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We built our house for LAN parties (2024)
- pringk02 18d ago[flagged]
- deleted 18d ago[deleted]
- usrme 18d agoAgreed. It's clear that the owners have considerable financial resources, but seemingly no one thought to hire an interior designer/architect to consider how the place looks or functions outside of the gaming aspect. If that's their style, then more power to them; it just seems incredibly generic and like wasted potential.
- darkwater 18d agoIf you read TFA you will see that the house was architected by his father, an accomplished architect.
- quietbritishjim 18d ago> Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that".
- asdfsa32 18d agoDid you look through the accomplishments? I don't mean to be crass but I like a bit of weight for "accomplished". I mean, the American Express office looks like a track stop or mall you will find along the highway.
- Nicook 18d agoYou should really go visit the musical instrument museum if you ever have the opportunity. Just the shortlist of his stuff is pretty objectively impressive, dunno maybe I'm replying to some secret famous person's account shrug.
- harvey9 18d agoI used to work for a firm that did custom homes for wealthy clients. Even when we paired them up with designers some of them just preferred a very plain appearance. That said, I thought the games room with rows of hide-away PCs looked like a call centre or at best a 90s internet cafe.
- arjie 18d agoThe building was designed by his dad Richard Varda, an architect: https://vardaarchitecture.com/ https://vardaarchitecture.com/ It’s likely just his preference. My wife and I also rather like a relatively “IKEA” aesthetic so I think it’s just preference.
- Gareth321 18d agoI guess I'm boring because I really like it :-/ Maybe some cozier lighting/plants could be nice in the LAN/party spaces. I think the bones are pretty good. Just needs some finishing touches.
- jasode 18d ago>The board game room looks like somewhere you'd have a conference call. The author literally labeled that room the "Upstairs Office". The rest of the house (kitchen, family room, etc) that's not dedicated to LAN computers looks like a normal Euro/Scandinavian type of clean minimalism aesthetic which a lot of people like. My home currently has a lot of "traditional" style furniture and decorations hanging on the walls which some might call "warm & cozy". But others would disagree and think of it as "grandma's house" and as I've aged, I tend to agree. I'd like to eventually dial it back and redo the interior to be more minimalistic but I have other higher priorities than remodeling the house.
- asdfsa32 18d agoThe will to do and the power to do does not mean well to do.
- deleted 18d ago[deleted]
- nvarsj 18d agoReminds me a lot of big tech campus interior decoration. A lot of greys, neutral colors, very little color or personality. Pretty much what you'd expect from techies that never really thought too hard about their living space beyond functionality. I mean, I'm the same, so no judgement, but I did hire an interior decorator for my own place. Definitely worth the money and my house has all kinds of funky fun stuff and colors going on (on top of being 130 years old and super wonky everywhere, ha ha).
- venzaspa 18d agoIt's funny because there's a comment about the cabinetry being expensive despite it just being a 'bunch of wood' but actually if they opted for the right wood panels instead of the standard veneered chipboard used in a lot of offices, it probably would have made the whole setup look a lot more homely. They probably do need a bit of colour and some items on the wall to break it up too. Saying that, I'd live there in a heartbeat.
- pringk02 18d agoYeah, I can't claim I wouldn't live in it if given the chance (even if I'd redecorate). I think you are correct about the wood. If I reflect on it some amount of it is that everything looks like the same yellow laminate I am most used to seeing on office furniture, and have spent a bunch of time sat at. Maybe darker wood tones would completely change the effect this has on me
- jmuguy 18d agoI think a lot of it is lighting - I imagine they have the "house lights" on for these photos. Turn the temperature down and it becomes a lot cozier. The normal parts of the house look great.
- pringk02 18d agoI think you are correct about the lighting. It was seeing the kids bedroom that made me feel the most taken aback, but I think with some warmer light the effect would be less stark
- wizerno 18d agoPreviously discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42156977 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42156977
- rocketvole 18d agoI remember this! Its crazy because the comments section on that thread seems more curious about the setup (with albiet one long thread about home costs). Massive contrast to this one.
- tikimcfee 18d agoYeah.. 2 years have unfortunately changed a lot of what privilege, ownership, wealth, and "luck" have meant.
- kentonv 18d agoIt's because this latest thread was posted while I was asleep. :/ HN is a massively nicer place if the author is present to interact. The people who are inclined to criticize don't want to do it to people's face, and the people who want to act questions are more eager if someone is there to answer.
