Finding the lost city: Does the Amazon jungle conceal a vanished empire?

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/02/22/finding_the_lost_city/?page=full

by robg • 17 years ago

54 18 17 years ago

boston.com

critic2• 17 years ago

Just as (un)interesting to non-hackers as it is to hackers.

sfphotoarts• 17 years ago

I thought this was going to be about S3!

peregrine• 17 years ago

Some people might think that this is non-related to hacker news and boring but I'd like to make the case that it is related.

These archeologists in the amazon searching for ruins are the 'hackers' of the field. These people where all told that no civilization could exist in this forest and they all proved them wrong and did it their own way.

They do it for the love of the hunt, the excitement, the same reason why we love to code.

critic2• 17 years ago

"Hackers are Archaeologists" now? PG, are you listening?

davidw• 17 years ago

It's completely unrelated to this site's usual topics. However, it is not in the 'toxic' category: politics, religion, and the like. People who aren't interested can simply move on, and it's unlikely to draw in people who want to debate Marx vs Mises or that sort of thing. Not that it matters much one way or the other, but I don't really mind this sort of off-topic article as long as they aren't too common.

cedsav• 17 years ago

I found the article inspiring, so thanks to the OP.

As an entrepreneur, I sometime struggle with the idea that everything has been done, all the great ideas have been implemented, and I'm one step behind, trying to get by on the long tail of history.

Of course this is not true. There still are lost cities to be found in the 21st century, and an infinite number of opportunities for those willing to work hard enough to discover them.

rgr• 17 years ago

I worry about people using the work 'hacker' so broadly that it becomes meaningless. Is a football player a hacker because he's 'hacking' his body to optimize the actions that would lead to a touchdown?

Please let's stick to 'hacker' as a person who creates innovative technology.

tdonia• 17 years ago

according to wikipedia, technology is "a broad concept that deals with an animal species' usage and knowledge of tools and crafts, and how it affects an animal species' ability to control and adapt to its environment" so the football player in your example, the one [not?] "'hacking' his body to optimize the actions that would lead to a touchdown" only fails to be a hacker by your definition ("a person who creates innovative technology" ) if he's not being innovative. which is a subjective decision that's impossible to evaluate from your analogy.

i worry about people using the word "hacker" so narrowly that we let our subjective prejudices arbitrarily limit our ability to innovate.

greendestiny• 17 years ago

I agree. Hacker is a word that only a small subculture of computer programmers would call themselves, despite what attributes they might project on others. This article was interesting to hackers, I haven't met a hacker yet who wasn't at least peripherally interested in archaeology, architecture, psychology and history.

whatusername• 17 years ago

How about a person who creates an innovative diet/training regime - that actually works

Or even the ones building the latest undetectable steroids, blood transfusion techniques to get High Altitude blood into the system, etc..

Much more interesting reading than "I put a rails GUI infront of a simple database" startups.

dkarl• 17 years ago

I agree. Isn't it a bit arrogant that every time we see somebody displaying ingenuity, inquisitiveness, or any other intellectual virtue, we think, "Hey, just like a computer programmer!"

amohr• 17 years ago

I don't know if this is still the case, but when my team applied for YC there was a specific question about 'hacking' something, specifically, not a computer. So I would say this sort of news would fall within the scope of the community.

This particular instance may not be 'hacking' according to Hoyle, but it's a story of people dedicated to revealing the full truth about a long-standing mystery of human history. I think a lot of what makes a hacker a hacker is their breadth of knowledge and ability to apply it usefully in unfamiliar situations, which does apply to many of the techniques mentioned within the article.

Either way it's interesting material - good for keeping your brain on its toes.

tallanvor• 17 years ago

While I wouldn't equate archeologists to hackers, I still consider this to be an interesting article. --I'd actually be surprised if this wasn't at least somewhat interesting to a majority of the readers here.

Ardit20• 17 years ago

I found it fascinating and if anything it reminded me that reality can be much more exciting than any fiction.

thaumaturgy• 17 years ago

No, it's silly to try to draw any parallel between the content of this article and entrepreneurship or "hacking".

I would much rather see this article as simply something that might be interesting to people that like to think about stuff.

herval2• 17 years ago

I'll follow your line of thought and start posting food recipes on hacker news. Chocolate and Bacon Pizza, for example. Only a Hacker-Gourmet could ever think of something like that... What do you think?

hotshothenry• 17 years ago

i love stories like this about ancient civilizations and lost cities, can't get enough of it.

Finding the lost city: Does the Amazon jungle conceal a vanished empire?

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