WARNING: SOME OF THE LINKS BELOW MAY LEAD TO NSFW OR TRIGGERING THINGS STOP YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED STOP
Some of you may be familiar with the ‘Stupid Hackathon‘, which I believe was started by Amelia Winger-Bearskin and Sam Lavigne at ITP in New York a few years ago.
(I also know of a San Francisco Stupid Hackathon, hosted by Noisebridge (of course).[1])
Setting aside the issues of privilege and the General Malaise required to make such an event work, I wanted to talk about a similar event happening in Toronto in late May:
The categories (APOLOGIES FOR YELLING STOP THEY WERE ALSO YELLING ON THE SITE STOP):
MARGINALLY IMPROVED FOOD DELIVERY
– Is this the purchasing of food on margin? Speculating on food ‘Futures’? Or ‘Presents’?
– Is this finally the incarnation of AirHamAndCheese.com, the sharing economy startup[2] for fractional sandwich ownership? Only time will tell.
– Is this anything like ‘The Food Lift‘?
REDUCTIONIST BOLTZMANN MACHINES
– How many neurons are required for full reductionism?
– What happens when you only have one neuron? Does it talk to itself?
– If it can talk to itself in multiple ways, is that still turing-complete?
– Do you get one of these by taking the PCA of your Restricted Boltzmann Machine and dropping the 90% least used neurons?
EMOJIANAL INTELLIGENCE
– I think I know what they mean here, and I’m not talking about this topic here.
QUICKTIME FOR PEGASI
– Is this about a phase-cloaking video display?
– Perhaps hacking a 6502-based console to run video?
– Perhaps a squadron flying horses in a hurry?
– Thinking about it, what would you need in video for a flying horse? Some type of HUD? Probably something very light.
MILLENIAL FALCONS
– I was looking at our new condo building, and what looked like a Red-tailed Hawk was perched on top. I hope we can become friends. They can live to 25 years old in the wild, so it might have been a millenial.
– How would you feed a stooping bird? Would you put food out on a flexible holder a few feet out halfway up a very tall building? Gotta practice that stoop somehow…
MAYBE PUT SOME SENSORS ON IT I GUESS CAN I HAVE MONEY NOW
– See ‘The Internet of Thins‘
VIRTUAL FEALTY
– Cue ‘Second Life’ references.
– You could talk about player organizations within MMORPGs, but what could you build to actually (not) help them?
– This topic is a pyramid scheme.
PENTACOPTERS
– For starfish, of course.
– Or this guy.
A FUCKING FITNESS TRACKER
– I feel like this would require a considerable amount of calibration for each user
– Alternatively, this could be a hide-and-seek game
THE INTERNET OF BEES
– See my post about ‘Beenary’ logic for some ideas on this.
[1]If you’ve never heard of Noisebridge, check out their website! All of the warnings at the top of this post probably apply.
[2]S suggests ‘Sandwich Rental’ for the ultimate experience.
One thought on “Stupid Hackathon Toronto Ideas”