Look, internet, I know language evolves and all, but you have to stop using this word.
You didn’t bypass your kitchen’s firewall when you put pancake mix in a ketchup bottle, you just wasted a bunch of time.
You didn’t break the encryption of life when you shoved your iPhone in a toilet paper tube, you just made your girlfriend leave you.
I asked your Dad what network you were exploiting when you called eating cheetos with chopsticks a “hack”, but all he could say was “I have no son”.
…so how do you use an bladed instrument to bypass a firewall?
My favorite was when, in a moment of weakness, I followed a link to learn about the “amazing life hack” that New York hipsters were using to make delicious meals. It turned out that they were ordering the meals from a Manhattan-based delivery service, whose website I’d conveniently landed on.
Whoah. Delivery food. Amazing life hack, fellows!
My wife, however, has the best answer. Whenever she reads “life hacks,” she mentally substitutes, “Hints from Heloise.”
Is that the one that shows some meal with a fried egg on top with a runny yoke and someone going after it with chop sticks?
Yeah, I know language evolves and all, but it’s time to use a more descriptive word for computer jiggery-pokery.
THAT’S THE ONE! In my defense, I was hungry.
Hah! I love those books! And the column, when I can find it.
I may be one of the few who actually stills calls them POKEs rather than hacks.
Sorry, acts of bypassing firewalls, breaking encryption, etc. are “cracks”, not “hacks”.
“Hackers build things, crackers break them.”
People starting to use the term “hack” correctly again is a good thing.
That ship left a decade ago or more.
Recommended website:
To be fair it did look tasty.
Well, at least that’s ONE dumbass thing I’ve managed to avoid clicking on.
The word hack existed before computer people began using it. So computer people have no business claiming exclusive right to the word.
Let them get away with this and they’ll be complaining next about the way zoologists are appropriating the computer term bug to describe an insect.
That insect’s not a bug, it’s a feature!
You won’t believe response number 14 to this thread.
I love this one. While it does sorta work, it also supposes that you have a handy supply of toilet paper tubes around. And, really, if you can drop $600 on a phone why not go the extra mile and buy some cheap speakers at Five Below rather than relying on bathroom trash to make your phone work?
Today at Cracked.com they have 8 Stupid Kitchen Hacks (Tested for Usefulness). 
i thought hack meant someone who was not good at their profession? or, separately, a cab driver…
So what do you call a list of programming tips for a mediocre cabbie with a dry cough who moonlights as a prison guard?
useless?
Never heard that, for me computer related pokes still mean writing directly to memory in old commodore basic.
Hacking as a term to bypass normal function seems like a reasonable use for some non-computer stuff but most life hacks seem like a misuse of a new trendy phrase. Though hacking is now mainly about bypassing security so who knows.
Language does change and evolve though so if people like “life-hacks” and it is popular and has little relation to computer hacking or chopping at something then so be it.
