A Nation of Hackers

Hack, hack, hack!

What’s that?

It’s the sound of a nation of hackers. That’s us in the 21st century.

Not so long ago, in the previous century, a hack was just a term at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for an ingenious solution to a problem. Those who invented the solutions were hackers.  As computers came along, hacks and hackers came along too, spreading the terminology beyond MIT into general use. Hackers were those who foundhacks for computers, ways to stretch their limits or detour around the limits they faced.

With the invention of the Internet, soon enough there were “black hat” hackers, those who caused trouble for others, and “white hat” hackers, those who did good. Ben Yagoda details all this nicely in  “A Short History of ‘Hack,’” written for The New Yorker last year.

But then, in the 21st century, a funny thing happened. The notion of a hack as a solution to a problem, or an ingenious shortcut, or an imaginative creation, began spreading to practically any activity you can name. Take a look, for example, over the shoulders  of the happy cooks at the Smitten Kitchen:

“This salad [cabbage with apples and walnuts] is great as it is, but I am already itching to hack the recipe. I’d imagine that some snipped chives or perhaps a package of fresh dill would be great. … ”

“In both versions [of chocolate chip cookies], like most baking recipes, the dry ingredients (salt, flour, baking soda) are to be mixed separately, but I’m a lazy cook, and include my own hack below to skip this.”

“How has it taken people this long to discover this breakfast hack? [latke waffles] Well done! (And way better than tater tots.)”

“Forgot to add that the cookbook author came up with this one [potato and artichoke tortilla] as a use for leftover potatoes. The one I link to in the recipe notes is a traditional tortilla with the long sauté in a lot of olive oil. This is more of a hack, a good use for leftovers.”

The name lifehacker, coined in 2004 and followed soon after by the website Lifehacker, sums it up: you can hack anything in your life and make it better. This month on the Lifehacker home page you could find articles on lifting weights faster, the best mouthwash, the best times to visit national parks, using a table saw to cut a perfect circle, making fudge ice pops with just two ingredients.

On the web you can find folding hacks (how to fold a T-shirt in two seconds), drinking hacks (25 booze hacks every drinker should know), and reading hacks (read alone).

Yes, we are a nation of hackers. Maybe that’s why we’re so successful. We’re always looking to improve things, including ourselves. You could call it the American philosophy of pragmatism, expressed in hack the way America’s greatest word, OK, in two letters expresses the pragmatic American philosophy of making things work, even if they aren’t perfect.

View the original content and more from this author here: http://ift.tt/1GwVscx

from hacker samurai http://ift.tt/1GwVp0f
via IFTTT