Was it similar to the donkey show in "Clerks 2"?

What's not to be cynical about?

" ... I was blown away by how culturally deep it was."

Sure. Correct the flawed stereotypes with more subjective flawed stereotypes by a naive observer.

She was correcting her engrained 'Revenge of the Nerds' stereotype of hackers with an equally arrogant attitude, similar to those of parents who visit a zoo, point to the gorillas and say to their children -- "Hey little Johnny, look at the big monkeys! (while tapping the glass under the sign that says DON"T TAP ON GLASS) Look, at those hands and fingers -- They're just like ours!" -- concluding with huge collective swigs from their BIG GULP clones.

She seems to be aiming to take the logical, thoughtful, democratic behavior hackers exhibit -- which should be the vanguard for all human interaction -- and bending it into an amusing sidebar for WIRED as to the hackers "unusual" habits. All for a chance to get her name in print for some future book jacket blurb regarding "... her insightful and seminal work as she risked her name, sanity and possibly even her life as she descend into the seamy hacker underworld to collect research data..."

This is all much like the gorilla inwardly cringing whenever he's called a monkey.

YMMV

With that remark, one might deduce that MIT had invented time travel...

I have only one word to respond to that ---

Human Engineering

(It's two words actually, but it sounds much more dramatic to say one word...)

How easy would it be to watch Barbie or Kelly type in their PIN number at the gas station, a shoe store or the Clinique counter. Phones are popular theft items to begin with.

Pet _MAN
How appropriate.

It will be a hit with woman.

It let's itself be pushed around,
It checks the toilet seat state.
It proposes on one knee.

The only flaw I see, is that it only seems to know the missionary position...

You forgot ---

"Yes, dear"
and its variant
"OK, honey"

This reminds me of a tale of woe in a company cafeteria many many many moons ago.

A stock room clerk was lamenting the spending of $1500 (on the credit card) by his wife for shoes and clothing the previous month. He told us that when he confronted his wife as to the large outflow, she sincerely responded that she didn't actually spend $1500. She told him she SAVED the family $300 since she bought the merchandise on sale. Further explanation of flawed reasoning led to tears.

What this seems to say is that the price of helium has historically been inversely proportional to the televised quantity of hot air generated by Washington pols. Now they're changing the rules so it is directly proportional to Washington gas emissions. This includes all gases generated by any Washington orifice -- lighter than air or not...

But it would be about right for a person that was 2 mega meters tall...

"My God! It's full of stars!"

At least we get to use almost all the moons....

From the movie "The Treasure of Silicon Valley", Bill Gates in a bandito hat indignantly replies to Humphrey "Don't" Bogart:

"Antivirus? We ain't got no Antivirus. We don't need no Antivirus! I don't have to show you any stinkin' Antivirus!"

Often misquoted from "Blazing Windows" as
"We don't need no stinkin' Antivirus!"

Does this mean that blind people can now read PLAYBOY for more than just the articles?

You hit the proverbial nail -- Sad to say.

      I'd like to add how television aids in reinforcing this behavior pattern. It would probably be a safe bet to say that education desire/absorption is inversely proportion to the number of hours in front of the tube.
      (In my formative years, I could count on one hand the number of UHF and VHF channels. Therefore, less TV watching, not to mention that one had to actually get up off the sofa to change the channel. A TV in one's room was a non starter.)
      Try and convince the inner city single parent to limit the hours in front of the electronic babysitter. The imagery on the tube almost never reinforces education for advancement. Street smarts and gaming the system is all that is required to get ahead and/or be popular.