HackathonShow E1S2 Hackathon Show hiatus, AngelHack win and more!
Hey, everyone. Peter Tushinski here, and welcome to the hackathon show, a show where we cover all things related to hackathons, So news, upcoming events, interesting projects, strategies, and tactics that you can use to perform at your best. But also and perhaps maybe most importantly, we'll be talking about how to build technology products fast. And I mean very fast. 24 hours fast.
Peter Tuszynski:And I'm really stoked to say that intro one more time, because we've been on a hiatus. Before we go into any any further detail, Michal, it's so great to see you again.
Michal Tuszynski:Oh, it's great to see you again as well, Peter. It's great to be talking on the podcast again after such a long break.
Peter Tuszynski:There we go. Yes. Yes. I thought we're not we're never gonna do that, but, the fact of the matter is we're back. I feel like we're back.
Peter Tuszynski:We have a piece of news that I think we should be sharing. So we, this is hot news. This is breaking news. You and I, we we won a hackathon here in Warsaw with AngelHack. For those of you who don't know, AngelHack is like a major like a hackathon franchise.
Peter Tuszynski:And what really made this full circle for us is the fact that we together organized AngelHack, I wanna say 12 years ago.
Michal Tuszynski:Yeah. It was Something
Peter Tuszynski:like that.
Michal Tuszynski:That was, like, a 1000000 years ago. But, it it really it really felt, felt like a home run. You know? Like, after, after all these memories of us, like, organizing and, like, us not taking part into it because, like, the organizers can't take part in the in the hackathon. So now now we're seeing it from from a total different perspective, and, we managed to win something that's that's that's that's really great.
Peter Tuszynski:Yeah. Yeah. I keep saying it's not about winning, but it kinda feels nice.
Michal Tuszynski:It it It feels nice. Right? It feel it does feel nice. And, also, and, also, feels nice taking into account that I think our product actually can do something good. Right?
Peter Tuszynski:Yeah. Yeah. So as far as, like, we should probably shed some light on, like, what we did and how we we know that this came around. So it's funny because not only this is funny because we came up with this idea very long time ago. As a matter of fact, this is not our first stab at this idea.
Peter Tuszynski:So the idea is basically we wanted to combat food waste, like domestic food waste. Right?
Michal Tuszynski:Yes.
Peter Tuszynski:And Mio and I, along with a couple of folks from intent from our company, we our first stab at this idea was basically we, on another hackathon, surprisingly, on Hack Yeah last year, we built a, you know, you can call it an MVP of a working solution of, like, a like, a piece of hardware that you attach to your fridge. And as you unpack your groceries, you basically scan or, like, wave the product, you know, in front of a camera lens, and the camera would try and, you know, estimate, like, what it is that you're holding. Like, what is the expiry date? And, of course, they could had all the problems that you would imagine this thing would have. Right?
Peter Tuszynski:Because, you know, the OCR is not perfect. Like, you have to you have to hold it steady. You know, there's lighting conditions and whatnot. So we ended up not winning that one. And for this one, we did something completely different.
Peter Tuszynski:Right?
Michal Tuszynski:Yep. So, basically, we have an app which lives pretty much everywhere you'd want it to live because we're all in Flutter. So, it lives, on the desktop, on the mobile, on the web. We started out with the web because it's far easier to prototype and iterate on the web.
Peter Tuszynski:And demo. Right?
Michal Tuszynski:Yeah. And demo. So, you basically talk talk to the app. It's like as you unpack your groceries into your fridge. You talk what exactly you're inserting, and you're and you mentioned the the the expiry date.
Michal Tuszynski:And, thanks to these awesome AI tools, we can pretty much extract all of the necessary information, like what's in your fridge. And then, we can tell you, hey. Like, this cheese you brought, like, 2 days ago, it's it's about to expire. So perhaps, you can, and here's the recipe you can make with that, with that cheese and other stuff, which is already in your fridge, and you don't have to buy anything else. And, this helps combat food waste.
