

The Awesome Foundation: $1K grants every month in the name of awesomeness - jonpierce
http://awesomefoundation.org/

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100ideas
Someone from boston should submit a proposal to manually curate the MBTA's
scheduling information and produce a version in Google Transit Feed Spec:
[http://code.google.com/transit/spec/transit_feed_specificati...](http://code.google.com/transit/spec/transit_feed_specification.html)

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ivankirigin
someone from boston should also make a microsite, is_it_raining_in_boston.com

    
    
      def index( request ): 
        return HttpResponse('yes, damn it')

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mahmud
in Arc

(dfn indx (rqst) (rspns t))

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sanswork
t = 'yes, damn it' in Arc?

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100ideas
I would use $1000 to purchase lab reagents and host a class teaching
participants how to sequence a short segment of their choice from their own
genome - for free!

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vlad
They are pooling their money together to entice smart, creative individuals of
their choice to spend one month each at their coworking office by giving them
recognition and paying them $1,000 to be there. This will be a great way to
meet and learn from such people who they might not ever hear about or meet
otherwise, never-mind work alongside for a month. It also gives the house some
publicity as well as a list of cool people who were "guests".

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noelchurchill
How is it not helpful or useful??

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vlad
It was his first (or second) post on News.YC, and it seemed sarcastic. (I've
removed the first sentence of my paragraph.)

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mcantor
The kicker here is that OP of this thread appears to be Mac Cowell, one of the
Awesome Foundation members. <http://awesomefoundation.org/controls/whois>

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axod
Seems like a great way to get people to give you tons of ideas on what to do
yourself ;)

I'm not saying this is what's happening here of course...

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davidnunez
believe me, we don't want ownership over any of the ideas. we're also aware
that "no-strings-attached" often is not, so I'll grant you that this may all
seem rather suspicious. Honestly, I hope people get fabulously happy and can
quit the day job off of the $1000 we're handing over. Doing that for somebody
is my ROI. But even if all it does is lower the activation energy required for
somebody to get off his/her ass and do something awesome or encourage already
awesome people to keep going, I think we all win. We could use a little more
unfettered joy around us, don't you think?

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DanielBMarkham
I think this is a great idea, and if I could I'd support a 5K and 10K grant
for more complex projects.

Something I have noticed: people tend to do better under a little pressure.

So if you could have some kind of requirements, like regular emails,
submitting a video of your work, or an online interview at the end, you might
get better results.

Just a thought. Good luck with this!

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vegashacker
I think this parenthetical is a typo:

    
    
      (> ~500 words for you precisionists)

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myblake
Good call, I'll fix it.

Also just a warning the site seems to be under a bunch of load right now :-(
We'll be keeping an eye on it, but sorry in advance if you can't get through.

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Klonoar
The source code for that page is most definitely not awesome. :(

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lars
pagehtml.replace(RegExp(/\<p\>/,g), 'bigfatmonkeydick');

Huh?

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myblake
gotta love easter eggs right? to be fair that function isn't called.

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jmonegro
Could this be a way of taking ideas? Sounds a bit sketchy to me... specially
since the domain is registered to an individual, and not a group/foundation...

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iheartmemcache
The Board of Trustees has a few people who are affiliated with reputable
organizations (BetaHouse, Microsoft, etc). Seems legitimate to me.

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pierattt
What's not clear to me is if the $1000 is actually supposed to help fund the
Awesomeness, or if it's basically just intended as a reward for doing
something Awesome. For instance, should submitted ideas be confined to
something achievable within that budget? I assume not, but the whole thing
could use a bit more clarity.

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jonpierce
Either. We're keeping the whole thing rather open ended, at least to start.
That said, we're happy to answer any questions and we'll add a FAQ to the site
sometime soon. Also, for those in the Boston area, we'll host an information
session at BetaHouse in a couple weeks.

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pierattt
I can say that if this had the double-intention of functioning as marketing
for Betahouse, it definitely worked on me. I have every intention of keeping
track of your events, etc, from here on out.

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tibbon
Oh god! We're being watched now :)

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seldo
How are they funding this? Is everybody just chipping in $100 a month?

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jonpierce
Yup. Individual contributions of $100 a month pooled together.

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kirubakaran
How do I get in on the contributing group? [kirubakaran@gmail.com]

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tibbon
We're (currently) at a fixed number, BUT we are hoping that other people soon
spin off their own Awesome Foundations (in a barcamp like manner). We'll be in
touch though soon.

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TrevorJ
I like the idea a lot. The font however, hurts my eyes.

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tybris
Anyone using the form should be ineligible. Modesty is awesome.

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ddemchuk
This seems like an interesting way to create a sort of "rolling YCombinator"
if there was a little bit more money being tossed around. Say maybe giving out
$3-5000 each month, creating 12 new business opportunities a year, each one
launching in a somewhat timed fashion in sync with the others from other
months.

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pavs
What the hell?

[http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2422/3682531265_1ea4ddaa78_o....](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2422/3682531265_1ea4ddaa78_o.png)

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pavs
Ok not sure why I am getting downmodded. But this warning actually pops up
with AVG on betahouse.org everytime same with chrome. Anybody from betahouse
bothered to check if AVG incorrectly blocking their website and issuing
warning?

