I listened to the radio presentation on this topic. There is another shade of meaning of the word "hack" which the program touched on only with the word "makeshift", a meaning used sometime in the past among software engineers. We would say that a modification to a software program was a "hack" if it met some narrow, short-term need, but the programming technique was considered poor when viewed more broadly.

Are you going to make the distinction between "hacking" and "cracking"?

To those doing it, "hacking" is exploration and sometimes practical joking based on uncommon or unconventional knowledge or understanding of a system, whether it's a computer or office communications or a political system.

"cracking" is breaking or breaking into computers or computer based systems (like the phone system) for purposes of ego, vandalism, theft or other malicious purposes.

hi, folks, I love your show. My buddy / collaborator Nick Lally (nicklally.com) teaches a class called "Hacking For Artists" at UC Santa Cruz and The California Academy of the Arts. He's writing a book about it too. If you're still looking for stories, he has a great voice for radio.