[Classifieds] What are you doing to make the world a better place and how can we help?

I'm writing a book on cancer research -- how it's stagnated in recent decades, and what new research directions might offer more promise.

My hope is to influence funders (primarily investors) towards focusing on more diverse types of cancer treatments.

How people can help:

I'm looking for an agent. (I have a draft and a book proposal.) If anybody has contacts, I'd much appreciate it.

Arbital 2.0

Blogging / social media platform.

Initially: 1) make math blogging much nicer, 2) help people connect over similar interests. Eventually: change the shape of the social media and information flowing through it.

If you know math bloggers, I'd appreciate a referral so I could tell them about the platform and see what their needs are.

LessWrong is not an appropriate discussion venue for both of my most important current endeavors, so instead I'll start us off with something a bit lighter weight that might help capture the spirit I'd like the thread to have:

A Complete History Of The Word 'Hacker'

I am attempting to chronicle the complete history of the word hacker, from its beginnings in the 1950's as jargon among MIT students (and possibly even earlier as a term used by Ham Radio operators) through the decades to the present day. This includes the split between the MIT hacker community and the phreaking community (which later evolved into the computer 'hacking' community of intrusion artists). For more information see my blog post summarizing most of my research so far.

The basic impact I expect this project to have is to contribute to history, in particular the intellectually and culturally fascinating history of the two major subcultures chronicled by the proposed work.

You can help if you happen to meet one of the following criteria:

• You happen to have been alive during and participated in the early MIT/Stanford/etc AI scene, or were otherwise involved in the early ARPANET. In this case the best way you could contribute would be by going on record and telling your story so that the recollection is not lost to future generations. (Not impossible given the major AI focus of this community.)

• You know someone who meets the first criteria, and can convince them to go on the historical record.

• You're aware of documents or artifacts which predate the ones I've listed as earliest examples of a phenomena. Your pointing these out to me would be massively appreciated!

• You're aware of interesting documents or artifacts that are not already in my bibliography on that page. I know it's quite long, so if you don't feel like reading it feel free to just message me with what comes to mind.

• You also have an interest in the subject, and would like to partner up on researching it. In that case message me and we'll discuss where I'm at with things and what avenues are promising.