12 ms·

Home computing for $5/month

174 points by wryun 9y ago

agumonkey 9y ago
A less blogspot heavy layout https://app.printfriendly.com/print?source=homepage&url_s=uGGC_~_PdN_~_PcS_~_PcSCnAqBEvpvGLmoyBtFCBGmsE_~_PcScabh_~_PcSai_~_PcSuBzr-pBzCHGvAt-sBE-fzBAGumuGzy https://app.printfriendly.com/print?source=homepage&url_s=uG...
Xoros 9y ago
So the choices stated are Google or Google or Google ? Nah, gonna keep my rapsberries.
- fhood 9y ago
  Rpi's have their own drawbacks. I'm beginning to worry I am purchasing new pi's for collecting rather than practical reasons.
  - RationPhantoms 9y ago
    It's started for me too. I just got a Pi Wireless Zero and I stumbled trying to explain to my misses what particular reason I purchased. I think I sounded like a sales engineer because I mumbled something like "Cloud", "Decentralized Internet" and Bitcoin. She just walked away.
  - swiley 9y ago
    You have to admit that being able to just reach into your desk drawer and pull one out whenever you need a computer for <insert thing> is super nice.
    - brewdad 9y ago
      My problem is that I never seem to have an available microSD to go with my unused rPis.
      - zdkl 9y ago
        Set up a RPi to flash disk images via a USB SDcard hub! I got tired of keeping track of the cards so I threw a small pile of them in the drawer and a script to pick from the handful of images I use & flash them.
    - lostmsu 9y ago
      Why can't you just spin up a VM?
      - blacksmith_tb 9y ago
        Like the parent, I tend to use them for servers/services on my LAN at home. So a VM on DigitalOcean or Vultr etc. would be on the wrong side of the firewall, and a VM on one of my 'real' computers wouldn't be available 24/7 since they are often sleeping. Plus it's nice be able to hook sensors to the GPIO pins.
  - remline 9y ago
    Yeah, I can't bring myself to "upgrade" to a RPi3 since I know my threshold for a desktop I might regularly use is 2gb in 32bit. Upgrading to a RPi2 was a pretty marginal benefit while I'm just playing with GPIO via ssh. Some of the clones look better but the community is too biased toward the RPi brand.
    - mrskeltal 9y ago
      What are the rpi clones that look better?
      - remline 9y ago
        The one I'm considering is orangePi, for example, their 2plus is available with 2gb. Everything bellow that is probably going to be headless and then the only meaningful differentiator for me is physical ethernet.
  - djhworld 9y ago
    I have 4 Pi's running in my flat, they're great! I have 1x Raspberry Pi 3 running docker that has the following containers running - A service I wrote to control my TV - A service I wrote that sends commands to a smart plug that turns my lamp on and off (I can then invoke it via curl and have setup Alfred workflows so I can do it from my mac) - GOGS to store private code repos and mirror ones on github - ZNC (IRC bouncer) - A service I wrote to present a dashboard of common things I like to glance at (e.g. twitter feed, pocket, pinboard, the weather etc) - A service I wrote that hooks up to Twilio to manage my voicemail - Portainer (a gui for managing docker containers) - A docker registry to store my custom images I have another Raspberry Pi 3 running Pi-Hole to block internet advertisements at the DNS level Then I have a Raspberry Pi 1 (model B) that runs NGINX to act as a reverse proxy to services in my network that I want to be exposed. These are all protected by SSL (LetsEncrypt) and client side certificates authentication. It also runs a service that updates a DNS record on AWS Route53 whenever my IP changes as I don't have a static IP. Then the last one is this https://github.com/djhworld/blinkt-tube-status https://github.com/djhworld/blinkt-tube-status I can't take credit for the case etc, but it's super handy in the mornings!
    - sokoloff 9y ago
      > A service I wrote that hooks up to Twilio to manage my voicemail Love to learn more about this.
      - djhworld 9y ago
        It's very simple at the moment, I have my phone forward all missed calls to a Twilio number, which has a webhook to my service. The service just says a message to the user, gives them the option to leave a voicemail, then I call the transcription API to try and transcribe the message into an SMS message (sort of like what Google Voice and Apple offers on iPhones but I don't have an iPhone and I believe Google Voice is only available in the US) I plan to do more with it soon, Twilio's transcription API is a bit rubbish, I think it might be geared towards American accents so it fails quite miserably with British ones with hilarious consequences.
    - heywire 9y ago
  - hedora 9y ago
    I lost lots of nerd cred when I bought an intel synology nas, but it is truely a turn-key solution. 20-30W idle, docker, vm's, and I hve it set to do crash consistent offsite backup of all that (and my data) to the cloud. It supports many storage services, vanilla rsync, other synologies, etc. It also lets me vpn into the house and stream locally stored music / video to my cell phone. This took a day or so to set up. Can't recommend it highly enough, but cost / performance / functionality are all > 10x a raspberry pi. The only thing it's missing is hdmi out + retro pi.
    - tylerf 9y ago
      Which Synology model did you purchase?
      - hedora 9y ago
        I got the DS916+. If I were buying today, I'd consider the DS1517+ (which has a faster cpu, can be upgraded to 10GBit, and supports m.2 slots for flash cache). These are the high end home/smb choices. You can go much cheaper and get 90% of the functionality from other synology models.
        tylerf 9y ago
        Thank you for the response!
- aclsid 9y ago
  My thoughts exactly. I keep seeing posts in Hacker News promoting Google Cloud through innocent looking blogs. Do not know if that was the case here, but there was another also from Australia, at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14809102 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14809102 I'm pretty sure the platform can hold its own being a Google product and all, but this reads a lot like the posts from Microsoft MVPs back in the day.
tyingq 9y ago
Also see https://johnlewis.ie/custom-chromebook-firmware/rom-download/ https://johnlewis.ie/custom-chromebook-firmware/rom-download... It's BIOS ROM code for (some) chromebooks and chromeboxes to allow you to run a normal Linux distribution. Not something like crouton, but regular Linux booting. I used it with an ASUS chromebox to get a cheap but decent desktop experience. It's a Celeron, but easy to upgrade the storage and memory (2 DIMM slots!).
- jws 9y ago
  Careful there. In some models if your battery goes totally flat the only way to unlock the BIOS to boot boot Linux involved a restore to defaults which erases your Linux partition. Been there. Lost a couple days of work over it. Gave away the chrome book.
  - tyingq 9y ago
    Setting the "GBB" flags is the fix for this on at least some platforms. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Chrome_OS_devices#Boot_to_SeaBIOS_by_default https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Chrome_OS_devices#Boot_...
VikingCoder 9y ago
Don't forget there's Termux and other apps, which give you a Linux Shell on Android devices... ...and new Chromebooks can run Android apps... So if you want a CLI, your Chromebook or your Android can get you there.
- rkeene2 9y ago
