I attended Barcamp Philly today.

"What the heck is a barcamp?" you cry. A barcamp is an unconference.

"What's an unconference?" you ask. An unconference is a DIY conference. People who want to speak show up bright and early, write their name and the title of their talk on an index card, and slap it up on a grid of times and conference rooms. The board fills up, aaaand... that's the conference! Attend whatever talks strike your fancy.

"Why's it called barcamp?" you inquire. Because O'Reilly Associates, the people who publish those technical books with the animals on the covers, sponsors an annual conference you're not invited to called foocamp. And programmers like variables named "foo" and "bar." (Plus: "Friends Of O'Reilly.") Thus the joke.

"Why foo and bar?" you persist. The generic term "foo" dates to the 1930s and was popularized by a Smokey Stover cartoon, according to Internet RFC 3092, "Etymology of Foo." It was likely derived from the Chinese character "Fu." During World War II, GIs popularized the phrase FUBAR (F****d Up Beyond All Recognition). Thus after the war it was natural to think of "bar" as what comes after "foo."

"What talks did you attend?" I went to "You Are Not the User" by Shawn Berven, who covered a table with diabetes test gear and then explained what it takes to design products that are right for actual people... people who are not you.

I went to "Come On... It's in the Requirements" by Sloan Miller and Abby Fretz, who discussed the concept of the HIPPPO... the HIghest Paid, most imPortant Person in the room... who is guaranteed to be ill-informed and have strong feelings about everything.

I went to "Urban Exploration," by phillystomp, who showed us what she found when she snuck into abandoned Philadelphia public schools.

I missed an awesome talk by an eight year old girl about how to use iMovie because I was giving a talk of my own.

I went to "Web 0.9," where Greg McGee told us about headspinny new toys like WebGL and WebRTC.

And I wrapped up my day with "Geek Theater," an improv experiment by Lauren Galanter and friends. This turned into a panel discussion between an eight-year-old boy, an angry Philly cyclist, and Neil deGrasse Tyson. Hilarity ensued.

"Hey wait up! Did you say you spoke today?" Why yes, I did. My talk was entitled "javascript games, a HOWTO: thanks, Obama!"

"Why 'thanks, Obama?'" Because my friend turned 40. My friend sells health insurance, and his career got going as Obamacare was gearing up. I happen to think Obamacare has helped millions of people. It's also been an administrative clusterf***, no question. That created opportunities for people like my friend. So for his birthday, I whipped up a video game in which he must intercept as many potential customers as possible without running into any Tea Partiers. Because that makes Obama sad, you see.

This morning, I realized the game was just a talk waiting to happen, so I made a few changes to respect his privacy and "Willy Loman Sells Obamacare" was born.

"Why JavaScript?" It's the language of the web browser. And lately, the webserver too, but that's off topic. Everything can browse the web at this point, and it's a very easy language to code in, so if you want to whip up a game in a hurry that's your ticket.

"So you spent 45 minutes explaining a simple video game?" Well yeah, because details matter. But it was also a trojan horse for my favorite geeky rant, "this" considered harmful, in which I tell JavaScript programmers to stop stuntin' and frontin' and doin' things that are hard and save their best energies for the actual problem they are trying to solve.

"So how was it?" Oh, it was a blast, straight up. I've attended barcamps before, but it's been a while since I spoke at one, and I'd forgotten how good they can be. I attended JSFest in San Francisco this year— which required I get on airplanes— and honestly I got just as much out of barcamp today in many ways. I just love the vibe. I like the technical stuff, but I think I like the nontechnical stuff even more. You should absolutely attend the next barcamp in your area.