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RIP software hackathons. Long live the hardware hackathon

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11–20 of 154 posts

Re: RIP software hackathons. Long live the hardware hackathon

#11
post #3

I like the fax machine idea. Reminds me of an idea I had. Get some receipt printers for my friends and we can print to each other's printers to send text messages

That brings back memories. I once built an XHTML page served over WAP 2.0 (on 2G networks) from my home server that could send messages directly to the printer in my mother's office. It was incredibly clunky, but a lot of fun. I forgot to tell her before I tried it, so random pages just started coming out of the printer one day.

Re: RIP software hackathons. Long live the hardware hackathon

#13

I was thinking about this the other day. Now that software is within reach of most idea makers, it opens the door for a much deeper level of tinkering. With very affordable, if not slow, 3d printers, and an abundance of hardware interfaces, I think we are going to see some really great weekend projects that will turn into beautiful, "where has this been until now" utility for the world! I'm excited to see software en…

My little brother is a beach lifeguard but in the last year he’s pumped out so many incredible projects. It feels like he’s been unleashed. Such a cool era!

Re: RIP software hackathons. Long live the hardware hackathon

#15
post #14

Hackathons turned into “nice ui with mock data”-athons. Whoever got the best ui person on their team won. I benefitted from this a few times!

I thought I was the only one wondering why people are preparing in advanced with polish and not much to build the day of.

Re: RIP software hackathons. Long live the hardware hackathon

#16

Listening to someone tell you about their AI-coded project is like listening to someone tell you a dream they had last night "and then this happened, then this happened, then this feature, then this feature" Wow that's crazy...

Someone was bragging to me about their new AI startup a few months ago. I went to look at their website. It was some AI slop. I checked out the code for their form to register interest for the launch… it wasn’t setup at all. It was just a form that went nowhere. They had an idea, told AI to make a site about it, didn’t bother replacing the boilerplate to make it work, hosted it, and then started bragging to their fri…

there's an Ice cream shop in my city that has obviously generated all their signage and menus and everything else, even on their website the photos section has AI generated people smiling and happy next to the sign. I get that it's a small business that has probably saved a couple of G's on design/code but it's all so sloppy and obvious.

Re: RIP software hackathons. Long live the hardware hackathon

#18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone was bragging to me about their new AI startup a few months ago. I went to look at their website. It was some AI slop. I checked out the code for their form to register interest for the launch… it wasn’t setup at all. It was just a form that went nowhere. They had an idea, told AI to make a site about it, didn’t bother replacing the boilerplate to make it work, hosted it, and then started bragging to their fri…

there's an Ice cream shop in my city that has obviously generated all their signage and menus and everything else, even on their website the photos section has AI generated people smiling and happy next to the sign. I get that it's a small business that has probably saved a couple of G's on design/code but it's all so sloppy and obvious.

I find basic sites, that were probably put together by the owner’s nephew, rather charming. Much better than AI.
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