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Show HN: Projects from “Stupid Shit No One Needs and Terrible Ideas” Hackathon
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- comrh 12y agoI disagree this doesn't fit, this is a collection of things and many of them you can play with.
- saaaam 12y agoWell, I organized the hackathon. Does that count?
- anigbrowl 12y agoYou should do one in SF next. I found this 2.74 times more amusing than most hackathon post mortems.
- lsiebert 12y agoIf someone wants to do something like this in the SF Bay Area, I will happily help organize space at the Hacker Dojo in MV.
- saaaam 12y agoFAIR WARNING - we are a patented hackathon: http://www.stupidhackathon.com/hackathon-patent.pdf http://www.stupidhackathon.com/hackathon-patent.pdf
- binarysolo 12y agoWow I love it you guys really got into this
- sbilstein 12y agoI've been looking for a space to organize a 'big dada' hackathon for a while. The idea is in a similar vein but more about tech that borders on absurd/Dadaist
- boomlinde 12y agoA very honest hackathon!
- softdev12 12y agoWow. 100,000 projects submitted? With that many projects, you'd think the odds would make it that one wasn't terrible.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- cooper12 12y agoI think that was a joke. Judging from the rearview mirror video, the venue was pretty small. The event was also hosted by a graduate program at NYU, which in it's inception only had 20 members. While I'm sure NYC has a spare 100,000 people, I doubt such a high turnout for such a specific non-internet event.
- wingerlang 12y agoIt was definitely a joke.
- Ichaleb 12y agoYeah anyone who missed that.. reading between the lines it looks like a pretty cosy event.
- if_by_whisky 12y agoThis is already over? DAMN. Now what am I going to do with my idea to build a payment gateway on top of snapchat...
- ultimatedelman 12y agoi really really hope that you didn't know what they just released today...
- percentcer 12y agoWhat a coincidence!
- FleshGordon 12y agoWhooosh
- ChuckMcM 12y agoAH but yours should send pictures of cash that disappear :-)
- tormeh 12y agoThis is awesome. Especially the beautified intellectuals.
- blhack 12y agoThis is always my hacker's-block-breaker. If I'm stuck on something, and not feeling particularly creative, I'll make something intentionally useless, and funny, and it usually cheers me back up and gets me working again.
- hiou 12y agoHow is this different from every other Hackathon?
- andrewstuart 12y agoAren't we all participating in this hackathon on a global scale except for a very small number of us who build something people want?
- cooper12 12y agoThese are intentionally useless ;).
- paublyrne 12y agoYou're saying that people's lives may not actually improved in any meaningful way by the Tinder for flatmates mobile app I'm building? Seriously, the science fiction world of William Gibson and so on where normal people hack electronics for fun hasn't really emerged at all despite the tools to do things having become cheaper and more accessible. It seems we've moved away from that since the 1990s, as machines become more packaged and less customisable. Maybe we need a a new lean hack canvas that isn't focused on revenue.
- StavrosK 12y agoAw, I should have entered my rotary mobile phone...: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSkdWQswpc8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSkdWQswpc8
- snarkyturtle 12y agoYeah... might want to mark this NSFW
- jbaudanza 12y agoThat "Focus Tools" chrome extension looks like it could potentially help me from getting distracted. Disqualified!
- cheepin 12y agoI wish I knew about this. I wrote a file server that serves your webroot directory over League of Legends chat. Any time you request a file that is more than a few bytes, your chat gets flooded with base64 strings... The extraslow web.
- Pxl_Buzzard 12y agoDo you have the source or a video in action? This sounds hilarious.
- Dragonai 12y agoOh man, this is gold. Seconded, I've gotta see a video.
- cheepin 12y agoI'm not really sure if it's within the rules of the game, so there will probably be no video, but I'll probably github the source soon. It's Node based, but some of the dependencies are a pain to set up.
- kybernetyk 12y agoHeh, I once wrote a piece of software that would read World of Warcraft's memory space, scan for the chat circular buffer and then post new guild chat messages to twitter. At first my guild mates loved it - but then it created some guild internal drama as some "officers" were having a rather not nice chat about other guild members in the night and they thought they were alone. Pretty much destroyed my guild. But at least I could finally say "What have I done!" and mean it ;)
- eat 12y agoOut of curiosity, were you an officer? The idea that private officer chat might be sent to just any guild member's client is hilarious.