Michal Tuszynski:Like, there is I personally have this problem, but all of the existing solutions, it's like a glorified web form. You know? Like, you have to Yeah.
Peter Tuszynski:There's, like, there's tons of friction as you type stuff in. Right?
Michal Tuszynski:It's the same thing, like, with those calorie counters. Like, I have to I have to fire up remember to to fire up this app and then, like, fill out, like, how much protein, how much, this, how much that this this food has. And, like, the truth is, like, I have no idea, and I probably won't won't remember. I'll remember for the 1st 2 days, and then, and then I'll stop doing this. But this Yeah.
Peter Tuszynski:Yeah. Frictionless. The the the problem is that there there will always be friction. Right? The our original solution with the camera, I think it had a good run, but now with AI and what we did is basically as you unpack your groceries, the only thing that you have to do is you have to sit your smartphone next to you so it can, you know, capture the mic like, your your voice through the mic.
Peter Tuszynski:And as you unpack groceries or any shopping that you did, it expects you to read out the name of the product and the expiry date in a natural language, so you don't really have to, like, read it out.
Michal Tuszynski:Like a robot?
Peter Tuszynski:Yeah. Like a robot. You know? Like, you know, like, in a in a specific format. But you can say, hey.
Peter Tuszynski:You know, I have this cheese, like, old Amsterdam cheese that expires in 2 months. I have milk that has 2 days, and I have, you know, something else that expires on 15th of, you know, next month. And lo and behold, like, we thanks to the power of AI, we can really nicely, parse that and convert it into, you know, essentially timestamp. Right?
Michal Tuszynski:It's nice how all these AI tools, allow you to talk to your phone as if it were a human being. Right? Like, it understands all sorts of like you mentioned, like, we're sort all sorts of things. Like, you can, tell exact date. You can tell a relative date, or you can do it, like, in any any way you want, and it's just it's just going to understand that.
Michal Tuszynski:And it's also extracting stuff in a way that's readable, for your back end to consume and, like, put all of this stuff into a database or, like, whatever you want to wherever you want to place them.
Peter Tuszynski:Yeah. And, and it's it's also, like, language independent. Right? So you can do that in
Michal Tuszynski:Polish or And then, yeah, like, we just, that's, that's that's worse out of the box. Like, you can build it in Polish and English, and it's just going to understand.
Peter Tuszynski:Yeah. Sounds pretty cool. Like, not to brag for too much about it. We're pretty we're pretty proud of it. We'll see how or rather where this leads us in terms of AngelHack.
Peter Tuszynski:You know, there are world world finals that happen in Singapore, but I think there's, like, a whole leaderboard that out of which there are 30 teams that go. I think we're, like, tied on the 2nd place right now. So I think it's still very much up in the air whether we'll go or not, but, you know, fingers crossed.
Michal Tuszynski:Thing is the blockchain. Right? So, I guess it's, the deadline is, I think, next month?
Peter Tuszynski:Yeah. There are a couple, like like, a kicker sort of challenges that you can take part in and basically add a little bit of points to your, you know, overall score to, you know, to advance into leaderboard. And and I are we're actually meeting tomorrow, right, for a little bit of ideation. We don't have tremendous blockchain experience, but, you know, we're It's a great
Michal Tuszynski:it's a great opportunity to gain some experience for us.
Peter Tuszynski:Exactly. You know, that's what the hackathons are about. Right? Yeah. So enough about AngelHack.
Peter Tuszynski:I think we're gonna do it, like, a dedicated episode on it because I think the guys, the organizing team did such a great job. I think, you know, like, there were, like, typical hurdles, like, you know, like, the pitching times where it went totally sideways, so I couldn't attend the final pitch and you saved the day. But overall, I think the event was stellar. It was really good. The venue was great.
Peter Tuszynski:It was, you know, the Google campus in Warsaw. So it was like, the infrastructure was there. The networking worked really well. There were nice places around in the vicinity. So, you know, we could sneak out for a little beer and
Michal Tuszynski:Yeah. Just to get a little bit of creativity shot and to
Peter Tuszynski:Yes. Yes. Exactly. Get
Michal Tuszynski:home in front of me. Right? Yeah.
