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

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

#171

Post by packetlost »

meheleventyone wrote: post #107
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…

> Your lifestyle and work may just be five or ten years ahead of it being worthwhile for businesses to provide what you need. I think it’s also the whole telecoms situation in the US puts it ten years behind everywhere else. The data caps and bandwidth issues are mostly not a technical or business cost issue. Ubiquitous fast and cheap 4G is quite normal elsewhere.

Both wireless and wired infrastructure is so much more expensive in the US than basically everywhere else because of just how freaking HUGE the US is.

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

#172

Post by a3n »

caffeine wrote: post #116
qorrect wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've had vague thoughts of doing a project that might have similar data needs. A linode running my work would be how I'd do it. You only need something local for initial dev, and then observe and control.

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

#173

Post by olladecarne »

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…

Quick disclaimer as someone who lived in Costa Rica for many years: Costa Rica's prices for many things are comparable to the US. If it's imported stuff like cars or tech, then expect to pay 2-3x as much. The internet can be fast, but it's also expensive. Basically, expect costs to be closer to vacationing in the US than SE Asia. Other than that, it is a very nice country although driving there can be like an extreme sport. Also, make sure you have a remote job before going there because you can't work without a permit and even if you could the salaries are very low compared to the US.

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

#174

Post by nwotnagrom »

I have been getting by with an iPad Air that has cellular and wifi connectivity no matter where i go. I do have an iPhone Pro 11 as well. Basically, I just carry these two devices wherever I go. As both are readily connected, it is very convenient for me.

For my iPad though, I also utilize a VM which I access through the Shells.com app. This allows me to have access to a Linux and Windows machine through my iPad so I have everything all in one.

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

#175

Post by randomopining »

olladecarne wrote: post #173
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…

Quick disclaimer as someone who lived in Costa Rica for many years: Costa Rica's prices for many things are comparable to the US. If it's imported stuff like cars or tech, then expect to pay 2-3x as much. The internet can be fast, but it's also expensive. Basically, expect costs to be closer to vacationing in the US than SE Asia. Other than that, it is a very nice country although driving there can be like an extreme…

Hah yeah I just got back from 3 weeks there. Driving was quite the experience. Pedestrians literally care 0%, some biker didn’t even look crossing the street and hit us while we were going 15mph. Other drivers go for super risky single lane passes on the reg, etc. Ridiculous.

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

#176

Post by ineptech »

Not related to data, but nomads and semi-nomads might want to consider an external GPU setup. I tried it and really like it (though it is a bit of a pain and not for people who don't want to deal with drivers and such).

The gist of it is that, if you want to combine the mobility of an ultrabook with the power of a desktop, you can mostly have your cake and eat it too by putting your extras (GPU, spare hdd, cat5, optical drive etc) in an enclosure with its own power supply. This only became possible due to usb-c being fast enough to act like part of the bus.

In theory, it's awesome - take your laptop out and about and use it like a laptop, then take it home and have a full desktop worth of peripherals, without having to plug in external monitors and stuff every time. In practice, not all cards/laptops/enclosures work together and you'll likely spend some time trying different combinations of drivers and settings. There's a forum[0] dedicated to this that I found highly helpful. I have mine working and I do like it, it is a lot easier than bouncing back and forth between a laptop-for-mobility and desktop-for-power and having to share everything over distributed tools, but it took a good month of futzing to get it running stably and to get it to reliably swap drivers when plugging/unplugging.

0: egpu.io

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

#177

Post by benhurmarcel »

ttoinou wrote: post #166

I have a french sim with free mobile, they give you 25 GB per montlh in a lot of countries all over the world, including the USA, for 20 euros (24 usd) per month, 4G download speed is excellent. Coverage with free SMS and free calls too : https://assistance.free.fr/mobile/freeroaming/ After traveling for 4 years as a nomad, I will now buy 2 or 3 more sim like this because they work great and are cheaper than local si…

Technically, if you use it mainly outside France, they can legally charge you roaming. It just happens that until now Free Mobile doesn't seem to control that.

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

#178

Post by randomopining »

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…

Just got back from 3 weeks there, which was awesome. I found my spot so far that I would definitely chill at for at least a month or two.

I find Tamarindo to have all the amenities, but also crowded and basic. Santa Theresa super overrated imo. Pretty sure they keep the roads dusty and rocky there to cultivate a certain vibe. Manuel Antonio mad touristy. Want to hit more Osa and Pavones next time.

My favorite spot was between there and Jaco.

How’s the pacific side? I heard the most party hardy crew is there.

San Jose was great, went to brunch in the Escalares or whatever. Good vibes, low key, girls looked nice and friendly, fairly safe, and fairly reasonable prices.

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

#179

Post by jrwoodruff »

sinak wrote: post #76

I run https://www.waveform.com and we help a lot of folks like yourself get better signal. It's not really worth messing around with cheap options - your productivity is on the line and it's worth spending a little for great connectivity. With that in mind, the best option is a Pepwave MAX HD2 Dual SIM. Then put a Visible SIM from Verizon in one slot and a Calyx SIM (T-Mobile) in the other, or sign up for the AT&T iP…

Hmmm, interesting. I'm going to look into this more. I did buy a weboost drive x, but I'm not convinced its really helping with anything...

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

#180

Post by ttoinou »

benhurmarcel wrote: post #177
ttoinou wrote: post #166

I have a french sim with free mobile, they give you 25 GB per montlh in a lot of countries all over the world, including the USA, for 20 euros (24 usd) per month, 4G download speed is excellent. Coverage with free SMS and free calls too : https://assistance.free.fr/mobile/freeroaming/ After traveling for 4 years as a nomad, I will now buy 2 or 3 more sim like this because they work great and are cheaper than local si…

Technically, if you use it mainly outside France, they can legally charge you roaming. It just happens that until now Free Mobile doesn't seem to control that.

Interesting, so spending a few months per year in France avoids that theoretically ?
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