There’s an addendum to my previous WWDC Wrap Up article that might come to you as a surprise, being a first-time attendant. Sudden debilitating sickness…
If you search twitter for “WWDC Plague”, you find a great number of people who have apparently caught it. Here’s a summary of the symptoms to help you diagnose it as well as some tips to avoid it next year.
Apple’s Developer Evangelist Michael Jurewitz tweeted this on the Monday following the WWDC week:
“I have fought off the WWDC plague through a rigorous regimen of hand washing, echinacea, advil, vitamin C, and now sleep. Counting blessings”
All the while I was wondering what he was talking about. A Plague?! Is he talking about Apple’s cool new stuff being infectious or an actual bug?
No actually we are talking about some actual viral infection that likes to spread amongst Apple geeks being herded in close proximity to each other, with a weakened immune system due to airplane travel (jet lag) and parties.
The symptoms are:
- Sore throat
- Feeling “icky” (a medical term)
- Feeling “crummy” (another medical term)
- Coughing & Sneezing
- being annoyed
- Day 1: sore throat and ear pain. Day 2: fever and runny nose. Day 3: cough. Like Apple itself, the WWDC plague iterates rapidly.
- basically “the worst flu I’ve ever had”
Scott Angish – apparently an experienced WWDC attendee – admitted lapsing on his own preparation regimen:
“Typically I eat massive Vit C amounts at WWDC. forgot the bottle.” – Scott Angish
In some individuals who come home from a thousandfold dose of testosteron to their loved ones, the WWDC plague also develops into a fully fledged Man Flu. I said so before: “life threatening” and definitely in need of female loving care.
My own symptoms started on Tuesday with the sore throat. Now on day two I am starting to feel the zombification. Hopefully this will only go on for two more days, it’s been reported that the fast ones amongst us infected take around 4 days to recover.
If one thing then this should teach us to be better prepared for WWDC 2012: take your vitamins and strengthen your immune system in time for the conference.
Categories: Apple
Yep, caught it…
Been going to WWDC for 10 years. I’ve never caught anything that I know about, other than envy for all the amazing iOS and Mac developers creating great apps!
May you have a speedy and full recovery. We need you firing on all cylinders for the rich text editor.
The two biggest things in preventing illness in densly-populated public places are:
1) wash your hands often
2) never touch your eyes, mouth, nose etc, with you hands
You pick up a huge amount of microbes from touching objects handled by the masses such as door handles, pens, mice/keyboards, or shaking hands. After touching these objects, rubbing your eye or popping a breath mint in your mouth is all it takes to infect yourself.
Also if you have to sneeze or cough do so into the crook of you elbow or arm rather than into your hand so you don’t subsequently infect everyone with your bugs, since you may shake someones hand etc.
One of my degrees is in microbiology LOL- I do a lot of programming for scientific apps.
You could also wear a military grade gas-mask but they are uncomfortable and people will look at you funny.