Hackathon No More • Hacker News Board

Re: Hackathon No More

#31

Post by maxerickson » Mon, Jun 04, 2012, 4:53 PM UTC

Unomi wrote: post #2

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 boo…

Caffeine directly stimulates the central nervous system.

You could set up a test where you drank a pot of coffee and then did something insane, I assure you that you will still feel the effects of the adrenaline kick from the insanity.

Re: Hackathon No More

#32

Post by rwallace » Mon, Jun 04, 2012, 5:06 PM UTC

> 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.

Re: Hackathon No More

#33

Post by jonny_eh » Mon, Jun 04, 2012, 5:31 PM UTC

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.

Re: Hackathon No More

#34

Post by pixelcort » Mon, Jun 04, 2012, 8:56 PM UTC

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.