Fridaygram: EU Hackathon, electron Pong, sounds from space
By Scott Knaster, Google Code
Blog EditorHackathons are a blast. There are few
experiences better than writing code all night with dozens or hundreds of others, consuming
free food, and converting that sweet sleep deprivation into creativity as you hack. As
hackathons go, this one is spectacular:
Hack4Transparency
takes place in Brussels at the European Parliament. The goal of this event is to make data
more accessible and intelligible to consumers and to government.
You expect food and WiFi at a hackathon.
But this is really cool: if you’re selected to attend, the hackathon pays your travel and
accommodation expenses, and a couple of the best hacks will win a prize of €3.000. If that got
your attention, read the full story on our
Open
Source Blog, and then
apply to
attend.
When I was a wee hacker, I would sometimes break up
my coding sessions with a primitive videogame called
Pong. Physicists at Cambridge
University are still playing this game, sort of, except now they’re
knocking a single
electron back and forth. As if that Pong ball wasn’t small and easy to miss enough
already.
Finally, if you have some time this weekend and you’re not
coding or playing video games, you can check out this excellent
collection of sounds from spaceflights
posted by NASA. You can even make them into ringtones, so if you want to hear a 50-year-old
Sputnik beep when your
friends call, go for it.