  Termux on ChromeOS is a terrible experience though. Basic things like ^W to delete a word will cause the Termux window to disappear. Copying is HORRIBLE, requiring you to treat your very precise pointing instrument like a tiny finger -- you have to move the mouse somewhere, hold down the button for a few seconds, move both ends of the selection, then click "Copy". Ctrl-<number> does things in ChromeOS rather than going to the terminal, so no quick switching of application windows. You can't run two instances of Termux on Chrome OS, which is a major bummer if you have multiple monitors. Really, most Android apps are a terrible desktop experience. They handle the mouse poorly, they handle multiple monitors poorly, few of them at this point can deal with being resized to arbitrary sized (i.e., you get only phone-aspect-ratio sized or full screen), they handle co-existing with other running processes poorly (i.e., if you change the focus from one window to another on a different monitor on an application playing a video the video pauses).
  - VikingCoder 9y ago
    ^W to delete a word works perfectly. I'm running Termux on a Samsung Chromebook 3. Can you explain what you're running, so we can try to see why it doesn't work for you? Also, don't forget, you can run Termux in the background, with an sshd, and then run any SSH client you want to talk to it --- which puts the copy and paste into your control. Also, Termux is open source... So, if you have ideas about Copy and Paste, you can try to implement them. To switch application windows in Termux, Control-Alt-C makes a new window, Control-Alt-N goes to next, Control-Alt-P goes to previous. It works great, and is super quick. You can run multiple Termux Application Windows, and then you can run multiple SSH clients, so multiple monitors will work. I know some of these are kind of hacks, but I'm just trying to be helpful. Android Apps do handle the mouse terribly, no argument.
mindslight 9y ago
More like a how-to for computing poverty! It even has the parallels of predatory landlords ("Google Cloud") and sharecropping (Chromebook/Android). A 35W draw will cost you $5/mo at $0.20/kWh. This will either let you run an oldish laptop continuously, or you can go down the path of newer hardware to optimize your constant draw, and spend that energy budget on in-use amenities (nice monitor or faster processing). But looking at the bigger picture, why would you want to set a limit on your computing costs so low? Today's dominant business model is to use scaled computational processes to trick people into overpaying for products/services. One of the least prudent things an individual could do is further hinder their ability to exercise their own computational agency!
- wlesieutre 9y ago
  Assuming I did my math right, your cost estimate assumes 714 hours/month, or 23 hours/day. I'm guessing that's 24/7 usage plus some rounding? Clearly that's not a realistic usage, but beyond that I'd say 35W is a high estimate even during use. CodingHorror has some numbers for a Dell XPS M1330 [1], a laptop from 2008 with a Core 2 Duo (2 GHz) and 13.3" display. Idle at max screen brightness is 20W, wifi bandwidth test bumps it up to 24W. Running an instance of prime95 pushes it up to 50W, but most people don't do that. Especially with hardware accelerated video, I don't think people are spending the majority of their computer use with the CPU pegged. A home laptop probably spends 18+ hours a day off/asleep, and the maybe 6 hours of use aren't going to all be heavy loads. [1] https://blog.codinghorror.com/revisiting-how-much-power-does-my-laptop-really-use/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/revisiting-how-much-power-does...
  - mindslight 9y ago
    OP mentioned a server, so 24/7 is indeed what I was shooting for. 35W was a figure from when I plugged a Thinkpad T61 (Core 2 duo, as well) into a Kill-a-Watt. I actually did use that machine as a traveling server. You can obviously buy newer tech for even better power efficiency, but that gets into a discussion of accounting for capital cost vs recurring.
    - 9y ago
ben_jones 9y ago
You know what would be an interesting consumer product? A $100 black box you can plug into your home network that runs email, media, and social, applications with no hassle. Knock out dependencies on a dozen third party services in one fell swoop. EDIT: to clarify, I believe consumer hardware has progressed enough to provide an elegant solution to a slew of simple cloud services which people pay monthly for, i.e. storage. The markup on simple software that is hosted in the cloud is just too high. Now convincing investors to touch a hardware start-up with a 10ft pole...
- jrochkind1 9y ago
  Gonna get _so_ hacked. Eventually this is gonna happen but it's gonna be a mostly cloud service, perhaps with an integrated proprietary non-customizable auto-updating chromecast/appleTV like box for media locally. And Google or Apple will sell it to you. I mean, this is what they're already trying to do, but it's not all as integrated as it oughta be.
- CharlesW 9y ago
  > You know what would be an interesting consumer product? A $100 black box you can plug into your home network that runs email, media, and social, applications with no hassle. This basically exists, no? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0181JTPCU/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0181JTPCU/
  - Mister_Snuggles 9y ago
    I think ben_jones is trying to imply that the black box would BE your email server, etc. He did say "Knock out dependencies on a dozen third party services in one fell swoop.", which seems to strongly imply not relying on an email provider, social network provider, etc.
  - ramses0 9y ago
    I think he's talking about _services_ not the interface to them, ie: gmail.com, dropbox.com, facebook.com (which is weird, so maybe call it IRC/Usenet?).
- 9y ago
claudiulodro 9y ago
No way a cheap $150 Chromebook will last 4 years. I've been buying Chromebooks for my wife for a while now and you really do get what you pay for. It's like that parable with the poor and rich person's boots. Sub-$200 Chromebooks are plastic so they break easily. I've had issues with keyboard switches not working any more. The hole where the power adapter plugs in gets loose and stops making a good connection. You're looking at about 2 years of everyday use before something critical breaks MAX. A good, aluminum Chromebook that will actually last a few years of everyday use is about $300.
- chocolatebunny 9y ago
  Where are you getting a $300 aluminum Chromebook?
  - keenerd 9y ago
    My Asus C100P was around $280 when it was released. It is now down to $230. The 4GB model specifically, because it is my daily driver and I do my dev work on it. I do "actual computing" on it too, since it is has way more ram and disk than any of my cloud stuff.
    - jajern 9y ago
      Do you still have ChromeOS on it?
      - keenerd 9y ago
        Of course not. I've documented some of that: http://kmkeen.com/c100p-tweaks/ http://kmkeen.com/c100p-tweaks/
  - AdmiralAsshat 9y ago
    These days you can find a first-gen Chromebook Pixel for about $300 or so: https://swappa.com/buy/google-chromebook-pixel-1st-gen-lte-unlocked https://swappa.com/buy/google-chromebook-pixel-1st-gen-lte-u... If you don't mind that it's four years old at this point, it was by far the best Chromebook I ever used, and my girlfriend is still using it as her daily driver (I gave it to her because I thought it was too nice a piece of equipment to gather dust in a drawer).
xchaotic 9y ago