- dmix 12y agoWhere is the "Intellectual Babes Calendar" I'd like to buy this...
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- yogiHacks 12y agoI was at Stuipd Hackathon. I've never been to anything so unabashedly motivated to be pointless and irreverent. Workshops included: "3d printed sex toys", "how to be come alan ginsberg in 30 minutes", and "pissing off my landlord". All the projects there were so beautiful because they were liberated from the whole motif in tech of products constantly "revolutionizing field-xyz and solving 1000 major world problems". If we are going to enter into a truly tech-literate, post-internet phase of humanity, we gotta be making dumb, hilarious junk like this.
- fudged71 12y agoSessions could have also included "Stealing from Whole Foods" and "Pissing off reporters"
- AlyssaRowan 12y agoFor the uninitiated: 3D-printed sex toys actually do exist, yes. For example I believe the infamous Dragon Dildos are 3D-printed? (I shan't link, for self-explanatory reasons.)
- tempodox 12y agoI shan't link Too bad, you could have stolen the entire HN user base in one fell swoop.
- AlyssaRowan 12y agoI don't think this is that kind of site! ;) Seriously, you can find Bad Dragon with a Google search if you're curious, provided safe search is off naturally, and don't expect autocomplete! They're very exotic designs, often quite large (we have one as a present from a friend, largely as a conversation starter... or stopper!) and the kind of niche low-volume manufacturing in complex shapes that 3D printing can work out well for.
- Shinkei 12y agoSerious question: Why not link to it? I am certainly not a HN 'veteran,' but I've never seen censorship on here. Is there some unspoken rule that these comments can't have sexual content?
- blairanderson 12y agoThis looks rad. A very similar hackathon I went to a few months back is http://www.comedyhackday.org/ http://www.comedyhackday.org/ They matchup comedians and hackers to create beauty. Easily the most fun hackathon i've ever been to/
- stockkid 12y agoThe food bite tweet is my favorite.
- bbcbasic 12y agoThe Stupid Font is actually very cool. I am going to use it for my blog title. So sorry Stupid Font creator: You failed - I find your idea useful.
- Bjartr 12y agoHow does copyright handle a case like this?
- icebraining 12y agoI think it's pretty clearly fair use. It's a parody, that significantly transforms the work and doesn't compete with it.
- AlyssaRowan 12y agoBroadly: Typefaces are not copyrightable. Font programs, however, are. So that's in the clear, which may be the point of the art.
- learnstats2 12y agoI understood Stupid Font to be a comment on copyright. My understanding is that the written form of the font is copyrighted - a redrawn version would not typically be copyrighted. It's complicated so please don't take this as legal advice.
- fit2rule 12y agoI thought so too, but the font seems to be broken for me .. ah well.
- unclesaamm 12y agoThis is incredible. I think a few things are worth noting: 1) these "terrible idea" hackathon projects were so much more _sexual_ than your typical hackathon. This goes with the indications that the sex-tech space is anathema more for market reasons (VCs want to stay family friendly) than because sex-tech isn't fun or interesting to people. With the chance of funding not on the table, a healthy mix of projects veered toward sex. Maybe humor can actually be a way for a few sex-tech startups to take off. :) 2) the funniest projects all involved hardware. There's something extra-ridiculous about juxtaposing our own bodies into these stupid projects. I recommend anyone interested in a solid philosophical grounding in humor to read Henri Bergson's early 20th century treatise on laughter (http://www.templeofearth.com/books/laughter.pdf http://www.templeofearth.com/books/laughter.pdf). He writes that we find use laughter as a way to draw attention to the rigid, mortal, and physical in all of us. That is why impersonating someone's habits is funny-- because the rigidity of their personality is made super clear. I wonder what it says about us that strapping ipads onto people's faces makes me laugh out loud.
- anigbrowl 12y agoI found that interesting to, and straightaway noticed the high # of women participants - in fact that made me guess it was based in NYC before reading up on the background to the event and finding that it is indeed based there (which I hadn't heard of before). I thought it was sexual in an assured self-aware way rather than giggly or tacky. I was especially struck by the egg-timer clock.
- allisonburtch 12y agoIt was held at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program (started by Red Burns), whose student body is 50/50 m/f, half international students and grades are pass/fail. There's a really fun, collaborative, non-competitive culture in the program.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- Dragonai 12y agoHow regularly is the Stupid Hackathon held? Fall and spring? Georgia Tech student here, I would seriously fly up to participate.
