Ethics and the "hacking system" Q from YC application
Rust: One way to "hack the system" is to do what you said - employ some type of deception or misdirection in order to gain something you shouldn't.Another way is to re-purpose something to do what it wasn't designed to do. For example, any contraption that would be called a "Rube Goldberg Machine" would qualify as (non-computer) hacking. MAKE Magazine is full of hacks of this nature as well. The Burning Man Festival is a great place to see things hacked together.Another way might be to fix a perceived flaw through unorthodox means. For example, I put new pickups in my guitar, and they were too hot (too loud, bad distortion). Instead of replacing them (they sounded awesome at lower volumes), I routed the pickup holes to be slightly deeper, then wired in a bypass switch, letting me choose to have a normal tone or naturally overdriven (good distortion) tone. Drummers who put tape over part of a drum skin are hacking their system. Guitarists with old Stratocasters often file their nuts and lower the bridge for better tone.So I respectfully disagree - one can definitely be a (non-computer) hacker and be ethical at the same time.