Prof Hacker Hacked

I break my prolonged radio silence and come out of retirement to update you all on a pressing matter.

You see, it looks like our friends over at Prof Hacker have been hacked. And in case the site disappears shortly at the hands of their evil occupiers, let me reproduce the proof below from this post.

As I write this post, the ProfHacker numbers look a little something like this: since we launched on July 26 our authors have written 510 posts, our commenters have left 3,985 comments, and our readers have loaded 308,901 page views. We’re all so very grateful for the interest and enthusiasm with which this project has been greeted, and we’re surprised (in a good way!) with how quickly it’s taken off.

And now for some big news.

You won’t be seeing any new posts for a few days. We’re taking a short break in order to pack up and move our project to its new location. Starting Monday, April 19, ProfHacker will be hosted by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

What does this mean for you, the reader? Well, the subject matter, style, and tone of the site will remain the same: our contract allows us to maintain editorial control. Furthermore, the crackerjack team of ProfHacker authors will remain the same.

The web address will change to something new, but fear not: the old address will continue to work by sending you to the new site. As of Monday if you type into your web browser, you’ll automatically be re-directed to our new location. If you click on an old link to one of our posts–like –you’ll automatically be redirected to that post’s new location at the Chronicle web site. So if, for example, you’re a blogger who has written something that links to one of our posts, your link will still work. If you subscribe to our RSS feed, you’ll need to change the address of the feed to which you subscribe, so check back next week for what that new address will be.

I know you’re used to getting your 3-post-a-day fix from us, but just be patient for a bit and please come join us on Monday at the Chronicle!

Now, we all know that this is a hacker, I mean who would parade their staggering numbers over the past 10 months, and quote post and comment numbers stats only to drop a bomb like “We’re moving to The Chronicle of Higher Education“? This couldn’t be a devout group of digital humanities professors looking to spread the good word and grease the wheels of innovation in higher ed, right? No way, these folks are committed, they understand the power of audience and readership, and the fact that people depend on a sense of intimacy and unmediated relationships to form larger communities within this emerging field. I mean, no digital humanities profs worth their salt would enter into a contract with a reactionary publication that would force them to reiterate that they are being allowed “to maintain editorial control.” No way, impossible. I mean you have a good thing going, and even if your blog is more akin to a Chicken Soup for the Soul of HigherEd than say a strident voice of freedom and self-defining will which characterizes the inimitable bava, there’s no way you would sharecrop (thank you, D’Arcy) on the servers of the Chronicle under a contract that turns your readership into pageviews because of a quick start, and renounce any sense of true ownership in order to shill for the Chronicle. Inconceivable!

So, I want to send my best wishes over to the fine folks at Prof Hacker, and hope that they soon straighten out their hacker problem. It’s never fun or easy to be hacked, it’s so violating—it really makes you wonder what this whole space is about sometimes. I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if after this experience they got a bit gun shy about the whole idea of starting a blog and providing semi-useful information to folks on a regular basis—it can be dangerous work with all kinds of seductions and shortcuts.

My thoughts are with the Prof Hacker crew in this, their darkest hour.

In other news their is a great movie coming out this Monday titled “Shill or be Shilled” —looking forward to that one.

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29 Responses to Prof Hacker Hacked

  1. Joel says:

    If I guess your feelings correctly, I’d say I share your sense of betrayal.

    Like you, I thought of Prof Hacker as somehow having more class and integrity than this… That Prof Hacker was one of us. We probably lusted after PF in the same ways. Somehow, as improbable as it now seems, getting with PF somehow seemed possible, and I’ll freely admit that my nocturnal emissions were often triggered by visions of blogging with PF in the throes of ecstasy. Feelings of awkward longing amplified by frenzied teen-like passions of the hot love.

    I’ll never forget the one time I managed to leverage PF’s pity to wangle a slow dance at the end of the night. I dangled my hands along the top of PF’s hips, but didn’t dare reach any lower. My throbbing tumescence demanded it be pressed against PF’s tummy, but I knew that would mean disaster — I’d cream my jeans immediately and probably pass out in a fit of erotic asphyxiation.

    Yes, as your post points out, Prof Hacker knows how unbelievably hot it is. And it uses that to get what it wants, no question about it.

    If we are honest with ourselves, how can we surprised to see PF hook up with the Chronicle? Ww knew this was going to happen. That’s how the snobs vs. the slobs movie always goes. The CHE drives a red Fiero, is starting middle linebacker, can kick anybody’s ass and does so whenever it wants, and let’s not forget how much money CHE’s daddy throws around and what that buys for all of those rich creeps.

    Of course we know how this story is going to end. Most likely CHE won’t wear protection, and will demand back-door access to PF too. And whether or not PF gives in CHE will tell all its friends that it got what it wanted. One of us will probably find ourselves sitting up late after some stupid party, trying to act like a good listener while PF cries and talks about how CHE treats it like shit but how really The Chronicle’s a beautiful publication inside, if you really get to know it.

