MacHack Confessions

My name is Jon and I have a problem.

I'm a MacHackaholic.

I lead a normal life with a wife that loves me and a cat that is indifferent to me. But, once a year.... I can't stay away... It is an urge that I can't resist... A thirst for caffeine that can't be slacked by sleep.

And I go...

I subject myself to sleep deprivation and hotel food. I allow my OS to be subjected to horrors too unspeakable to describe... To be patched and abused in unnatural ways that were never intended.

It plaques me at other times as well. Sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat and say to myself, "Where's Waldemar?" I can't get back to sleep, so I try counting Dogcows.

But late June is the worst.

I know that there is a higher power. But that only makes the problem worse. The continuing quest for that more powerful processor. Maybe an AltiVec. And a larger RAM cache.

I know better. I am a professional. Code is spec'ed, designed tested, and verified. You don't just think of an idea and see if you can hack it together during Bash Apple and then display it before your peers like a wanton exhibitionist. But this is what I do.

And when my peers are flaunting the results of their hacking, I look on with voyeuristic glee and delight. I tingle. I shudder. I shout, "Useful" and "Source." And I am exhausted. And unashamed.

But I know that I am not alone....

Last year, out of 150 MacHackers surveyed, 133 (89%) responded that they plan to return next year and 11 responded that they might. Clearly, the question to ask was not, "Do you *plan* to attend next year?" but "Would you *like* to attend next year?" In any case, I think this result shows that, as Michael Bentley said, "[That conference] didn't suck one bit."