- literallyroy 18d agoIt’s very jarring to see such a different reaction than my own to this post. Each time it comes up (was posted in a friend discord as well recently) I’m in awe and love the explanations. Some folks don’t want others to be happy. I had someone in my life recently complain that someone they met was too happy and thus toxic and ignorant of the world’s atrocities. Keep smiling at have a good day :)
- swiftcoder 18d agoGod, imagine having a big enough friend group as an adult to justify an 18-gaming-PC LAN. These folks are doing something right
- deleted 18d ago[deleted]
- senectus1 18d agoI... jeepers. I dont think i have enough friends for a 4 person LAN party in my adult life. nerd life seems to get lonelier the older you get.
- swiftcoder 18d agoI'm more or less in your boat, but I also know several folks who play D&D or warhammer every weekend in big groups. It's kind of a choices-one-makes and where-one-lives deal, I think
- voidUpdate 18d agoI shudder to think of an 18 person DND group... 5 is enough for me
- MrDresden 18d agoI can't speak to your situation, but I know that in mine the main blocker for a LAN party with adult friends wouldn't be a lack of interest nor lack of friends (though I don't have a giant pool, and can't even count 18 people I'd be able to even suggest such a thing to) it would be lack of time due to other life responsibilities, that tend to increase as we get older. My solution has been to play boardgames remote using BoardgameArena[0]. I usually have 2x turn based games going with two separate groups along with a dedicated chat channel, and then do 1-2 live evening sessions over video call with other groups. But all setup to be flexible and made to fit with the constraints of adult life, so sometimes we play and sometimes we reschedule. [0]: https://boardgamearena.com https://boardgamearena.com
- 18d ago
- tristanj 18d agoThis LAN house was featured in a LTT video. There's an entire house walkthrough https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97Y0MVUgjOw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97Y0MVUgjOw
- iamtheworstdev 18d agobeat me to it :-( have an upvote
- lifestyleguru 18d ago[flagged]
- shotgan 18d agoI came here to say exactly the same XD
- greggsy 18d agoThey’re a pretty accomplished couple if you read their bio.
- Aeolun 18d agoYeah, but not so much that it's not relatable.
- lifestyleguru 18d agoBehind every accomplished person stands an accomplished parent.
- vincnetas 18d ago"This house has normal parts, too!" got me triggered :) Yeah our "normal" house : swimming pool (heated by servers?), panoramic view, guest room bigger than my whole house, roof deck, 30-mile view...
- qwerpy 18d agoSounds like you need a lifestyle guru to troubleshoot why your current lifestyle is making you envious of someone else's lifestyle.
- r0ckarong 18d agoI hope they invested similar money in their home security.
- Igrom 18d ago(2024)
- bhtru 18d agoDude this is so freaking cool. Especially the cat entrances / infra to allow them access throughout the home and while human doors are closed. Would love to see a cat POV via an action cam of them running through the home.
- bitwize 18d agoAt the former apartment, my office/work area had an opening to the living area high on the wall that might've been for a window, or something. My cat spent a lot of time staring at that opening. Not just the opening itself, but he'd work his way backwards, along some exposed AC ducting (it was a loft with 20' ceilings), trying to plot a route from the floor over the ducting to the hole. If we'd had a high enough shelf in the living area he would have gotten in.
- deleted 18d ago[deleted]
- Havoc 18d agoNgl having a house with a hot side for rack cooling sounds like homelab fun
- Aeolun 18d agoI've seen this so many times, and every time it makes me smile. Especially the 'how the hell did we manage this' section.
- joaquincabezas 18d agoI recently landed (again) at this website while reading about Kenton Varda‘s work on Cloudflare workers. It was a nice “aha” moment!
- 28304283409234 18d agoThe basement is awesome, but I would not feel cozy and welcome there. From the pictures it feels like any serverroom I've ever been into. Unwanted tips: Put some plants in there, some color, some wall-to-wall gaming art prints on the closet-doors and floors. <3
- elAhmo 18d agoWholesome read. These guys are enjoying life and I loved reading the FAQ in the end, as well as them acknowledging they are very lucky!
- darkwater 18d agoThey are lucky, coming (at least Kenton) from a good family with money and, I surely believe, parents that pushed him in the right direction, helping him to fully develop his natural talents. And you definitely needed raw brain power (which is a natural gift) to join Google in 2005.
- s5300 17d ago[dead]
- gblargg 18d agoSame. I like seeing people who have made great tech houses and seem like nice people.
