This is one of the best pieces of advice that I've ever given, so mark it :)
To approach a hacker and not be ignored, you need one thing: to be a hacker.
Now, if you're not a software hacker, just don't talk about software. Start a conversation about astronomy, psychology or whatever the field is where you really HACK. By HACK I mean you are so knowledgeable that you flow, you are very curious for the hell of it and you constantly experiment and innovate. Now, it could even be DANCING. It doesn't matter. We hackers love to hack together. I'm an electronics noob, I have a good friend who's an electronics hacker and when he tries to break down his ideas to me like you tell a three year old I barely follow, and yet I love to spend nights hacking electronics with him, even if sometimes all I can do is turn the screwdriver. It's so much fun to experiment and innovate together, or talk about cool experiments in a field you love.
So hack together, get to know the guy, and THEN suggest a project in his field, and if he likes it - you're in. Clue: he'll like it 90% of the times.
For example, I met this bioinformatics Ph.D. in a Ruby User Group where he came to look for programmers for his really cool web startup. He could do some perl and pascal but wasn't a developer. We started talking about his startup ideas, my startup ideas, genetic music composition - whatever came to mind. During the conversation it happened that we INVENTED NEW THINGS together. Today I advise him technically for free, just because it's fun to work with him, sometimes a few hours a day.
To approach a hacker and not be ignored, you need one thing: to be a hacker. Now, if you're not a software hacker, just don't talk about software. Start a conversation about astronomy, psychology or whatever the field is where you really HACK. By HACK I mean you are so knowledgeable that you flow, you are very curious for the hell of it and you constantly experiment and innovate. Now, it could even be DANCING. It doesn't matter. We hackers love to hack together. I'm an electronics noob, I have a good friend who's an electronics hacker and when he tries to break down his ideas to me like you tell a three year old I barely follow, and yet I love to spend nights hacking electronics with him, even if sometimes all I can do is turn the screwdriver. It's so much fun to experiment and innovate together, or talk about cool experiments in a field you love. So hack together, get to know the guy, and THEN suggest a project in his field, and if he likes it - you're in. Clue: he'll like it 90% of the times.
For example, I met this bioinformatics Ph.D. in a Ruby User Group where he came to look for programmers for his really cool web startup. He could do some perl and pascal but wasn't a developer. We started talking about his startup ideas, my startup ideas, genetic music composition - whatever came to mind. During the conversation it happened that we INVENTED NEW THINGS together. Today I advise him technically for free, just because it's fun to work with him, sometimes a few hours a day.
Aur