This completely ignores the the cost of setting up your cloud VMs, cost of downtime if your Internet is down etc. Sure an actual home server might be more expensive in electricty alone, but you can keep your VMs there 24/7 for not extra cost or hassle. If it takes you a day a month to spin up new instances in extra dmin work, then that alone eats way morethan $5 saved in electricity. Not to mention that you can actually own your server et etc...
- wryun 9y ago
  [OP] You can keep the boot drive there 24/7 though (and that's factored in), so there's a very low setup cost. True, if your internet is down...
EADGBE 9y ago
I'm pretty sure our infatuation with service-model pricing will ruin us all. It's already ruined music for the majority of musicians.
- gertef 9y ago
  How were musicians doing before?
  - EADGBE 9y ago
    See previous reply, but I get the cheeky comment.
- winslow 9y ago
  Can you expand on that? It's an interesting parallel that you draw. I'm going out on a limb and implying you mean that the small price per month is going to eventually implode and engineers aren't going to be making as much money in the future similar to how a musician gets a very small portion of the cost of a music stream?
  - EADGBE 9y ago
    The only thing I meant by that was the relatively small revenue created for the performing musician when paid out by stream, vs when paid out by royalties of album sales. But when the people don't want albums, what do we expect? Today, we listen to music more than ever, but only those supported by a large audience really see any benefit from the streaming model. People just aren't spending the kind of money they used to on music, and it's affecting the music itself. [1] Years ago (for a solid 10-20 years) your average unsigned regional band could do well on CD sales alone. Yeah, it was up to them to make a good album, but the sale of 100 albums (which could easily happen over the course of one or two good nights), assuming 100% ownership could give the band $1,000-$1,300 to split. In retrospect now, they'd need about 1,800 downloads to achieve the same thing (Which people don't even really do anymore). Or ~70k-700k streams just to hit that same number. [2] Ironically, I just heard of a Netflix suit suggesting something similar for movies[3]. I'd imagine if this was to happen, we'd see the same thing in Hollywood: a tightening of belts high up the food chain which may or may not affect A-list actors; but an otherwise decimation of the lower market. AMC has a nice quote (Although, they'd naturally be opposed to such a thing, so take it with a grain of salt): "...[the] price level is unsustainable and only sets up consumers for ultimate disappointment down the road if or when the product can no longer be fulfilled." [1] https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/shrinknp_800_800/AAEAAQAAAAAAAAJXAAAAJDc1ZjI1Y2U2LTY3NjEtNDRmZC1hMTFlLTllNmMzNTZiMWJjNQ.png https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/shrinknp_800_800/AAEAAQAAAAA... (I wish I could find something to 2016, but not a graphic like this) [2] http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/how-much-do-music-artists-earn-online-2015-remix/ http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/how-muc... [3] https://qz.com/1055032/netflix-for-cinemas-moviepass-wants-to-you-to-go-to-the-cinema-as-much-as-you-like-for-10-a-month/ https://qz.com/1055032/netflix-for-cinemas-moviepass-wants-t...
IgorPartola 9y ago
I'd love to run hardware at my house. I have two modest sized servers already: one for storage and a few other things, and one for backups. My biggest issue isn't cost of running the stuff. The problem is the network: I am limited to a 5 Mbps upload on a goddamn commercial line*. I literally don't have an option for a faster connection. No static IP, no IPv6, no SLA, no anything. Do you know how long it takes to upload 1 TB over a link like this, while still having the web be usable? Because I do, and it's not pretty. This is why home computing isn't happening. I am not running a rendering farm or a BTC mining operation here, so just having CPU cycles is doing me no good. But being able to run small apps on a self hosted PaaS would be really great, and I can't do that, basically ever.
- chinathrow 9y ago
  Any Wireless ISP in the area? Sometimes one is only one or two repeaters away and bamm, 100mbi/s up and downstream.
  - metalliqaz 9y ago
    Sounds like he's talking about home computing, so I assume microwave is out of the question due to cost.
  - IgorPartola 9y ago
    Yes and now. There are some in the area but my specific house has super poor reception. Also, hosting web apps where the latency due to radios starts at 300ms is not something I really want. Wireless/Cellular is ok for some consumers but it's not great for my needs.
    - hedora 9y ago
      300ms latency is closer to geo-synchronous satellite than decent terrestrial broadband or even next gen satellite. Last time I used a WISP, the expected latency was something like half the best case for comcast or sonic dsl, and bandwidth was 6mbps symmetric. When set up right, latency is ~zero queuing delay plus the speed of light to a peering closet ~3 miles away. This was with Canopy gear and unwired ltd; unwired is at least one generation newer than that now. FWIW, Musk's rainbows-and-unicorns low orbit satellite internet is targeting 25ms.
matthberg 9y ago
A major hole I see in this plan is any sort of gaming beyond simple apps. Good luck with that.
- pault 9y ago
  I have an absurdly expensive MacBook for work, and I thought about building a gaming rig but didn't want to drop the ~$3k to get it (yes, I could build one for cheaper but I get carried away when I'm shopping and have a weakness for best-in-class components). I started looking into AWS gaming (very disappointing performance) and discovered paperspace, which has p5000 and p6000 16GB dedicated GPU instances. I think it's about $0.60/hr and I end up spending about $30/mo on my weekend gaming binges. I have 1000Mb google fiber (sorry) so YMMV if you have constrained bandwidth, but the p5000 is beastly and it has easily brushed aside every game I've thrown at it with ultra settings at 1440p (the parsec streaming client I use is capped at 1440p or I'd be running it at 2160p). Eventually the costs will catch up with me, but in the meantime I can't think of a good reason to buy my own hardware (aside from the urge to tinker). Obviously for personal computing I feel differently but for a gaming machine paperspace is very convenient. No affiliation, I'm just super happy with the product.
  - chadgeidel 9y ago
    Can you point to any writeups about this? The cost is low enough that I could just try it myself, but I do have one question about "controller support." I play PC Racing sims - I wonder about the support for wheel/pedals. I'm assuming VR is out of the question due to the latencies.
    - pault 9y ago
      Parsec supports controllers: https://faq.parsec.tv/articles/10080-setting-up-your-controllers https://faq.parsec.tv/articles/10080-setting-up-your-control... I don't think VR is supported, and yeah, even a low ping would make it a vomit comet anyway. Here's the pricing: https://www.paperspace.com/pricing https://www.paperspace.com/pricing You have to sign up and then request access to the GPU instances (each instance type has to be requested individually, unfortunately. I found the GPU+ instance to be a little underpowered, and the P5000 has been performant enough that I haven't bothered to try the P6000). I can take up to 24 hours to get access. Once you have that though, you can create an instance with the parsec image and it comes with all the drivers, as well as steam and EA origin pre-installed. The parsec client by default starts up without admin mode, which crashes a lot in my experience, so I log in using the browser client and restart the parsec server as admin manually. It's basically ready to go out of the box and the longest part of the setup is just waiting for your steam games to install.
