ryan kennedy's blog

In the past, I’ve given two long accounts of the Open Hack Day’s (2006, 2007). This time I’m going to keep it pretty short.

My Talks

I gave two talks. The first one went well, no drops in internet access (paying Ash‘s assistant $50 to keep him busy during my talk really paid off). I lost internet access during my second talk, but was saved by Allen Tom and his EVDO-powered laptop. The talks seemed to be well received and generated a lot of questions.

My Job

I won’t mince words, I have hated my job for the past twelve months. Those who follow me on Twitter know that I’ve been a miserable person for quite some time now, frequently venting my frustrations loudly. I’ve simultaneously considered quitting the company, transferring internally and extended leave as solutions to my unhappiness.

It’s difficult to reconcile this attitude towards my job against my attitude leading up to the two previous hack days where I was proud of what I was working on and wanted to share it with the world. So much has changed since London, personally and professionally. It’s hard to accept so much change in such a short period of time, especially when it’s had such a huge impact on my mood.

I did, however, turn a bit of a corner in the past week. As hack day approached I actually found myself happy to be at work. I was enjoying what I was doing and I was looking forward to the next day. I was working twice as hard and getting four times the enjoyment and the only thing that had changed was that I was working towards hack day.

Which brings me to…

Mo Kakwan

I will never forget the night I spent with Mo Kakwan at hack day. No, get your minds out of the gutter. It wasn’t like that. It was better. Mo is a hack day legend. Friday night, after the Girl Talk concert, Mo popped into the room where I was stationed for the evening. He was curious to know what was going on and what I did. We chatted for a little while and he explained what he was hacking this year.

After a while, he asked if he could hang out in the room with several of us from Y!OS. Without blinking I told him, “of course”. For the next 17 hours (give or take) I was witness to the magic. Mo used me, mostly, as a sounding board for ideas in the early hours. In the later hours I helped him debug some issues in his hack. Throughout, I could see Mo go through all the hack day stages.

Mo started out passionate about the idea and quickly got to work. He was hammering out code, making things work. Before too long, he’d run into problems. After some quick thinking, he routed around the issues, determined to make the hack work. Hours later, as fatigue was kicking in, more problems. With the lack of sleep looming, you could see Mo getting frustrated as each problem mounted. He discovered he had a lot of work left to do and time was not on his side.

I crashed for two hours on the floor from 6:30-8:30am. When I awoke, he looked bad. The early morning had taken it’s toll on him. He’d hit the wall. He looked unsure of himself, disappointed that he might let everyone down by not outdoing his performance at the 2006 hack day.

Determined not to let that happen, I jumped in to lend what help I could. I pumped him up when he seemed down, helped to diagnose the snags he ran into and ran to get him help when I didn’t have an answer (thanks, Zach!). At around 2:00, only an hour before the presentations would start, he hit pay dirt. His virtual mosh pit sprung to life as physics engine-driven moshers hopped and bumped on stage with our recently digitized voices playing in the background. The joy on his face was incredible as we shared the (for me, anyway) most painful high-five, ever.

The joy of the hack is an amazing thing. That moment where your brain clicks in and says, “holy shit, after all that I can’t fucking believe it works!” It’s like the top of Everest to a climber. You get there cold, tired, beaten, exhausted and near death…but you will never trade that moment for anything else in your life. I relived that moment through Mo on Saturday…and realized how much I’ve missed it.

For the last twelve months I haven’t had my Everest. I’ve just been walking around the mountain…cold, hungry and near death. I need hack day. Not just one of them, I need lots of them. In fact, I need every day to be hack day. My happiness and my sanity depend on it.

So, how do I find a way to make every day hack day? I guess that’s my next hack.