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Hackathon Be Gone

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Re: Hackathon Be Gone

#111

Post by Chris2048 »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #99
UweSchmidt wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't make statements about things we don't know about, so we gotta go by what we read. It feels like this debate may set expectations and shapes culture about things like hackathons everywhere, so maybe this touches a sensitive spot for many. So I read that your employees actually do have family (which makes the thing about staying late worse), that you don't "require" that people stay until midnight (as if that was…

> So I read that your employees actually do have family (which makes the thing about staying late worse) I think you're being overly negative. Nobody is forcing anyone to go to these things. If you have other stuff to do, fine. If, like some people, you actually enjoy it, you can go. Maybe you even have an understanding husband/wife who understands that once in a while you might be out as late as 11:45pm

Maybe if you don't go you'll be fired to make way for someone more passionate?

Re: Hackathon Be Gone

#112

Post by nalllar »

I've participated in three hackathons involving pizza and sleep deprivation, StrathHACK[1] once and Do You Have The GUTS[2] twice.

It's a great way to have a fun weekend, get job offers from local sponsors and learn new technologies in an environment where you can ask get help from experienced people. It's not about writing realistic, maintainable code - but that isn't really the aim.

On the health side of things: Going to an event and having unhealthy food isn't terrible. It's a short event - having pizza for a day isn't going to kill you, and at these hackathons healthier food (sandwiches, cereal, burritos) was also provided. If you want to sleep, you can, but there's nothing wrong with occasionally working through the night.

[1] - https://hack.strathtech.co.uk/ [2] - http://gutechsoc.com/hackathon

Re: Hackathon Be Gone

#113

Post by officialchicken »

Chris2048 wrote: post #110
alexashka wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The older you get - the less patience you have for tight deadlines and 'forcing yourself to make a choice'. That's just having more energy than you know what to do with. The tragedy is young people have lots of energy and are scatterbrained and old people are sometimes wise but too tired. The future is having older wise folk write out proposals to ambitious projects, and have young people fill in the necessary parts.…

> The future is having older wise folk write out proposals to ambitious projects, and have young people fill in the necessary parts. This can easily be abused to keep talented young people 'in their place' which elders get all the power. Have anyone write the proposal, and any critique it - just ensure both roles are considered equally valuable.

Hmm, sounds like the start of a typical setup-to-fail management philosophy, just needs the other side of the coin to maintain the current balance:

"This should easily be abused to keep untalented old people 'in their place' which the youngsters imagine they get all the power. We're still walking away with the profits.

Have everyone ignore the proposal, then force all to critique it - just ensure both roles are considered equally invaluable. That way no one will get a raise during performance review. And we're still walking away with the profits."

Re: Hackathon Be Gone

#114

Post by benten10 »

mdxn wrote: post #53

The hackathon that they mention in the post (Mhacks) put up an application process and enforced a 50/50 gender ratio. In the weeks leading up to the event, I overheard many defeated conversations from fellow CS students over anxiety of getting rejected from this hackathon because they were male. The females didn't share the same anxiety, but it definitely made them feel down that they wouldn't be able to participate…

Pro tip: It is often a good heuristic to identify a sexist by their use of 'male' and 'female' for humans instead of 'men' and 'women', because it sounds dehumanizing. Call them 'women', never females, etc, etc.

Re: Hackathon Be Gone

#115

Post by tyenl »

werber wrote: post #107
turkishrevenge wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just exploit the identity-political zeitgeist that's overtaken universities lately: claim yourself genderqueer, non-binary presenting as male. With the right incantation, the organizers will fold like a house of cards, lest they suffer the blowback to excluding a "righteous" participant.

This is insanely problematic. Exploiting marginalized identities is not only rude, but the blow back of pulling a Soul Man is not good for the person pulling the cons future prospects

This is insanely absurd. There is no blow back because the ability to change your mind about gender at the drop of a hat (if inclined) is embraced.

Re: Hackathon Be Gone

#116

Post by pluma »

rdtsc wrote: post #72
turkishrevenge wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just exploit the identity-political zeitgeist that's overtaken universities lately: claim yourself genderqueer, non-binary presenting as male. With the right incantation, the organizers will fold like a house of cards, lest they suffer the blowback to excluding a "righteous" participant.

I hear this is done already with the race thing, I've heard of the "check Hispanic" trick a while back to make it easier to get into collge.

To be fair the American racial categories seem pretty inane to my non-American eyes to begin with.

I understand that there is a lot of cultural baggage to the various categories but I can't count how many times I've been genuinely surprised by Americans identifying as black or Latina/o. The most striking ones I think were Halle Berry and Obama -- it took me a while to process that their recognition was genuinely noteworthy in the US because of their ethnicity. You could have told me Obama were Moroccan or Halle Berry were Indian and I wouldn't have been any more surprised.

For context: I'm German, grew up in the 90s in a city with ~1M residents and am literally colorblind (partially green blind). I'm not sure what part of that makes me unable to properly racially categorize people but I'm not convinced that's a bad thing.

Re: Hackathon Be Gone

#117

Post by scient »

benten10 wrote: post #114
mdxn wrote: post #53

The hackathon that they mention in the post (Mhacks) put up an application process and enforced a 50/50 gender ratio. In the weeks leading up to the event, I overheard many defeated conversations from fellow CS students over anxiety of getting rejected from this hackathon because they were male. The females didn't share the same anxiety, but it definitely made them feel down that they wouldn't be able to participate…

Pro tip: It is often a good heuristic to identify a sexist by their use of 'male' and 'female' for humans instead of 'men' and 'women', because it sounds dehumanizing. Call them 'women', never females, etc, etc.

What on earth are you talking about? I hope this is a joke and no a serious "tip".

Re: Hackathon Be Gone

#118

Post by dheera »

potatolicious wrote: post #43
dheera wrote: post #42

"There are a lot of teams who bring their existing projects to the party" I wonder if this can be approached with rules, such as: * Provide datasets, interesting hardware, or other things that the participants do not have in advance. Release them only at the start of the hackathon. In the judging criteria, have heavy weighting for how well the teams make use of the provided resources. * Forbid, on honor code, to brin…

You can put the rules in - some of your suggestions are already standard in many hackathons, but I doubt it would make much of a difference. Many hackathons are judged or attended by major investors, so the incentive to cheat is extraordinary. The last hackathon I went to there were several teams that clearly had everything lined up ahead of time and were there to pitch, and I doubt you can get rid of this without ge…

Get rid of the investors then. :) Get corporate sponsorship instead to run the hackathon.

Re: Hackathon Be Gone

#119

Post by [deleted] »

truebosko wrote: post #105
caseysoftware wrote: post #21

In Austin, we started running an event called "Finish Up Weekend" or FU Weekend - http://fuweekend.com/ ;) We have some simple rules: * you can't start anything new; * you have to celebrate something being done - usually with a round of applause; * there are no prizes - only the satisfaction of being done. While there is plenty of coding, we've had designers finish their portfolios, screenwriters finish pilots, an ar…

Great idea. I would love to get this going in Toronto.

[deleted]

Re: Hackathon Be Gone

#120

Post by fit2rule »

caseysoftware wrote: post #21

In Austin, we started running an event called "Finish Up Weekend" or FU Weekend - http://fuweekend.com/ ;) We have some simple rules: * you can't start anything new; * you have to celebrate something being done - usually with a round of applause; * there are no prizes - only the satisfaction of being done. While there is plenty of coding, we've had designers finish their portfolios, screenwriters finish pilots, an ar…

Sounds like Friday afternoon to me.
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