You know the types: The one who talks wayyyy too loudly on private calls, completely disrupting everyone around him. Or the self-important person whose incoming text messages are always far more important than actually giving you his undivided attention for five minutes. Yeah, those types.

If you work w/ one of those, maybe it’s time for the ultimate work-around: A cell phone jammer. Churches, temples, theaters, concert halls and museums use them to ensure that their cultural norms are preserved and so self-possessed people need to exit the locale to talk loudly or check the scores from their favorite team.

Extreme? Maybe. But sometimes that’s what’s called for.

photo: legendsrevealed

In Dubai, hundreds of thousands of laborers from all over the world are building luxury they will never experience. Some of those from India are hacking that economic divide — through cricket.

SmartLife realized that the one bond that tied both blue-collar Indian laborers, with few skills beyond what they could do with their hands, and white-collar Indian professionals, was their shared love of cricket. So SmartLife not only organized regular matches with both Indian economic classes, but they also helped establish mentoring programs where professionals “adopt” a laborer to assist in his training and development, and prizes from the cricket matches include free computer courses. (CNN Video)

Hacking Lesson: Often the best hacks involve making connections between people with seemingly different goals or agendas, and helping them see that helping each other is actually enlightened self interest. Are you a connector? Is that your hack?

WiFi reception in your home, or from your neighbor’s home, or from the hotel across the street not so good? Here’s a great fix…