ChoJin’s Quarter

For most people, as reinforced by the media and movies, a hacker is just a guy who finds his way into other people’s computers. I’m not going to talk about this category of people, but rather about, what I would call, the hacker’s spirit. It seems that everyone has his own definition of what a hacker is, therefore I’ll start with a definition from the Jargon File:

Hacker:
One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations.

I’ve always felt that hacking is not limited to computer science. It’s not just someone who manages to find security bugs in computers. Neither is it just someone who finds elegant solutions to computer problems. To me, hacking is just a fancy synonym for curiosity, creativity and ingenuity. And for the same reason we can talk about the American way of life, I think we can talk about the hacker way of life.

In my opinion a lot of people are hackers, they just don’t call themselves that, or just don’t know it A hacker, as I perceive it, will often have a tendency to find creative ways of using every day objects or machines. Hence the expression “hacker’s way of life” and “seeing through the hacker’s eyes”. Some people like mind games; a hacker will just find mind games everyday and everywhere.

To illustrate this, let me give you a very simple problem I encountered a few years ago (yes I do consider myself as a hacker. Not that I think I’m more clever than other people, but it seems I always have a tendency to find hidden uses or features in every day objects):

In California, most of the time, item’s prices are given with no tax included. I find this quite annoying because you never really know exactly how much you are going to pay until you actually pay for it. And if you pay by cash, you always end up, over time, with a lot of change. The reason for this is clear; even if the sales tax was included, stores would still price items with prices such as $19.95, $14.95 and so on. Thus, you would mostly end up with nickels and a couple of pennies when they price items at $19.99. On top of that, when the sales tax is included, it’s easier to prepare the exact change, because you know in advance what the final price will be.

Anyway, enough introduction… I always end up with tons of coins in my pocket (even though I mainly pay for everything using an ATM or credit card)… Annoying, isn’t it? One day I found a nice solution to this problem (and before someone starts a flame war: yes, I know I’m not the only one doing that): I just go to a vending machine, I put my nickels and dimes in there, and I ask for my change back without buying anything. On all the machines I have used, they always give you the change back with the minimum number of coins. In other words, you’ll mostly get quarters back! I also often use this trick when I need quarters for some machines. In such a case, you can also try with a $1 bill. Some machine just gives you the bill back, but some others give 4 quarters back instead.

I know my example isn’t clever enough to astonish you… But I still believe it’s a good example of the “hacker’s spirit”, and how hacking doesn’t have to be computer science or programming oriented. A good hack doesn’t have to save the world to be a good hack. It’s all about the spirit put into it

Ok that’s it for today! Feel free to discuss the definition of hacker, and also to provide similar examples of everyday hacks. These small hacks always make our life easier and more fun. So please share yours