bronz 9y ago
if you want to compute for 0 dollars per month, buy a decent laptop and go to star bucks and libraries.
- mdip 9y ago
  I'm guessing this was an intentionally snarky comment, but the article includes the cost of buying a Chromebook in the figures it provides so "buy a decent laptop" would have a monthly cost associated with it. In addition, Starbucks -- at least the one near me -- doesn't allow you to occupy a seat without purchasing something and since the Internet service offered there is subsidized by coffee ... very expensive coffee, at that ... the cost of using Starbucks[0] daily for 5 business days/over 4.5 weeks/month assuming you get away with buying only one Venti Starbucks regular coffee at USD$2.45 is about the cost of broadband at home, not including fuel to drive there and back (assuming you didn't walk/ride a bike)... and there's no preemptible VMs included with the brew. [0] I skipped library internet access because, at least for me, the performance is so bad at my public library I wouldn't consider that viable Internet service. And it smells like books there.
  - bronz 9y ago
    it wasnt snarky at all, i have no idea why people downvoted it. i am extremely poor and starbucks and libraries are great places to use the internet and get things done. ive never encountered a starbucks that made you buy something. but that doesnt matter because free wifi is everywhere. just find a safeway, a cafe, or any other such place. i actually prefer the slower speeds you typically find in those places because they are perfectly adequate for downloading documentation, pushing to github and so on, ie do productive things. but it makes wasting time on youtube very painful.
    - icebraining 9y ago
      i have no idea why people downvoted it Probably because you didn't include the laptop's price. If you spent $300 and it lasts you four years, that's already $6.25/month. Sure you get internet access for free, but so could the author, it's not like you can't take a Chromebook to Starbucks or the library.
SadWebDeveloper 9y ago
I have a friend that was doing something like that but he suddenly changed his mind when he lost his broadband internet connectivity for 2 weeks and put his "home computing" on a 4G/3G network.
viach 9y ago
I think that using cloud environment for development is very promising. I tried it with linode 8GB instance and the compilation speed of scala project was the same as on 2012 MBA. The problem is that you usually want some gui setup for IDE and things and you need to tune vnc to the limits it can offer. Docker didnt quite work for me, due to the ports hell or, probably, my wrong hands setup...
- wolco 9y ago
  The trend over the last few years is to work locally and push changes through git. Working remotely on a server gives you cloud abilities because you can easily switch devices and continue working. Having a cloud service provide the gui or editor is an option available now. But to have a local editor with ssh means you can work on your phone using a proper mobile editor you can run a full ide on your desktop or use vim directly on the server. The security and privacy of your code remains in your hands. Best of all worlds.
  - viach 9y ago
    Good point, regarding security. If you use company's vpn, using throwaway cloud server is questionable, to say the least.
- busterarm 9y ago
  http://coderoncode.com/tools/2017/04/16/vim-the-perfect-ide.html http://coderoncode.com/tools/2017/04/16/vim-the-perfect-ide.... I have a dedicated server in a datacenter somewhere that has essentially become my main dev machine. It can only be connected to through a VPN that I built/manage. It's a fantastic setup, honestly.
- Scarbutt 9y ago
  The problem is that you usually want some gui setup for IDE That's one of the primary reasons I have sticked with Emacs(with evil), tmux/screen is also essential.
jklinger410 9y ago
If I could slap the person on the blogger team who thought this layout was a good idea...
- cardiffspaceman 9y ago
  Agreed, my one visit I couldn't get the page to scroll at first except with the mouse wheel, which I don't normally scroll with. So that unfortunate animation sequence where it seemed like copies of the page were being dealt to me like cards, must have messed with the focus. It would have been easier to cope with an ad! To have someone talking from a position of simplicity and economy use such an excess of technical design to present it was a bit much. I would be surprised if the site renders decently on a chrome book. Ironically.
tlrobinson 9y ago
I've been wondering, is there some service that runs an SSH proxy that will automatically spin up a machine when I try to connect, and automatically spin it down after some idle period?
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  I've been meaning to try something along those lines with DigitalOcean, they have an API so presumably i can script starting a new instance and then SSH in to it; should take about 60s based on the manual route.
- jrowley 9y ago
  You could probably make something like this relatively easily with aws lambda.
- ViViDboarder 9y ago
  Yelp built something you can run on a server that will do that with Docker containers (https://github.com/Yelp/dockersh https://github.com/Yelp/dockersh) but for you to not pay for it during the downtime, you'd need someone else to provide this as a service to you.
alethiophile 9y ago
I'd pick a Raspberry Pi over an Android, just because with the Pi I could plug in an external HD. But in terms of what I actually do, I just run a full server as a NAS, and don't pay any attention to the power bill. Also, without external keyboard+display, using a laptop as my primary computer would ruin my body in a month flat. Ergonomics are important.
- wryun 9y ago
  If you choose the right device, you can plug an external HD in with something like: https://www.amazon.com/Micro-Charge-Cable-Adapter-Connector/dp/B01AU8E25A https://www.amazon.com/Micro-Charge-Cable-Adapter-Connector/... (not all will support charging and OTG at the same time)
pmlnr 9y ago
Forget chromebooks, get old thinkpads with some friendly linux. Cheaper and will actually last, unlike a chromebook.
metalliqaz 9y ago
This dude doesn't have any storage anywhere. I mean, I don't take many photos and even my photos use more than 50GB. I can't imagine anyone who makes a post like that requiring less than a Terabyte for all the stuff they create and/or download.
synicalx 9y ago
Some famous quotes from the author: "Ok honey, now type in gcloud compute instances create my-vm --zone us-central1-b --preemptible. But don't forget the --preemptible otherwise the bank will take our house." "You don't need a bigger screen than that." "Sorry kids, Google says you have to stop playing Minecraft now." "Oh don't mind that noise, telemarketers call the server sometimes." (These are obviously not quotes from the author)
sbochins 9y ago
Everything he's using is a Google product. If you want a 4k computer display, none of the options he listed will work. I'll stick with what I've got.
PeterStuer 9y ago
Must be a very fresh father to be blind to the primary computing needs of this child: gaming.

