abby Has

Apr 23, 2019

Reading 09: Birth of a Nerd OS

Okay, so I was snooping through my classmates’ blogs trying to find inspiration for something to write about when I stumbled upon Grace’s use of one of my favorite John Mulaney reaction gifs. This made me think about the bit John Mulaney does in Kid Gorgeous at Radio City…

Abigail Gervase in “What Are Computers?” and Other Questions Abby Has

Apr 7, 2019

Reading 08: The Magic Cauldron

Listen, I don’t know any more, okay? I don’t understand economics. I’ve tried. It hasn’t worked. Money is fake, we all know this, but we can’t accept it because then everything goes down the toilet and we’re screwed.

Abigail Gervase in “What Are Computers?” and Other Questions Abby Has

Apr 1, 2019

Reading 07: The Noosphere

Shockingly enough, as someone who has never felt a really strong drive to contribute to open source, I don’t really know what drives people to contribute to open source. I don’t mean that in the same way I’d say “I don’t really know why some people dislike ice cream.” I think it’s…

Abigail Gervase in “What Are Computers?” and Other Questions Abby Has

Apr 1, 2019

Reading 06: The Cathedral and the Bazaar

Since I’ve never really worked on an open source project before, I can’t say for sure that I’ve gotten the full experience of the bazaar. But also I feel like since my internships so far have had a very startup-y feel to them, with producing working products…

Abigail Gervase in “What Are Computers?” and Other Questions Abby Has

Mar 3, 2019

Reading 05: If you start me up I’ll never stop

I think it’s really interesting how just a few essays ago, Paul Graham was talking about how hackers are artists and should create things for the love and beauty of it since his message in these past few essays has been, basically, make things and…

Abigail Gervase in “What Are Computers?” and Other Questions Abby Has

Feb 24, 2019

Reading 04: I don’t speak Spanish, Japanese or French, but the way that [program]’s talkin’ definitely makes sense

I, like many people who went to Catholic school, took Latin as a language class from sophomore to senior year. My mother had insisted…

Abigail Gervase in “What Are Computers?” and Other Questions Abby Has

Feb 17, 2019

Reading 03: Green is not a creative color

Every Wednesday night, Mustard, the creative writing club a Notre Dame, meets in a dimly-lit room in LaFun. Prior to the meeting, up to three members submit a short piece that they’ve written, and during the meeting the club reads each piece aloud and…

Abigail Gervase in “What Are Computers?” and Other Questions Abby Has

Feb 2, 2019

Reading 02: Money, money, money. Must be funny.

I think the idea of thinking of programming as an “art” is really interesting, because I think it leaves us a lot of room to draw comparisons between coding and other forms of art. Like, very few people do things like accounting or chemical…

Abigail Gervase in “What Are Computers?” and Other Questions Abby Has

Jan 26, 2019

Reading 01: For the times they are a-changin’

Despite sharing the thirst for knowledge and the desire to mess around with technology until something cool came out, the Hardware Hackers of the seventies were extremely different from the “True Hackers” of the fifties and sixties. Not only did the…

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“What Are Computers?” and Other Questions Abby Has

Abby Gervase’s blog for CSE 40842 Hackers in the Bazaar

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