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150 days of living and coding in a van

ruby-on-wheels.github.io

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Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#301

Post by Tehnix »

mmahemoff wrote: post #94

I'm curious - don't people miss big monitors when coding on a laptop? I've done a fair amount of coding on laptops while travelling and it's okay, but I feel like a big monitor is optimal for most work and wouldn't want a permanent situation with just laptop. I like to have logs, command line, and editor all visible, and ideally a browser too. The editor alone is much more useful in a big window where you can see a f…

Personally, whenever I long for a second monitor, I'll use my iPad and hook it up via duet, which is usually only for web-dev where I need the browser to be a minimum size, with live reload. Else I heavily use spaces (macOS Mission Control thing), iTerm with quake/visor-style terminal on hotkey, and usually have my code wrap around 80 chars, which gives quite a bit of screen real estate leftover on a retina mac.

I greatly prefer mobility over a monitor, and back when I used to have extra monitors it didn't provide that much more of a benefit. It would still be as much of a context switch the distance my eyes would travel to that other space on the monitor, as pressing ctrl + 2 into my second space.

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#302

Post by tzs »

endymi0n wrote: post #229
koolba wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A huge desk, huge monitors, comfy executive chair, and a foot rest gives, IMHO, the best of all worlds.

This might be something for you two guys if you can afford it... http://mashable.com/2015/10/28/altwork-station-laying-down

I've thought of getting a dental exam chair and using it for something like that, mounting the monitor in place of the light.

Dental exam chairs can be quite comfortable. The ones my dentist uses are comfortable enough I've almost fallen asleep during cleanings.

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#303

Post by richardknop »

koevet wrote: post #148
mrnzc wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the OP. He is declaring his income in Germany.

That is interesting. I wish one could acquire a "nomadic" status and pay only a fraction of the income tax in the country he lives in for a given period. But that open a bigger sets of problem, like health insurance, etc.

It's gray area legally. If you have income in multiple countries you should pay income tax in each country (how much you earned while working there) but if you are just traveling in a van and don't have any residence and are on the move all the time, not sure how you can do that without it getting too messy. Probably easiest to just declare all income in home base country.

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#304

Post by [deleted] »

bshimmin wrote: post #35
grecy wrote: post #24

I am doing something somewhat related. I built a Jeep Wrangler into a house on wheels [1], and am driving around Africa for two years. I am freelancing for Magazines, and earning money through my website and social presence. I have not done any coding on this trip, mostly becuase I find it hard to get remote work that meets my flexibility needs - i.e. weeks off-grid and only occasional checkins/calls. Last time I dro…

I think work is the big issue with this sort of lifestyle (leaving aside children, as others have mentioned). Many remote gigs still want a daily standup, a weekly sprint retrospective and planning session, etc, and none of that really works if you're truly nomadic and can't really guarantee where you are or how good your Internet connexion is at any given time. The article talks about the flexibility of his lifestyl…

[deleted]

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#305

Post by jsjohnst »

egeozcan wrote: post #288
jsjohnst wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn’t see VESA mounts in your Amazon search that allow you to screw the stand into the monitor and into a solid surface (desk or wall) with an articulating arm that allows you to adjust the monitor’s location!?

Most of them had reviews about how hard it is to make them stay in place with heavier monitors. I can't even imagine what happens if I forget to fix them very carefully before moving and break hard while moving. But then, of course, I am half-joking. I actually did find myself doing that research but after realizing the sitcom scene I put myself in, I gave up quickly: I don't even have a driver's license, and I'm res…

When searching here in the US with query “vesa monitor wall mount” I find a bunch of ones which would be secure and work well (multiple of which I own). Maybe that’s not the case where you live (assuming you’re either European or Aussie based on the phrase “caravan-life”, but guess that’s not an accurate assumption possibly).

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#306

Post by crispyambulance »

logfromblammo wrote: post #285
majewsky wrote: post #190

> The amount of water that I used in Berlin to brush my teeth is probably enough for a whole day in my van. Maybe 80% of the water just flowed from the tap right into the drain without even touching my body. I hear things like that time and time again, and I can literally not understand it. Why would any sane person leave the water running while brushing their teeth? When I brush my teeth, the water runs for one seco…

Why don't you wet the brush by dipping it into the glass? Why even wet the brush at all? The inside of your mouth is already wet. But then again, I'm a bit of an oddball regarding tooth-brushing. In my view, the alcohol-based mouthwash is there to do a scorched-earth annihilation of all mouth bacteria, and the toothbrush is only there to break through biofilm and clear away all the tiny, tiny corpses. So I brush with…

Dude, you don't really want to try to do "scorched-earth" annihilation of all mouth bacteria-- or bacteria anywhere else for that matter. First, it won't work, you'll never get rid of all bacteria. Second, that's like taking the surviving bacteria "to the gym", clearing out the normal flora of bacteria, and replacing it with whatever nasties can survive your treatments.

Flossing and brushing (and some tongue scraping) is all that is necessary. Alcohol based mouthwash dehydrates the mouth a bit-- which might precipitate bad breath.

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#307

Post by mjbrownie »

jsjohnst wrote: post #298
mjbrownie wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're using the tablet for terminal stuff (log tailing etc), I've found just sshing into your laptop from the tablet using juice ssh or similar to be more stable as well as your laptop graphics card doesn't need to be rendering two screens

Agree re: using a tablet, but I was talking about the USB3 monitors that use a DisplayMate (think that’s the name) driver.

Ah sorry I mixed up with Duet in the gp

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#308

Post by eequah9L »

kbutler wrote: post #269
endymi0n wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might be something for you two guys if you can afford it... http://mashable.com/2015/10/28/altwork-station-laying-down

I can't see how the mouse would avoid sliding down, without adding unacceptable (and perhaps asymmetric) resistance to motion.

They mention magnets in the article. Presumably you get a custom keyboard and mouse?

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#309

Post by muse900 »

classisch wrote: post #49
d--b wrote: post #7

Good for him... I would totally hate the lack of space and comfort. I'd sleep really poorly at night when it's super hot in summer and cold in winter. I'd hate it to have to look for a good internet to work. I'd miss my friends all the time. I'd dislike having to socialize with random van neighbors every time I want to not dine alone. I wouldn't last a month of this...

Hey! I'm the author of that article. I respect your opinion and I totally agree that van life is not for everyone. However it's seems funny that I've never experienced one of your concerns: > I would totally hate the lack of space and comfort. I have 12 square meters and my bed is super comfortable. Most of the time I'm outside. Works perfect for me. > I'd sleep really poorly at night when it's super hot in summer an…

On top of that about the sleeping issue that the guy above is having: I grew up out of a town.

The fresh air and the much less polluted environment will allow you to sleep like a baby.

In reality while I was living at the middle of nowhere, I never had any issues sleeping. And i think the too worm/ too cold thing is just an excuse to yourself. There are other things in your mind, like stress etc that won't allow you to sleep well.

When I moved to London, I had quite a lot of trouble sleeping here and there, as I am having more stress etc.

Hopefully everything will be over in less than a month when I am moving back to the middle of nowhere and the new job I got is much less stressful etc.

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#310

Post by coldtea »

maaaats wrote: post #223
coldtea wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keeping the gate of what? As I wrote "some of us" prefer smaller/single screens for focus. If it doesn't work for you, or if you can manage NOT to get distracted by 5 open windows in 2 x 24" monitors, then more power to you.

It was your tone. It reeked of "real programmers" don't use debuggers etc.

Aah. I'd say real programmers use debugger when they make sense -- but lots of programmers use them to jump around checking this and that without any reasoning what is going on, and thus taking 5x the time of a simple printf.
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