174 points by wryun 9y ago

A less blogspot heavy layout https://app.printfriendly.com/print?source=homepage&url_s=uGGC_~_PdN_~_PcS_~_PcSCnAqBEvpvGLmoyBtFCBGmsE_~_PcScabh_~_PcSai_~_PcSuBzr-pBzCHGvAt-sBE-fzBAGumuGzy https://app.printfriendly.com/print?source=homepage&url_s=uG...

Xoros 9y ago

So the choices stated are Google or Google or Google ? Nah, gonna keep my rapsberries.

fhood 9y ago
Rpi's have their own drawbacks. I'm beginning to worry I am purchasing new pi's for collecting rather than practical reasons.
- RationPhantoms 9y ago
  It's started for me too. I just got a Pi Wireless Zero and I stumbled trying to explain to my misses what particular reason I purchased. I think I sounded like a sales engineer because I mumbled something like "Cloud", "Decentralized Internet" and Bitcoin. She just walked away.
- swiley 9y ago
  You have to admit that being able to just reach into your desk drawer and pull one out whenever you need a computer for <insert thing> is super nice.
  - brewdad 9y ago
    My problem is that I never seem to have an available microSD to go with my unused rPis.
    - zdkl 9y ago
      Set up a RPi to flash disk images via a USB SDcard hub! I got tired of keeping track of the cards so I threw a small pile of them in the drawer and a script to pick from the handful of images I use & flash them.
  - lostmsu 9y ago
    Why can't you just spin up a VM?
    - blacksmith_tb 9y ago
      Like the parent, I tend to use them for servers/services on my LAN at home. So a VM on DigitalOcean or Vultr etc. would be on the wrong side of the firewall, and a VM on one of my 'real' computers wouldn't be available 24/7 since they are often sleeping. Plus it's nice be able to hook sensors to the GPIO pins.
- remline 9y ago
  Yeah, I can't bring myself to "upgrade" to a RPi3 since I know my threshold for a desktop I might regularly use is 2gb in 32bit. Upgrading to a RPi2 was a pretty marginal benefit while I'm just playing with GPIO via ssh. Some of the clones look better but the community is too biased toward the RPi brand.
  - mrskeltal 9y ago
    What are the rpi clones that look better?
    - remline 9y ago
      The one I'm considering is orangePi, for example, their 2plus is available with 2gb. Everything bellow that is probably going to be headless and then the only meaningful differentiator for me is physical ethernet.
- djhworld 9y ago
  I have 4 Pi's running in my flat, they're great! I have 1x Raspberry Pi 3 running docker that has the following containers running - A service I wrote to control my TV - A service I wrote that sends commands to a smart plug that turns my lamp on and off (I can then invoke it via curl and have setup Alfred workflows so I can do it from my mac) - GOGS to store private code repos and mirror ones on github - ZNC (IRC bouncer) - A service I wrote to present a dashboard of common things I like to glance at (e.g. twitter feed, pocket, pinboard, the weather etc) - A service I wrote that hooks up to Twilio to manage my voicemail - Portainer (a gui for managing docker containers) - A docker registry to store my custom images I have another Raspberry Pi 3 running Pi-Hole to block internet advertisements at the DNS level Then I have a Raspberry Pi 1 (model B) that runs NGINX to act as a reverse proxy to services in my network that I want to be exposed. These are all protected by SSL (LetsEncrypt) and client side certificates authentication. It also runs a service that updates a DNS record on AWS Route53 whenever my IP changes as I don't have a static IP. Then the last one is this https://github.com/djhworld/blinkt-tube-status https://github.com/djhworld/blinkt-tube-status I can't take credit for the case etc, but it's super handy in the mornings!
  - sokoloff 9y ago
    > A service I wrote that hooks up to Twilio to manage my voicemail Love to learn more about this.
    - djhworld 9y ago
      It's very simple at the moment, I have my phone forward all missed calls to a Twilio number, which has a webhook to my service. The service just says a message to the user, gives them the option to leave a voicemail, then I call the transcription API to try and transcribe the message into an SMS message (sort of like what Google Voice and Apple offers on iPhones but I don't have an iPhone and I believe Google Voice is only available in the US) I plan to do more with it soon, Twilio's transcription API is a bit rubbish, I think it might be geared towards American accents so it fails quite miserably with British ones with hilarious consequences.
  - heywire 9y ago
- hedora 9y ago
  I lost lots of nerd cred when I bought an intel synology nas, but it is truely a turn-key solution. 20-30W idle, docker, vm's, and I hve it set to do crash consistent offsite backup of all that (and my data) to the cloud. It supports many storage services, vanilla rsync, other synologies, etc. It also lets me vpn into the house and stream locally stored music / video to my cell phone. This took a day or so to set up. Can't recommend it highly enough, but cost / performance / functionality are all > 10x a raspberry pi. The only thing it's missing is hdmi out + retro pi.
  - tylerf 9y ago
    Which Synology model did you purchase?
    - hedora 9y ago
      I got the DS916+. If I were buying today, I'd consider the DS1517+ (which has a faster cpu, can be upgraded to 10GBit, and supports m.2 slots for flash cache). These are the high end home/smb choices. You can go much cheaper and get 90% of the functionality from other synology models.
      - tylerf 9y ago
        Thank you for the response!
aclsid 9y ago
My thoughts exactly. I keep seeing posts in Hacker News promoting Google Cloud through innocent looking blogs. Do not know if that was the case here, but there was another also from Australia, at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14809102 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14809102 I'm pretty sure the platform can hold its own being a Google product and all, but this reads a lot like the posts from Microsoft MVPs back in the day.

tyingq 9y ago

Also see https://johnlewis.ie/custom-chromebook-firmware/rom-download/ https://johnlewis.ie/custom-chromebook-firmware/rom-download... It's BIOS ROM code for (some) chromebooks and chromeboxes to allow you to run a normal Linux distribution. Not something like crouton, but regular Linux booting. I used it with an ASUS chromebox to get a cheap but decent desktop experience. It's a Celeron, but easy to upgrade the storage and memory (2 DIMM slots!).

jws 9y ago
Careful there. In some models if your battery goes totally flat the only way to unlock the BIOS to boot boot Linux involved a restore to defaults which erases your Linux partition. Been there. Lost a couple days of work over it. Gave away the chrome book.
- tyingq 9y ago
  Setting the "GBB" flags is the fix for this on at least some platforms. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Chrome_OS_devices#Boot_to_SeaBIOS_by_default https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Chrome_OS_devices#Boot_...

