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We built our house for LAN parties (2024)

lanparty.house

161–170 of 387 posts

Re: We built our house for LAN parties (2024)

#161
post #19

God, imagine having a big enough friend group as an adult to justify an 18-gaming-PC LAN. These folks are doing something right

We had LAN parties like that once upon a time when we had a space that supported it. Friends of friends would show up. Not everyone knew everyone else and this was fine. Cold drinks of every sort were available at the carry-out next door, and some would bring things to share. Donations were had for pizza or burgers (sometimes nowhere near enough donations, and sometimes more than plenty; it averaged OK). The social a…

> (The second-largest problem -- the smell -- is a different issue entirely. It usually ramped up pretty well by the time the first problem was approaching being solved.)

I'm guessing that's where his spending a shit ton on HVAC comes in...

Re: We built our house for LAN parties (2024)

#162
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He spent more on gaming computers than my yearly salary, and then follows it up with > I actually find it funny how cheap computers are.

This is from (2024) fyi

Still not cheap... even in 2024 GPUs were very inflated. The GTX 970 was around 350 at launch in 2014, and in 2024 was 650-ish.

Re: We built our house for LAN parties (2024)

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

75k bonus ? I’ve worked one job ever with a formal bonus structure at all. The annual target for that bonus was less than a third of that amount. Sometimes I wonder if I work in the same tech industry as some of the other folks around here, but then, I guess I haven’t worked FAANG.

You don't. I'd guess most of the developers don't. For example, my near 20 years of experience nets me a salary FAANG interns would find offensive. But in this part of the world it's "raise a family comfortably" money. In the end, it all depends on cost of living. And accepting you are not building 20 seat Lan party setup in your spare wing of the house.

My salary literally doubled just working remote/hybrid for London companies around COVID. I much prefer the lifestyle now I work for a smaller company in Canterbury and get paid less for the role. Turns out all that extra travel and overtime ended up being materially worse for my quality of life. And my job is way more fun nowadays.

Re: We built our house for LAN parties (2024)

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But please don't pretend or be ignorant of the idea that there are many more people in the world now that can both see this and likely never attain it despite "hard work" or "good investments". Of course - I am one of them - but I can still appreciate the project. Edit: To add, I would probably refer to this purely as hard work, good investments AND lots of good luck and timing, as opposed to privilege.

Regarding investments, I can't believe how often people fail to understand that to make money by investing, you have to have money to invest in the first place! Getting rich by investing is a way to turn a small fortune into a bigger one. It's not a way to make a fortune in the first place. They both came from wealthy families. Of course they worked hard and applied themselves fully, without ever having money worries…

Yes indeed. I realize that the way I posed my response was as if I was angry at the person or people and not the last bit there about privilege.

I am quite joyous that the things I like to build and play with are also something aspirational and "exist" in bigger, cooler variants out there in the world. Seeing Space, so to speak, stirs the imagination and drives people in amazing ways sometimes.

It's the unfortunate mechanisms of the world and society and politics and business that partition this in uneven ways that hurts much more. I've met a lot of those very hard working people you describe I think, many times more over than myself in ways I sometimes find hard to admit. But that's what makes it emotionally poignant for me: we're both working hard, have visions, and neither have enough gas to get to the end of the road.

To wit: I can't afford to pay a professional team to design a product around my technology toys, and that likely precludes me in this particular decade from ever making it into something that would "make money" or "become useful" to more than myself. I'd need the "privilege" of living in a city or state where technologically capable people could spend their time talking about software tools and problems with me, and not living between jobs and family demands where that spare time simple can't be afforded. The trap of poverty, as insidious as it is. Someone with disposable income the size of my salary can toss that at a team for a month or two and end up with a shape that quickly evolves into their idea without a second thought.

My struggle - evident in my responses - is not feeling personally affronted when I know it's a nature of the world right now, and that doing what I think as "the right thing" sometimes means being pointed or unyielding in my beliefs. I'm still working on directing that into meaningful discourse.

Re: We built our house for LAN parties (2024)

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they are more lucky than privileged. Multiple IPO stock options, both well educated and high paying jobs and shared interests. They seem to have hit right timings multiple times. Things compound.

100%. It's hard work and good luck/timing, not privilege.

Cant always say its hardwork... As a people observer there seems to be a lot of people coasting, or doing as little as possible, and yet get promoted, or they get into really high paying positions. This is far more common in larger corporations, where the visibility is lower.

In smaller companies the people are definitely worth their weight in gold as if they are not doing the work its very visible.

Yeah, I am jealous, but such is life...

Re: We built our house for LAN parties (2024)

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean the guy is coming from Google so they actually made the world worse.

Ahh yes. The old "because they were within 10 feet of evil, they are evil." He didn't single-handedly stop Google, so he's guilty of perpetrating the evil himself, right? Go on, next you'll tell me about how your hands are clean. You've never so much as touched a product that made someone's life worse.

Being complicit in feeding a malicious whale is often just as bad as being the malicious whale. When 1000 people all thing "I'm not doing that many objectively bad things at this company," that's 1000 workers under 1 tiny group's control deciding the destinies and "luck" of millions. It's obfuscation of power and responsibility, and I think people "in tech" need to realize this and accept it more than they do right now.

If you work for Google, for Apple, for Amazon - if you derive a payment from The Whale and in turn the whale continues to thrive in some way because of your work, you are complicit. Whether or not you or society is ok with it is the problem to discuss.

Re: We built our house for LAN parties (2024)

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean the guy is coming from Google so they actually made the world worse.

Ahh yes. The old "because they were within 10 feet of evil, they are evil." He didn't single-handedly stop Google, so he's guilty of perpetrating the evil himself, right? Go on, next you'll tell me about how your hands are clean. You've never so much as touched a product that made someone's life worse.

He didn't have to stop Google from doing evil, but he could've refused to have his fortune coming from there.

> Go on, next you'll tell me about how your hands are clean.

They are as clean as they can be, which is a lot more that can be said from anyone who works at any FAANG (or Wall Street, or Big Oil...)

No one has been forced to work for Big Tech. No one ever said "I only took those $300k/year salary with those huge RSUs from Facebook because I couldn't find any other way to provide for my family" or "It was either working for OpenAI or washing dishes at an Olive Garden".

Re: We built our house for LAN parties (2024)

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they are more lucky than privileged. Multiple IPO stock options, both well educated and high paying jobs and shared interests. They seem to have hit right timings multiple times. Things compound.

100%. It's hard work and good luck/timing, not privilege.

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