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MacHack Keynote By Curses Developer Ken Arnold

Posted by timothy on from the not-that-other-ken-arnold dept.

Porsupah writes "A look at this year's MacHack keynote, from the MacFixIt folks. This year the opening keynote speaker was Ken Arnold [...] a member of the BSD team at the University of California at Berkeley and developed the curses library. [...] At Sun Microsystems, Ken was an original architect of the Jini platform."

21 comments

  1. What's there to hack? by Creepy+Crawler · · Score: -1, Troll

    It's just Aqua with Darwin at the core.

    If you can "hack" unix, you can do just as much to Apple these days.

    Question to article... Point being?

    --
    1. Re:What's there to hack? by akgunkel · · Score: 5, Informative

      To my knowledge, MacHack focuses on writing software that makes creative use of the various technologies and features of the platform. From that perspective, MacOSX contains a lot more than "just Aqua with Darwin at the core."

    2. Re:What's there to hack? by NilObject · · Score: 5, Informative
      It's just Aqua with Darwin at the core.

      You, quite obviously, have never attended MacHack nor seen some of the absolutely hilarious and / or cool hacks that come as a result of the hack contest.

      Some of the hacks that were presented this year include: AirPong (pong across many computer screens), Unstopable Progress (a hack that made all progress bars "spill out" water into the window when they reached the end), GLCheat, an app that would make any app utilizing GL go into wireframe mode, meaning that you can "see" through walls, as games often "draw" things that aren't truly into view yet), Interface Unbuilder (a hack that would let you drag *any* control *anywhere* on your screen, even into other windows, and they would still work), Size Doesn't Matter (remember that Longhorn demo that spun windows around? this was the exact same thing), and much much more.

      Hey, even Taco himself was here! Can you top that?

      My point: yes you can "hack" MacOS X, and it's an amazing amount of fun, as this conference proves every year.

    3. Re:What's there to hack? by rsmith-mac · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Sorry to go slightly off-topic here, but the MacHack guys are not doing anyone a favor by creating GLCheat for OS X. As a Windows gamer, we already have to deal with enough problems of people using such cheats in games(CS comes to mind first and foremost), so it's not very pleasing to see that now the Mac guys have to worry about such cheating going on in their games either(while Q3, Jedi Knight, etc are multi-platform, OS X still has games that are platform locked, and up until now, GLCheat free). Some of the hacks turned out are indeed impressive, but please hack responsibly guys; GLCheat is not doing anyone any favors.

    4. Re:What's there to hack? by PeePeeSee · · Score: 3, Funny

      Just look at it this way - while you windows guy get 150 FPS we get to use GL cheats to level the playing field.

    5. Re:What's there to hack? by sco08y · · Score: 1

      Hey, even Taco himself was here! Can you top that?

      I always figured it might be fun to have a beer or six with some of the /. editors, but you could say that about almost any (beer-drinking) schmoe on the planet.

      Those hacks sound cool but I don't get excited about them, even though I code enough to know how hard some of that stuff is. (Airpong sounds like the toughest one due to the networking.)

      I saw the Halflife 2 movie... now that's really amazing. (I'd say Halo 2, but, at some point Bungie has got to realize that people just don't walk around pointing their guns whereever they go. It looks ridiculous.)

    6. Re:What's there to hack? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      i doubt any of these cheat will ever make it to a game hack. hacking is not inherently a bad thing. people learn how things are constructed by hacking and become better at what they do. i think you miss the spirit and the point of the exercise.

      Also, the whole OS X desktop in rendered in OGL (something you wont see anything remotely similar on windows until Longhorn), these hackers are doing more than hacking Quake or some other such nonsense.

      And besides Mac gamers are no where near the lamers PC gamers are.

    7. Re:What's there to hack? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There have been such hacks for the PC before, so this isn't exactly something new.

      So just calm the fuck down!

  2. Strangly enough.... by Picass0 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Go figure - He just got up on stage and started cursing at everyone!!!

    Funny thing is most people just thought it was Steve Jobs.

  3. Rats^H^H^H^HCurses! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Foiled again!

  4. more like it by djupedal · · Score: 1

    [clicks on MacFixIt link...]
    MacHack 18: Experiencing the Unstoppable...
    MacHack 18 Opens with a Keynote Address from Ken Arnold

    Find: taco

    Not found

    Much better. Reality just bites, doesn't it. Maybe next year the donkey basketball teams will be available and we can get back to a meaningful event. One can only hope.

  5. Popular topic by danrees · · Score: 0, Interesting

    Wow, it really looks like a lot of people are interested in what this guy has to say by the look of this thread. :p

  6. MacHack 18 by laredo · · Score: 5, Informative



    I was just about to try to start a post on this very topic.