VikingCoder 9y ago

Don't forget there's Termux and other apps, which give you a Linux Shell on Android devices... ...and new Chromebooks can run Android apps... So if you want a CLI, your Chromebook or your Android can get you there.

rkeene2 9y ago
Termux on ChromeOS is a terrible experience though. Basic things like ^W to delete a word will cause the Termux window to disappear. Copying is HORRIBLE, requiring you to treat your very precise pointing instrument like a tiny finger -- you have to move the mouse somewhere, hold down the button for a few seconds, move both ends of the selection, then click "Copy". Ctrl-<number> does things in ChromeOS rather than going to the terminal, so no quick switching of application windows. You can't run two instances of Termux on Chrome OS, which is a major bummer if you have multiple monitors. Really, most Android apps are a terrible desktop experience. They handle the mouse poorly, they handle multiple monitors poorly, few of them at this point can deal with being resized to arbitrary sized (i.e., you get only phone-aspect-ratio sized or full screen), they handle co-existing with other running processes poorly (i.e., if you change the focus from one window to another on a different monitor on an application playing a video the video pauses).
- VikingCoder 9y ago
  ^W to delete a word works perfectly. I'm running Termux on a Samsung Chromebook 3. Can you explain what you're running, so we can try to see why it doesn't work for you? Also, don't forget, you can run Termux in the background, with an sshd, and then run any SSH client you want to talk to it --- which puts the copy and paste into your control. Also, Termux is open source... So, if you have ideas about Copy and Paste, you can try to implement them. To switch application windows in Termux, Control-Alt-C makes a new window, Control-Alt-N goes to next, Control-Alt-P goes to previous. It works great, and is super quick. You can run multiple Termux Application Windows, and then you can run multiple SSH clients, so multiple monitors will work. I know some of these are kind of hacks, but I'm just trying to be helpful. Android Apps do handle the mouse terribly, no argument.

mindslight 9y ago

More like a how-to for computing poverty! It even has the parallels of predatory landlords ("Google Cloud") and sharecropping (Chromebook/Android). A 35W draw will cost you $5/mo at $0.20/kWh. This will either let you run an oldish laptop continuously, or you can go down the path of newer hardware to optimize your constant draw, and spend that energy budget on in-use amenities (nice monitor or faster processing). But looking at the bigger picture, why would you want to set a limit on your computing costs so low? Today's dominant business model is to use scaled computational processes to trick people into overpaying for products/services. One of the least prudent things an individual could do is further hinder their ability to exercise their own computational agency!

wlesieutre 9y ago
Assuming I did my math right, your cost estimate assumes 714 hours/month, or 23 hours/day. I'm guessing that's 24/7 usage plus some rounding? Clearly that's not a realistic usage, but beyond that I'd say 35W is a high estimate even during use. CodingHorror has some numbers for a Dell XPS M1330 [1], a laptop from 2008 with a Core 2 Duo (2 GHz) and 13.3" display. Idle at max screen brightness is 20W, wifi bandwidth test bumps it up to 24W. Running an instance of prime95 pushes it up to 50W, but most people don't do that. Especially with hardware accelerated video, I don't think people are spending the majority of their computer use with the CPU pegged. A home laptop probably spends 18+ hours a day off/asleep, and the maybe 6 hours of use aren't going to all be heavy loads. [1] https://blog.codinghorror.com/revisiting-how-much-power-does-my-laptop-really-use/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/revisiting-how-much-power-does...
- mindslight 9y ago
  OP mentioned a server, so 24/7 is indeed what I was shooting for. 35W was a figure from when I plugged a Thinkpad T61 (Core 2 duo, as well) into a Kill-a-Watt. I actually did use that machine as a traveling server. You can obviously buy newer tech for even better power efficiency, but that gets into a discussion of accounting for capital cost vs recurring.
  - 9y ago

ben_jones 9y ago

You know what would be an interesting consumer product? A $100 black box you can plug into your home network that runs email, media, and social, applications with no hassle. Knock out dependencies on a dozen third party services in one fell swoop. EDIT: to clarify, I believe consumer hardware has progressed enough to provide an elegant solution to a slew of simple cloud services which people pay monthly for, i.e. storage. The markup on simple software that is hosted in the cloud is just too high. Now convincing investors to touch a hardware start-up with a 10ft pole...

jrochkind1 9y ago
Gonna get _so_ hacked. Eventually this is gonna happen but it's gonna be a mostly cloud service, perhaps with an integrated proprietary non-customizable auto-updating chromecast/appleTV like box for media locally. And Google or Apple will sell it to you. I mean, this is what they're already trying to do, but it's not all as integrated as it oughta be.
CharlesW 9y ago
> You know what would be an interesting consumer product? A $100 black box you can plug into your home network that runs email, media, and social, applications with no hassle. This basically exists, no? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0181JTPCU/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0181JTPCU/
- Mister_Snuggles 9y ago
  I think ben_jones is trying to imply that the black box would BE your email server, etc. He did say "Knock out dependencies on a dozen third party services in one fell swoop.", which seems to strongly imply not relying on an email provider, social network provider, etc.
- ramses0 9y ago
  I think he's talking about _services_ not the interface to them, ie: gmail.com, dropbox.com, facebook.com (which is weird, so maybe call it IRC/Usenet?).
9y ago

claudiulodro 9y ago

No way a cheap $150 Chromebook will last 4 years. I've been buying Chromebooks for my wife for a while now and you really do get what you pay for. It's like that parable with the poor and rich person's boots. Sub-$200 Chromebooks are plastic so they break easily. I've had issues with keyboard switches not working any more. The hole where the power adapter plugs in gets loose and stops making a good connection. You're looking at about 2 years of everyday use before something critical breaks MAX. A good, aluminum Chromebook that will actually last a few years of everyday use is about $300.

chocolatebunny 9y ago
Where are you getting a $300 aluminum Chromebook?
- keenerd 9y ago
  My Asus C100P was around $280 when it was released. It is now down to $230. The 4GB model specifically, because it is my daily driver and I do my dev work on it. I do "actual computing" on it too, since it is has way more ram and disk than any of my cloud stuff.
  - jajern 9y ago
    Do you still have ChromeOS on it?
    - keenerd 9y ago
      Of course not. I've documented some of that: http://kmkeen.com/c100p-tweaks/ http://kmkeen.com/c100p-tweaks/
- AdmiralAsshat 9y ago
  These days you can find a first-gen Chromebook Pixel for about $300 or so: https://swappa.com/buy/google-chromebook-pixel-1st-gen-lte-unlocked https://swappa.com/buy/google-chromebook-pixel-1st-gen-lte-u... If you don't mind that it's four years old at this point, it was by far the best Chromebook I ever used, and my girlfriend is still using it as her daily driver (I gave it to her because I thought it was too nice a piece of equipment to gather dust in a drawer).

xchaotic 9y ago

This completely ignores the the cost of setting up your cloud VMs, cost of downtime if your Internet is down etc. Sure an actual home server might be more expensive in electricty alone, but you can keep your VMs there 24/7 for not extra cost or hassle. If it takes you a day a month to spin up new instances in extra dmin work, then that alone eats way morethan $5 saved in electricity. Not to mention that you can actually own your server et etc...

wryun 9y ago
[OP] You can keep the boot drive there 24/7 though (and that's factored in), so there's a very low setup cost. True, if your internet is down...

