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Comment by accurrent | Hacker News Reader

Nice catch.

I remember the days when one could just show up to a hackathon and do cool hacks. Now it feels like they only exist for serious reasons.

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You definitely still can just show up and do cool hacks.

Also hackathons are really easy to host if you keep them under 50 people. All you really need at that size is a co-working space and some pizzas.

So if you don't like the vibe at your local hackathons, why not host your own one weekend?

I think the key is really the size of the thing. Giant hackathons with big sponsors and prizes are always going to be more "serious" feeling than your local self-organized hack-days.

The hackathons I have been forced to participate in always seemed like a cheap shot at labor and ideas from some corporate overlord

And for the record.... PIZZA is not an appropriate compensation. Especially if someone is lactose intolerant!

It’s always Little Caesars too. At that point, I’d rather just have the $5 that the pizza cost.

The box it came in probably tastes better.

They did a great one at Amazon several years ago. Engineers had been loudly complaining about the elevators in one building, and how long it could take at lunchtime to get one. All sorts of crap about how the elevator algorithm sucked, etc.

Amazon eventually arranged a weekend hackathon with someone from the elevator company. Whole bunch of engineers tried their hardest to do a better scheduling job, and failed. Almost like engineers at elevator companies have had decades to experiment and refine things.

It did shut down all the complaints.

O-1

The O-1 visa is appealing otherwise, but the fact that it doesn't give your spouse a right to work is an absolute no starter as far as I'm concerned. So it only really makes sense if you're single or if your other half qualifies for a separate visa.

That’s ridiculous. So if your SO doesn’t qualify for their own work visa, they can immigrate but not work? Or they can’t join you at all?

If you have an O-1 visa, your significant other can get an O-3, which allows them to join you, but not work. Their whole presence is tied to your visa, if you lose your O-1, they lose their O-3 too. I was looking into getting an O-1 at one point, but stopped once I came to learn this.

Gives the impression of it being by design: They want talent but only for so long, they don't want the talent to "overstay their welcome" thus they complicate things, like not allowing the spouse to work

Exactly. It’s designed to allow you to work for a time and then return. They’re nice enough to allow a spouse to accompany, but not to work or remain.

nice enough, wow

I think they'll gladly keep the holders of these visas as long as they're desperate. It's not about length of time, it's about keeping them tied to a single employer, working like a rented mule, afraid to speak up. These visas make people good, docile employees because if they aren't they get removed from the country. It's kind of wild that they are so casually accepted.

I think if you make it a moral violation to give people nice things with attached conditions, this will not result in more people having nice things.

You're proposing the alternative "let people live in the US without being tied to a specific employer." But realistically, the alternative on offer is "don't let people live in the US at all."

Why wouldn't we just let them live in the US?

Not just a US thing, Ireland did this to critical skills employment holders for years. Worse, they pretended your spouse could work, but then made the process so cumbersome it was almost impossible to comply.

They can work in your country's consular offices if one is nearby.

Ok looks like people are not getting my comment.

Being a judge in a hackathon is one of the criterion for O-1 visa.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/getting-o-1-visa-easier-than-...

It might work in practice, but it really does not seem to meet the spirit to me. It’s definitely not true to just say “being a judge in a hackathon is one of the criterion” directly.

Actual regulation is:

Evidence of the alien's participation on a panel, or individually, as a judge of the work of others in the same or in an allied field of specialization to that for which classification is sought;[1]

is one of eight criterion (of which meeting three is required).

Examples given by USCIS[2] are:

Examples of relevant evidence may include, but are not limited to:

Reviewer of abstracts or papers submitted for presentation at scholarly conferences in the respective field;

Peer reviewer for scholarly publications;

Member of doctoral dissertation committees; and

Peer reviewer for government research funding programs.

Which seems to indicate rather more prestige than “judging a hackathon” is the intent of the regulation.

[1]: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-8/chapter-I/subchapter-B/...

[2]: https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-2-part-m-chapter-...

Yes. This is my point I'm trying to make. Thank you for explaining it.

"phenomenon" is singular, "criteria" is plural

do you know if there is one for Japan?

Ah now it makes sense why some of my colleagues were judging hackathons like crazy. TBH the number of O-1s being handed out is a joke. People 2 years out of college are getting O-1s for being able to call chatgpt APIs. I mean given the number of reviews I do on a regular basis for academic journals I guess I would qualify.

rofl I didnt know this was a thing, why are people so intent on gaming the system? I was judging thing in person and even during covid I did it via Discord for some events (Discord hackathons were a different culture of their own and were great) even the physical ones I did had certain traditions depending on which universities you were judging at, I do peer reviews for the research lab that I help out with sometimes so maybe that counts, but the thing is I am just doing all this because I think its fun to do. Knowing that other people have potential nefarious reasons or trying to game things or even "cheat" the system was like one of the reasons why I quit Pokemon Go initially or certain games that put everyone on the same leaderboard.

wait what I didnt know this I mentored and judged at various hackathons in the USA, do people really care about what type of visa they get? Is this a thing in 2025?

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