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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

#361

Post by wellboy »

classisch wrote: post #345
intoverflow2 wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wonder what the harmful emissions from my flat and walk to work were vs the van. /s Smug statements about how wasteful people not living in these fringe conditions are always remind me of the Soylent founder lecturing about how doing laundry wastes water while also reordering all his clothes from china when they get dirty. [1] [1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/08/op-ed-how-i-gave-up-...

Agreed! The same goes for my solar panels: Yes, I use a renewable source of energy. But how many resources were required to built these panels and once they break, where do they go? I'm not quite sure the ecological footprint of my life style is smaller than of someone who lives in an apartment in Berlin. However since I live in the van, I pay way more attention to where I and others waste resources. Maybe a first st…

Solar panels make their ecological footprint after 3 years of use and last for 30 years. 80% of the material in solar panels is recycled from old solar panels.

So no matter how you turn it, solar panels are a lot alot more environmentally friendly than convential energy sources.

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#363

Post by keldaris »

solatic wrote: post #197
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 would any sane person leave the water running while brushing their teeth? a) the price of tap water being cheap enough that the difference in consumption between efficient and wasteful behavior not causing a meaningful enough difference in the bottom-line cost of the monthly water bill to affect a change in behavior b) sanity not being the same thing as morality, with the sane person not considering the waste o…

I'm not really sure how wasting a bit of water while brushing your teeth in Berlin could be considered particularly immoral or unethical. Berlin is, as far as I know, in no danger of water shortages and being more frugal with water in Berlin does nothing whatsoever for the billions of people in the world who have no or limited access to safe water supplies. Am I wrong?

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#364

Post by kelnos »

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 code on a 13" laptop screen, regardless of where I am. I have a 27" monitor on my desk at work that I never use. I find the lack of extra screen real-estate helps me focus.

(I used to code quite happily on an 11" MacBook Air, but Apple seems to have stopped caring about that line, so I abandoned them.)

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#365

Post by kelnos »

aidos wrote: post #172
coldtea wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm curious - don't people miss big monitors when coding on a laptop? No. Some of us work even more focused on a single smaller screen even than having 10 BS windows asking for our attention (and I include debuggers in those, the ultimate hop-around time sink for some developers). Besides, people managed to write software for several decades before larger than 14" screens became the norm. Heck, until the late seven…

This seems to have attracted a lot of downvotes, I guess because it's overtly antagonistic. But I too prefer to work on a smaller screen (and I have tried much larger monitors). I switch context and then just work in that context. I don't feel the need to be able to see a load of different things at the same time. Really though, it's subjective and everyone should just do what works best for them. It's the same discu…

> This seems to have attracted a lot of downvotes, I guess because it's overtly antagonistic.

A fine example of how it's really difficult to express tone via text (I read it as pretty breezy, not antagonistic), and why we should all attempt to apply the principle of charity to everything we read before assuming someone's being a dick.

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#366

Post by fencepost »

wallace_f wrote: post #347
irrational wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has living in a shuttle bus at all affected your relationships or love life?

Not the OP, but I had more and better relationships living in a $5,000 camper than a $1,700/mo apartment. Go figure. It was enough of a difference that I went from 30+ mins a day on multiple dating apps, to deactivating them all. Most of that probably had to do with better work/life balance and all that came with it: a happier life (and the more glowing, confident, adventurous and risk-taking personality that comes w…

For most people, living mobile means that you're going to encounter or have opportunity to encounter far more people on a daily basis than living in an apartment, house, condo, etc. Meeting more people means there are a lot more people that you could send up in a relationship with whether romantic or simply friends, and you're going to have met them in places where you and they have at least one shared interest.

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#367

Post by beebmam »

This is cool, but honestly I think there's a bigger problem that people don't seem to want to address: Housing affordability.

Why do we allow home prices to be so expensive? Simply no one from my (millenial) generation can afford to buy a house. Home prices are so beyond insane, and it's crippling my generation.

I make $200k a year and I'm unable to buy a house where I live. That's how fucked it is.

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#368

Post by yardie »

beebmam wrote: post #367

This is cool, but honestly I think there's a bigger problem that people don't seem to want to address: Housing affordability. Why do we allow home prices to be so expensive? Simply no one from my (millenial) generation can afford to buy a house. Home prices are so beyond insane, and it's crippling my generation. I make $200k a year and I'm unable to buy a house where I live. That's how fucked it is.

Remember all that money the various government treasuries loaned to banks to keep them afloat? Take a guess where it's being spent. There is so much currency in circulation due to quantitative easing that investors are running low on things to buy. So they are parking it in the few places they know to be safe; government bonds and real estate.

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#369

Post by screaminghawk »

beebmam wrote: post #367

This is cool, but honestly I think there's a bigger problem that people don't seem to want to address: Housing affordability. Why do we allow home prices to be so expensive? Simply no one from my (millenial) generation can afford to buy a house. Home prices are so beyond insane, and it's crippling my generation. I make $200k a year and I'm unable to buy a house where I live. That's how fucked it is.

A lot of people are going to jump on this comment and say something along the lines of "change your lifestyle and you can afford one".

That's not the problem here.

House prices (in my location) have risen from 4x the average annual salary to 10x. Like the above commentor, I'm better off than most and I can just barely manage to scrimp and save enough to enter the housing market, by buying the parents home at a slight discount. There's not much more I could sacrifice.

I have a huge advantage on the average Joe for a number of reasons and am still struggling. Sure, it's possible for me, but it's not possible for them. And that's the problem.

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#370

Post by cr0sh »

unkown-unknowns wrote: post #127
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…

Nice to see the prices of most of the things. How much has the car itself and all of the additions cost you total up until now, and how far into the two year period are you?

Depending on mileage and where you're at (plus any number of other "it's a jeep thing" factors), KBB puts the 2011 Wrangler Unlimited 4dr Rubicon at around $19-22k USD - which sounds about right to me (that's with standard options, white color).

You might be able to find it for less, but it is doubtful.

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