Peter Tuszynski:So yeah. But zooming out a little bit, this is the first episode of season 2, and I think we and most important most importantly, I owe some explanations to everybody like what the hell happened. We published a series of episodes on Spotify and elsewhere, and that kind of went nowhere. And, back in the day, you can probably see right now, we're on Zoom or actually that's not Zoom, StreamYard. But before we, you know, end of season 1, we had to take, like, trips to our great friend's studio, and that had a lot of, like, logistical complexity, if you will, because, you know, had had to have his home, like, time dedicated to this.
Peter Tuszynski:I had to take, you know, time of my, like, family schedule, and I'm a father of 2, and there's like a there's a lot going on. It's like, you know, 18 year old 18 year old hackathon that I embarked on. But I'm really glad again, like, I'm gonna repeat it probably a few times today, but I'm really glad we're doing this. We're resuming and I think in this new formula where we meet online and then once while we make this, like, a big ceremony of, like, meeting in person, going to Yavor's place and recording in the studio. And it had, like It was it
Michal Tuszynski:was a huge trip. Right? Like, we had to drive, like, for the whole, to a different town. And
Peter Tuszynski:yeah,
Michal Tuszynski:it was during, like, this hour. Like, it's currently 11:32. So, yeah, we didn't get much sleep the the next morning.
Peter Tuszynski:Yeah. Well, after all, it's a hackathon show. Right? So you're not, like, you're not getting it.
Michal Tuszynski:It was just the training. Like, for the next hackathon.
Peter Tuszynski:But yeah. I mean, I loved it. Right? I think it was great. And hands down, like, whenever I can, like, I think we should do it as frequently as possible, and we'll we'll, of course, check with our great host to see if he can accommodate, you know, like, a less frequent and more kind of, like, random art visits to the studio.
Peter Tuszynski:But I think that discipline beats anything. Right? So I think that, like, we talked before we started recording this, I think we really need to focus on, like, getting 1, 2, maybe 3 tops episodes a week, consistently, like, doing, like, every week. Right?
Michal Tuszynski:Especially that, you know, there's more and more hackathons coming, so, there will be much more events to cover. And, I'm pretty sure that, our listeners who are already seasoned, hackathon, attendees or even winners, we can share some of our experiences. And, for those, of you who still haven't participated in 1, well, then, this is the best time to to be in 1 because there are plenty of new tools to to try out. And, this whole AI revolution also comes to the hackathons because things that were not nearly possible, like, right now, like, you can do it in one night.
Peter Tuszynski:Yeah. Well, it's almost I I remember it's funny. I remember there was a hackathon. I I forget which one it was, but it was like a I don't know. Like, 2, 3 years ago, I still had one kid.
Peter Tuszynski:And it was like a machine learning hackathon.
Michal Tuszynski:And we didn't know
Peter Tuszynski:a hell of a lot about, you know, machine learning and, like, training models and
Michal Tuszynski:And We tried to train the model on our laptop. And so, like, if anything it took us half of the hackathon to train the model. And then, like, we do we, we chose the wrong dataset, I think. I was like, oh my god.
Peter Tuszynski:Yeah, dude.
Michal Tuszynski:We don't have much time. Like like, we we kinda screwed this up, like, the second time.
Peter Tuszynski:I think we did, like, 2 or 3 iteration of model retraining, and it ended up working. It was cool because it was I think it was like, it was a computer vision model that we, I think, trained based on, like, a data set of leaves and leaves, like, diseases
Michal Tuszynski:that told me like that.
Peter Tuszynski:Leaves certain plants. But it was, like, out of all the hackathons that we did and we did a lot, I think that was the most underwhelming one because we were sort of sitting there and waiting for the whole thing to, like, you know, finish training. And what there wasn't really a lot of, like, action. Like, hey. Like, hey.
