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I try and be short for a change with my answer and not to sound too cynical or bitter. I’ll have lived in this country 50 years later this year. When I came (married and English lass) my qualifications weren’t recognised and I took a job labouring (semi-skilled machine operator).That job drove me crackers after a few years and I applied for re-training (Government Skill centres as they were in the 70’s). I told them that as a foreigner my qualifications weren’t accepted and I couldn’t get a job in my field and luckily they sympathised - different times then and real people, not civil robots. I was lucky and they made an exception for me because the rule was that only unemployed people could qualify, with the proviso that I had to live and work for at least 5 years in this country.Yes you’ve read it correctly - only for unemployed people (of whom there were so many that the government had training schools all over) but at same time you could walk into any company and start work the day after. In fact they used to pay us 2 weeks wages if we could introduce new workers. Of course the wages were crap (unless you worked 60 hr week) as they still are in the UK and many people didn’t want to work then as now for peanuts.So I did re-train to get my British qualifications and this year, still working, I will clock 50 years of working and the country which I thought was my home has told me now that I’m a foreigner and possibly need to apply for settled status.Quickly - in those 50 years I was out of work for 6 months 10 years ago and again for 10 months the year after (when I turned 60). In both cases I didn't get a penny in benefit, so where these benefit tales come from baffles me. I know like you I hear the same tales and see the same people with fags and beer in hand lounging about.As an aside when my sons became unemployed due to being screwed by the youth employment schemes, they had to fight to get the bare minimum, so much so for England being a paradise.I have always done everything to the book, so when I arrived I didn’t start work till I received my work permit and residence booklet which in those days took about 4 months to be completed. The conditions were converted to permanent residence with no conditions attached (except channel islands and working in Northern Ireland and Isle of Man).I have printed the Welcome to GOV.UK Settled and pre-settled status for EU citizen and their families. To be honest it’s as clear as mud and yes I’ve sat my English O level and A level English language, so understand written English quite well and I’m coincidentally the only person in my family who can pass the Britishness tests.The Welcome to GOV.UK document tells me in one breath I have to apply and in the next one I’m exempt. It’s written in such a way that the applicant is always on a loser depending how the Home Office civil servant will interpret the same document. On a lucky day you’ll have no problems but on the other hand you could be out if it takes their whim to do so.To answer the question - I’ll stay of course as all my family are British born and bred but I won’t apply for settlement status, even if it’s free from paying a fee for someone like me. I feel shit on that it has come this far.As a EU citizen you’ll be on the electoral roll even if you’re not allowed to vote as it’s compulsory (with a fine of 1000) to list everybody in the household/address with their nationality on the form your local council sends to you. As a worker (payee or self employed) you pay tax and are registered with HMRC. This government knows where everybody is, they’re just playing politics with peoples livelihoods with no scruples whatsoever, no integrity, no honesty, no Britishness.There’s no excuse for this government to scaremonger all EU citizens and threaten them with re-patriation. I feel no different than a Scotsman or Irishman and they wouldn’t send all them back, would they?Whatever next? Do like China and send citizens back to their hometowns? London is overcrowded - Home Office solution? Send all Yorkshire people back to where they come from - problem solved.As an EU citizen I feel badly let down and it’s ruined my years of perception of the British a welcoming and open society. It’s more of a bitter society because the British have been screwed by their own so-called “elite” but have taken hook, line and sinker all the propaganda by UKIP and the right wing press, but refuse to see it plainly can’t see it.It’s been quiet for a while but now that Brexit is at a crucial stage, my facebook is full again with anti-immigration news and cartoons pushed by right wing fanatics and passed on by people who see immigrants as a threat and there’re an awful lot of them.Of course I could de-friend them but that would be fooling myself as it would hide to me what my “friends” really think in their hearts, so it’s sometimes better to be angry/annoyed and know than happy and