EADGBE 9y ago

I'm pretty sure our infatuation with service-model pricing will ruin us all. It's already ruined music for the majority of musicians.

gertef 9y ago
How were musicians doing before?
- EADGBE 9y ago
  See previous reply, but I get the cheeky comment.
winslow 9y ago
Can you expand on that? It's an interesting parallel that you draw. I'm going out on a limb and implying you mean that the small price per month is going to eventually implode and engineers aren't going to be making as much money in the future similar to how a musician gets a very small portion of the cost of a music stream?
- EADGBE 9y ago
  The only thing I meant by that was the relatively small revenue created for the performing musician when paid out by stream, vs when paid out by royalties of album sales. But when the people don't want albums, what do we expect? Today, we listen to music more than ever, but only those supported by a large audience really see any benefit from the streaming model. People just aren't spending the kind of money they used to on music, and it's affecting the music itself. [1] Years ago (for a solid 10-20 years) your average unsigned regional band could do well on CD sales alone. Yeah, it was up to them to make a good album, but the sale of 100 albums (which could easily happen over the course of one or two good nights), assuming 100% ownership could give the band $1,000-$1,300 to split. In retrospect now, they'd need about 1,800 downloads to achieve the same thing (Which people don't even really do anymore). Or ~70k-700k streams just to hit that same number. [2] Ironically, I just heard of a Netflix suit suggesting something similar for movies[3]. I'd imagine if this was to happen, we'd see the same thing in Hollywood: a tightening of belts high up the food chain which may or may not affect A-list actors; but an otherwise decimation of the lower market. AMC has a nice quote (Although, they'd naturally be opposed to such a thing, so take it with a grain of salt): "...[the] price level is unsustainable and only sets up consumers for ultimate disappointment down the road if or when the product can no longer be fulfilled." [1] https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/shrinknp_800_800/AAEAAQAAAAAAAAJXAAAAJDc1ZjI1Y2U2LTY3NjEtNDRmZC1hMTFlLTllNmMzNTZiMWJjNQ.png https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/shrinknp_800_800/AAEAAQAAAAA... (I wish I could find something to 2016, but not a graphic like this) [2] http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/how-much-do-music-artists-earn-online-2015-remix/ http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/how-muc... [3] https://qz.com/1055032/netflix-for-cinemas-moviepass-wants-to-you-to-go-to-the-cinema-as-much-as-you-like-for-10-a-month/ https://qz.com/1055032/netflix-for-cinemas-moviepass-wants-t...

IgorPartola 9y ago

I'd love to run hardware at my house. I have two modest sized servers already: one for storage and a few other things, and one for backups. My biggest issue isn't cost of running the stuff. The problem is the network: I am limited to a 5 Mbps upload on a goddamn commercial line*. I literally don't have an option for a faster connection. No static IP, no IPv6, no SLA, no anything. Do you know how long it takes to upload 1 TB over a link like this, while still having the web be usable? Because I do, and it's not pretty. This is why home computing isn't happening. I am not running a rendering farm or a BTC mining operation here, so just having CPU cycles is doing me no good. But being able to run small apps on a self hosted PaaS would be really great, and I can't do that, basically ever.

chinathrow 9y ago
Any Wireless ISP in the area? Sometimes one is only one or two repeaters away and bamm, 100mbi/s up and downstream.
- metalliqaz 9y ago
  Sounds like he's talking about home computing, so I assume microwave is out of the question due to cost.
- IgorPartola 9y ago
  Yes and now. There are some in the area but my specific house has super poor reception. Also, hosting web apps where the latency due to radios starts at 300ms is not something I really want. Wireless/Cellular is ok for some consumers but it's not great for my needs.
  - hedora 9y ago
    300ms latency is closer to geo-synchronous satellite than decent terrestrial broadband or even next gen satellite. Last time I used a WISP, the expected latency was something like half the best case for comcast or sonic dsl, and bandwidth was 6mbps symmetric. When set up right, latency is ~zero queuing delay plus the speed of light to a peering closet ~3 miles away. This was with Canopy gear and unwired ltd; unwired is at least one generation newer than that now. FWIW, Musk's rainbows-and-unicorns low orbit satellite internet is targeting 25ms.

matthberg 9y ago

A major hole I see in this plan is any sort of gaming beyond simple apps. Good luck with that.

pault 9y ago
I have an absurdly expensive MacBook for work, and I thought about building a gaming rig but didn't want to drop the ~$3k to get it (yes, I could build one for cheaper but I get carried away when I'm shopping and have a weakness for best-in-class components). I started looking into AWS gaming (very disappointing performance) and discovered paperspace, which has p5000 and p6000 16GB dedicated GPU instances. I think it's about $0.60/hr and I end up spending about $30/mo on my weekend gaming binges. I have 1000Mb google fiber (sorry) so YMMV if you have constrained bandwidth, but the p5000 is beastly and it has easily brushed aside every game I've thrown at it with ultra settings at 1440p (the parsec streaming client I use is capped at 1440p or I'd be running it at 2160p). Eventually the costs will catch up with me, but in the meantime I can't think of a good reason to buy my own hardware (aside from the urge to tinker). Obviously for personal computing I feel differently but for a gaming machine paperspace is very convenient. No affiliation, I'm just super happy with the product.
- chadgeidel 9y ago
  Can you point to any writeups about this? The cost is low enough that I could just try it myself, but I do have one question about "controller support." I play PC Racing sims - I wonder about the support for wheel/pedals. I'm assuming VR is out of the question due to the latencies.
  - pault 9y ago
    Parsec supports controllers: https://faq.parsec.tv/articles/10080-setting-up-your-controllers https://faq.parsec.tv/articles/10080-setting-up-your-control... I don't think VR is supported, and yeah, even a low ping would make it a vomit comet anyway. Here's the pricing: https://www.paperspace.com/pricing https://www.paperspace.com/pricing You have to sign up and then request access to the GPU instances (each instance type has to be requested individually, unfortunately. I found the GPU+ instance to be a little underpowered, and the P5000 has been performant enough that I haven't bothered to try the P6000). I can take up to 24 hours to get access. Once you have that though, you can create an instance with the parsec image and it comes with all the drivers, as well as steam and EA origin pre-installed. The parsec client by default starts up without admin mode, which crashes a lot in my experience, so I log in using the browser client and restart the parsec server as admin manually. It's basically ready to go out of the box and the longest part of the setup is just waiting for your steam games to install.

