Iced tea. (My employer provides it for free...)
Hacker fuel (can't live without it)
31–40 of 42 posts
Re: Hacker fuel (can't live without it)
#32Caffiene doesn't do it for me anymore, so I've been experimenting with energy drinks. They seem to work better, but generally taste awful (Red Bull is the prime offender).
I never understood why redbull tastes the way it does. It reminds me of bad bubble gum. Other energy drinks seem to have gone in the same direction? Is it required for energy drinks to taste the way they do?
Try the Rockstar Juiced series. They're 50-70% fruit juice and don't taste like bubble gum. My only concern is that they contain sucralose, a substance I generally avoid.
Re: Hacker fuel (can't live without it)
#33Caffiene doesn't do it for me anymore, so I've been experimenting with energy drinks. They seem to work better, but generally taste awful (Red Bull is the prime offender).
Almost none of the energy drinks have enough of their extra ingredients to actually do anything... ginseng and taurine can be stimulating, but you need to take a lot more than they put in Red Bull. If you're willing to branch out into other stimulants, I'd strongly recommend Kratom, feel free to ask if you have any questions.
Most energy drinks contain high doses of B vitamins. B vitamin deficiency causes fatigue, weakness, and depression. I'm not sure if mild B vitamin deficiency is common or if very high doses do the opposite, but I've noticed a bigger mental boost from some energy drinks than from a similar amount of caffeine without the vitamins.
Re: Hacker fuel (can't live without it)
#34Caffiene doesn't do it for me anymore, so I've been experimenting with energy drinks. They seem to work better, but generally taste awful (Red Bull is the prime offender).
I never understood why redbull tastes the way it does. It reminds me of bad bubble gum. Other energy drinks seem to have gone in the same direction? Is it required for energy drinks to taste the way they do?
It is probably the taste of Taurine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurine).
Taurine was originally extracted from bull's balls and hence when you drink a RedBull, you are giving a bull a ... lets say, doing a bull a favor :-)
(Taurine is not extracted from bull semen nowadays, of course ( probably coz this is not scalable :-p ) and it is claimed that the whole Tauine-Bull thing is a myth... but myths are fun to propagate)
Re: Hacker fuel (can't live without it)
#35Tea. Irish Breakfast when I can find it, Earl Grey when I can't. No milk, no sugar.
Re: Hacker fuel (can't live without it)
#36I've found there's no net benefit to caffeine. A little bit can make me a bit more alert and optimistic, but then I pay for it with interest on the caffeine hangover / comedown. Besides, more than a little bit of it makes me much too restless and chatty to program anyway.
Junk food is a lose for me too. Anything that causes a blood sugar spike hurts productivity. I like peanut butter on bananas, red leaf lettuce, cheese, ... and of course burritos. Water to drink.
Re: Hacker fuel (can't live without it)
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mountain Dew is probably one of the worst things you can put into your body that comes in a can and can be bought under the age of 18.
As a recovered Mountain Dew head, I agree. The sugar in Mountain Dew is the worst of it. I used to require five or so Mountain Dews every day. When I slowly stopped drinking it (I switched completely to coffee to avoid caffeine withdraw) I stopped getting really hyper then crashing five times a day. My concentration is much better without Mountain Dew. It took me about five weeks to switch (one less can per week). No…
The way I learned it is the natural alertness cycle is sinusoidal, and by taking stimulants strategically timed one can square it off. That way one can increase total hours of close to peak alertness, as well as make sleep deeper and heavier.
Re: Hacker fuel (can't live without it)
#38 Coke Zero, Diet Coke with and without caffeine, milk, oatmeal and cinnamon. If I exercise, I also get cravings for meat, veggies, fruit and pasta, which helps confirm the healthiness of exercise. I wish I could get caffeine free Coke Zero, to reduce my caffeine intake.
Re: Hacker fuel (can't live without it)
#39A similar post:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40651
[P.S: Not that I condone messing with your brain chemistry. You can see my opinion there.]
Re: Hacker fuel (can't live without it)
#40www.digitalgunfire.com, cheese on toast, and instant coffee. (Every so often I think "real coffee is great! I must drink more of it", but as a result I'm building up a collection of filthy abandoned coffee makers...)