
Three Days on the Startup Bus - ltnately
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/07/the-secret-lives-of-hackathon-junkies/397895/?single_page=true
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rhaps0dy
Nice article. I had a good time.

Here are some pearls from it:

> Nothing useful is ever created at a hackathon.

> sometimes “entrepreneur” means “runs a successful company” and sometimes it
> means “more ideas than money.”

> Eddie [...] dresses exclusively in free t-shirts from tech events. [...] his
> job is to go around the country attending hackathons, throwing pizza
> parties, and handing out t-shirts to developers to convince them to use
> SendGrid.

Reads exactly like the hackathons I've attended.

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jpmoral
I read somewhere (can't find it now) that hackathons work better when there
are specific problems to solve rather than just having a general theme. Makes
sense, but I'm curious whether anyone has any experience regarding this. I've
only ever attended one, a couple of years ago.

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coolsunglasses
Haskell community has hackathons around the world that end up being 60%
conference, 40% hackathon with people jumping between each depending on
interests. A lot of infrastructure has been built or improved, tutorials,
tooling, etc. at these hackathons.

BayHac and ZuriHac are two of the more prominent ones.

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rfrey
"There’s even a term for the useless software that people make: vaporware. The
idea is that it’s created, and then it evaporates because nobody works on the
project after the hackathon (despite everyone’s best intentions)."

Has anyone ever heard this definition of vaporware before?

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seiji
Also see the new definition of shareware: an app going viral because so many
people are sharing it.

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nickpsecurity
Really enjoyed the article. Wonder if she sold the Pizza app to Dominos or
something. Code it in their stack for easy integration, pitch common use case,
and boom. Who knows.

On the overall thing, I've always suspected these were more a giant party than
anything useful. The reason is that good things usually take time and quality
thought to put together. Sleep can work wonders, too. Wish I was in Nashville
for this event as it would've been fun talking to the Startup Bus crowd.

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dj-wonk
If twisty mountain roads work "magic" for the Startup Bus, maybe it is time
for the Start Up Vomit Comet.
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced_gravity_aircraft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced_gravity_aircraft))

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reustle
Is that primary image from a gaming event, and not a hackathon?

~~~
romanovcode
Seems like it

