The "Hacker" Stereotype

It happened again tonight. This guy I know "jokingly" asked me if I knew of an exploit that "we" could use to take advantage of the gold-farming situation in Second Life. Seems he'd read a magazine article about how some "creative" folks were turning Linden dollars into real dollars, and he wanted a piece of the action somehow. I tried to discourage him by explaining the reality of the situation-- that his idea was completely unethical (read fraud), probably illegal and bound to attract the attention of the FBI and/or Secret Service.

Does he take the hint? No.

He keeps going on about how we'd give a third of it to charity (like this makes the unethical behaviour "okay" somehow?), split the other two thirds between us-- and it'd be so cool and edgy that we'd become urban legends, blah blah blah. The guy goes on for 10 minutes like this, trying to convince me I should see this his way. I finally turned my back on him and walked away.

He probably never realized he was being stupid and offensive.

Here's a lesson for the uninitiated:

1) There's a surprising number of asians who do NOT know martial arts.

2) There are black people who can't dance, rap or play basketball.

3) There are "hackers" who don't vandalize or break into web servers/computer systems.

Oh, yeah-- almost forgot:

4) If you want to make "mad cash," figure out how to hack the prevailing paradigm of the current business model instead of the technology (cf. Chris Anderson's "The Long Tail" and Seth Godin's "Free Prize Inside.")

Beard Trimmer Dissection

I don't consider myself a "real" hacker. Sure, I know a lot about computers; I've made more web sites, blogs, etc. than I can count and written some arguably cool code in C and Perl. I enjoy the software side of the fence, but "real" hackers possess what seems like an almost supernatural mechanical ingenuity to take physical objects apart, analyze the capabilities of the separate components, and then reassemble them-- possibly introducing deliberate modifications-- and having a function tool afterwards.

For instance, there are people who have taken apart an iPhone . . . which strikes me as simultaneously daring, and insane to the point of being strangely cool. I'd never have the nerve to dissect something that expensive because I'd be afraid I'd break it, void the warranty and be stuck with a $500 paper weight. Truth is, even if it isn't all that expensive, I'm reluctant to take something apart just because I'd hate to break it. I don't know why this bothers my sensibilities so much, but it definitely does.

When something stops working properly on its own, however, taking it apart suddenly doesn't seem so bad. After all, the darn thing is broken already, so it's not like I can break it much worse. So, when my beard trimmer made noises like it was running, but the plate that normally moves back and forth was not moving, I figured it was time to take the sucker apart. Who knows, I figured, maybe I can fix the damn thing.

I managed to get the cheap plastic case open after several tries. I found out that even though the diagram on the battery casing indicates three batteries are needed, it can actually run with just a single battery if you place it in the correct "slot." The concept is fairly simple-- a motor with an electrical circuit that has a switch on it. The lopsided, black plastic tip on the end of the motor shaft sticks into a plastic piece attached to the moving metal plate/blade. As the motor spins, the lopsided tip causes the plastic and the metal plate to move rapidly back and forth from side to side. There's a metal clip that keeps the plate under tension, and causes it to return to center.

The motor spins fine, but it appears to be the physical connection between the motor shaft and the plastic piece attached to the vibrating metal plate that is the problem. There might be a tiny piece of it that has broken off, or the fitting might have gotten so lose that it no longer allows the movement to transfer between the two pieces. After three separate attempts to repair it failed, I decided I was wasting my time. The beard trimmer was less than $30 as I recalled, and the amount of time I was spending trying to fix it wasn't looking promising.

I decided to take it apart entirely and take photos of all of the individual pieces and how they interrelate. I'm sure this is pretty basic and obvious stuff to the mechanically inclined out there, but it's a big first step for someone like me who's never done this sort of thing before.