- saaaam 12y agoWe're doing it once a year in NY. We don't have a mailing list but you can follow @stupidhackathon on Twitter for updates.
- joshu 12y agoCan someone do this in the Bay Area? I'll help.
- mistercow 12y agoThe rearview mirror one is actually a really cool experiment. I wonder if eventually you'd just get used to it (although you probably wouldn't get used to all of the neck and joint pain from trying to do things so awkwardly).
- prawn 12y agoI agree. Here's a clever promo showing people trying to live with a Rift showing them a lagged version of reality. I laugh so hard when he tries to make a pancake. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fNp37zFn9Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fNp37zFn9Q
- GrinningFool 12y agoThat was funny, thanks for posting. Though I wonder what would happen for some of the tasks (dance/exercise, for example) - if all participants had the same lag.
- smoyer 12y agoThere was a study done on perception that used "glasses" that inverted the image fed to your eyes. The subject's brain rewired itself so he'd see the images upright again in just a couple of days. Interestingly, the optics in our eyes provide an inverted image to our retinas, so our perception of the "inputs" is already using signal processing.
- dzhiurgis 12y agoThis is incredibly funny. Just today I was reading i am devloper tweets and just started wondering are there communities for developer jokes? Reddit comes to mind, but it become too mainstream. Anything else?
- Houshalter 12y agoWell it is reddit but https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/
- dzhiurgis 12y agoHow about more hacker?
- mkhpalm 12y agoIf they sold it, I might buy that thing that tweets my food bites. It would also make twitter more useful / entertaining for me.
- pawelk 12y agoAs other commenters have expressed, even stupid ideas may lead to an actual product: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bitbite-track-and-improve-your-eating-habits--3 https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bitbite-track-and-improve... I know this project is not related to the hackathon, but one can imagine how it could develop from stupid idea to raising funds for a maybe-not-completely-stupid product.
- andyidsinga 12y agokudos to the "Kim Kardashian On A Newton" team. ...thats some non-trivial archeology to get that running :)
- sleepyhead 12y agoSo it's like a normal hackathon?
- dschiptsov 12y agoThis is about systemd, I suppose?
- tomswartz07 12y agoWow, dude. Seriously?
- peterwwillis 12y agoyou shouldn't have gotten downvoted, this was funny!
- rspeer 12y agoIt was low-effort and off-topic, and you need higher standards.
- JacobAldridge 12y agoI learnt some great definitions around creativity and innovation at a conference I was involved with recently. To wit, "Creativity is the generation of novel and useful ideas." The speaker (Dr David Hall) recommended that the search for Creativity often needs to start with generating something novel and useless - this can then inspire the useful application to emerge. Only when we pursue the novel, however useless, do we really open ourselves up to surprising creativity. This Hackathon seems to fully embrace that principle, so I wouldn't be surprised at all if many of those who participated take the germ of an idea and develop it further into the useful space. [1] http://jacobaldridge.com/business/3-blockages-to-creativity-shirlaws-conference-blog/ http://jacobaldridge.com/business/3-blockages-to-creativity-...
- bonobo3000 12y agoAhhhh this is beautiful :) Reminds of the days when blogs and websites were creative absurdities and programming was a cool hobby.
- askinakhan 12y agoHahaha! The Focus Tools one is great! looool
- 2511 12y agoPlease note:This is NSFW
- sirances 12y agoReally hope this type of event spreads - looks like a lot of fun.
- kenkam 12y agocan we please have a NSFW tag
- tempodox 12y agoIf no-one needs stupid shit, then what do we have Facebook for?
- androidb 12y agoDO NOT click to watch the drone delivery video. Trust me.
- publicfig 12y agoCould you explain why?
- icebraining 12y agoI suppose it's because of the weird footage of a birth by the end. Can't really tell what's going on there.
- thebouv 12y agoWe need more Hackathons like this.
- normloman 12y agoThat "tweet from food" thing reminds me of Vessyl. https://www.myvessyl.com/ https://www.myvessyl.com/
- ddeger 12y agoThis Hackathon should be international :)
- thejaredhooper 12y agoanddddddddddd NSFW
- binarysolo 12y agoAny equivalent of this sort of a Hackathon in the SF Bay? If not, wanna organize one together? :)
- rajacombinator 12y agoAhh unintentional hipster self-parody at its finest.