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Ask HN: The rising “Hackathon Hackers” culture

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Re: Ask HN: The rising “Hackathon Hackers” culture

#31

Post by mden »

parfe wrote: post #12

1. Get a PAID internship 2. Get a part time job 3. Graduate 4. Get a full time job 5. Do things for fun that don't involve computers. The fact I happen to interact with X framework in Y language, running on Z environment has zero relevence in my life. I more quickly ignore people talking about Ruby/Python/Javascript running Rails/Django/Node than the homeless person trying to wash my windshield. You get too involved…

And out of curiosity, how do you resolve your statements with the fact that you have over 5k karma and over 1k posts on this site alone?

Re: Ask HN: The rising “Hackathon Hackers” culture

#33

Post by [deleted] »

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #29

Hackathons, Startup Weekends, etc. aren't really intended to birth the "next great startup". They are primarily a way for you (and me) and fellow people who are better at coding than chit-chat networking to meet some interesting new people, make some friends and if startups are really your thing to maybe meet a cofounder or a business person. I get it, it's extremely frustrating that hackathons, like TechCrunch and t…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: The rising “Hackathon Hackers” culture

#34

Post by ForHackernews »

Honestly, I think part of this is because the word(s) "hack"/"hacker" have gotten really played out. At one time, 'hacker' had pretty specific[0], if not always easily-defined meanings. You might not be able to articulate what makes a great hack (quick: what do phone phreaking and putting a cop car on the MIT dome have in common?), but you knew it when you saw it.

Nowadays, "hacker" has cultural cachet so we get lifehackers, growth-hackers, hackathons, etc.

In my curmudgeonly opinion, none of these are really hackers or about hacking. Real hackers (I do not consider myself one) need to do a better job of policing the use of the word "hacker", but they tend to be terrible at doing so, because they remember what it's like to be socially excluded and don't want to be seen as socially exclusionary.

[0] http://catb.org/jargon/html/index.html

Re: Ask HN: The rising “Hackathon Hackers” culture

#35

Post by r0naa »

aurora72 wrote: post #26

First off, the sentence of "the people who were justifying censorship, population control and unfair business practices because they could benefit from them someday" echoed back the news I remember from 2012 or so which was like "In America, half of the lowest earners are opposed to raising taxes on the rich, because they reckon they will someday get rich and raising rich taxes would mean their children would be depr…

I think that this is from "From Zero to One" but I am not 100% sure.

Re: Ask HN: The rising “Hackathon Hackers” culture

#36

Post by r0naa »

ForHackernews wrote: post #34

Honestly, I think part of this is because the word(s) "hack"/"hacker" have gotten really played out. At one time, 'hacker' had pretty specific[0], if not always easily-defined meanings. You might not be able to articulate what makes a great hack (quick: what do phone phreaking and putting a cop car on the MIT dome have in common?), but you knew it when you saw it. Nowadays, "hacker" has cultural cachet so we get life…

This is funny because whenever I get into an argument on HH about the "true" meaning of the term hacker I end-up posting this link to catb. It usually ends up with me being called a nostalgic conservative.

tl;dr: Apparently I am 19 years old nostalgic.

Re: Ask HN: The rising “Hackathon Hackers” culture

#37

Post by happertiger »

Look, the Valley is full of dreamers and some are lucky at it, but most success happens out in the real world and needs doers to make it go. Dreamers are usually more articulate and well spoken than doers, since that's all they do. Above all, the Valley rewards dreamers who actually do.

Ignore the bullshit — there will be plenty. Focus on what you want to do.

Re: Ask HN: The rising “Hackathon Hackers” culture

#38

Post by ForHackernews »

r0naa wrote: post #36
ForHackernews wrote: post #34

Honestly, I think part of this is because the word(s) "hack"/"hacker" have gotten really played out. At one time, 'hacker' had pretty specific[0], if not always easily-defined meanings. You might not be able to articulate what makes a great hack (quick: what do phone phreaking and putting a cop car on the MIT dome have in common?), but you knew it when you saw it. Nowadays, "hacker" has cultural cachet so we get life…

This is funny because whenever I get into an argument on HH about the "true" meaning of the term hacker I end-up posting this link to catb. It usually ends up with me being called a nostalgic conservative. tl;dr: Apparently I am 19 years old nostalgic.

Yeah, it's always going to spark arguments. There are many of people who are invested in calling themselves hackers, and some of them want to be cool but don't want to be associated with those scary criminals, so they'll try and tell you certain hackers are "actually not hackers, but crackers" and the whole thing gets derailed into a Hackier-Than-Thou competition.

From my perspective, there's a certain je ne sais quoi of real hacking, and it has nothing to do with churning out an MVP in a weekend. In fact, sometimes the greatest hacks are the least practical.[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers#Real-li...

Re: Ask HN: The rising “Hackathon Hackers” culture

#39

Post by yoklov »

GolfyMcG wrote: post #20

We hired a dev that's very much like you described. We "knew" he was smart because he did well in some Hackathons. Had built some cool projects on his flashy portfolio. Went to the same university we want to, which is a top university in the world. Had good grades at said University. etc. He had all the markings of being a fantastic intern for us. About half way through his internship we had to fire him. He lacked th…

FWIW, In the games industry it's fairly common practice to totally ignore anything a potential programmer made in a game jam (unless they carried it on afterwards).

Feels somewhat equivalent, even though it's probably for different reasons.

Re: Ask HN: The rising “Hackathon Hackers” culture

#40

Post by geofft »

mden wrote: post #31
parfe wrote: post #12

1. Get a PAID internship 2. Get a part time job 3. Graduate 4. Get a full time job 5. Do things for fun that don't involve computers. The fact I happen to interact with X framework in Y language, running on Z environment has zero relevence in my life. I more quickly ignore people talking about Ruby/Python/Javascript running Rails/Django/Node than the homeless person trying to wash my windshield. You get too involved…

And out of curiosity, how do you resolve your statements with the fact that you have over 5k karma and over 1k posts on this site alone?

Akrasia? :)
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