- llm_nerd 18d agoIt's an interesting read and a wonderful experiment, but is this house still operational as a "LAN party" house? Humans in groups can be...exhausting...in very short order. Like I notice zero food or drink in the pictures, and there's a very good reason for that when you have groups of people. So I guess they eliminated one of the primary friction sources early. Wonder how the bathroom situation is... It would be interesting to see how this worked out. The pair behind the house have two children, which I can't even envision combined with this. Yes, someone is going to romanticize how great it is for the kids...but it simply isn't.
- cgriswald 17d agoFor a decade I hosted numerous large parties with food and alcohol. With a good core group and “selective pruning” (mostly of creeps) we never had any problems. My kids were always at my ex’s house though.
- m4tthumphrey 18d agoJust came here to say, everything about this is incredible. The house itself, the site, the FAQs but most of all, the attention that went into the cat's needs. 11/10. We want(ed) to do something similar (re the cats needs) when renovating our house but just could never decide!
- darkwater 18d agoI have a "simple" PetSafe door which has a cat-chip controlled relay to open it, and our cat can just come and go whenever she wants, and she does her needs outside in our garden. Simple and effective and she lives the best of both worlds.
- m4tthumphrey 18d agoIt was more the indoor parts, ie the human-less doors. We had plans for them into the utility which is where their trays are but just couldn't fit the cat doors in (the human doors are crittall, ie glass so couldnt put them into the door itself. It worked out fine in the end!
- temp0826 18d ago"Invite only", ok I get they're rich but I wonder about the airbnb potential for recouping some of that cost.
- subscribed 18d agoAnd having to restore everything (this is a house with personal items, not a loaner, anonymous flat) if someone trashes it? Naah, even a small risk is unacceptable in such case.
- alpineman 18d ago[flagged]
- yonran 18d agoI disagree. This is the good part of capitalism. In an ideal world, a custom-designed housing unit should be achievable by anyone in the upper middle class. The combined property tax rate in Austin is around 1.8%-2.5% (according to https://lrgrealty.com/lrg-blog/property-taxes-in-austin-tx/ https://lrgrealty.com/lrg-blog/property-taxes-in-austin-tx/), which is decently high and supports the community. ChatGPT says that they paid $52,142 in property taxes for 2025 on an assessed value of $3M. In my opinion, the only immoral part of this is the “million dollars in profit” on the house in Palo Alto that he left which the author himself called out as ridiculous. This unearned increment is thanks to Palo Alto’s exclusionary zoning and Proposition 13’s low property taxes (around 1.25% at acquisition, but much lower for long-term investors). ChatGPT says that the author paid $11k/year and the new owner now pays $28k/year for the Palo Alto house now assessed at $2.3M.
- bayindirh 18d agoNormal room: Integrated catwalk with cat doors to other cat places. Alright.
- rob74 18d ago> We have efficient heat pumps and solar panels, but it's still a disturbing amount of energy usage and something I'm trying to debug. Perhaps we have too many windows letting in too much sunlight... External window blinds work wonders with that - your AC doesn't have to work hard to get the heat out of the greenhouse you inadvertently built if you avoid the heat getting in in the first place. But yeah, these might be more widespread over here in Europe than in the US...
- subscribed 18d agoWindow blinds for the worst hours (can be angled so the sun doesn't enter but the view outside is retained), and solar reflective foil for the normal days. I'm still looking for the good, transparent matte coat for my exterior walls, but I've already cut some of the cooling power use via passive means.
- aktau 18d ago> transparent matte coat for my exterior walls I'm curious about this. Do you mean a layer of paint-like substance that makes the walls isolate better?
- subscribed 17d agoKind of not like this. I mean the coat on my brick wall (and ideally roof), that will reflect most of the infrared and UV. I've used a white paint like this on the conservatory and white walls outside, and along with a solar-reflective foil outside of my windows it's the biggest factor to having a nice temperature inside. I might also actually consider painting the interior walls with something like this as well - there's less he t escaping through radiation if it's reflected back, right?
- walthamstow 18d agoI'm putting external shutters on my house in London this winter. This summer was crazy. I've never seen them further north than Barcelona.
- hajrice 18d agoGreat landing page! (if I can call it so?)
- Aboutplants 18d agoThe funnest part of this whole thing is the manual litter box, literally the worst part of having a cat, and it’s been solved through technology (litter robots). Everything in the house has tech, except the one thing that has you picking up actual shit every day. Zoom out buddy
- crimsoneer 18d ago"solved through technology" is an optimistic take on modern litter robots, in my experience ... I saw those as someone who has owned like 3 of them. Sometimes I realise I'm paying 500 bucks for an incredibly unreliable machine that gets slowly more smeared in poop over time instead of spending 30 seconds of my day to scoop some poop and feel quite silly.
