The Ballmer Peak
I’ve been waiting to write on this subject. If you know me, you know that I love beer. If you have read my blog entries, you know that I love beer. In my previous life I got to talk a lot about beer, fermentation, hop and malt profiles, and lots of other awesome things about how beer is made. Week one at Flatiron School I convinced (it didn’t take much convincing) many members of my cohort to join me for a Friday afternoon bottle/can share. It’s been rather epic.
This is the Ballmer Peak, presented in an awesome cartoon by xkcd.com-
Urban dictionary defines the Ballmer Peak as “The theory that computer programmers obtain quasi-magical, superhuman coding ability when they have a blood alcohol concentration percentage between 0.129% and 0.138%.”
This “theory” is attributed to Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s 30th employee and former CEO. It makes me wonder if he was ever actually able to control his BAC at ~0.138% . It seems doubtful. A San Francisco organization, Originate, organizes a Ballmer Peak-A-Thon to “test” this theory. The Ballmer Peak-A-Thon is an open bar Hack-A-Thon. Their description is as follows —
‘You will have 5 hours to find the elusive Ballmer Peak, and build the best worst business possible. We will provide a full bar, bartender, food and plenty of silly domain names to jump start the festivities.’
They go on with the caveat, “Ballmer PEAK, not Ballmer GUTTER — Our goal is to drink and code, not blackout and vom. Know your limits and everyone will have a good time. Ignore your limits and you may find more-than-embarrassing photos on reddit the next day.”
A Norwegian Brewery, Austmann has named a beer after this supposed phenomenon . That is definitely going on my virtual beer wishlist. Only 35 people have checked it in on Untappd! If anyone can get it for me, I promise to write a brilliant program while imbibing said beer and will blog about the experience…hint hint….friends in or going to Norway?
Whether Steve Ballmer or anyone else at Microsoft compiled any data to try to prove the Ballmer Peak is doubtful, but there has been scholarly research on the effect of moderate alcohol consumption on cognitive ability. Here is a fascinating study in the New England Journal of Medicine studying the effects of moderate alcohol intake on women- http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa041152#t=article.
To summarize the findings, “We found that older women who consumed up to one drink per day had consistently better cognitive performance than nondrinkers. Overall, as compared with nondrinkers, women who drank 1.0 to 14.9 g of alcohol per day had a decrease in the risk of cognitive impairment of about 20 percent. Moreover, moderate drinkers were less likely to have a substantial decline in cognitive function over a two-year period. We found similar inverse associations for all types of alcoholic beverages.”
I feel like I should be having a beer while writing this, but no drinking during the week for powerlifting/weight-cutting reasons. 16-weeks out from USAPL NE Regionals!!!! Cheers!
