Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

561–570 of 582 posts

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#561

Post by JeremyNT »

MisterMower wrote: post #531
12many wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"if you 'pass' as one them.." From my point of view you just described the left. Dressing in a suit and tie is not a rarity in the south or rural areas. Being gay isn't some attribute that qualifies for special treatment just because of your sexual preference. Politics also isn't some defining feature, and is WAY too publicized in today's culture. Why does it matter what someone's political view points are? Does tha…

On the one hand, everybody commenting on this post is touting their newly adopted off-the-beaten-path rural-ish community. On the other hand, everyone who lives there is basically a closet racist and homophobe. Which is it?

If you actually want a more conservative culture - as, I'm sure, many of the HN crowd who intend to flee the Bay Area do - these communities will be especially appealing. One person's negative is another's positive.

I really do want to emphasize how polite rural people can be to your face while shit talking you behind your back, though. The idyllic and friendly "country folk" lifestyle is really bullshit. I grew up in such a community and we would smile and "yes sir" all day long to people's faces then talk total trash about them the second they walk away.

If you don't look too close and you don't care to make friends with them, you won't notice. Some fancy city liberal who moves in and minds their own business is unlikely to have any direct conflict, while still eliciting a massive amount of gossip and vitriol "under the hood."

An introverted HN programmer, working from home and staying out of the way, may only ever notice the good. But if you really want to be "part of" a community like this - as in, having real friends there - you will see a different side of things.

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#562

Post by kube-system »

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #515
kube-system wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Make sure the schools are good and aren't run by weirdos. Is approximately equal to > the political party of local politicians

This is completely false. There are lunatics of all stripes.

I agree. Local politics is less about avoiding weirdos, and more about finding which weirdos you agree with.

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#563

Post by t6jvcereio »

throwaway787544 wrote: post #484
sfvegandude wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“The rest of the country ignored it” Is this how local residents feel? I find this sentiment rather confusing. Rural places tend to be distrustful of central government. Meaning, they are happy to be ignored by “the rest of the country” since those outsiders don’t share their values.

Local residents do feel that way. They have no money, no education, no job prospects, and don't feel they get respect. The fact that their cultural values are also at odds with the "haves" (in their view) further cements the view. But in a very real policy and economic sense, they literally were abandoned when industry left. Wall Street and Tech zoomed on while their factories and mines closed with no recourse to be…

They don't get respect because they have a shitty attitude. No one owes you respect

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#564

Post by nucleardog »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #133
throwaway787544 wrote: post #119

I live in the outskirts of a poor rural town in NY. We have 2 bars, some restaurants, a coffee shop, a fast food chain, some dollar stores, a grocery store, hardware store, antiques, gas stations, etc, Library and a little theater, farmers market on weekends. River runs nearby with a put-in for kayaks and fishing. Biggest town/city nearby with big box stores is about 45 minutes. They have fiber internet here but it's…

I'm curious, how do you people deal with medical emergencies? I live in a city and I have 3 24x7 hospitals within walking distance. I have gone dozens of times on foot at 3 in the morning to get medicine.

I'm not sure where you are, but maybe the medical system is set up a little differently?

I say that because I know when I met my wife (who was used to the Chinese medical system) she was used to a hospital being the be-all end-all of medical care and very frustrated with the level of service she received... until I introduced her to the clinics and other places she should have been going to have most things treated.

If you're taking yourself to a hospital here without some sort of referral from a doctor you're generally entering through the emergency department which is set up to treat emergencies. Things that will kill you in short order. If I go in for "medication" and it isn't a situation like "I've run out of my life-saving medication and I need a dose to get me through to morning." I'm probably just gonna spend the night sitting in the waiting room. Likely longer. It'd be like putting a P5 ticket in for a team whose responsibility is dealing with P1/P2 tickets. You're gonna be waiting a while for the other higher priority issues to slow down long enough for them to catch up and run out of things to do. If you're lucky they might sneak you in sooner just to avoid blowing the P5 SLA, but even that will only happen if they're _mostly_ caught up on P1/P2 issues.

If it's immediately life-threatening, I call an ambulance. They're about 5-10 minutes away. Not the best, but that means I can get someone with a moderate amount of medical training focused on "keeping you alive" to me in about 10 minutes. If it can't wait until morning but isn't going to kill me in the next hour, I can drive or be driven the 45 minutes to the hospital.

Anything else (like getting medication to treat a condition) I'd just wait until morning and see a normal doctor at the closer clinic. They can provide basic diagnosis and treatment, and there's a pharmacy nearby that can dispense any medications they prescribe.

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#565

Post by nucleardog »

zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #98

A number of states are offering grants for remote workers to relocate, offers vary but generally you can get monthly installments of around $1k paid out over one or two years. You have to apply and be accepted, be verifiably employed full time, 100% remote, and if you leave within the first couple years you either lose out on the balance of the grant or you might need to pay a portion back. The programs are generally…

Frontier may offer 1.5Mbps, but from second-hand experience their speeds are basically just made-up numbers. Had a friend working with the NC AG's office because Frontier sold him 1.5Mbps, he never saw more than 0.3Mbps, their solution was to tell him to upgrade to the 3Mbps plan (?!) and the engineer he talked to told him that the node he was on was so oversubscribed he was lucky he was getting 0.3Mbps.

