December 30, 2004
Some MIT pranks compiled over the years in a shout out to E. B. Flagg the third. Or second, or some shit...
Note that the retard website is calling them "hacks" in a stupid sign of the times. I think ned needs to send in a letter demanding that pranks not be refered to as "hacks" ever again, but that's just me...
oops. you'll need to prove to me that they've been called hacks forever because most of us in the non nerd universe called them pranks.
From the Jargon File: "An important secondary meaning of hack is ‘a creative practical joke’." You're welcome to call them pranks, but calling them hacks is perfectly cromulent. Appealing to nerdity to justify linguistic nitpicking of an MIT site in a blog entry is less so.
Eh, what can you do. Hack is totally overused (thanks O'Reilly) and I hope to god it dies a horrible painfull death. Also, what's with quoting some weird random website? I looked it up in the standard usage dictionaries and can't find that connotation (sp?) yet. You'd think that if it's had that meaning "forever" it would have shown up by now in one of the big dictionaries. Unless, I guess, you're defining forever in terms of fruit fly lifetimes or something...
Using hack wrong is hackneyed. (BTW, no practical joke version in the O.E.D)
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They've been called hacks forever and ever, so that's not a new thing. Also, the link seemed a little familiar...
posted by natedogg at 02:52PM CST on December 30