- Aachen 18d agoYou saw they addressed that at the bottom of the page?
- gblargg 18d agoI've seen the insides of those automatic ones. If you think scooping lumps out of a normal litterbox is bad, try cleaning an automatic one out. Clumping litter works surprisingly well. It's really a minor thing.
- winrid 17d agoThe litter robot is fine, it's just a turning globe that dumps into a box. The main issue is the sensors corrode so you have to pop the globe off and replace them. I just take it outside and hose it lol
- chupchap 17d agoMy cat refused to use the automated one.
- profdevloper 17d agoReject modernity, embrace tradition
- rustysnail 18d ago[dead]
- qsera 18d agoWorried about if they could that no one asked if they should...
- jamiecurle 18d ago> The cabinetry is just a bunch of wood, cut into fairly large pieces. Maybe a few screws and hinges. Whereas the computers in total contain more than a trillion transistors, each of which had to be carefully etched in the right spot connected correctly to all the others. A trillion! That's 1,000,000,000,000! Really cool house, but describing the cabinets as "bunch of wood, cut into fairly large pieces. Maybe a few screws and hinges" shows little understanding of what goes into building something like that. It's hard to tell from the pics if the cabinets are made of sheet goods with veneer or solid boards glued into panels. But at the very least, the trees need to be grown, they need to be managed, they need to be felled, sent to processing for sheet goods, dried and milled for solid wood. Even then you've got to get everything cut to size and square, then build the cabinets with all the specific sizes, then finish them, transport to site and install everything and the trim. It's two ends of the manufacturing scale. For transistors, you've got mass production at an impossibly difficult level of accuracy for a human and for cabinets you've got single production (at the install level) at very difficult level for a human. But again, very, very cool house. I especially like the cat doors but not nearly half as much as I imagine the cat does.
- asdfsa32 18d ago> Really cool house, but describing the cabinets as "bunch of wood, cut into fairly large pieces. Maybe a few screws and hinges" shows little understanding of what goes into building something like that. I mean, the whole place looks like a cookie cutter office block. The lack of appreciation and want for good design goes far deeper.
- literallyroy 18d agoSounds like preference. I think it looks beautiful personally.
- asdfsa32 17d agoEverything is a preference. You should stop thinking!
- 18d ago
- yakkomajuri 18d agoThe lack of any decoration is what struck me. Otherwise really cool! Enjoyed the FAQ and appreciate the courage to put this out given the types of comments one receives online (see thread). The resumes are impressive :) didn't realize Kenton had created Cap'n Proto
- ThePowerOfFuet 18d ago>All network equipment and cameras are UniFi. Wow. Imagine having this budget and then doing this.
- sgerenser 18d agoWhat exactly is the problem with UniFi? I’ve always thought Ubiquiti gear is generally pretty good. At least a better option than e.g. Cisco for the home/small business customer.
- qwerpy 18d agoPeople who can afford to spend a bit extra to make things easier tend to do so. When you have money, time becomes your most valuable commodity.
- kenty 18d ago[flagged]
- DarmokTanagra 18d ago[dead]
- naikrovek 18d ago[dead]
- sorenjan 18d agoHe spent more on gaming computers than my yearly salary, and then follows it up with > I actually find it funny how cheap computers are.
- birksherty 18d agoYes, this line made me angry. Privileged people from first world countries like these will increase their products prices for growth & more profit saying it's very cheap anyways. Meanwhile common people in other countries can't even think about buying a proper gaming PC now. I bought a pre owned gpu, it stopped working after 5 months and I lost my savings.
- collabs 18d agoIt was cheaper than it is now after the AI stuff. I don't think people buying and using computers makes them expensive. Your anger is misplaced. Be angry instead at companies who won't even comply with the most ridiculously basic laws. They are the ones causing all those problems. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/naacp-sues-musks-xai-alleging-illegal-operation-gas-turbines-2026-04-14/ https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/naacp-...
- mkirsten 18d agoI see and also had some immediate reaction when somebody mentions a $75k figure and says “cheap”. But I think the point really here is that computers are cheap in relation to other items you can buy. Not cheap as in “small part of my wealth”, but as in “about equally much money as something that is not as impressive (as a computer)”. And I really agree. I think it’s amazing that I can get eg a computer I find fast for the price of a kind of bad sofa. 2nd hand MacBook M1 vs dinner for 4 at a nice restaurant. Computers are cheap!
