Write code, fix the space station, win $10,000 • Hacker News Board

Re: Write code, fix the space station, win $10,000

#61

Post by wlesieutre » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 10:01 PM UTC

gyom wrote: post #59

huhsamovar wrote: post #57

Sigh. This Competition is open to all members of the TopCoder website, who have agreed to the terms thereof, and who are at least 18 years of age. Competitors must be: (i) a U.S. citizen, (ii) a lawful permanent resident of the U.S., (iii) a temporary resident, asylee, refugee of the U.S., or have a lawfully issued work authorization card permitting unrestricted employment in the U.S., or (iv) a non-U.S. resident aut…

I hear you. As a Quebec resident, I've been getting screwed all my life by these restrictions on contests. I don't even know why we're listed there alongside Kim Jong-il, Ahmadinejad and Castro. There's probably some law somewhere that the government of Quebec voted, but I don't know what it is. "A Competitor is not eligible for this Competition if he/she is a resident of the Quebec province of Canada, Iran, Cuba, No…

http://contests.about.com/od/sweepstakes101/f/VoidinQuebec.h... summarizes it pretty well. The contest laws there make it a lot more work (and more expensive). Especially for sweepstakes where they're just randomly giving away free stuff (rather than competitions like this), it makes more sense to just exclude it instead of dealing with their laws.

Re: Write code, fix the space station, win $10,000

#62

Post by huhsamovar » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 10:53 PM UTC

banachtarski wrote: post #60

huhsamovar wrote: post #57

Sigh. This Competition is open to all members of the TopCoder website, who have agreed to the terms thereof, and who are at least 18 years of age. Competitors must be: (i) a U.S. citizen, (ii) a lawful permanent resident of the U.S., (iii) a temporary resident, asylee, refugee of the U.S., or have a lawfully issued work authorization card permitting unrestricted employment in the U.S., or (iv) a non-U.S. resident aut…

This is a government agency we're talking about. Why is this restriction even surprising?

It's not surprising, it's retarded.

Re: Write code, fix the space station, win $10,000

#63

Post by elcron » Mon, Jan 21, 2013, 2:07 AM UTC

rwitoff wrote: post #32

Since this is the first request for collaboration with NASA we've seen on HN, are there other obvious problems you'd like to independently analyze with us? ISS? Rovers? Navigation? Deep Space Networking? (etc)

NASA does have a number of contests. A number of the big ones are called the Centennial Challenges (http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/stp/centennial_challenges/in...) These currently include:

  - Sample Return Robot ($1.5 Million)
  - Night Rover ($1.5 Million)
  - UAS Airspace Operations Challenge (AOC) ($Half a Million)

They've also done other competitions, such as robo-ops for college students (http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/releases/2011/11-08...) (https://www.wpi.edu/news/20112/rascalrob.html)

Re: Write code, fix the space station, win $10,000

#64

Post by mkopinsky » Mon, Jan 21, 2013, 6:24 AM UTC

huhsamovar wrote: post #57

Sigh. This Competition is open to all members of the TopCoder website, who have agreed to the terms thereof, and who are at least 18 years of age. Competitors must be: (i) a U.S. citizen, (ii) a lawful permanent resident of the U.S., (iii) a temporary resident, asylee, refugee of the U.S., or have a lawfully issued work authorization card permitting unrestricted employment in the U.S., or (iv) a non-U.S. resident aut…

I don't understand this complaint. Why aren't you authorized by your home country to work as an independent contractor?

Re: Write code, fix the space station, win $10,000

#65

Post by gyom » Mon, Jan 28, 2013, 9:22 PM UTC

wlesieutre wrote: post #61

gyom wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear you. As a Quebec resident, I've been getting screwed all my life by these restrictions on contests. I don't even know why we're listed there alongside Kim Jong-il, Ahmadinejad and Castro. There's probably some law somewhere that the government of Quebec voted, but I don't know what it is. "A Competitor is not eligible for this Competition if he/she is a resident of the Quebec province of Canada, Iran, Cuba, No…

http://contests.about.com/od/sweepstakes101/f/VoidinQuebec.h... summarizes it pretty well. The contest laws there make it a lot more work (and more expensive). Especially for sweepstakes where they're just randomly giving away free stuff (rather than competitions like this), it makes more sense to just exclude it instead of dealing with their laws.

Thanks a lot for the reference !