Peter Tuszynski:Try this. You know? Like, you know, like, the typical hackathon where you iterate every, like, 10 or 15 minutes. Right? And, like, in this, like, most intense phase, that one was, like, really slow.
Peter Tuszynski:Right? There was, like, a lot of reading, a lot of, like, you know, just engineering through these
Michal Tuszynski:these these machine learning tools. And, and, and once once you start, like, you you can you can't tell, like, if the output is going to be what what you want it to be. So Yeah. That makes it a bit difficult. But right now, like, if we had access to these tools, we have right now, like, on on on Google Colab, like or I forgot the name, but there is this large base of, these open source LLM LLM models.
Michal Tuszynski:Mhmm. And they they
Peter Tuszynski:Hugging Face?
Michal Tuszynski:Yeah. Yeah. Hugging Face. Exactly. And, you can basically rent out very powerful GPUs for just the time you use them.
Michal Tuszynski:So we could have trained this model, you know, like, probably, like, in an hour or something like that.
Peter Tuszynski:Yeah. You could train them, but but, you know, like, there are models out there that you can already take advantage of. And there's, like, this whole AI craze. I think it fueled a lot of work around AI, obviously. And, you know, there's there's like a ton of, like, models coming out every day, you know, and there are models that are sort of adjusted to, like, specific problem domains, if you will.
Peter Tuszynski:Right? And a lot of them are, you know, essentially a web request away. Right? So you don't even need To train
Michal Tuszynski:a model.
Peter Tuszynski:A model. Yeah. You you don't need to train a model. You don't need to know a lot about, you know, AI and machine learning.
Michal Tuszynski:Yep. You can file an API call and that's it.
Peter Tuszynski:Yeah. You can basically do an API call and, you know, see for yourself. Right?
Michal Tuszynski:Yeah. Exactly. You can, you can you can try it out and see if it matches your case. And, if, if if you're if you're close but no cigar, then you can, you can take the model and make it better, like, your own dataset. But now you know that this model suits your needs.
Michal Tuszynski:Right?
Peter Tuszynski:Right. Yeah. So a lot of opportunity in AI. I was meaning to ask you, do you feel heat or pressure from, like, this whole notion of, hey, AI is going to take engineers' jobs away or, like, there are going to be junior engineers who, you know, beat you to solving certain problems with you know, because they're, like, on copilot steroids?
Michal Tuszynski:I think that depends on what exactly you're working on because, like, for instance, I've had an automation, task, like, just a few hours ago. And, I prised it out to Cloudy. And, what I needed is a shell script and a cmake target, and, it did it perfectly. I described the problem very accurately, and, I got the shell script, which worked on the first try, which is very rare from the eye point of view. However, like, when, I worked on a more difficult problem, where the documentation is scarce, then, the AI started hallucinating and, invented classes which didn't exist, SDKs which didn't exist.
Michal Tuszynski:And, by the way, some, some anarchists took advantage of this because, they noticed that the AI hallucinates, and, they created, the libraries, which are named after what the AI hallucinated. And then people actually downloaded them those those libraries into their projects, and they got their data stolen away from them. That's hilarious. So Yeah. That's scary.
Michal Tuszynski:So I think a much bigger threat is attackers potentially using AI to for it to either hallucinate, or infer some false code. And developers nowadays, like, they need to be on the guard. And, also, like, we have to remember that these, these LLMs, that's still very advanced statistics under the hood. So and if you ask a question, then, you'll get an average answer. And if you ask for it to generate code, you'll get average codes out of the LLM.
Michal Tuszynski:I think this will put the axel the junior developers who pretty much have this kind of output, but it still requires some, deeper knowledge in order to actually verify, like, if this is the best way to do it or perhaps there's a different way to do things. And, also, we still need to remember that, you still need to know how to ask the right questions because, not everyone can ask the right questions. And if you can't ask the right questions, then you won't be able to to get get the right answers as well.