    With all the "buzz" surrounding WWDC it seems MacHack 18 is getting the
    short end of the stick news wise. I was hoping you all could come up
    with more news/blogs/snippets whatever on the goings on in Dearborn
    than I have. I have googled, netnewswired and macsurfered till my eyes
    hurt , and these stories are all I can come up with, any help, or
    discussion?

    PS: Any links to MacMania II blogs score bonus points.

    MacHack
    18: Experiencing the Unstoppable

    by Shawn Platkus MacHack is a conference for professional developers
    who make their living developing for the Macintosh platform. The
    conference, now in its eighteenth year, has obviously had to deal with
    many changes throughout its history.

    MacHack
    18 Opens with a Keynote Address from Ken Arnold

    by Shawn Platkus As is traditional, MacHack 18 opened first
    thing Thursday morning at 12:00 am with its keynote address. This
    year the opening keynote speaker was Ken Arnold who is currently the
    Chief Architect of EventMonitor, In

    A Really Long Portage in the
    Digital River : AI's Yellow Text : Well, here's one for the record
    books: I'm at MacHack , and my access to the 'net is even worse than it
    is at home.

    MacHack
    Report

    Macmegasite : I'm now at MacHack with a usable network connection. The
    show is a lot smaller than previous years, but still lots of fun.

    1. Re:MacHack 18 by laredo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      This sounds like a neat hack, a Jini based mood ring
      http://www.x180.net/Blog/index.html

  7. MacHack will change name to ADHOC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Macmegasite reports:

    "Several changes were announced for next year's MacHack. The name is changing to Advanced Developers Hands On Conference (ADHOC) and the date is moving to the last week of July.

    The name change reflects a widening focus on open source systems and alternate platforms (but not Windows) and a management change."

  8. Didn't get my hack on the CD, where to get it by MichaelCrawford · · Score: 4, Informative
    I wanted to fix something in my hack "FWDemo" before submitting it to the CD, but I didn't realize they were going to dupe them at the conference, so it didn't make it on.

    After I rest up, look for FWDemo here.

    FWDemo wasn't really meant to be a brilliant hack, so much as to be sample code for my talk on device drivers. But I didn't have a proper hack, so I showed off FWDemo.

    (What it does is use a kernel extension to work around OS X' exclusive hardware access policy, to do a little SCSI I/O to a mounted FireWire disk via SBP2. To be safe, it just does an inquiry, but you can use your imagination to do more creative things.)

    --
    Request your free CD of my piano music.
  9. The domain name is unavailable by MichaelCrawford · · Score: 3, Informative
    I just checked whois at netsol, and someone has adhoc.com registered.

    Maybe they'll still use MacHack.com - that's where everyone's going to be looking anyway.

    --
    Request your free CD of my piano music.
  10. Agenda for the conference by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    1. How to add two more buttons to your mouse.
    2. How to polish the new Macs and gold plate them.
    3. The art of bullshitting.
    4. How to pronounce Oh-Ess Ex
    5. The terminal and how to avoid it.
    6. Can the M$ paperclip be made extra shiny.
    7. Steve Jobs , Apple and other Carrots.
    8. Why my PC plays great games with a high frame rate.

  11. Dear Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    Dear Apple,

    I am a homosexual. I bought an Apple computer because of its well earned reputation for being "the" gay computer. Since I have become an Apple owner, I have been exposed to a whole new world of gay friends. It is really a pleasure to meet and compute with other homos such as myself. I plan on using my new Apple computer as a way to entice and recruit young schoolboys into the homosexual lifestyle; it would be so helpful if you could produce more software which would appeal to young boys. Thanks in advance.

    with much gayness,

    Father Randy "Pudge" O'Day, S.J.

  12. Dear Randy O'Day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    Dear Father O'Day:

    Thanks for your letter. Being Catholic myself, I know exactly what you're talking about! It has always been our plan here at Apple Computer Inc to revolutionize personal computing with our high-quality and highly gay products.

    I'm happy to answer your letter by letting you know that YES we will be releasing an entire hLife ("homo-life") software line. You'll be able to recognize it in stores by the small stylized logo depicting a large cock entering a tight anus with an Apple logo on it. ("Suddenly it all comes together" indeed!).

    Anyway, I hope you and other members of our community will join us on our mission, and purchase the exciting new hLife boxed set. Only the boxed set comes with translucent cock rings!

    Sincerely,

    Harry Rodman
    Vice-president
    Homosexual Liaison Services
    Apple Computer, Inc.

  13. No Rogue mention? by Mogomra · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Jini platform, Schmini platform. Ken Arnold helped develop Rogue, and if that's not a worthwhile contribution to the human race worth mentioning, I don't know what is.