- haunter 18d agoMTV used to have this show called Cribs where celebrities showed their house around and cars and everything. Basically bragging about their rich life. I have the same feeling opening this site. Maybe we need an MTV Cribs SV edition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTV_Cribs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTV_Cribs
- jmuguy 18d agoCribs was at its best when it was some newly rich musician living in a boring suburban neighborhood and they had basically nothing in their house except some weird piece of art that cost 300k.
- lifestyleguru 18d agoThere was an episode where one American rapper bragged he never wears the same socks twice. He unpacks every day a pair of brand new white socks. I have no bloody idea why this carved into my memory.
- 1-more 17d agoIt was Damon Dash, who was a cofounder of Roc-a-Fella records but not a rapper himself. He mentioned it here too and in a few other profiles that I can remember https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/damon-dash-the-man-who-would-be-bling-406919.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/damon-das... FWIW he justifies it further here: part of his job, as he saw it, was to show up in public looking like a guy who could afford brand new clothes whenever he was seen, and he had a public appearance of some kind every day. The interviewer also mentions at the start that it came up in his episode of Cribs, so I'm pretty sure that's the one you're thinking of. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEQvb6hCtog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEQvb6hCtog
- fortran77 17d agoThis is Austin, not Silicon Valley
- deleted 18d ago[deleted]
- apexalpha 18d ago[flagged]
- vachina 18d agoYeah, have money, will spend. Water is wet.
- _ink_ 18d agoI really wonder where people find the time. Like two people, probably working stressful jobs, kids and still find the time to design and build something like this and probably also use it. Fascinating.
- deleted 18d ago[deleted]
- arjie 18d agoSomeone once told me “you’ll make time for the things you care about” and I’m fortunate to have heard it since I have found it to be true for myself. The unfortunate truth appears to me that I care about Hacker News and other social media…
- _ink_ 18d agoYeah :D But I for one don't care much about my job, yet it still takes quite a chunk of my time away from me.
- chinathrow 18d agoAs someone without that much money at hand, I enjoyed reading the section further down the page. Well written and congrats on the success!
- wraptile 18d agoThis makes me really miss LAN parties. What an absolute gem of early PC culture that is sadly mostly forgotten? A reasonable replacement is phone gaming parties and I'm not kidding - it's really fun! We did Among Us phone LAN party recently and it was a blast.
- mixmastamyk 18d agoI recently tried to hook up a few games and was sadly surprised they make it hard to work on a LAN, even old FOSS games push you towards internet play.
- yigalirani 18d agoWow that's really nice house
- arjie 18d agoIt’s been on HN a few times and I’ve always enjoyed looking at it. I think it looks great, fantastic setup, cat walks and doors. LAN parties with your friends for 30 years is awesome! Now that is hard to replicate even if one uses the house design as inspiration! My buddies and I sometimes reminisce fondly about those times (we are now spread across the globe) but fortunately we all still chat every time there’s an Arsenal game - an automatic Schelling point no matter where in the world you are. None of us plays video games much any more so there’s no loss in it but it feels pleasantly nostalgic.
- iomer 18d agowow.
- canto 18d agoNice flex, lol.
- emh68 18d agoI've been thinking about running a "mystery retro LAN party". Dig into a big cardboard box and pull out an old gaming laptop. You get what you get. Then go try to get top frag!
- gorgoiler 18d agoI really love the idea of having all the PCs in some place far away from where I, the human am sitting, but I don’t know how to do that. HDMI and USB cables can’t work over more than a few tens of feet can they? Or maybe these are special shielded cables, or sent down shielded cat6 cabling? Would love to have even more details on how to do this. Also, since saying goodbye to my dad in hospital last year, whenever I hear about people enjoying time with their own fathers I feel really happy. I would have loved to build a house with my dad!
- lxgr 18d agoUSB 4/Thunderbolt explicitly supports fiberoptics-based USB-C cables and can carry 4K video, regular USB, and more.
- kllrnohj 18d agodo you know of any that actually exist? All I can find are active cables that go up to 15 feet which is a lot better than the 3ft of copper but still a far cry short of running to another room easily
- lxgr 18d agoI don't have any personal experience with them, but Amazon and Google are full of options going up to 30m. I don't see why they shouldn't work; all the translation logic is in the active circuitry at each end, and the low-level protocol and USB-C spec was designed with this use case in mind, so nothing expects a continuous copper connection between both ends. Obviously power delivery doesn't work over that type of cable.
