Not all software is going to be the most efficient use of time and resources, that much is certain. Some, however, go a step further to achieve maximum silliness.
Think of them as jokes with programming as the medium to deliver the punch line. Like what iFart did for the first iPhone, these hacks justify their existence with nothing more than humor.
There are dozens of hacks out there that do little more than make us chuckle. Here are just a few that are way sillier than they are helpful. Usefulness aside, many of these have gone full on viral, so you’ve likely heard of some of these. This is by no means an extensive list, so be sure to share your favorite silly hacks in the comments.
Dolo
Forget your universal friend finders. What if you need to find a friend in the 14-acre area of San Francisco that is Dolores Park? Dolo provides exactly that tiny scope that you weren’t looking for. I can’t help but wonder if it’d be easier, even for San Franciscans, to just use Foursquare to check in to the park instead of downloading a new app exclusively for that purpose. Does this kind of thing exist in other towns, too?
Let Me Google That For You
Perhaps one of the most famous silly hacks, Let Me Google That For You makes itself useful simply through the exercise in smugness that it allows its user. It’s the perfect one-click response to a friend or commenter asking out into the void something like, “Is avocado a fruit?” LMGTFY puts the questioner in their place while making you feel superior.
Is It Christmas?
Christmas isn’t one of those crazy holidays that move around confusingly from year to year (I’m looking at you, Thanksgiving and Easter). It’s always on December 25. Which is why there’s really no reason for Is It Christmas?, which was created solely to answer in the negative 364 days of the year. See also another similarly useless hack: Has the Large Hadron Collider Destroyed the World Yet?
@Pentametron
The iambic pentameter Twitter bot @Pentametron is silly, but it isn’t stupid. When I interviewed the coder behind the bot last year, he told me it scans “400 to 500 tweets a second” in its scavenging for rhyming couplets. Like misheard conversations, Twitter users’ banalities find a second life as poems. It’s a surreal bot that gives meaning to the meaningless.
Twitter in particular is a huge resource for entertaining programs. From @YourMomBot to @YesYoureRacist, humor bots are practically a silly hack sub genre.
Hipster Ipsum
Remember Lorem Ipsum, the absurd but essential Latin gibberish designers use to mimic finished text in page mockups? Hipster Ipsum is a modern take on the same idea. Instead of a hodge podge of Latin words, fill your text boxes with “PBR” and “Brooklyn.” Hungry for more? There’s Bluth Ipsum and Cupcake Ipsum, just to name a few.
Image courtesy of Dolo.