Which kinda leads into my suggestion--find somewhere that has at least two options for internet if you can. Confirm by calling the companies--they can usually see if they've provided service to that address before and have access to more accurate and up-to-date information than any of the web systems. Then sign up for two connections. You won't really know for sure until you use it whether the speeds are what they're selling, whether it's reliable or is going out every time it rains, etc.

Particularly if your plan involves some sort of WISP, coverage is very location dependent and you don't really know for sure until it's installed and operational whether or not they're going to provide you service. If they show up and start setting gear up and the signal's too bad, they may just pack up and yell "sorry!" out the window as they take off down the driveway.

When I moved I had bog-slow DSL and fixed LTE installed the same day to make sure I'd have internet for work the following Monday. I had to fail over from the LTE to the DSL a few times over the next few months, but it was _generally_ reliable. Once my Starlink order came through I ran three connections for another few months and finally dropped the DSL.

Personally the dual connections is a 100% requirement for me. The internet is how I make money. Missing one day of work because I have no internet would set me back enough to pay for something like 10 months of that shitty DSL. It's not the place I'm taking risks, especially when the cost to mitigate it may be spending $10-30k to have someone run a connection out or _having to sell a house and move_.

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#566

Post by ahoy »

pc86 wrote: post #318
UncleMeat wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private bounty hunter businesses are harmful to society.

If they are, then they should be illegal. If they are illegal, and this qualifies, then this guy should be punished. None of this negates anything I said previously.

It's not illegal, therefore it's not a bad thing. And since it's not a bad thing, its not illegal.

did i get that right

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#568

Post by azernik »

pontifier wrote: post #189
VoodooJuJu wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I ended up buying about 75 more properties here You have the kind of money to casually buy up all this real estate, but you still went bargain-hunting for a warehouse? This reads like some kind of LARP or joke.

I bought the warehouse before I really had the money to do it. I was scraping by on ramen for a while. Buying the others was honestly WAY, WAY, WAY cheaper than you'd expect. I almost didn't feel like I had a choice it was so cheap. Spent about $130k at a tax auction to get them all. It almost feels like land is the only thing they can't steal around here.

You bought the other ones because they're cheap... but what is the actual gain you expect to get from those properties? $130K is still money, is there a plan to recoup that investment or was this a FOMO purchase?

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#569

Post by azernik »

danso wrote: post #365
pontifier wrote: post #39

My method sure hasn't worked very well... or has it? I was looking for cheap warehouse space to start a business in, and did a nation-wide search for the largest, cheapest building in the entire continental US. I found one that seemed too good to be true. a 220,000 sqft metal warehouse and office complex on 17 acres. I thought the price was a typo at $375k.The agent assured me that the price was correct, and I flew o…

This January 2021 article provided some useful context: https://captimes.com/news/local/neighborhoods/john-fenley-sh... I mean, is it unreasonable for the city to expect new drawings/specs for a new use of a building that has been unmaintained for at least 15 years? The fact that the property was sold for such a cheap price basically implies that the new owner should expect to invest a substantial amount of money to…

Oh shit it's that guy! I remember reading this story at the time.

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#570

Post by pontifier »

yourapostasy wrote: post #548
pontifier wrote: post #39

My method sure hasn't worked very well... or has it? I was looking for cheap warehouse space to start a business in, and did a nation-wide search for the largest, cheapest building in the entire continental US. I found one that seemed too good to be true. a 220,000 sqft metal warehouse and office complex on 17 acres. I thought the price was a typo at $375k.The agent assured me that the price was correct, and I flew o…

I want in a linear accelerator way to see what happens if pontifer and Alan of HeavyDSparks [1] all got together and rebuilt Alan’s hacker fortress together. Maybe include Andrew Camarata [2] to increase the chances to Get Things Done. Personally the most interesting question I haven’t seen asked is how he searched for cheap properties. [1] https://youtu.be/EwievpEnXrE [2] https://youtube.com/c/AndrewCamarata

I'm totally open to collaborations. One of the properties I bought at the tax auction is 27 acres with a bunch of tall trees on it. I was thinking about inviting people who weave space webs to come down and build something amazing.

Just before I closed on the warehouse, I reached out to the Megabots people to see if they wanted to move Megabots here, but didn't get a reply. The overhead cranes and large open interior spaces give opportunities not available anywhere else.

I literally had living spaces for artist and entrepreneurs on my original proposal, and I was hoping that it would become a destination makerspace where big names could come and access the amazing workshop I was planning to set up.

I was also planning to build a permanent robot combat arena here too, kind of like what they built in Norwalk.

My full proposal is here: https://www.murfie.com/dist/serendipic.pdf

Post reply on HN