gullible and of course they wouldn’t understand my reaction as to them I’m one of them and look at me in amazement as it “doesn’t apply” to me. That’ the irony of it all and it applies thousands of times all over to all EU citizens.Try and tell that to the despicable politicians who’ve created this mess.UPDATED 11 June 2019I feel I owe an update. Since I wrote my first reply a lot has happened and there was no longer a fee to pay which was my main stumbling block. My grandchildren were worried that I would have to leave at some point even when their parents are total oblivious to the fact as these new rules “don’t apply to me”. Since this is a new ruling which won’t go away regardless of outcome of Brexit I decided to apply for the settlement status as I didn’t want to become a cropper come June 2020 and I have or had no wish to become either martyr or hero and keep granddaughters happy at same time.I applied after 31 March but the application rules weren’t very clear, reference applying by form or mobile. I downloaded the app but misunderstood so still finished up doing is the traditional way. Even when I have had national insurance number and HMRC registration for 50 years the Home Office still wanted my passport. Send it off and then received and email stating that they couldn’t find evidence of me having Indefinite Leave to Remain and wanted more information before deciding, being passport of the day (no chance of course) or the certificate.I had this information ( old residence permit, cancelled and letters from the then home office and indefinite leave to remain), which I send off by return of email. To be fair I received an answer within an hour that the new updated “settled status” had been approved.However the accompanying letter only states it’s valid under current EU and UK law. To me that means that if we do leave it could be rendered useless by any future government. Don’t think it’ll happen but still not confidence inspiring and it doesn’t make me feel proud to have it now and my feelings as stated originally haven’t changed.Funny thing, whereas in 1971 it took 1/2 an A4 page to state Indefinite leave to remain, this time it covered 4 pages of jargon with the notice saying the letter saying I was awarded “residence status” was not proof of indefinite leave to remain as the only proof will be on their website and you’ll have to log in with your details to see it. Sign of the times, we’ll have to carry internet access with us to proof our rights. Pity those who don’t have a pc or mobile phone.

These days everyone is holding hackathons for everything from civic data and NASA's space app challenge to public transportation, health, mobile and NGO initiatives in developing countries.Just like food choices at the supermarket, not all hackathons are created equal. There are strategies and best practices that organizers can implement to ensure an event that is value-focused for attendees, sponsors and the theme.To date (2014) I've been involved in 40 hackathons as a coder, mentor, API sponsor, judge and organizer in the US and internationally.In 2013-2014 I organized three youth hackathons in partnership with The Level Playing Field Institute and Black Girls CODE. I developed the youth-focused hackathon curriculum, recruited and trained developer volunteers from startups and led the organization's staff in event logistics.In 2012 when I work(ed) at SendGrid as a Developer Evangelist, I was involved in about 20 hackathons that year. My role included organizing, mentoring at and sponsoring hackathons on behalf of my company. They were a global sponsor of Startup Weekend which holds hackathons all over the world.The basic schedule for a hackathon is:food & networkingintro eventpitch/build teamsbuild appspitch, judgeaward prizesgo homeStep 1: POVWho are the stakeholders for this hackathon? You have the sponsors, the attendees, the judges, the API's and companies offering prizes, the judges and the media. Don't forget the organizers and volunteers. This will help you to address the logistics and experience of each group.Step 2: Define SuccessDetermine what success looks like by describing what the over arching goals of your organization in measurable detail. (e.g. 100 attendees, 20 hacks, coverage by the press, 10 recruits, etc.). This will give you a metric for your post mortem review. You may also find some new and interesting things that you'll add the next time.Step 3: Consider the stakeholdersWhen planning a hackathon, consider the perspectives of each of the following: hackers, organizers, sponsors, mentors, judges and spectators. The act of thinking through the use cases of each varied participant will help make sure the event iswell rounded and increase the likelihood of accomplishing the goals determined in step 1 above.From there, think about logistics:Theme - Create an interesting or fun theme like eCommerce Hack Day , Comedy Hack Day - Sep 8 & 9 at Pivotal Labs NYC and Code For America's