Linux kernel developers increase by 10 percent

Yeah, from all that beer as in "free as in beer" :-D

Free Beer!

Down with the hegemon!

Down with the dictators!

But... brewers want to get paid.

@Bob_Robertson I brew for myself... but alas, it still isn't free. I have to buy malt, hops and yeast.

Quoting:But... brewers want to get paid.

Speak for yourself.

> I brew for myself...

I once put up a batch of ginger mead that was just to _die_ for. Wonderful, subtle flavor, fine bubbles, it was perfect. (sudden reminders of The 5th Element)

Sadly, I haven't had the time to do it again. Finding my glass carboy smashed after a move also put a damper on my enthusiasm.

@Bob_Robertson Dohh... Do you have a good local brewing store? Thankfully there is one here in Austin that is pretty good. They do mail order too. I've got four glass carboys, two of the seven gallon size and two of the five gallon size. That way I can do two batches of lager at a time. Decanting from the large size to the small size carboy after primary fermentation for the lagering stage seems to make a big improvement in the clarity and smoothness of the beer, especially a Pils.

It's not beer. Everyone knows the hacker diet is lots of pizza and Jolt cola. Beer won't be acceptable until its caffeinated and the alcohol is altered to work as a stimulant instead of a depressant. Gotta have the caffeine for late night coding sessions.

@caitlyn I dunno... Most hax0rs I know consume plenty of beer in addition to the pizza and Jolt cola... Just not when they are on an all night coding binge. In fact you wouldn't believe the amount of alcohol consumed at some of the conferences like DEFCON I've been to.

The four food groups: salt, grease, sugar, caffeine.

My conference consumption of adult beverages is limited to the several glasses of wine I had at a SANS conference a few years ago. It was Los Angeles, and the smog made me miserable. Adult beverages helped me forget how miserable I felt, for at least a couple hours.

@softwarejanitor: Was it Hyper Glow? See: http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/looflirpa/beer.shtml That's caffeinated beer. It still has normal, depressant alcohol but the caffeine will counteract that for a little while at least, almost certainly allowing for more beer consumption and bloat.

@gus3: Yeah, those are the food groups I know IT people, and not just coders mind you, to consume in large quantities especially when having to work long and late.

@gus Yeah, I've heard that one before. I did a bit of drinking the last time I was in LA (well, Pasadena actually). I was there for the AAS convention, not a hax0r convention, but surprisingly for generally being considered even more geeky than hax0rs, astronomers like to drink too. One of the side parties was at an interesting brew pub a few blocks from the Pasadena convention center. I didn't notice smog and my alergies didn't bother me worse than what Zyrtec could handle, but I do tend to generally find LA miserable for other reasons... I'm glad I probably won't have to be going back there again in the near future, two trips to the LA area (the fall 2008 AAS convention was in Long Beach) within a year was more than enough California for me for a while. Unfortunately some of the other places I may have to go don't excite me much more... Seattle, D.C. and maybe Chicago. I'm not sure which ones are worse.

@caitlyn I've never heard of Hyper Glow. Buttwiper makes a concoction called "B^e" or something like that which sounds vile but has caffeine in it. There is also something I've seen called "Sparx" or something like that which is similar from what I gather. I've never tried either one, but they do seem fairly popular amongst younger hax0r types. Neither one are as popular as things like Red Bull & Vodka or Red Bull and Jaegermeister though. I generally don't drink distilled liquor, so I can't comment on either of those personally, although I'm not a fan of Red Bull by itself. There are other energy drinks I prefer. Rock Star Juiced Orange might be O.K. with Vodka if I was going to try something with spirits added. Or maybe more traditional and a rum & Jolt made with a decent quality rum like Cockspur 12 (from Barbados, aged 12+ years).

@caitlyn, Among most of the younger coders/hax0rs I see, Jolt is so "yesterday". Today's "cool" big-caffeine drinks come from the smaller jugs of Energy Shot and the big narrow cans of Rockstar, Red Bull, Monster, Full Throttle. (I see that somebody just got in a comment on these caffeine-rush bevs) OTOH, constant consumption of cheese-based pizza and non-"lite" beer will definitely put on the 10 percent weight for most of us.

@flufferbeer: I guess I'm showing my age again. Young coders don't hang out with people old enough to be their parents anyway. It just isn't cool. I am admittedly out of touch.

Some of the Sobe energy drinks taste OK. To me the best energy drink is a Starbucks Double Shot.

Due to chemical imbalances in me, caffeine and friends puts me to sleep, so I don't drink any energy drinks.

Quoting:When I read the headline what went through my mind was something like: So, kernel developers are gaining weight. They're 10% heavier.

It's more than 10%. The average t-shirt size is up to XL from M. See these statistics: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/09/are-linux-programmers-g...

So I'm not so crazy after all. Thanks for reassuring me, Sander.

Once upon a time, not very long ago, I needed XS. Do you know how often the smallest T-shirt size offered was M or L? I ended up with some very interesting nightshirts that came down to me knees.

More space for the ferrets to crawl into when you least expect it...

@gus3: No, definitely not, unless I'm wearing slacks/jeans.

They prefer sweaters in the winter anyway. Lots of soft material.