Ask HN: Digital Nomads: What's Your Setup? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Digital Nomads: What's Your Setup?

#111

Post by klinskyc » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 5:44 PM UTC

tayo42 wrote: post #34

jamal-kumar wrote: post #18

I've been pretty happy with spending most of my time in Costa Rica for nearly a decade or so. The pandemic numbers here have been really low, partly because people are fairly health-conscious here. Anti maskers are basically just gringos nobody likes or want anything to do with here instead of crazy people yelling vitriol in grocery stores. I don't live at the beach, because frankly it's kind of distracting having pe…

Which part of Costa Rica? Funny I was just looking at spending a month or two on a work-cation after getting vaccinated. Looking at Santa Teresa or nosara, keep reading the internet is unreliable. That was my experience after spending a few days in Santa Teresa a few years ago

I spent a month in Jaco in Jan/Feb this year. I found it to be a nice middle ground where it's on the beach, but is also a (small) city with reliable internet. It's easy to get to Santa Teresa/San Jose/Manuel Antononio, etc as well.

It has a (not-entirely-undeserved) rep as being seedy/a party town, but I found the overall pros to outweigh cons related to that.

Re: Ask HN: Digital Nomads: What's Your Setup?

#112

Post by dividuum » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 5:45 PM UTC

asidiali wrote: post #2

I think Verizon throttles you down to 600kbps, not mbps [1]. It’s 2021, so ridiculous. [1] https://www.verizon.com/support/verizon-plan-unlimited-faqs/ (FAQ #6)

In Germany, most plans throttle you to 64kbps down/16kbps up once you run out. It hard not to feel ashamed about the state of mobile internet around here.

Re: Ask HN: Digital Nomads: What's Your Setup?

#113

Post by vulcan01 » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 5:46 PM UTC

high_byte wrote: post #77

my #1 reason for not going nomad is I HATE LAPTOPS. I just love my PC. my two big ass monitors. a keyboard and mouse. a station that's always set up. I don't need to drag around nothing. I am always connected via ethernet.

What's the issue with setting up your station inside an RV? A large RV should easily fit your setup I think.

Re: Ask HN: Digital Nomads: What's Your Setup?

#114

Post by Topgamer7 » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 5:49 PM UTC

exdsq wrote: post #108

a3n wrote: post #9

Semi truck driver. I have a laptop, and a phone. I use the phone's hotspot. "Being on the internet" is not part of my job, and many nights I don't bother to take the laptop out of its bag. I never use wifi because I'm paranoid. While driving I listen to podcasts or streaming. I never predownload anything. I don't know if I ever get throttled. Sometimes, even in this day and age, I'm out of cell range, and my podcasts…

Out of interest, can I ask what made you decide to leave development for semi truck driving? :)

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18796367. It's his thread, he mentions why in the description

Re: Ask HN: Digital Nomads: What's Your Setup?

#115

Post by norcim » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 5:50 PM UTC

Mobile Internet Resource Center has all the info I needed to built my setup. The Sample Setups are a good place to start: https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/sample-setup-explorer/

I bought all my gear on https://www.mobilemusthave.com/

- Pepwave Max Transit Duo - Poynting 7-in-1 antenna - Weboost RV 65 with 25' unidirectional antenna (rarely used) - AT&T unlimited SIM (grey market) - Sprint Family Motor Coach Assc. unlimited (SIM in Pepwave) - Verizon 15gb hotspot SIM

Re: Ask HN: Digital Nomads: What's Your Setup?

#116

Post by caffeine » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

qorrect wrote: post #91

jrwoodruff wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Truth. I thought I'd be able to cut out more than I've been able to - we downloaded movies before leaving, I have over-the-air TV, etc. But, it turns out my habits rely on a lot of data - streaming spotify, streaming security cameras to check back home, streaming tools at work... it's kind of eye opening honestly.

I had a similar experience these last 3 months, I bought an RV thought I would toot around the country in, use a cell modem. But I also want to work on my AI projects , which require bunches of nasdaq data. Or I want to work on a side project, but conda wants to download every dependency for every new environment I make. I thought downloading TBs worth of media would be enough to make it work but I'm hitting my month…

For AI projects you should really consider a remote machine, like hosting Jupyter on an AWS box or something, rather than downloading everything to your RV.

Re: Ask HN: Digital Nomads: What's Your Setup?

#117

Post by xur17 » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #66

jzellis wrote: post #48

So it turns out that it's pretty easy to get around tethering data caps on phones in a couple of different ways, especially if you're on Android and have more control over your network settings. I'm in the UK now and use prepaid GiffGaff cell service, which includes 80GB of LTE hotspot data. I don't do Zoom, but i use it for tethering upstairs sometimes because wifi and stone 19th century walls do not mix. But honest…

>But honestly, if Zoom is your biggest bandwidth hog, just get a cell with unlimited data and use it instead of your laptop. Or mostly just use a dial-in number and do without video. Doesn't help if a presentation is being given and hasn't been shared in advance of course.

I've tried using a dial-in number a few times, and the latency was horrible - made it really hard to jump in and say things without interrupting others.

Not sure if it was just the crappy connection, or if that is a product of using the cell network.

Re: Ask HN: Digital Nomads: What's Your Setup?

#118

Post by high_byte » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 5:54 PM UTC

vulcan01 wrote: post #113

high_byte wrote: post #77

my #1 reason for not going nomad is I HATE LAPTOPS. I just love my PC. my two big ass monitors. a keyboard and mouse. a station that's always set up. I don't need to drag around nothing. I am always connected via ethernet.

What's the issue with setting up your station inside an RV? A large RV should easily fit your setup I think.

nomad does not imply RV. I don't want an RV, I imagine living in hotels or AirBnB or something while traveling every few weeks/months.

I like doing graphics so cloud isn't optimal. a good GPU laptop with large monitor is as good as carrying my entire PC setup IMO

Re: Ask HN: Digital Nomads: What's Your Setup?

#119

Post by jameslk » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

jrwoodruff wrote: post #52

jameslk wrote: post #41

I've heard of https://unlimitedville.com/ recommended before, although I have not used them. They at least have deals with different carriers in case one is problematic so you can switch to another.

I was just looking at them this morning. I'd love to hear of anyone that has actual experience with them. With skyroam, it seemed like many of the reviews and blog posts I came across were paid reviews.

They've been mentioned on HN in the past, which is why I know about them:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Re: Ask HN: Digital Nomads: What's Your Setup?

#120

Post by cato401 » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 5:56 PM UTC

I've been traveling the US full-time (RV) with my family (wife & 3 teens) for 5 years. I pair-program daily (over SSH/TMUX) and only require audio streaming for chat, generally don't need video or screen-sharing. We have 3 lines of Verizon "Beyond Unlimited" (not sure if they offer this anymore). I believe that is "unlimited" up to 75GB from the phone itself, and 25 or 30GB hotspot, per line. The kids burn through their data fairly quickly so we look for parks/resorts that have some sort of WIFI option, whether public or paid, to supplement their needs. For my personal and work usage, I'm able to get by without reaching my cap each month on the Verizon plan. I also purchased a cellular booster (weboost) which has made a huge difference in some rural areas. Staying connected to the interwebs is what bank-rolls this operation so it has been the single biggest pain-point for travel, but doing research on locations has help mitigate some of that. https://www.campgroundreviews.com has been a good resource. Hope that helps. Happy/safe travels.