bronz 9y ago

if you want to compute for 0 dollars per month, buy a decent laptop and go to star bucks and libraries.

mdip 9y ago
I'm guessing this was an intentionally snarky comment, but the article includes the cost of buying a Chromebook in the figures it provides so "buy a decent laptop" would have a monthly cost associated with it. In addition, Starbucks -- at least the one near me -- doesn't allow you to occupy a seat without purchasing something and since the Internet service offered there is subsidized by coffee ... very expensive coffee, at that ... the cost of using Starbucks[0] daily for 5 business days/over 4.5 weeks/month assuming you get away with buying only one Venti Starbucks regular coffee at USD$2.45 is about the cost of broadband at home, not including fuel to drive there and back (assuming you didn't walk/ride a bike)... and there's no preemptible VMs included with the brew. [0] I skipped library internet access because, at least for me, the performance is so bad at my public library I wouldn't consider that viable Internet service. And it smells like books there.
- bronz 9y ago
  it wasnt snarky at all, i have no idea why people downvoted it. i am extremely poor and starbucks and libraries are great places to use the internet and get things done. ive never encountered a starbucks that made you buy something. but that doesnt matter because free wifi is everywhere. just find a safeway, a cafe, or any other such place. i actually prefer the slower speeds you typically find in those places because they are perfectly adequate for downloading documentation, pushing to github and so on, ie do productive things. but it makes wasting time on youtube very painful.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    i have no idea why people downvoted it Probably because you didn't include the laptop's price. If you spent $300 and it lasts you four years, that's already $6.25/month. Sure you get internet access for free, but so could the author, it's not like you can't take a Chromebook to Starbucks or the library.

SadWebDeveloper 9y ago

I have a friend that was doing something like that but he suddenly changed his mind when he lost his broadband internet connectivity for 2 weeks and put his "home computing" on a 4G/3G network.

viach 9y ago

I think that using cloud environment for development is very promising. I tried it with linode 8GB instance and the compilation speed of scala project was the same as on 2012 MBA. The problem is that you usually want some gui setup for IDE and things and you need to tune vnc to the limits it can offer. Docker didnt quite work for me, due to the ports hell or, probably, my wrong hands setup...

wolco 9y ago
The trend over the last few years is to work locally and push changes through git. Working remotely on a server gives you cloud abilities because you can easily switch devices and continue working. Having a cloud service provide the gui or editor is an option available now. But to have a local editor with ssh means you can work on your phone using a proper mobile editor you can run a full ide on your desktop or use vim directly on the server. The security and privacy of your code remains in your hands. Best of all worlds.
- viach 9y ago
  Good point, regarding security. If you use company's vpn, using throwaway cloud server is questionable, to say the least.
busterarm 9y ago
http://coderoncode.com/tools/2017/04/16/vim-the-perfect-ide.html http://coderoncode.com/tools/2017/04/16/vim-the-perfect-ide.... I have a dedicated server in a datacenter somewhere that has essentially become my main dev machine. It can only be connected to through a VPN that I built/manage. It's a fantastic setup, honestly.
Scarbutt 9y ago
The problem is that you usually want some gui setup for IDE That's one of the primary reasons I have sticked with Emacs(with evil), tmux/screen is also essential.

jklinger410 9y ago

If I could slap the person on the blogger team who thought this layout was a good idea...

cardiffspaceman 9y ago
Agreed, my one visit I couldn't get the page to scroll at first except with the mouse wheel, which I don't normally scroll with. So that unfortunate animation sequence where it seemed like copies of the page were being dealt to me like cards, must have messed with the focus. It would have been easier to cope with an ad! To have someone talking from a position of simplicity and economy use such an excess of technical design to present it was a bit much. I would be surprised if the site renders decently on a chrome book. Ironically.

tlrobinson 9y ago

I've been wondering, is there some service that runs an SSH proxy that will automatically spin up a machine when I try to connect, and automatically spin it down after some idle period?

pbhjpbhj 9y ago
I've been meaning to try something along those lines with DigitalOcean, they have an API so presumably i can script starting a new instance and then SSH in to it; should take about 60s based on the manual route.
jrowley 9y ago
You could probably make something like this relatively easily with aws lambda.
ViViDboarder 9y ago
Yelp built something you can run on a server that will do that with Docker containers (https://github.com/Yelp/dockersh https://github.com/Yelp/dockersh) but for you to not pay for it during the downtime, you'd need someone else to provide this as a service to you.

alethiophile 9y ago

I'd pick a Raspberry Pi over an Android, just because with the Pi I could plug in an external HD. But in terms of what I actually do, I just run a full server as a NAS, and don't pay any attention to the power bill. Also, without external keyboard+display, using a laptop as my primary computer would ruin my body in a month flat. Ergonomics are important.

wryun 9y ago
If you choose the right device, you can plug an external HD in with something like: https://www.amazon.com/Micro-Charge-Cable-Adapter-Connector/dp/B01AU8E25A https://www.amazon.com/Micro-Charge-Cable-Adapter-Connector/... (not all will support charging and OTG at the same time)

pmlnr 9y ago

Forget chromebooks, get old thinkpads with some friendly linux. Cheaper and will actually last, unlike a chromebook.

metalliqaz 9y ago

This dude doesn't have any storage anywhere. I mean, I don't take many photos and even my photos use more than 50GB. I can't imagine anyone who makes a post like that requiring less than a Terabyte for all the stuff they create and/or download.

synicalx 9y ago

Some famous quotes from the author: "Ok honey, now type in gcloud compute instances create my-vm --zone us-central1-b --preemptible. But don't forget the --preemptible otherwise the bank will take our house." "You don't need a bigger screen than that." "Sorry kids, Google says you have to stop playing Minecraft now." "Oh don't mind that noise, telemarketers call the server sometimes." (These are obviously not quotes from the author)

sbochins 9y ago

Everything he's using is a Google product. If you want a 4k computer display, none of the options he listed will work. I'll stick with what I've got.

PeterStuer 9y ago

Must be a very fresh father to be blind to the primary computing needs of this child: gaming.