
How to attend a hackathon - craigkerstiens
http://dickey.xxx/hackathons
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adastra
He lost me when he started talking about Startup Weekend. Some people may find
that kind of thing fun, but sorry that's not a hackathon.

I went to one a few weeks ago, and bailed when I realized business school
students and hustlers out-numbered engineers 4 to 1. Entire teams of 7-8
people formed that didn't have a single technical person on them. I checked
back with a friend afterwards, and apparently none of the top winning teams
actually built anything -- they just presented business plans. Unless you want
to work on a business plan for 48 hours, stay away...

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ohashi
I don't doubt your experience but you've attended one event and are telling
people to avoid it despite the fact they organize hundred of events all over
the world. Each one has it's own organizers and compositions. They even focus
on different topics (edu/gov/general/maybe more?).

I've attended Startup Weekends and been an organizer (so you know my bias).
But I've met lots of good developers at these events. Startup Weekend is more
friendly towards non-technical people than any other hackathon I've been to.
But that's also part of the appeal. It could be detrimental if any group isn't
represented well enough or is over represented. But don't let that dissuade
people from trying it out. If you're really worried, bring a technical friend,
worst case scenario, you get to hack on something with a buddy for a weekend.

You seem a bit disappointed because of the outcome instead of focusing on what
you got to do during the weekend. What did you work on? Did you learn
anything? Did you make any new friends/connections? Did you get some new ideas
that translate to something else you're working on?

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guelo
Why the hell do they call it a hackathon if it is not a hacker-only event? The
only thing that happens at a marathon is running. They should come up with
their own description and stop trying to trick hackers into showing up.

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dickeytk
I was the one that referred to it as a hackathon, not them. They call it an
'event'.

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fabricode
Not sure about the rest of you, but I'm not clicking on a dickey.xxx link to
read about anything.

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craigkerstiens
Its definitely a safe site, though can understand the issue with the url. You
should send feedback on the domain to him directly on twitter @dickeyxxx

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xoail
Don't ever get a domain with .xxx if you aren't going to create what it's
meant for. Damn site is blocked at my work place.

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duaneb
He may also intend to host pornographic material! Who knows.

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tomrod
Then don't host hackathons! :D

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bobocopy
Actually, sounds like exactly the sort of hackathon I'd like to attend...

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eurodance
Yeah, I'm not going to an XXX domain at work. The idea is terrible and not
worth whatever benefit was in mind.

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benatkin
That's a great point about having a winner not being all it's cracked up to
be. Having to show something is enough motivation for me.

Also sponsors often take away as much from hackathons as they put into them.
I'd love an API hack day where all API's including open protocols were on
equal footing. At the API Hack Day I went to there were actually prizes for
using the sponsors' APIs.

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michaelochurch
Blocked @work. Please choose a better name for your site (at least the TLD).

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dickeytk
Try <http://dickeyxxx.com/hackathons>

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gfosco
Wow, you have the worst taste in domain names! :)

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dickeytk
thank you!

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marksands07
Every one of these comments is about the xxx TDL. GG OP.

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speek
Awesome.

Dickey + I built weft.io for the last Angelhack (a couple weeks ago). We
didn't win, but we definitely did a lot of things we were proud of.

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sixQuarks
That seems pretty cool. Do you have a prototype?

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speek
We kinda do -- it's ugly as hell, though
(<https://dl.dropbox.com/u/63726/weft-presentation.pdf>)

