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Ask HN: Project ideas for a long plane ride? (11 hrs)

5 points by Aaronstotle ↗ HN
As title says, I have an 11 hour flight coming up, was thinking of working on some small projects, of course I will be bringing a book/notebook.

In your opinion what's your best use of time on a long flight?

11 comments

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sakethr98
make a media player in python :p a local search engine. write your own db...
Aaronstotle
Yeah, I was thinking of making a local password manager!

I'm not very proficient in python so just need to make sure I have enough offline resources

version_five
See if you can find a solo hackathon or contest (e.g code golf, obfuscated C, etc) to enter.
sugaroverflow
And/or competitive programing challenges and time yourself if that makes it more fun for you.
noud
> In your opinion what's your best use of time on a long flight?

Sleeping, the more, the better.

Aaronstotle
Yeah, it leaves around 2pm and arrives in Europe the following day at 10am, hoping I can sleep for 5 hours.
noud
I can sleep around 8 hours during these long flights. Some tips (if you want them):

- I prefer a place next to a window. I can put my head on the wall.

- I try not to drink too much. Definitely no coffee or alcohol. Not having to pee will make me sleep longer. Going to a toilet in a plane is difficult.

- Before I go to sleep I read for 1 to 2 hours. I try to avoid something that is exiting to do (playing video games, doing intense difficult programming, ...)

- I take somewhere between 0.5 and 3 mg of melatonine one hour before I want to go to sleep. This helps me getting tired in areas where you have a lot of light.

- I wear earplugs during sleeping.

- I cover myself with as many blankets as possible. It can be cold in airplanes, and getting too cold will wake me up.

Good luck!

version_five
2pm is a rough time to leave to get a good nights sleep. If the flight is 11 hours, that would mean that it's 1am circadian time when he arrives, and 10:00am in reality. On a flight like that, does an airline serve dinner after takeoff and then dim the lights?

I think personally I'd want to finish eating and start to sleep at 8:00pm or so origin time, and hope to get 3-4 hours in. This is basically what I do in flights from the east coast to europe, give or take a couple hours.

For me, I am too big to even consider really sleeping in economy and I try for business class if it's affordable or premium economy for overnight flights. I do drink alcohol, because I think it puts me to sleep faster, and while normally it disrupts my sleep, if I'm only sleeping a few hours me sleep is disrupted anyway so might as well enjoy myself and get to sleep a bit.

That all said, I wish I had a system and the discipline of the parent commentor to be able to deal well with it, I am always exhausted the next day

Aaronstotle
Yeah, I normally cannot sleep on planes, best I can do is take a sleep aid like Zyquil and end up in this limbo state between being awake and asleep, I'm also tall so experience the same comfort issues in economy seats.

Going to try the tips above for sure

fsflyer
Some tricks for sleeping better:

Given that you are leaving at 2pm and arriving at 10am, I'd suggest that you start shifting your day earlier a few days before leaving. Get up early and go to bed early. That will start your body getting used to the time change.

Earplugs or noise cancelling headphones with nothing playing and a mask to cover the eyes help as well.

DougMellon
I used to do this exact thing — noise cancelling headphones with nothing playing — but found it actually kept me up as it just felt hollow. I have since discovered the album Untitled by Sigur Ros and it has been a game changer that usually has me fast asleep fairly quickly. The lyrics are in a made up language of gibberish.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/(_)_(album)