The Hacker Diet

by Shade

If I wanted to wear a hat, I would have been a chef.

There is nothing more ridiculous than trying to identify a hacker by the color of their hat.  Of all the worlds where fashion and style should not overshadow function, ours is one of them.

Old habits die hard, however, and today we will attempt to show you more of the well kept secrets every successful hacker holds.  Today we discuss diet.  In hacker terms.

Appendix C of the mythical and seldom seen Hackers Handbook for the Initiate, states:

"Garbage in, garbage out.  A good hacker will know; a healthy diet high in protein is power."

We spend countless hours optimizing code, file systems, networks, procedures, and other assorted black boxes, yet rarely consider the real-world impact of all that pizza, soda, caffeine and chips.

The following diet hints and tips scarcely scratch the surface of information available out there.  These things may be obvious to the successful hacker, but remember what it is like to know nothing.  If "Will Code for Food" is a slogan in Silicon Valley, just think of how many hackers out there who are not successful - yet.

Power Pasta

• Prep Time: 1 minute
• Cook Time: 8 - 12 minutes
• Cost: $1.00

Ingredients:

• 1 bunch pasta
• 1 tablespoon butter
• salt & pepper
• Parmesan cheese (optional)

Boil some water in a pot.  Don't follow the instructions on that pasta wrapper, you don't need that much water - just enough to cover the pasta and allow for it to expand.  Easy.  Throw the pasta in, about 8 minutes later fish a piece out with a fork, let it cool so it won't burn you and try it.  If it seems right, it probably is.  Timing is everything with pasta, so fire up that accurate-to-the-nanosecond timer until you've been dying to have a use for.  Drain the water, turn off the flame, throw the butter in, stir it a bit, season, and you're done.  Parmesan cheese is optional and is only recommended if you are tired of eating the same old thing.

Pasta is complex carbohydrates.  Multiple sugars chained together and difficult for your body to break down.  This is good.  Simple sugars are known to assimilate rapidly, give you quick energy, and attribute to weight gain if there is more than you need.  Complex sugars make your body work harder before they are available, giving you sustained energy throughout the night, but not so much that you start packing on the pounds.  And when your hobby does not require you to leave your seat for 14 hours a go, we need all the help we can get.  Right porky?

Hackers Stew

Same as above.  When pasta is done throw in a can of Campbell's Vegetable Soup.  Better yet next time you go out to dinner get a cup of the best house soup to go and keep it in the fridge.  If it is cold, time it right and throw it in the pot after you drain your pasta, and throw your pasta on top.  Heat it up fast, you don't want your pasta to turn into mush.

Almost anything goes good with pasta, and it takes a hacker to discover what all those things are.  Variety in diet is extremely healthy.

Relativity Multitask Delight

Boil water, put in an egg or two.  Wait ten minutes.  Now comes the multitasking and relativity.  Put your pasta in.  Yes, the same water.  Wait ten more minutes.  Drain.  You're done.  Treat as Power Pasta, with the exception of the eggs.  Turn on the cold water in your sink.  Rinse your fingers in cold water, quickly grab one egg, quickly rinse it, knock the egg against the counter to crack the shell.  Remove the shell.  If you're slow or your fingers are starting to burn quickly rinse them again.

The goal is to remove the shell in as much of one piece as possible so it is easy to throw away and your food is not crunchy because you smashed the egg too hard.  The other goal is to get all this done without your hard-boiled eggs getting cold, then at least you have a warm meal, and the dignity of preparing it.  Rinsing your fingers in cold water before exposing them to heat gives you a few more milliseconds of protection against high temperatures.  Hackers appreciate milliseconds.

The white part of eggs is very close to the pasta.  We've already covered that.  The yoke of eggs is extremely high in protein, good brain stuff.  It does not taste as good as pizza, but it is good for your brain.  So wolf down as much as you can.  We're going for the end result here.

Albert Einstein was known to cook chicken soup and use the broth to boil eggs at the same time.  He was big on protein because this has been a long known aid to intellectual pursuits.  We're not making chicken soup here, but we are saving time in the same way, and work our minds as much if not more than any other scientific segment of society.

Michael Crichton has simple meals prepared in the same way day after day when working on a big project, just so that he will not lose focus on the project at hand.  Einstein's approach to simple cooking was the same: minimal impact on your mental pursuits, while still providing healthy food to eat.

Pre-prepared meals that are healthy may not be a luxury we can all afford, but healthy fast cooking here today is the goal, and each and every time I can get my audience to avoid grabbing one of those microwave grease-boxes, we are all the better for it.

In closing I would like to say if some weekend yokel would like to base another book on an article I've written, more power to him.  Just remember your roots my friend, and give credit where credit is due.