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How I accepted myself into Canada's largest AI hackathon

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Re: How I accepted myself into Canada's largest AI hackathon

#91

Post by appleaday1 »

accurrent wrote: post #85
paradite wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok looks like people are not getting my comment. Being a judge in a hackathon is one of the criterion for O-1 visa. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/getting-o-1-visa-easier-than-...

Ah now it makes sense why some of my colleagues were judging hackathons like crazy. TBH the number of O-1s being handed out is a joke. People 2 years out of college are getting O-1s for being able to call chatgpt APIs. I mean given the number of reviews I do on a regular basis for academic journals I guess I would qualify.

rofl I didnt know this was a thing, why are people so intent on gaming the system? I was judging thing in person and even during covid I did it via Discord for some events (Discord hackathons were a different culture of their own and were great) even the physical ones I did had certain traditions depending on which universities you were judging at, I do peer reviews for the research lab that I help out with sometimes so maybe that counts, but the thing is I am just doing all this because I think its fun to do. Knowing that other people have potential nefarious reasons or trying to game things or even "cheat" the system was like one of the reasons why I quit Pokemon Go initially or certain games that put everyone on the same leaderboard.

Re: How I accepted myself into Canada's largest AI hackathon

#92

Post by appleaday1 »

jrmg wrote: post #61
paradite wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok looks like people are not getting my comment. Being a judge in a hackathon is one of the criterion for O-1 visa. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/getting-o-1-visa-easier-than-...

It might work in practice, but it really does not seem to meet the spirit to me. It’s definitely not true to just say “being a judge in a hackathon is one of the criterion” directly. Actual regulation is: Evidence of the alien's participation on a panel, or individually, as a judge of the work of others in the same or in an allied field of specialization to that for which classification is sought; [1] is one of eight…

do you know if there is one for Japan?

Re: How I accepted myself into Canada's largest AI hackathon

#94

Post by TwoPhonesOneKid »

przemub wrote: post #81
ngruhn wrote: post #4

Ah yes, the four foundational criteria to rate a hackathon application: passionAndInterest, projectAndPracticalExp, techSkillsAndExp, diversity

In Stalinist and Maoist countries you’d get extra points for uni when coming from a worker or farmer family. Times change, ideologies change, but some things don’t.

That actually makes sense from the perspective of a state managing its labor force, though. That's just smart. "Diversity" for its own sake is just meaningless centrist bullshit.

Re: How I accepted myself into Canada's largest AI hackathon

#95

Post by jononor »

BoorishBears wrote: post #74
neilv wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Admittedly, "passion and interest don't really come across" might've been a valid impression, since the post after sounds like it wasn't the top priority: > I decided to apply even though I was pretty busy that weekend, hoping my schedule would clear by the time the hackathon came around. However, this could be yet another instance of gatekeeping that has sprung up, now that there's tons of money involved, an…

You can still just show up. A recent highly advertised hackathon rejected my application. I DM'd an organizer and got told there was no space at the venue. I showed up anyways and security was checking names before allowing entrants in. Walk in with a box of "stuff" and shuffle over with a look of friendly inconvenience, and as they're scouring the list for my name: "Oh uh sorry I was a really late application so I m…

Nice job hacking the hackathon!

Re: How I accepted myself into Canada's largest AI hackathon

#96

Post by Twirrim »

pdntspa wrote: post #69
accurrent wrote: post #22

Nice catch. I remember the days when one could just show up to a hackathon and do cool hacks. Now it feels like they only exist for serious reasons.

The hackathons I have been forced to participate in always seemed like a cheap shot at labor and ideas from some corporate overlord And for the record.... PIZZA is not an appropriate compensation. Especially if someone is lactose intolerant!

They did a great one at Amazon several years ago. Engineers had been loudly complaining about the elevators in one building, and how long it could take at lunchtime to get one. All sorts of crap about how the elevator algorithm sucked, etc.

Amazon eventually arranged a weekend hackathon with someone from the elevator company. Whole bunch of engineers tried their hardest to do a better scheduling job, and failed. Almost like engineers at elevator companies have had decades to experiment and refine things.

It did shut down all the complaints.

Re: How I accepted myself into Canada's largest AI hackathon

#97

Post by idiotsecant »

FeepingCreature wrote: post #49
idiotsecant wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they'll gladly keep the holders of these visas as long as they're desperate. It's not about length of time, it's about keeping them tied to a single employer, working like a rented mule, afraid to speak up. These visas make people good, docile employees because if they aren't they get removed from the country . It's kind of wild that they are so casually accepted.

I think if you make it a moral violation to give people nice things with attached conditions, this will not result in more people having nice things. You're proposing the alternative "let people live in the US without being tied to a specific employer." But realistically, the alternative on offer is "don't let people live in the US at all."

Why wouldn't we just let them live in the US?

Re: How I accepted myself into Canada's largest AI hackathon

#98

Post by johnecheck »

koakuma-chan wrote: post #76
johnecheck wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much. Google manages everything. It handles Auth, which ties into the rules for accessing Firestore (the db), and you've got Functions for any code that needs to run server-side. All with libraries in a lot of languages to make it easy. Pretty solid product with a cohesive experience and a generous free tier. Naturally, you'll pay an exorbitant amount once you start to scale and realize you've been locked in.

Aren't firebase apps notorious for having really stupid vulnerabilities?

Wouldn't surprise me, but this isn't really google's fault.

As a product with a ton of appeal to the least experienced developers, lots of mistakes happen.

My understanding is that (assuming you trust google) there's no reason you can't build a secure application on firebase.

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