

Hackathon No More - cheeaun
http://chengsoon.com/2012/06/04/hackathon_no_more.html

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Unomi
If you use that much Red Bull, you got 2 issues (at least): the sugar gives a
rush, but the bloodsugar level will plunge. And each time you continue it
plunges even harder and faster.

Second, Red Bull or any caffinated beverage will attack your adrenal gland
badly. Realy hard. Your adrenal gland is responsible for your adrenaline (duh)
and gets triggered by the caffeine. So, it's not the caffeine that gives you a
boost, but the adrenaline that gets released. Until it's gone, drought up,
vanished. You can drink Red Bull till you die, but the adrenaline won't be
there. Until you fix it.

You see, your body is a bank. A bank full of nutrient to be released when some
other part of the body needs it. If you never make deposits, you won't get any
interest either. If you only make withdrawals, you will end up with debit. If
you continue you go bankrupt and die.

Healthy hackathons? I guess it's possible. I eat a lot of butter from grass-
fed cows. I use omega-3 a lot and magnesium. My brains work much better and
that without any caffeine. There are other supplements one can use, but always
with moderation and enough sleep. Without sleep, your hormones won't get any
rest or balance.

Hackers who think they have super powers and don't need sleep are having a
Wall-Street mentality prior to 2008. Grow up, you only have one body, so you
better take care of it.

~~~
wyclif
There's always sugar-free Red Bull which is preferable to the sugary default
kind, but I like high-quality green tea. After you wean yourself off the hard
caffeine spikes of coffee or Red Bull, you realise green tea contains trace
amounts of caffeine, enough to get you over the hump after your body
readjusts. It's also antioxidant-rich.

~~~
Unomi
I agree with the sugar-free, but often they replace it with something worse.

Actually anything natural, organic food is stimulating the body, while
anything artificial, fabricated food is destroying the body.

So if you want to hack along with a sharp mind, keep your mind in shape by
replenishing the body with what it needs. Period.

~~~
sirclueless
Seems like quite an over-generalization. I agree that a rational Bayesian
approach would favor organic foods, because thousands of years of natural
selection is probably a better indicator than laboratory tests of long-term
low-dose toxicities and important but uncommon complex molecules in food
supplies. But that doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of natural substances
that are damaging to the human body even in moderation.

------
JonnieCache
_> Make the stretch longer. Let's say, three days, from Friday evening to
Sunday night, so there would still be time if the participants slept through
the night._

Like a hacker test match. What a pleasing image.

There should be tea breaks.

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Nervetattoo
I've thrown some hackathons at work and this is the model we always use.
Friday after work + dinner we brainstorm and figure out what to do and then we
might prototype a bit. Saturday we meet again refreshed and hack, we dont stay
up to late and might even go for beers. Then we meet for another 4-5 hours on
sunday to make a wrap of it.

Personally I can enjoy both the 24-hour/whatever-hour stretch and the weekend-
with-rest style, but I find the first one to require working with someone with
whom we feed energy to each other so we can maintain progress — I've just met
one such person in my life and he doesn't live in the same country as me
anymore. So in the end I prefer the weekend style hackathon now as well.

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Andys
You've just described Rails Camp.

I'm off to the next Rails Camp Australia in a couple of weeks: Friday
afternoon to Monday morning in the beautiful Gold Coast hinterland. Anything
goes - hacking, coffee, beer, exercise, partying or sleeping, and even
camping.

~~~
robryan
Although rails camp isn't structured in a way to encourage people to complete
projects. The opportunity is there, but it is also an opportunity to chill out
with friends or get blind drunk of you are that way inclined, so different
feel to a hackathon where everyone is feverishly working away on something.

~~~
lengarvey
This doesn't stop lots of people getting some really cool stuff done. Everyone
who has completed something cool presents on the Sunday evening and it's
awesome.

Generally it's a really well balanced mix of hacking, gaming, socialising and
optionally drinking.

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AlexeyMK
overall, we did a lot of what you suggested at PennApps. I think the key is to
provide an avenue for both types of hackers: if you want to stay up all night,
we have Red Bull and late-night give-aways. If you want to sleep, we have a
quiet area with portable hammocks or sleeping bags. Healthy food is available
throughout and organized exercise is available to those who seek it out.

By the way, if you (hackathon organizer) have the budget for it, bringing in
masseuses (15 minutes per person, sign up/raffle spots off) is an amazing
Saturday break. Sponsored by pick-your-favorite-VC.

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rwallace
> I really felt like going home and have a good night sleep. But I didn't want
> to let your fellow hackers down

This is the tricky bit, because it's where our social instincts give the wrong
answer, and it's important to be able to recognize it because it happens in
other contexts than hackathons.

In reality, if your teammates want to stay at work all night, you are letting
them down by joining them, because you are reinforcing their irrational and
self-destructive behavior as well as damaging your own ability to contribute.
The best thing you can do for them is go home and rest so you can work
productively tomorrow, tell them to do the same thing, and hope the message
will eventually get through.

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emilv
Why would anyone think they can write good code without sleep? I need my sleep
to function and will not go to any contest or event where sleeping at night is
not an option.

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tshadwell
I always leave for home at about 9 during hackathons, and am back at around 7
or 8 the next day. There's certainly a clarity of thought I gain.

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nc
Your doing it wrong. Get a night's rest and get back to it in the morning and
you'll code better than everyone else who stayed up all night.