Peter Tuszynski:Yeah. For sure. So the this is exactly what I keep bringing up to people because there are, like, I I talk every now and then with folks who, you know, are fairly nontechnical. And I think the the example that they like to latch on is, like, hey. You know, like, did you know that there is this, like, AI model that, can generate, like, very compounds and verbose SQL queries for me?
Peter Tuszynski:And I'm like, yes. I, like, I I get
Michal Tuszynski:that enter a SQL query, like, directly to my production database.
Peter Tuszynski:The problem is, like, you you still need to this will never, like, never say never. Right? But I think we're, like, very far off from a situation where, like, a completely nontechnical person can ask and productively work with the database that, you know, that person is nontechnical. Like, they they don't know the structure of the database. They don't know what questions, like, what specific questions to ask.
Peter Tuszynski:I don't think that they will be productive. Right? So I think if you're like, and I like, it's funny because I've I've I I get this question more often than not lately. And my answer to, like, hey, is is it going to take over our jobs, the AI? I think, like, typically, if you're worried about this, I think you you should be worried about this.
Peter Tuszynski:Right? So I think the the engineers who add value in other ways than specifically write lines of code, don't have anything to worry about. Right? So, like, engineers who think about the problems, find the problems that they, you know, that they should be working on. Right?
Peter Tuszynski:Add value, like reduce complexity. You know, they are very proactive proactive about their their work. Right? I think, you know, like, we're still, like, really far off from
Michal Tuszynski:Like, if if if your good if your job can be taken away by a single AI prompt, then, yes. Then then this person probably has something to worry about. But a good engineer is is, very frequently, acts as a bridge between the tech side and the business side. They they hope they have a whole lot of context about, the the people that run the business and to the customers that, that actually pay for their services or for their products. And, like, AI requires you to be very, very specific about many of those things.
Michal Tuszynski:And, like, this case, like, the AI probably can't take away all of the factors that a good engineer has. And writing down all of these factors, like, this will be very, very hard to do.
Peter Tuszynski:Yeah. I mean, interestingly enough, I think Sam Altman nailed it in one of the interviews that he had. I think it was an all in pod. He said that the final or sort of, like, the the most optimal shape of AI is this, like, an executive assistant or like, like, so like, something executive. Right?
Peter Tuszynski:So, like, a person who not only will execute on the prompts that you share with this, you know, piece of AI, but they can and will push back on certain ideas and suggest better ideas to you. Right? And we're we're not even close to that yet.
Michal Tuszynski:Also, it's like, who does, who do who do self driving cars? Like, we have the autopilot. Like, it it will drive perfectly for you, but, you have to remember that, like, you're still behind the wheel. And, as you said, like, sometimes, like, the AI will tell you to drive into drive through a red light, but it's up to you to push the brakes. And, still, it's like we're still nowhere near AI actually, you know, actually taking over a CEO's or or an engineer's job.
Michal Tuszynski:This will us who push the button on the on the final idea. And, that's why I think if used correctly, AI can actually make our jobs much easier. But, if you sync correctly, then, like, you'll just get average average quality code, and that's it.
Peter Tuszynski:Yeah. Yeah. And even more productive. Right? So Yep.
Peter Tuszynski:Like, there there are things, you know, I use AI for, which give me a great starting point so I don't have to, like, dig through
Michal Tuszynski:For the documentation? Like, you just ask a question and it spits out, you know, the relevant piece of the documentation.
Peter Tuszynski:Exactly. Because, like, the like, there's so many times it it frustrates me insanely when, you know, I need to, like, the the one of the aspects of my job is to get on things relatively quickly, grasp them, and, like, understand how they can be applied in a, you know, in a business, scenario. Right? And it kills me when I research something. I, you know, I have, like, pages and pages of documentation, and I scroll, like, I scroll through the, like, the whole thing.
Peter Tuszynski:And at the end, it's like it says it's like deprecated 2,001. And I'm like, goddamn it.
Michal Tuszynski:I I knew I had this.