Data DeathMatch! events.Event venue - conference room or donated spaceTicket types - hacker, designer, business/other/watcher, demoTicket price - charge a nominal fee like $15 - $25. When tickets are free, attendance rates for Meetup/Eventbrite events in SF are about 30%. You could also have them complete a short coding test to earn a ticket.Food - meals, snacks, drinks, offer vegetarian and soy free optionsStart time - Friday evening/Saturday morning, pre or post conf is best so attendees don't miss the content they paid for. A prize can be a ticket to the conference.Run time - How long? 24 hours is idealA/V, projector, mic - test ahead of time and support for tablets / smartphonesPower - Have ample power for each table as this will make or break your eventWifi - This must work! Ask venue to bump download and upload speeds. Have a wired backup available and expect 2 connections per attendeeGet an MC - This person will make announcements and keep the event movingVolunteers - 2 volunteers for every 30 attendeesSponsors - Space, food, Wifi. Great if they have an API as well and can be on site to help teams implement.T-shirts - souvenirRecord It - Good for everyone. Livestream video. Get Craigslist photographerJudges - Select up and coming individuals who either run startups or deal with them often.Prizes - Prizes worth $250 and up. Hosting, free service, coworking space, tablets, headphones, O'Reilly books. Make sure to ask local businesses.Permits and Security - Get any licences ahead of time. You may need to hire security if your event is hosted at a private company vs a publicly rented spaceRegistration - Eventbrite FTWApp submissions - use a tool like HackerLeague (http://hackerleague.org) to collect app names and team info. *Disclaimer, my coworker is a cofounder of this solutionPitches and demos - 3 minutes is good. 1 min too short, 5 min too long.Start planning 8-10 weeks out. Look for scheduling conflicts with other major events or leverage them to piggyback off of.For promotion of the event, you'll want to start about 6-8 weeks out. You can release tickets in batches, give away tickets as prizes (SW and TNW have done this) and blog to announce judges, sponsors and venue information. Invite the media about 4 weeks out and remind them 1 week before.Going to hackathons and seeing the cool stuff is awesome! The stories of how people joined up and met at the hackathons are equally interesting plus if they stay together, what their product becomes. There have been several successful companies started at hackathons like GroupMe, Zaarly and CloudMine.Here is some TDLR; readingHackathon Planning In Less Than 10 Steps - (Hackathon Planning In Less Than 10 Steps | TechCrunch)How to Have a Successful Hackathon - (http://techblog.appnexus.com/2011/how-to-have-a-successful-hackathon/)Video: How to organize and run your own hackathon - ()Why and How to Host a Hackathon - (Why and How to Host a Hackathon)Quora: What are some useful tips when competing in a Hackathon? - (What are some useful tips when competing in a Hackathon?)How To Survive A Hackathon - (http://ralphbarbagallo.com/2012/04/30/how-to-survive-a-hackathon/)How To Win A Hackathon - AlexsTechThoughts - (http://alexstechthoughts.com/post/28836325740/how-to-win-a-hackathon) - [Hacker News Discusssion - (How To Win A Hackathon)How To Take Second Place at a Hackathon - (https://github.com/RobSpectre/Talks/tree/master/How%20To%20Take%20Second%20Place%20at%20a%20Hackathon)

Take a lesson from the experience of the Soviet Union.In August of 1917 the Tsarist government in Russia collapsed. By November of 1917, the People's Commissariat for Enlightenment was established along with the All-Russian Union of Teachers-Internationalists, whose purpose was removing religious instruction from the schools.It was believed atheists were more politically astute and virtuous individuals, and that given the opportunity, religion would die a natural death after removing the institutions, the state supported powers of religion, and through teaching atheism in the schools. They genuinely believed religion would simply disappear. It didn’t happen.Soviet law never officially outlawed the holding of religious views, and the various Constitutions the Soviets wrote over the years guaranteed the right to believe, however, the reality was different from the public statements. Acts of violence and terror aimed at the religious always spoke of ‘violations of State policy,’ but the State policy referred to was about religion. It was a Catch 22.There are those who attempt to claim atheists did not persecute the religious—it was the Soviet State or a cult of personality or something else—but the purpose and motivation of that persecution is the key to understanding it accurately: the purpose of the persecution that occurred on and off over the next nearly a century was disseminating atheism and eliminating religion. Claiming otherwise is like arguing the civil war wasn’t really about slavery. The Holocaust wasn’t anti-semitic.There were additional peripheral purposes and justifications, but the driving force was ideological. The State’s campaign against religion was designed to spread atheism.Lenin was an atheist who saw religion as an obstacle. In his name, the State officially pronounced religious beliefs as ‘superstitious and backward.’ "Lenin demanded that communist propaganda must employ militancy and irreconcilability towards all forms of … religion" and militant atheism was born; it became central to the ideology of the Communist Party and an important policy of all Soviet leaders.In 1918, Lenin decreed the ‘Separation of Church and State’ and denied the church its former status as a legal person, the right to own property, or to teach religion in both state and private schools, or to any group of minors. Religion could only be taught privately and never in a group.The church Patriarch responded by excommunicating the Soviet leadership.The Soviet leadership responded by arresting and killing dozens of bishops, thousands of the lower clergy and monastics, and multitudes of laity and then by seizing church property. The next few years were marked by a brutal campaign of violent terror. 579 monasteries and convents were liquidated during this period and there were widespread mass executions of monks and nuns.Propoganda about these events claimed it was the church’s own fault because the church opposed the Soviets and supported a return of Tsarism. The fraudulence of these claims is shown by the fact that none of the documented acts of brutalities against members of the clergy by the Reds involved anyone who actually took up arms against them, as well as by the fact that slicing up unarmed prisoners, scalping and torturing believers, shooting priests' wives and children, and many other such acts recorded in the documented acts of brutality by the Reds against the Orthodox had nothing to do with acting in 'self-defense'.In 1921, church leaders demanded freedom of religion. The Communists responded by murdering the metropolitan of Kiev, twenty-eight bishops, and 6,775 priests.But religious faith still persisted.Anti-religious atheistic propaganda was important to Lenin's party, going all the way back to its early pre-revolutionary days, and shortly after it came to power, the regime was quick to create atheist journals whose main purpose was attacking religion.The leadership of the new state did not take long to come to the conclusion that religion would not disappear on its own and greater efforts should be given to propaganda. For this purpose, the Agitation and Propaganda Department of the CP Central Committee (Agitprop) was created to promote atheism and the national anti-religion campaign was consolidated under their control. In 1920, using the guidelines of article 13 of the Russian Communist Party (RCP) adopted by the 8th party congress, they stated:As far as religion is concerned, the RCP will not be satisfied by the decreed separation of Church and State... The Party aims at the complete destruction of links between the exploiting classes and... religious propaganda, while assisting the actual liberation of the working masses from religious prejudices and organizing the broadest possible education-enlightening and anti-religious propaganda.Religious faith persisted.The church's successful competition with the ongoing and widespread atheistic propaganda, prompted new laws to be adopted in 1929 on 'Religious Associations' as well as amendments to the constitution, which forbade all forms of public, social, communal, educational, publishing or missionary activities for religious believers.This also prevented, of course, the church from printing any material for public consumption or responding to the criticism against it. This caused many religious tracts to be circulated as illegal literature… Numerous other measures were introduced that were designed to cripple the church, and effectively made it illegal to have religious activities of any sort outside of liturgical services within the walls of the few churches that would remain open, and even these would be subject to much interference and harassment. Catechism classes, religious schools, study groups, Sunday schools and religious publications were all illegal and/or banned.Religious faith persisted—though much of it went underground.After the revolution, until 1929, public debates between Christians and Soviets were held. People would line up for hours to get seats to see them. The authorities sometimes tried to limit the speaking time of the Christians to ten minutes, and on other occasions the debates would be called off at last minute. This may have been a result of the high quality of some of the religious debaters, such as V. S. Martsinkovsky, who was arrested and sent into exile in 1922. Debates were eventually canceled and replaced with public lectures by atheists.In the years 1917–1935, 130,000 Russian Orthodox