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If someone could make this into an Android app with wifi hotspot functionality that would be awesome.
I wouldn't mind doing that, but not what sure you mean with "wifi hotspot functionality"?
All of these places have easily available wifi, good food, great people, and lots to do after work. If you're smart about it, there are even nice places just outside of these towns where you can camp (< 14 days) for free and still have 4G cell service.
One of the academic conferences in my field has been on a cruise on and off [1], for some of these reasons. One of the main things people like about it is that it keeps everyone together: everyone eats in the same dining room, drinks at the same bars, and it's easy to meet up and split off into impromptu discussing/working groups somewhere. Whereas in a big city people tend to diffuse, partly by income (well-paid peo…
I like the floating village concept, though, and I guess everyone would be pretty relaxed overall, maybe bring the family as well, and what a way to combine vacation with work!
I too work from a lot of different places, but I find that I absolutely need internet to be productive. Pulling a Gem for instance, or checking Stack Overflow. My favourite places to work are all-inclusive holiday resorts. Lanzarote and the Algarve most recently. Being all inclusive means there is no thought process in eating or drinking. Nor any need to shop, clean, cook. The most difficult thing is finding out what…
The Algarve rocks for work, surfing, sunny weather...and not much else ;-) Might head down for the winter again, would be my my 4th I think, and I still only grok about 5% of the language (Brazilian Portuguese is worlds easier for me to comprehend). My remote work setup is simple: rent an apartment with high speed internet for a few months and dive in.
In my humble opinion, this is a shitty idea. There are other quiet places with decent enough bandwidth that don't have the costs or risks of a cruise ship. My favorite one is the study section of the local library. I've also gone out to a cabin in the woods that only had a satellite link. My neighbor has soundproof walk-in closet. As for the risks of a cruise ship, if something goes wrong, your options are limited. I…
What things can go wrong on a cruise ship that are very bad for people onboard? Isn't a life boat just a short run away?
Downsides: You'll need a wireless hotspot since hotels charge too much for internet access (ones without resort fees). Starbucks is overpriced and there aren't many other coffee shops on the strip.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If someone could make this into an Android app with wifi hotspot functionality that would be awesome.
I wouldn't mind doing that, but not what sure you mean with "wifi hotspot functionality"?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
" How did we do it before there was such great online help like StackExchange?" Books. And if you were lucky you would buy 2 or 3 so you could triangulate something that didn't make sense. At least that is what I did. Also plenty of trying and iteration. Try this. Try that. For hours on end. (Not sure by your question if you had done this or were just asking btw.). When I bought a Unix system (mid 80's) it came with…
I hear you, and that's how I learned. :-) But I find it much tougher on the topics I'm learning today. Perhaps it's because the old stuff is hard wired because it needs to be, but I keep less of the new topics in long term memory because I can outsource that storage to Google?
A few years ago I built this php/mysql just to store things that I learned or figured out (correct syntax for rsync might be an example) so I wouldn't have to re google them. [1] But now what I'm seeing is that most things can be found by google quicker than in the format I am using the db for. (But it's still helpful because I can cut paste and edit). I also use a wiki to keep track of what I have found that is helpful. Putting something in the wiki seems to help a little.
My point is in the past there would have been much more memorization reinforcement (see [1] below) than today. My brain is totally getting lazy because it knows the answer is right at my fingertips one way or another. When I used to do the 3x5 cards [1] I typed it up, printed it, reduced it, pasted it and the act of creating and using those "flash" cards made me memorize the answers.
The other problem is the flood of information. To many cool and interesting things to test out and get the hang of. I remember back when I tried C for the first time (don't even think there was c++). Could work with that for a long time since there wasn't really anything else to play with. [2]
[1] Old way of doing this used to be 3x5 cards or those 8.5 x 11 plastic (can't think of the actual word for it) cheat sheets like "Unix Quick Reference". See: http://www.bookdepository.com/Unix-Inc-Barcharts/97815722239...
[2] I'm not a programmer but I do some programming to help with what I do. And have been doing it for a long time. So perhaps if I was doing this full time and my needs were different (instead of intermittent) this would be less of an issue for me.
(1) Internet access is "limited". I'll stick with "limited" because it's a mixed bag. It's been 5 years since I cruised, though not Mediterranean and was able to find flat rate per-day, however, the one day I broke down and purchased access I found it to be very unreliable (single shared satellite connection for the entire ship). This is the same for phone service. The last ship I was on had a ship-board cell "tower" that showed up as international and I can imagine even T-Mobile doesn't cover that in their zero roaming considering ship to shore calls were $9.00/minute from the suite. This also encourages my coworkers to think long and hard about whether or not to call me in an emergency.
(2) Everything is taken care of, including entertainment. I find it difficult to relax, even on vacation -- it's an exercise of planning what to eat, when to eat, what to see, what to do and when to do it. When "at sea", the cruise director provides a menu of what you can do and when. You pick. Very little energy is expelled in enjoying myself.
(3) When in port, same rules apply. You don't have enough time to plan some grand excursion, so you pick one or two things to do and head back. I always opt for a room with a window and have found that if the ship is oriented with me facing the shore, I can pick up free Wi-Fi from restaurants at shore for a fix (even when the ship is too big and has to be anchored at sea). This provides for a quick fix of internet and stretching.
Because there are many times of the day where there is literally nothing else to do, I find it's the only thing that slows my mind down. By day 7 or so I'm ready to be home again, and the weeks that follow my vacation are usually amazing. The time spent being forced to be alone with my thoughts results in me returning with new ideas, new ways to solve old problems and just a generally more positive outlook. It's the only vacation I take where I truly get the idea of taking time out to decompress.