Peter Tuszynski:Like, I was already there. So this the the AI, more often than not, gives me a good starting point. Right? So I have, like, something that I anchor to. And
Michal Tuszynski:And then you can explore the role
Peter Tuszynski:From there. From Google or somewhere else. Yeah. But, it it gives me a good starting point. And I have friends who, like, blog and they produce content, and they also say that AI typically gives them, like, a good starting point, but it's never, like, it's never there.
Peter Tuszynski:Right? Like, you shouldn't be copying pasting things that, you know, this thing spits out. So good. It's on a positive note, I think there's tremendous opportunity in writing UIs around API close to AI engines.
Michal Tuszynski:Yeah. I guess, like, people still want a nice looking app instead of, you know, like, text, the the text text app and, like, write all of this all of this themselves. And, especially that, like, if you want to get meaningful results, like, you really these prompts are really long because, like Oh, yeah. It's pretty much like programming, but, like, in, just in English, not in, not in Swift or c or
Peter Tuszynski:Sorry about that.
Michal Tuszynski:Yeah. And you still have you still have to tell her, okay. Like, I want this. I want the the answer in this format. You have to ignore this.
Michal Tuszynski:Like, it's, you know, it's they're also the the rules are still the same. The Yeah. Yeah.
Peter Tuszynski:Yeah. Yeah. So you still need to, like, have this, like, algorithmic approach to things. Right? You have to tell it, right, to, you know, thinking of like, most of the problems that I've seen, like, is, like, telling this AI model that, hey.
Peter Tuszynski:You are a VR engineer or you are this and that. Right?
Michal Tuszynski:Like, to
Peter Tuszynski:put it in context. But yeah.
Michal Tuszynski:I've seen this, I've seen this initial prompt around chat GPDI, on the Yeah. Basically, like, flowing somewhere on page bin. And, did you see how long is that? Like, this is this is, like, you know, this is, like, it was, like, 5 paragraphs long in addition to what what what
Peter Tuszynski:you're Right? It's the, like, the the mother of all prompts.
Michal Tuszynski:Yeah.
Peter Tuszynski:So yeah. Well, good. I mean, I think we can, like, sort of put a ribbon on this and maybe do a, like, a dedicated show on, like, either of these tools because there's there's tons. Right? Like, I wake up every day, and there's, like, there's new shit out there.
Michal Tuszynski:Yeah. And I like, freedom 3 3 different subscriptions to 3 different to 3 different these AI tools. And, like, I can't keep getting more because, you know, like, eventually eventually, it's just going to be, like, with those TV apps. You know? Like, you have Netflix.
Michal Tuszynski:You have Hulu. You have, you have this, you have that. Like, you have in the end, you have to decide, okay, which which, which am I going to watch and which am I not going to watch?
Peter Tuszynski:Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Peter Tuszynski:100%, man. Cool. Okay. So AI will probably do an a dedicated episode on AI. Ask for hackathon show.
Peter Tuszynski:I think we will be doing this on a weekly cadence. Right? I think it would be wise for us to commit to something on air
Michal Tuszynski:so that put this into the calendar. Yes. And then say it in in into the Arab, and then, you guys will hold us accountable.
Peter Tuszynski:You guys you guys will keep us accountable. Like, how many how many people will listen to this? I think we should do it at least once a week. I I think we came up with, like there's so much shit that, like, the the the the thing that kills me the most is the fact that we have actually recorded many more episodes than we actually aired. Yep.
Peter Tuszynski:Because, you know, the whole, like, 2023 happened. I had a kid. We were busy, you know, like, there were so many things happening that I think we had to put, like, a, you know, hackathon show on on pause. But the fact of the matter is, like, we're we're we're back. I'm stoked.
Peter Tuszynski:We had ideas around longer, like, episodes that we did before, like, talking about, like, a specific angle to, you know, like, a technology or, like, a technique to use in a hackathon or, like, a certain aspect of a hackathon. We will have episodes with guests, so I'm really excited. Like, I there are a couple of people who I talked to, like, for, like, I wanna say a year now. Like, I'm like like, the heck of the show is, like, right around the corner. We're almost there.
