I’m now sitting in Detroit airport (which doesn’t have free wireless) with a few hours before my flight.
The end of MacHack marks the end of an era. It was a major social networking event as well as a place to learn and share neat tricks. For Mac geeks it’s the years biggest social event, more so than WWDC or MacWorld. MacHack had it’s own unique culture and tradition that will never be duplicated. It provided an opportunity for Mac gods & smart kids (‘Yoots’) to work side by side and learn from each other.
MacHack was inexpensive enough for most people to pay for themselves, rather than having their company pay for it as with WWDC. Instead of WWDC’s serious business-like atmosphere, MacHack was all about fun. The keynote starts at Midnight on wednesday. The rest of the conference is spent working on hacks to show at the Hack Contest (now known as the Showcase), which takes place Midnight Friday/Saturday morning. Finally we go to a bad movie Saturday night, which we heckle and scare away any normal people in the theater. After the movie we return for the Ice Cream Social and “Keith Explains”, in which we tear apart the movie we just saw.
I’m going to miss MacHack, even though this was only my 5th. The last night was very emotional, with lots of hugs & some crying.