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The entrepreneurial adventures of a coder living in a tent in the forest

thomasbacklund.com

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Re: The entrepreneurial adventures of a coder living in a tent in the forest

#61

Post by pasbesoin »

Luc wrote: post #55
mehmehshoe wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad you brought him up. I learned about him reading his book about solo sailing around the world in a 31 foot boat. Good read even if you aren't interested in sailing. Free ebook here: http://www.arachnoid.com/sailbook/

He used to post here on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=lutusp It's been a while, but perhaps he's on his boat.

I've found Lutus to be a valuable participant/contributor to HN. And, both inside and outside of HN, a kind if forthright person advocating for understanding of and quality in the topic at hand.

His work is well worth exploring.

I'm left wondering why I wrote this... "meta" comment. I guess because some of this insight and excellence seems to benefit from if not require a certain independence of spirit and perhaps a corresponding sense of perspective.

Re: The entrepreneurial adventures of a coder living in a tent in the forest

#62

Post by thomasbacklund »

Hi peeps,

This was a nice surprise getting on HN =)

First of all, I was a weirdo before I moved to the forest. But now I'm a very happy weirdo.

I do have 4G (LTE) broad band, so Internet is almost everywhere I go.

I come from Stockholm but I live now on a trail called Sörmlandsleden, it's a 1000 km long trail and for the moment I'm pretty far south from Stockholm. But the trail never goes out "into the wild".

I also think that there is a right time for things. What I need now is to blaze forward with the coding. That's this phase.

I take swims in the lake and keep clean, shave once a week. Wash my clothes.. So when I do go into town to buy food or meet someone, I do not look like some troll. So meeting potential customers is not a big problem. I just have to get up really early in the morning to get there.. =)

I'm happy so many both here on HN and on The ListServe are interested in coding in the forest and giving support.

When winter comes I do not know what I'll do, but coding in the snow is not an option. But I will not surrender to any "normal" life until the startup begins to move, according to my earlier pledge.

Thanks!

ps. there are no bears around here.

Re: The entrepreneurial adventures of a coder living in a tent in the forest

#63

Post by cobrausn »

thomasbacklund wrote: post #56
cobrausn wrote: post #48

Couldn't help but notice that his April entry refers to 'trying out new wilderness recipes', and his next May entry refers to 'a rough time with food poisoning'.

Haha, yeah.. But the food poisoning come from some nasty sliced pepper salami I had for dinner. (Can't even think about them..) That was one b a d day..... Luckily a friend of mine did a rescue mission and brought me some coke and salts in the evening.. =)

Hah, good to hear it. I've had a similar experience with chorizo... I used to love that wonderful spiced sausage. We are no longer on speaking terms.

Thanks for the post - it's rekindled my interest in spending some time outdoors, though I'll have to wait till the temperature returns to something reasonable.

Re: The entrepreneurial adventures of a coder living in a tent in the forest

#65

Post by thentic »

Arjuna wrote: post #44

This is awesome. Personally, I occasionally daydream of "escaping it all" and coding by the ocean. This piece reminded me of someone else who "escaped it all": Paul Lutus [1]. In the spring of 1976, he built a 12 x 16 foot (3.65 x 4.87 meter) cabin in Oregon and developed Apple Writer [2] on his Apple II. He documented his story in a piece entitled, Cottage Computer Programming [3]. [1] http://www.arachnoid.com/admin…

Boats provide some of the cheapest rent and best views in the Bay Area. Paid less than one year's worth of rent to buy a 42' motor boat and parked it over by Oakland where my monthly liveaboard slip fee is just over $500/month. If you need to be in or around SF and are trying to save on rent, I can't encourage people enough to try it out.

Re: The entrepreneurial adventures of a coder living in a tent in the forest

#66

Post by thomasbacklund »

czbond wrote: post #19

I wish more startups would spend all of their time out of doors in outdoor offices. I keep wanting an outdoor covered workspace here in Texas, even when it's 100 Farenheit outside. I think offices dull the senses, and separate us from the world.

Agree on that. There is some overhead in making food and taking care of the camp but there is also another peace of mind that (we'll see if) could be good for your creativity.

But in either way, I feel very good on the inside now. No stress. Just harmony. Still getting a lot of things done.

Re: The entrepreneurial adventures of a coder living in a tent in the forest

#67

Post by thomasbacklund »

adlpz wrote: post #15

This is amazing, but I can only thing of the terrible screen glare issues from working outdoors. Yuck!

It is some of a problem. Especially because I must keep display strength to a minimum to save battery. But it works. I use the colorsheme morning (think its part of solarized) in Vim and let the sun hit the screen. And then when the screen gets to hot I move to the shade and use Jellybeans colorsheme.

Re: The entrepreneurial adventures of a coder living in a tent in the forest

#68

Post by sailfast »

mehmehshoe wrote: post #54
Arjuna wrote: post #44

This is awesome. Personally, I occasionally daydream of "escaping it all" and coding by the ocean. This piece reminded me of someone else who "escaped it all": Paul Lutus [1]. In the spring of 1976, he built a 12 x 16 foot (3.65 x 4.87 meter) cabin in Oregon and developed Apple Writer [2] on his Apple II. He documented his story in a piece entitled, Cottage Computer Programming [3]. [1] http://www.arachnoid.com/admin…

Glad you brought him up. I learned about him reading his book about solo sailing around the world in a 31 foot boat. Good read even if you aren't interested in sailing. Free ebook here: http://www.arachnoid.com/sailbook/

Thank you for this link. As a sailor and coder this seems to be a great fit for me, and I'll be reading it right away. Much obliged.

Re: The entrepreneurial adventures of a coder living in a tent in the forest

#69

Post by xradionut »

mehmehshoe wrote: post #54
Arjuna wrote: post #44

This is awesome. Personally, I occasionally daydream of "escaping it all" and coding by the ocean. This piece reminded me of someone else who "escaped it all": Paul Lutus [1]. In the spring of 1976, he built a 12 x 16 foot (3.65 x 4.87 meter) cabin in Oregon and developed Apple Writer [2] on his Apple II. He documented his story in a piece entitled, Cottage Computer Programming [3]. [1] http://www.arachnoid.com/admin…

Glad you brought him up. I learned about him reading his book about solo sailing around the world in a 31 foot boat. Good read even if you aren't interested in sailing. Free ebook here: http://www.arachnoid.com/sailbook/

He's also a ham, I'm looking forward to using JRX once my buddy sends me back my Icom PCR.

Re: The entrepreneurial adventures of a coder living in a tent in the forest

#70

Post by sejje »

jonah wrote: post #52
virtualwhys wrote: post #47

In another life, long before taking up coding, I spent 6 months in the mountains of southern Spain (near Grenada) living in a Rainbow community where tepees were the lodging of choice. Amazing experience, obviously not much "work" getting done ;-)...except for this English guy, lived in a crude stone structure on the range across the way from where the community was situated. Somehow he had electricity, either throug…

I had childhood friends living way out in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. They had electricity and telephone service. On a pole at the bottom of their pasture was a directional antenna connected to a cordless telephone base station. One time we took a hike down the mountain, along the creek and up the other side. There was the homestead of the family who's telephone that was. They lived in a hexagonal treehouse and…

I spent a good amount of time in those mountains, I have family with property in Mt. Judea.

Wonderful place.

If I did what this man did (which I often contemplate), I would likely do it on their property--I have an open invitation.

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