Peter Tuszynski:We're starting. We're like, we're now we're now now I'm like, we're resuming, and they're like, yeah. Yeah. Peter. Right?
Peter Tuszynski:But I'm I'm really excited about it because I have a medical doctor who is act like, a real doctor who we were gonna be talking about, like, how to mitigate or how to prepare for a hackathon, how to mitigate, like, the effects of the hackathon of not sleeping for 24 hours, and how to recover the best, know, in a in a best possible way after a hackathon. So there will be a few really interesting guests that we'll be talking to. And then we have quick hacks. So, like, really quick, not like this one, like, you know, maybe 15 10 to 15 minute episodes, like, news flash episodes about, like, a certain technology that, we really want to talk through, like, maybe an AI model that is really good at something or, you know, like a p like a something like a POC that we did for something. I I feel like we have so many like, not only do we have many ideas, but, man, like, the like, we do so much stuff and then it ends up in the drawer or somewhere behind me or, like, on a Google Drive somewhere, and we never take it, like, anywhere.
Peter Tuszynski:But it's still cool. Right? Like, whenever I show something off to, like, my friends or, you know, our our our common friends, they're all stoked about it. And, again, like, I I like, it really doesn't sit with me well, the fact that, you know, we don't really talk about, like, all the cool shit that we, you know, like because we meet, like, we meet every, like, what, like, 2, 3 weeks. Yeah.
Peter Tuszynski:And we we, like, we we do shit. So I think it's high time that we used hackathon show as a platform to spread the word and and, you know, at least show off, like, the things that we do and and, like, things that we study. Maybe someone take will take value out of it. It's not it's not commercial. So they're like there is no business model around this podcast.
Peter Tuszynski:We don't wanna do like, we we don't wanna make money on it. But I think it's just about building technology products fast because there's so many misconceptions about I just wanted like this is the final thing that I wanna talk about today. Like, do you know this meme where, like, there is like a one like a little square where engineers are bragging about the product that they built in a hackathon like, hey, we built this thing in 24 hours and then they're like, they're the same fucking guys at work saying changing a label on this button will take, like, 3 days. At least a week. Yeah.
Peter Tuszynski:So there is a there is a lot of misconceptions about, because I I talk to a lot of people, on a daily basis, and there there is a lot of misconceptions about, like, how long things take and and, you know, even from, like, a, like, a aspiring engineer people, like, people think that there's, like, a lot of inside knowledge or, you know, like magic. Like, the fact of the matter is, like, you you really have to approach a lot of things from, like, first principles and not be afraid of technology and just get your hands dirty, like, not read.
Michal Tuszynski:The simplest thing works. And if it if it doesn't work, like, we don't have any, like, secret, secret books with dark magic. Like, it's, it's all the knowledge is out there. I guess that's what I love about software engineering, that there is this trend and notion of, sharing knowledge, like, as opposed to as opposed to, like, other fields. Like, you know, you don't have, you don't have hackathons where, like, people build buildings.
Michal Tuszynski:Right?
Peter Tuszynski:Yeah. But but still, it's like, I don't it sucks to punt on the Gen z, but I will anyway. I I meet I meet a lot of people who are like, hey, I'm like x y z engineer. Right? And I'm not gonna touch anything other than x y z.
Peter Tuszynski:Right? Like, you're hurting yourself, man.
Michal Tuszynski:Yeah. Because because I can't. Because there's, because because I'm a web developer, so, I won't be doing anything else. Right?
Peter Tuszynski:Yeah. Exactly. And I understand, like, the the the modern platforms that you build for are extremely complex. Right? Like, there are so many different specialties in, like, mobile engineering.
Peter Tuszynski:Right? You can be, like, the business logic guy. You can be, you know, Marcus Zara. Right? He made a whole career of writing books and creative data.
Peter Tuszynski:So and I get that. Right? And I fully appreciate it. And I admire people who are very deeply specialized in a certain thing. But at the same time, I think you shouldn't really be afraid of crossing, like, getting outside your comfort zone.
