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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

#331

Post by Boothroid »

crispyambulance wrote: post #306
logfromblammo wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There is research to prove that mouthwash helps also. But certainly brushing and flossing are the fundamentals. Tongue scraping is not. My partner works in this domain.

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#332

Post by Boothroid »

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…

No need to wet the brush - the toothpaste works better without it.

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#333

Post by toomuchtodo »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #330
toomuchtodo wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should start a club, one where none of us meet up in person :)

There might be some sense in that - pool together resources to rent or lease a large area to camp in, with centralized things like hot showers or kitchens with refridgerators, and maybe wifi, but otherwise mostly just spread-out campgrounds where people can go and not be bothered, but not so cut off as to be worried about breaking a leg and getting eaten by a coyote.

A commune of solitude if you will.

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#334

Post by robotmay »

codesnik wrote: post #80
robotmay wrote: post #31

I've met a few people living in vans/converted trucks when I've been in France. There's quite a few countries around with great regulations that let you park up in lots of places, e.g. in France there are regular places you can stay along the major roads for free, usually with decent facilities. I met a girl there this year who had converted a truck into a mobile home. It even had window boxes for her plants! Unfortu…

how's it going? I love to move around with my laptop, but nature is too damn distractive. Sun is too bright, stone under my ass is too cold, that view is too beautiful, oh, I'm already hungry, oh, it's sunset. That was a nice day, but I barely worked.

Glare on the screen can be difficult. Luckily most displays these days have retina-searing brightness options.

I take a solid-fuel stove out with me so I have a good supply of tea + food, which helps!

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#335

Post by cfn »

jvzr wrote: post #196
cfn wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be OK for sleeping but it is very hard to work. I spent a couple of Winters coding without heating with indoor temperatures around 12 Celsius and it was very hard. I wore mittens, bubble hat, a blanket and even an electric foot warmer and still had to stop working and walk a bit every now and then to warm up.

What's a bubble hat, if I may ask?

Sorry, bobble hat. It is a wool hat with a wool "ball" at the top. Search google images for wool bobble hat.

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#336

Post by vivab0rg »

bitexploder wrote: post #266
coldtea wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The core thing is that some people STILL like it -- including people who never lived in that era, and could trivially buy 3 30" monitors. And not because of primitivism reasons ("who needs fancy IDEs" etc), but because of a quite concrete reason: increased focus. In the era of 1000 distractions for programmers, it's perhaps more valid than it would have been in 1984. Then, if you had dual monitors, they'd still show…

Use an OS that doesn't attack you then. Ubuntu with i3 and I never see a single OS screen. On a 34" wide monitor it's editor, terminal, browser. Pixel edge to pixel edge. No fluff. No bullshit. No battling window sizing. It's like focus mode, only with more windows :)

+i3 life changer for programmer productivity!

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#337

Post by hutzlibu »

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…

I travel and code mobile a lot and yes, I do miss my 2 big monitors, I have in my office.

Especially if I only use my 10" Laptop. And then for example sitting in a loud, bumpy bus - well sure, office is much better.

But ... sitting on top of a mountain or somewhere else in the wilderness, is an awesome place to code. And combined with solar panels and camping equipment, can lead to very long and productive sessions(over days) ....

Because the outside beauty easily offsets the less comfortable workspace for me ...

But it also depends on the kind of work I do. If I have to do bugfixing ... that involve lots of logfiles, debugger-windows, console output etc. etc. than I am more productive in my office. But allmost everything else, especially designing a new module and also implementing it, I rather do outside ... much better inspiration.

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#338

Post by FuNe »

Living in a van might also be part of the answer to the skyrocketing rents wherever there are jobs worth their salt. Which -housing- is one of the real big markets that desperately needs to be disrupted as it siphons money out of the productive sector into the rentiers' black holes.

Disclaimer: Living/renting in Dublin/Ireland.

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#339

Post by GuB-42 »

classisch wrote: post #54

Hey everyone! I'm the author of that article. I just started the blog and still have a ton of things to write about. I like all the (critical) feedback. That inspires me for further blog posts. Thanks for reading!

Hey,

I am actually interested in the details. Though my situation was different, I actually lived in a van for 5 years.

So:

- How do you manage having no home address? Do you use PO boxes, do you have relatives who provide you with an address for administrative tasks (taxes, ...)? For me, I used my parents' address.

- Winter is coming! How do you plan for cold weather? Gas heater? And while going to the toilets or showering outside is great in the summer, it is much less fun during winter. Water tanks freezing may also be a problem. Winter was a bit rough but manageable in southern France, I can't imagine Germany... BTW, a heated blanket is a great ally, though it uses a bit of power.

- Your van is clearly a RV. RVs are not always welcome. Didn't you have too much trouble finding nice places that are also van-friendly? I suppose you also need internet coverage, access to grocery stores and laundries, a fresh water source and waste water disposal, etc...

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#340

Post by bemused »

driverdan wrote: post #295
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…

You can still have big monitors and live in a vehicle. I built my bus with a standing desk and a Dell 34" ultrawide monitor. Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/BUhYiNhFQOA/ I've seen others with projectors and big TVs. It's doable even in a standard size van.

got a 24" LG 1080p monitor in the van that needs less than 20W - doable with a small extra battery and 100W solar. the 4k monitors from LG are quite energy efficient as well (<30W)
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