Today I went to a mobile app hackathon – an Appathon. “Hacking” in this context doesn’t refer to breaking in to computers and servers, but rather hacking together something during the day. The event was arranged by students and faculty on BU and held on BU. The idea is to gather people in groups, and they can develop on some idea for a mobile app for ten hours, and then judges vote for the best app.

The event was not very well organized, the forming of groups wasn’t organized in any way but an “idea board”, so it was up to each person to find a group to work with. I got together with three other guys working on an app connecting BU students to buy and sell used textbooks. Only one of us had some app developing experience and we used a really long time trying to get our computers set up with the developer software, unfortunately without any luck. We then decided to just work on one computer, doing some pair programming, which worked pretty well.

I implement the backed server, that the app should connect to, and filled it with some test data, while the others worked one the app itself. When the time was up, we had a somewhat working prototype being able to search for and list books from the database, but that was about it. We did a good job pitching the prototype and the general idea to the judges, most of who thought it was a good idea, even though it is a niche market. We didn’t win any of the awards, but the winning apps were clearly better and more polished.

Even though the event wasn’t the greatest success, I got to work with some cool guys, and meeting new people, which is why I joined in the first place.

I’m from Denmark and I usually think of myself as used to snow – and a lot of snow. So when everyone began talking about Juno, “the storm of the century”, I though, how bad can it be? Well, Juno really meant business! From Monday afternoon to Wednesday morning, I think we got on average about two feet of snow (that’s 60 cm!). The university closed down from Monday afternoon, canceling all classes, not starting again until Thursday morning.

People stocking up the day before the storm

I went out into the “storm” on Tuesday to take some pictures. It wasn’t in any way dangerous to walk around outside, the wind was nowhere near a storm, but all the snow blew around, reducing the visibility to a few hundred meters. It was a strange experience walking around during the storm, because the streets were completely empty (except for snow of course). The only vehicles on the roads were snow plows and occasional emergency vehicles. I even saw a guy jogging in the middle of Commonwealth Avenue, which is usually filled with cars.

Tuesday morning

Wednessday – most of the snow have been plowed away from the streets

There are piles of snow like this everywhere now!

Today I bought a bike. I went to Craigslist, which is a buy-and-sell website with everything from electronics to apartment leases (somewhat like the Danish Den Blå Avis). As it is a collection of thousands of sellers, you have to be careful not to be a victim of a scam. But with some common sense you can make a good deal.

I found a good bike from a seller close to me – to avoid being scammed I’m always meeting people in person and seeing/trying the product being paying for anything. The posting had pictures and a description of more than a few words, so it seemed okay. I wrote the owner, and he replied pretty quick, and we agreed to meet at a parking lot nearby (always meet in a public place). I tried the bike round the parking lot to test gears and brakes, and paid him cash.

The bike seems pretty old, but it is in good shape. For $140 it seems like a good deal.

After driving it in the wet weather, I have found out that the brakes don’t work that well when they’re wet. It can probably be fixed if I tighten them a bit.

Today we went to get a prepaid mobile subscription. Just a little trip to Walmart and back. Only 1 hour+ commute each way. In the rain. Jetlagged… Today was a good day.

As we found out Saturday, the best subscription for was only offered in Walmart, so we had to go to one, which is way outside of Boston (the few Bostoners, I’ve told about it, didn’t even know to get there by public transportation). We met near the BU campus and first went to check in at the university (all foreign students have to check in to get their immigration status verified), and make appointments for immunizations at the Student Health Services. After that we took the blue line out of Boston to the end station and a bus onwards to Walmart.

It was a little confusing how to get the right subscription, but here is how it works: We bought a sim card starter kit from T-Mobile for around $40 of which the $30 was the first month’s subscription. This is for when you want to use your own phone – other subscriptions are offered together with a phone. The sim card then has to be activated on T-Mobile’s website before it gets a phone number and can be used. A few minutes after the activation is done, the sim card works and can be used.

So now we have unlimited texting (even to international numbers(!)) and unlimited data with the first 5GB on 4G/LTE speed, and we can go outside without falling down the Internet-void-hole. Things are getting pretty good here!