priests were arrested; 95,000 were put to death, executed by firing squad. The Orthodox church suffered terribly in the 1930s, and many of its members were killed or sent to labor camps. Between 1927 and 1940, the number of Orthodox churches in the Russian Republic fell from 29,584 to fewer than 500. The watershed year was 1929, when Soviet policy put much new legislation in place that formed the basis for the harsh anti-religious persecution in the 1930s.After 1929 and through the 1930s, the closing of churches, mass arrests of the clergy and religiously active laity, and persecution of people for attending church reached unprecedented proportions. Soviet Union | Iconic PhotosThe League of the Militant Godless, was given special powers and employed terror tactics to assist the State in meeting the ultimate socialist goal of eliminating religion. From 1932 to 1937 Joseph Stalin declared the 'five-year plans of atheism' and the LMG was charged with completely eliminating all religious expression in the country. Church documents record that, during the purges of 1937 and 1938, 168,300 Russian Orthodox clergy were arrested; of these, over 100,000 were shot.Official Soviet figures reported that up to one third of urban and two thirds of the rural population still held religious beliefs by 1937. Faith persisted.However, the anti-religious campaign of the past decade and the terror tactics of the militantly atheist regime, had effectively eliminated all public expressions of religion and communal gatherings of believers outside of the walls of the few churches that still held services.Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. Three months later, the last anti-religious periodicals were shut down when Stalin ended the anti-religious campaign in order to rally the country and prevent a large base of Nazi support. This was a short rapprochement. Riga priest Nikolai Trubetskoi (1907–1978) did missionary work in the occupied territory near Leningrad; he wrote: “We opened and re-consecrated closed churches, carried out mass baptisms. It's hard to imagine how, after years of Soviet domination, people hungered after the Word of God. We married and buried people; we had literally no time for sleep. I think that if such a mission were sent today [1978] to the Urals, Siberia or even the Ukraine, we'd see the same result.”And there is your explanation for why religion will never disappear: people hunger after the Word of God.Even in the midst of war there was still occasional use of terror tactics against religion. When the Red Army would recapture occupied territory, clergy in these territories were arrested and sent to prisons or camps allegedly for collaboration with the Germans, but effectively for their rebuilding of religious life. For example, in April 1946 there was a wave of arrests in Moscow of clergy that were sentenced to long terms of hard labor. Many laity were arrested and imprisoned as well including the religious philosopher SI Fudel; most of them had already been in prison and few of them would see freedom until after Stalin died.In 1945 Soviet authorities arrested, deported and sentenced to forced labor camps in Siberia and elsewhere, the church's metropolitan Josyf Slipyj and nine bishops, as well as hundreds of clergy and leading lay activists. With the exception of Slipyj, (who was released after 18 years of imprisonment and persecution thanks to the intervention of Pope John the 23rd), all nine of the bishops, and a significant part of the clergymen died in prisons, concentration camps, internal exile, or soon after their release.In that same year, the state determined it would not tolerate priests who actively promoted the expansion of religion. For example, Bishop Manuil sparked a religious revival in the Southern Urals and was subsequently arrested and sentenced to eight years of hard labour. Dmitri Dubko was arrested for writing religious poems. Ilia Shmain, a 16- to 17-year-old youth and a student of philology started a religio-philosophic study group in the late 1940s at Moscow University. They were all arrested and sentenced to 8–10 years of hard labour under the charge of criticizing the atheistic teachings of Marxist–Leninism.The Ukrainian Greek Catholic church and its clergy became one of the victims of Soviet authorities in the immediate postwar era.Still, it was not the far-ranging persecution of the past. The rapprochement lasted till 1959 when Krushchev picked up the anti-theist baton and began his own campaign against religion; his first step was forcing the closure of about 12,000 churches that had been reopened during the war.Members of the church hierarchy were jailed or forced out, their places taken by docile clergy, many of whom had ties with the KGB.New instructions were issued in 1958 that attacked the position of monasteries by placing them under high taxation, cutting their land, and working to shut them down. From 1959 to 1964, the persecution operated