Peter Tuszynski:Right? Like, if you're an idol Yeah.
Michal Tuszynski:Yeah. Exactly. Like, you might as well discover new career. Right?
Peter Tuszynski:Yeah. So yeah. Like, if there's anything that I would love people to get out of this podcast is is this. Right? So, like, not be afraid of, like, venturing out.
Peter Tuszynski:Don't be afraid of, like
Michal Tuszynski:So don't be afraid of leaving your company.
Peter Tuszynski:But but, you know, like, you can you can invest a weekend, like, just 2 days, right, worth of your time to explore certain thing that you had no idea about coming in. And, you know, on the flip side, when you get out 24 hours later, you have, well, you can't say you're, like, proficient. Right? But you can say that you have some working experience. Right?
Peter Tuszynski:You spent 24 hours doing shit. Right? Whereas, like, you could have been just reading about some stuff. Right? Yep.
Peter Tuszynski:But you and I know and this is, you know, very very much like public knowledge that a hands on experience is is the best one. Right? Like, you can read about stuff, but until you you you like really try things on and see how they don't work, right, and like there are ways to overcome it.
Michal Tuszynski:It's like learning how to swim, you know. Like, we need we need to get into the water to actually learn how to swim. Yeah. Like, you'll never you'll never learn how to swim, like, by reading a book or or by doing, like, exercises, like, without water. Right?
Peter Tuszynski:Yeah. Totally. Totally. Yep. So I think that's that.
Peter Tuszynski:I'm I'm really stoked. We're we're nearing 40 minute mark, which is like a typical hackathon show that we used to do. Really stoked about this. Really glad to see you.
Michal Tuszynski:Yeah. You're
Peter Tuszynski:welcome. I'm
Michal Tuszynski:really And
Peter Tuszynski:I'm really to be helpful. That will keep it up. So, like, we have to just punch in, like, a date in a calendar.
Michal Tuszynski:Yep. And just stick to it. Like, once we have a date, then, like, you know, there's no Yeah. There's no going back. Yeah.
Michal Tuszynski:Yeah.
Peter Tuszynski:For a second, I thought we're not gonna do it today. Right? Like, there was, like, this euro game, and I and I sunk in my couch for a little bit. And I
Michal Tuszynski:was like sunk in my butt as well. Like and I was like, but, no. I'm not going to go sleep. I'm not gonna go to sleep.
Peter Tuszynski:And, like,
Michal Tuszynski:you know, you
Peter Tuszynski:know, we talked about doing a hackathon. So, like, like, I'm like, fuck it. I'm gonna do it. Yeah. And then you replied.
Peter Tuszynski:And I'm really, really, really excited that we're doing it again. Yep.
Michal Tuszynski:So Good work, sir.
Peter Tuszynski:Kudos to you for taking up the challenge and let's see where
Michal Tuszynski:And way goes to you, man.
Peter Tuszynski:Yeah, man. Let's let's let's see where this leads us. Yeah. But for now, we're gonna leave you guys with with this. With a hope for future episodes of hackathon show, I think we're gonna run it until do we wanna commit to something?
Peter Tuszynski:Like, do we wanna do it, like, end of this year? Yep. End of this year.
Michal Tuszynski:Let's do it.
Peter Tuszynski:Okay. And then and then we're gonna do a big end of year episode. We'll see, you know, how this pans out. But at least until the end of this year, we're doing we're gonna be doing it weekly. We'll see how, editing works because we have a we have a dude who great dude who helps us with editing and, like, the audio mixing and everything else, like, shit that we have no idea about.
Peter Tuszynski:Let's see how how you know, what his capacity is. And, yeah, like, really excited to, to get this, this rolling.
Michal Tuszynski:This ball rolling. Yeah. We got Alright.
Peter Tuszynski:Another hackathon show is in the can. Thanks to you guys. Thank you, Michal. And we'll see you again Sure. Next, next week.
Peter Tuszynski:Yep. See you. Next week, guys.
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