    I say, if that’s what Prof Hacker wants, then let it get knocked up, get married and spend its entire life dealing with that loser. We should get our own acts together — do some backpacking through Thailand, start a band, have some adventure, live our lives and grow up a little bit. And after grad school get awesome jobs that reward us with smart, cool colleagues and allow us to travel the world. Somewhere, from the depths of a demeaning conservative domestic hell of PFs own making, it will see us running wild, running free, shaking our heads and letting loose.

  2. Tom says:

    Jim –

    Thanks to Joel’s comment your desire to become a porn blog has now been achieved. Congratulations? Please go back into retirement.

  3. Jason says:

    Aww, the Bava still loves us.

  4. “CAN’T YOU SEE? EVERYONE….THEY’RE HERE ALREADY! YOU’RE NEXT!”

  5. Pingback: They’re HERE! « nothing is over!

  6. George says:

    Maybe it’s the lack of coffee talking, but this post made my morning.

  7. Ed Webb says:

    Das Kronikal is people – it’s made of people!

    • Reverend says:

      @Ed,

      Exactly, everything is everything, no need to wonder what this means for higher ed blogging, credibility outside the traditional ideas of mass media, and controlling your own sense of purpose above and beyond all that.

      But as Joel notes, it’s all just a Freudian urge to consummate the sin.

  8. Ed Webb says:

    Do we kill (and eat) the father, or do we replace him at the Emperor’s side? These are confusing times, psychologically speaking…

  9. how will I know what to eat for lunch anymore?

  10. Jason says:

    @Peter: Does your browser not reach the Chronicle? Lunch posts will continue, for as long as Billie and everyone seem interested.

  11. Stein says:

    If you can’t join ’em, beat ’em.

  12. brat guy says:

    “In other news their is a great movie coming out this Monday titled “Shill or be Shilled” —looking forward to that one.”

    =Spell check error:
    “there,” not “their.” You used the wrong word at the end dude. Be embarrassed.

  13. Reverend says:

    @Stein,
    Beat something.

    @brat guy,
    You’re right, I am embarrassed, and I will wear that error like a Scarlet Letter for the rest of my days. Good to know their are people like you on the web to protect us from ourselves. Let me guess, a puritan grammar teacher from back in the day when all that was relevant and remotely interesting…am I right? Or are you simply a jackass?

  14. Tom says:

    I was hoping that guy was someone you secretly knew. I want to set him on fire.

  15. Tom says:

    Damn . . . . McLurken open hand smacked you Jimmy.

  16. Reverend says:

    @jmcclurken,

    Only after I made them 🙂

    @Tom,
    You got the matches? I’ll bring the gas.

  17. Boone Gorges says:

    @Rev – Just so you know, your response to “brat guy” had a couple of possible comma splices/run-ons. Clean that shit up or the Chronicle will buy you out and shut you down too.

  18. Reverend says:

    @Boone,

    You know I can’t clean them up because I can’t see them, I can only see the future.

  19. Reverend says:

    @Tom,

    Those may be the worst comments ever, they keep me up at night with an irrational sense of hate and anger. As I know they do you!

    @George, Jason, Jeff, and everyone else at Prof Hacker,
    On thinking about it a bit more, why don’t (or didn’t) the folks at Prof Hacker publish their reasoning for moving to The Chronicle a bit more. One of my reasons for this post was to find out more about those reasons (hence the couching of it), and perhaps get some discourse around this going about those reasons and how they pertain to the future of digital humanities. But it seems I failed at that, given how you don;t broach this issue—which may not be a bad idea in the comment thread of the bava. At the same time it makes me feel like there is something folks are avoiding discussing. And that makes it seems that much less transparent.

    Given so much of the emerging discourse about digital humanities depends on openness and transparency, I’d love to see this discussion emerge online.

  20. Ed Webb says:

    @Jim – you wanted a discussion? Not sure this was the way to get it. Silly Rev Bava, bringing a knife to a gun fight.

  21. @Jim is it about the [presumed] pay or is it about the possible content / access restrictions that bugs you?

  22. Reverend says:

    @Ed,

    Too true, and I am always doing that…

    @Peter,
    Actually, I was more confused than bugged, I really don;t understand the impulse, especially when they had engineered a pretty good thing on their own. It is clear the Chronicle is incorporating them for both page views (and as a result advertising dollars, however small) and to reach a part of their audience—which makes sense. I’m just not clear on the reasoning of the Prof hacker folks. Is it for credibility? Tenure and promotion concerns (we can kill many an innovative independent idea with that stick)? Hosting? What….I really don;t get it, and figured there would be more of an explanation than “We are moving!” and “We still have creative control”—the very reiteration of makes one wonder.

  23. Ed Webb says:

    If this turns out to be a way to smuggle some discussion of NITLE into CHE, I’m all for it

  24. Chris Lott says:

    Dude, they are as free as ever because they have freedom in the *minds*. You can’t take that shit away even if you lock ’em up and throw away the key. It’s all a state of mind, man. People is people. Let the well-Chronicled love wash over you.

    Why struggle? It just makes the cuffs tighter, the rope burn deeper, and the chafing of the chains…

  25. @Chris Lott

    Is that directly from the “They Live” script of is that fan fic?

    😉

  26. Pingback: Joy, Rock, and Teaching: The Hold Steady's 'Heaven is Whenever' - ProfHacker - The Chronicle of Higher Education

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