~~~
megablast
This is what I do. Get some rest, and come back.

------
robryan
Game jam Melbourne pretty much does this. Friday to Sunday, facilities to
sleep and shower. Food and drink (with healthy choices) available. Those that
were most productive probably were those that went to bed at a reasonable time
the first night.

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mcteapot
I never try to kill my self at Hackathons. Go to sleep when you are tired and
dont eat crap. At some point you are bound to get only diminishing returns,
you should know this by now if you are all grown up.

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jzukoff
This is how we do things at ZocDoc actually
([http://engineering.zocdoc.com/post/19991240421/winter-
hackat...](http://engineering.zocdoc.com/post/19991240421/winter-hackathon))
and it really is great. We start thursday evening and finish on sunday, there
are definitely late nights but plenty of sleep. The timespan is more than
reasonable to finish a project. Definitely the best way to do a hackathon.

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khwang
That's why over at Berkeley we at Hackers at Berkeley decided to start hosting
Hackjams. They're twelve hour events from about 1 PM to 1 AM. We have much
less pressure, more emphasis on fun and trying things out and showing what you
learned, even if you don't have anything approaching a product (I once showed
an awful demonstration of all that I had managed to learn about Three.JS in
five hours).

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freshfey
I absolutely agree with the article. Most people don't realize that their
productivity will become shitty if you introduce little sleep, bad food and no
exercise - so why would you artificially work with exactly these things to
finish your product?

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warmwaffles
48 or 72 hours total time spent developing an application should be ample time
to have something bootstrapped. I don't mean 3 days, I mean total time working
on a project.

I've found that if I go over the 72 hour mark, I begin to lose interest

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ghc
Lean Startup Machine takes the three-day approach and it works extremely well.

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briteside
Whenever we (<http://brighterplanet.com>) sponsor hackathons we always do a
"Healthy Hacker" component, with yoga, healthy food, etc. e.g.:

[http://numbers.brighterplanet.com/2011/04/12/healthy-
hacker-...](http://numbers.brighterplanet.com/2011/04/12/healthy-hacker-
photos/) [http://numbers.brighterplanet.com/2012/01/27/cleanweb-
hackat...](http://numbers.brighterplanet.com/2012/01/27/cleanweb-hackathon-
nyc/)

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pixelcort
Do multi-day marathons for runners, swimmers, and other sports athletes go
continuously 24-hour or do they have a way to fairly sleep each night? If so,
is there anything to be learned by how traditional sports handle this issue?

I read somewhere that some races take a time snapshot of when the athletes
arrive at a sleeping stop and use it to determine when they can resume the
next day.

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kevinprince
I would recommend taking a look at <http://hackdaymanifesto.com>

Also as someone who has runs about one community event be it hackday,
designjam or barcamp a month I have learned to cater for everyone as best as
possible.

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moondowner
I agree, especially on the food & drinks and on physical exercise.

That's why hackerspaces are better imho. You don't have to rush an idea to be
finished in a weekend.

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jonny_eh
If you increase the length of a hackathon (from 1 day to 2, or 2 to 3) then
you'll just increase the expected output, people likely won't take it easier.

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maeon3
This isn't rocket science, put explosive fuel in your body and you sprint for
about 6 hours, and then you crash and need 5 days to recover. Ignore the
warnings and drink these poisons/fuels several times a day and you'll burn
yourself out after 3 to 10 months and decide that botany isn't as bad a career
path as everyone says. Burn out is your body telling you that the red bulls
are killing you.

