Hacking beyond the Net

Michał Piotr Prągowski

Many in the IT community have never forgiven the media for twisting the original meaning of hacker. Despair not, though - the constructivist spirit advocated by the likes of Eric S. Raymond and Richard Stallman is not dead.

On the modern Web with its millions of users, the original ideas of hacking have resurfaced on a mass scale as lifehacking - a phenomenon noted even by American linguists.

Bought an electronic airline ticket and want to check in through business class even though you haven’t got a boarding pass? Wondering what the best months are for buying household appliances, houses or toys? Want to lower your mortgage payments? Or maybe easily extend your iPod’s functionality without invalidating the warranty? Lifehacking has the answers to all these questions and thousands more, being dedicated to making life easier through the use of cunning, intelligence and skill. The Internet is the perfect medium for sharing this knowledge with others - after all, what fun is a clever hack if you don’t share it with others?

All computer geeks and hackers know this to be true, so it is no surprise that lifehacking originated from these circles. Improving operating systems and software as well as finding and patching bugs all demand innovative shortcuts - and lifehacking is basically all about hacks to make our lives easier.

In the beginning was the iPod

The origins of the term are lost in the mists of time. Like much Web-based parlance, lifehacking just sort of sprouted up. However, the efforts of the IT community alone could never have sufficed to popularise the term on the scale currently seen in the US. What it needed was a mass electronic product that would be loved by ordinary people and computer geeks alike - and Steve Jobs’s company provided just the thing. Users have come to love their iPods, in spite of their occasional shortcomings, both more and less serious. How can you make Windows 98 detect an iPod? How can you load video into an iPod without using iTunes? What unofficial plugins can you use to extend iPod functionality? Where outside iTunes can you find interesting podcasts?

The white media players with their cute apple logo have provoked thousands of questions. Most of them were answered more quickly and eagerly by other Internet users than by Apple technical support, and it was on the iPod user forums that lifehacking became a known and popular term. Most of the advice was provided by educated and active Internet users, frequently bloggers.

After that, it was downhill all the way. Blogs spread the word, and numerous how-to’s sprouted up, often quite unrelated to MP3 players. Lifehacking quickly became a buzzword, at least in the US. In December 2005, editors from Oxford University Press gathered to traditionally summarise new English vocabulary items deemed to have had the most effect on mass language culture. And bingo - lifehack appeared in the company of sudoku, rootkit and bird flu. So what if podcast won.

Don’t live to geek...

Lifehacker.com, one of the best lifehacking websites, provides its readers with daily news on a bewildering array of subjects - you can learn how to get rid of burnt-out pixels on an LCD display, but also how to fix a wobbly stool or peel a baked pepper without damaging it. The website not only offers textual information, but also video presentations. A film tutorial demonstrating Linux installation on an iPod is more convenient for the average user than even the best text description.

Despite the occasional foray into the realm of the ridiculous (cf. wobbly stool), Lifehacker.com is not a collection of tips on absolutely every subject (at least not yet), and the overall impression of the site is most positive. Regular readers are generally most interested in tips on the everyday use of software and computers. Less experienced users can benefit from featured easy-to-use software, such as Pegtop PStart (http://www.pegtop.net/start) or Portable Apps (http://portableapps.com/suite), while more advanced users can learn how to set up a home server and support MySQL, PHP or JSP on it. Note that although lifehacking tips can be extremely useful for computer experts, they are not the only intended target audience.

Lifehacker.com has received acclaim from traditional media, including the Wall Street Journal, Guardian and Time. The website sets out its aim clearly: Computers make us more productive. Yeah, right. Lifehacker recommends the downloads, web sites and shortcuts that actually save time. Don’t live to geek; geek to live.

Never underestimate the obvious

Lifehack.org is another lifehacking website, focussing primarily on the non-virtual aspects of life. You can find some unique and genuinely useful tips there, such as detailed instructions on how to bypass tourist class check-in on Southwest airlines. Nobody likes to queue, so why not check in through business class using your tourist class ticket - and that legally?

However, among Lifehack.org’s top 50 tips for 2005 you will also find advice on finding happiness, sleeping well or even cleaning effectively - sad to say, mostly rather trivial. This illustrates the downside of lifehacking: the more popular it becomes, the more often you see life hacks that can only be useful to users completely ignorant on a given subject. Still, no use complaining - after all, no-one is an expert on absolutely everything.

Untwisting hacking

Eric S. Raymond (ESR) and other computer gurus never tire of instructing obtuse journalists that a hacker is not the same as a cracker. Of course, the problem is that this catchy and overused term has been so effectively deprecated in popular use that it will not regain its original sense just by educating the press.

Fortunately, the meaning of hacking might just be untwisted by lifehacking. The growing popularity and primarily American nature of the lifehacking movement hold hope for change - if people hear about lifehacking and remember that it is useful and positive, then chances are they will also begin to appreciate the concepts that underlie true hacking. And even if they don’t, the word hacking will at least have less negative connotations.

Of course, you could well argue that hacking and lifehacking are similar only in the broadest possible sense, as the former deals with much more serious matters than the latter. But remember ESR’s words in How to become a hacker: Hackers solve problems and build things, and they believe in freedom and voluntary mutual help. The very same ideas drive lifehacking, carefree though it sometimes is.

We can only hope that the hacking way of life will catch on outside the US as well. After all, it’s good to know that the reputation of true hacking can be improved not only through hard work, but also by preparing sushi in one of the 128 ways you’ve just learned.