With BitTorrent, the cat's out of the bag.
One thing about school - I always had this attitude that I was in school to learn, and attempted to do whatever was involved in that process, while school had this attitude that I was there to earn grades, which I couldn't care less about. Unsurprisingly, my grades weren't very good.
My father taught me Basic and rudimentary C, I learned everything else on my own, including studying computational complexity on my own. That's more a function of my age than anything else though - back when I was in school there were hardly any programming classes.
I've accomplished more working on my own than I ever did as part of a team.
I am a technological activist. I have a political agenda. I am in favor of basic human rights: to free speech, to use any information and technology, to purchase and use recreational drugs, to enjoy and purchase so-called 'vices', to be free of intruders, and to privacy.
My favorite language for maintainability is Python. It has simple, clean syntax, object encapsulation, good library support, and optional named parameters.
A good way to have good ideas is by being unoriginal.
Technology is not a panacea. I refuse to work on technology to track users, analyze usage patterns, watermark information, censor, detect drug use, or eavesdrop. I am not naive enough to think any of those technologies could enable a 'compromise'.
Give and ye shall receive.
Things which any idiot could write usually have the quality of having been written by an idiot.
Despite my emphasis on technology, I do not view laws as inherently evil. My goals are political ones, even if my techniques are not. The only way to fundamentally succeed is by changing existing laws. If I rejected all help from the political arena I would inevitably fail.
When you're a connoiseur you look for interesting rather than good.
You get so tired of having your work die. I just wanted to make something that people would actually use.
The mark of a mature programmer is willingness to throw out code you spent time on when you realize it's pointless