I've been participating in the NYC BigApps string of hackathons this Spring. They really shouldn't be called "hackathons" because, as the submitter said, they're really just pitch-a-thons. Three weeks ago we showed up to the first, came up with an idea on the fly, banged it out in two days; then, when it came time to present the app we had done every other team stood up and presented apps they had been working on for years.

Naturally, something that has been in development for years is going to be more complete and polished than something that was born 48 hours before. And that long-term project is more likely to win, and win they did. In the subsequent two hackathons we also presented stuff we had been developing for a long time and won both times. But it felt wrong. It felt like it was violating the spirit of what a hackathon should be.

What hackathons should be is a crazy all-night code fest of how quickly techs can move ideas from conception to reality. 48 hours is an absurdly short period of time to create. All of us who develop for a living know that. But that intensifies the design/scope decisions you have to make, the team collaboration you have to effect on the fly, and the exhiliration of a win if you can pull something off.

Finally, the panel of judges should be diverse, cutting across generations and disciplines, because young 20-something techs are perhaps not always the best positioned to see the potential of an app in the bigger societal context.

Train travel far exceeds air travel in the experience, especially if you get a sleeper compartment. You get your own TV, outlets, desk, toilet in your compartment, complimentary drinks, and access to all the first-class amenities. It's like travelling around in your little apartment or office. And there's something about working while the scenery flashes by that is mentally and creatively stimulating. When you get tired, you can lay down on a real bed. When you want to stretch your legs, you can walk the whole length of train if you want, without squeezing through the forest of elbows on the cattle cars they call "jumbo" jets.

You also get to go from city center to city center, so the connections to the train station are always easier and cheaper than getting to the airport and getting your anal probe from the TSA. Japan and Europe have had high speed train travel forever, on land masses roughly the scale of the US (Japan, for example, is longer that California, Europe is bigger than the continental US), so it can be done.

I'd rather cultivate and eat spirulina. It's a perfect food, grows quickly, and doesn't have near the same yuck factor, especially if you add it to soups and smoothies and such. And it gives you a boost of energy better and smoother than that from energy drinks.

Check out AlgaeLab. They sell live culture to start your own algae setup and also offer online classes on how to cultivate it.

I've eaten scorpions in Northern China. Crunchy, salty, oily, mostly flavorless like a pork rind. So, yeah, you can eat them but apart from the initial Fear Factor aspect, why?

boy these things have been a long time coming. my brother worked non this as an engineering student in 1998. I remember seeing it when I visited his lab at Carnegie Mellon, along with the spider robot they sent into Mt. Erebus. at that time it had no means of locomotion.

electrical engineers have incredibly valuable and useful skills. might I suggest that those who have those skills and yet find themselves unemployed apply their energies to as many disruptive technologies as they can? we all know what the problem is: rich, talentless parasites are destroying democracy, humanity, and the world. electrical engineers have unique insights into ways to solve that problem. now, go do so. we software engineers shall do likewise.

fantastic summary of our society's modern dilemma. thank you for writing this.

I developed software for a one-click process to make your house a green home, calculating the sweet spots in tens of thousands of combinations of energy efficiency retrofits for your house, identifying which incentives you qualify for and filling out the paperwork for you, finding qualified contractors in your area to do the work, and connecting you to green lenders if you need it. Built the prototype without a dime in investment or savings. Then I submitted the project to Kickstarter to raise capital to market it, and the snarky hipsters rejected it saying "we don't allow home improvement projects.". Apparently any variety of accessory for their iPhones is fine, but a tool that would save homeowners thousands of dollars per year, boost the value of their homes and reduce or eliminate their carbon footprint is not.

Kickstarter? Kickstopper.

my sister owns a water quality lab that tests drinking water for most of the state of Montana. she gets her samples by USPS. FedEx and UPS either don't deliver to most of her customers or are prohibitively expensive. note, these are many of the small farming and ranching towns that grow the wheat you eat and raise the cattle that turn into the juicy steak on your plate. if the USPS vanished tomorrow those places would not be able to certify their drinking water safe to drink, which they must do by law. that means fines they can't pay and the knock-on effects that brings for communities that teeter on the edge all the time anyway.

does it have square wheels?

Now I can drive my ICE in good conscience knowing that perpetual slavery to oil companies really is the best possible future any of us could hope for.

CmdrTaco, a /. account was the first one I created on the Web proper when i returned from China. I lost that 4 digit userID then due to economic & geographic dislocations, to my ongoing regret now. But in the ensuing years I came to feel like you were a brother I had never met. When you left Slashdot, it felt like a death in the family.

I don't say that to be maudlin, but to mean your time at Slashdot was not just a chapter in your life and its, but in the lives of many. May we all do so well in life.

is this how we rsvp?

I agree with the other person who replied to you: it must be highly variable. I speak passable French and Parisians have always been jerks to me. On the other hand people elsewhere in France are normal. If anyone else out there has had the same experience with Paris we have and needs a rec for a place where people are friendly, I vote for Turkey. Kindest. People. On. Earth.

Can we relocate this guy's mouth to 1 inch above sea level? If sea level remains the same, he has nothing to worry about. If not, well, the world will be less one asshole.