on several key levels:There was a massive closure of churches (reducing the number from 22,000 to 7,000 by 1965.)Closures of monasteries and convents as well as reinforcement of the 1929 legislation to ban pilgrimages.Closure of most of the still existing seminaries and bans on pastoral courses.Banning all services outside of church walls and recording the personal identities of all adults requesting church baptisms, weddings or funerals. Non-fulfillment of these regulations by clergy would lead to disallowance of state registration for them (which meant they could no longer do any pastoral work or liturgy at all, without special state permission).The deprivation of parental rights for teaching religion to their children, a ban on the presence of children at church services (beginning in 1961 with the Baptists and then extended to the Orthodox in 1963) and the administration of the Eucharist to children over the age of four.The forced retirement, arrests and prison sentences to clergymen who criticized atheism or the anti-religious campaign, who conducted Christian charity, or who made religion popular by personal example.It also disallowed the ringing of church bells and services in daytime in some rural settings from May to the end of October under the pretext of field work requirements. (How would bells interfere exactly?)A more aggressive period of anti-religious persecution began in the mid-1970s.And still religion persisted.The 1980s, on the other hand, marked a new attitude of acceptance towards religion by a state that decided that the best it could do was simply to minimize what it considered the harmful impact of religion.The state tried to intensify persecution for awhile during the 1980s, but the church saw this increasingly as merely rearguard attacks by an ideologically bankrupt, but still physically powerful, enemy.After Khrushchev's fall, Soviet writers began to cautiously question the effectiveness of the … anti-religious campaign. They came to a general conclusion that it had failed in spreading atheism.The principle of persecuting religion in order to spread atheism did not disappear, however, even if the methodology was re-examined after Khrushchev. Many of the secret, unofficial, instructions aimed at suppressing the Church were made into official laws during Brezhnev's control, which thereby legally legitimized many aspects of the persecutions.The total number of Christian victims under the Soviet regime has been estimated to range between 12-20 million. Religious beliefs and practices persisted among the majority of the population in the domestic and private spheres, but also in the scattered public spaces allowed by a state that recognized its failure to eradicate religion and the political dangers of an unrelenting culture war. Persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union - WikipediaAfter the fall of the Soviet Union, the government of Russia, to some extent, openly embraced the Russian Orthodox Church, and there was a renaissance in the number of the faithful in Russia. Religious faith survived and revived.What lessons can we learn from this? How does any of it apply to us?Here on Quora there have been frequent calls for the United States—(indeed the call has gone out to all countries)—to move from the partial secularism it has practiced from its beginnings into the full secularism that would remove all religion from any and all public spaces. This was one of the Soviet Union’s early tactics. A refusal to allow the free practice of religion is, on a practical basis, a repression of religion.There are advocates here that clamor for the removal of the church tax exemption. That too was one of the Soviet Union’s early tactics.The Soviets attempted to monopolize education, remove all religion from the schools and thoroughly saturate the school system with “scientific” atheist teachings. That too has been happening here in America. Any attempt to introduce discussion of alternative religious views on any subject meets with vehement attack and can result in arrest and/or lawsuits or losing your job if you’re the teacher.Evangelism was not only denigrated there but eventually became illegal. Is that what we are destined for here?Are we destined for the same kind of long and brutal culture war because the anti-religious cannot bring themselves to practice the tolerance they advocate—and religion just won’t disappear?That’s the one lesson to be sure and take away from all this: it didn’t work.Religion did not disappear and it never will because of the hunger in men’s hearts for the things of God.Given the opportunity to do so freely—it didn’t disappear.Given opposition and repression—it didn’t disappear.Given downright persecution—it didn’t disappear.What do you imagine could ever make religion disappear?Kill everyone—atheists included because, like me, they might someday convert. It’s your only answer. Kill everyone—or become tolerant of religion and the religious.