- massel 18d agoI've used Corning's Thunderbolt 3 fibre cable in the 25m length (~80'). It's eye-wateringly expensive, and it works perfectly.
- kllrnohj 18d agoHDMI over fiber is readily available. USB is more annoying depending on the speeds you desire, but again USB over optical exists. And then of course once it's over fiber, nearly any length desired is easily achieved
- takoid 18d agoI couldn't help but notice the lack of mousepads[1]. Please get your poor guests some mousepads! [1]: https://lanparty.house/images/office-action-overhead.jpg https://lanparty.house/images/office-action-overhead.jpg
- deleted 18d ago[deleted]
- fleroviumna 18d ago[dead]
- Schlagbohrer 18d agoIf/when widespread Netwar occurs and the US and China and other actors balkanize the internet, along with common outages, maybe we'll see a resurgence of in-person LAN gaming again.
- Simulacra 18d agoWho has enough friends past 30 to even justify a lan party? Lol
- righthand 17d agoWhen you’re rich you naturally attract people who want to be around you and if you’re rich you probably enjoy the sucking up that comes with it. If you naturally don’t have friends and aren’t kind hearted enough to attract people that will suck up to you, then you can always buy friends like Mark Z has done with his huge compound.
- unpopularopp 18d ago[flagged]
- kubb 18d agoThey need to buy status. In the end most of them don’t feel very good about their life and need external validation.
- qwerpy 18d agoIf you read this and the feeling you came away with was "this rich guy is boasting", that's a reflection of your own envy. A mentally healthy, content person is capable of reading about cool things like this and not immediately feeling the need to broadcast their resentment and jealousy.
- truthbe 18d ago[flagged]
- kentonv 18d agoOh hello! This is my house! Thanks for posting! Previous discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42156977 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42156977 Unfortunately this new thread was posted while I was asleep, and so I haven't been online to answer questions as the thread developed. Whereas in the previous thread I participated from the start. Pro tip to anyone whose stuff gets posted on HN: It is a completely different place when the author is present. If you're present, then the people who are inclined to post cheap criticisms shy away, and the people who want to ask questions and learn show up. (Aside from the house, I've had my work at Cloudflare posted many times, and seen this pattern in those posts.)
- NoDodgeQuestion 18d agoThe key is that the author is present, rather than people having different views on wealth over time?
- kentonv 18d agoViews on wealth haven't changed. The reactions to my first (much smaller) house in 2011 were very similar.
- jmuguy 18d agoI'm sorry so many people are hating on your house. I guess I could understand it if someone was showing off their yacht, because this isn't a boat owners forum, but a lan party house ought to be right up HN's alley. I think its awesome, and impressive yall have maintained friendships like that for so long. Some of my best memories are from the LAN parties of decades ago. Although some of the fun was in the amount of friction, like manually assigning IPs. Or when everyone got the code red worm as soon as they joined the network. Just being able to walk into something like this would literally have blown our minds back then.
- onionisafruit 18d agoIf someone wants to post a lan party yacht, I’m here for that too
- farceSpherule 18d ago[flagged]
- beeforpork 18d ago[flagged]
- jonheller 18d agoSad to see so much anger expressed at this couple's financial success and how they decided to use that and then do what I thought was a interesting, fun, and in no way "rub in your face" or arrogant writeup about it. The author even recognized his luck with his financial situation in terms of things like the housing market in California. I'm not sure what the angry people in this thread want. That they should have donated to charity? That they should not have shared the project? That they should have turned down raises or sold their house below value just because? There are good arguments that the wealth distribution in our country has some serious issues but I don't think attacking this author is the right way to address that.
- throwayay4929 18d agoIt's eternal September but for HN. The relatively small group of HNers that used to inhabit this place has been slowly pushed out by people who are looking for cheap dunks. It's still better than other place but your question is naive: this couple not have done anything to avoid criticism. They are the outgroup, and exist only to be attacked. There's no intellectual argument being made here, just in-group signalling.
- torton 17d agoIt's time for HN to build in blocking capability. It's a small percentage of people and it's often the same people repeatedly showing up making the same points but that's enough to discourage reading and participation.
- GaryBluto 17d agoYou can already filter noise out pretty easily when you begin picking up on shared mannerisms. I suggest an extension configured with a mix of keywords and regexes, blocking of very recently created accounts and ones with a high percentage of numbers in their username.
- MentalM 17d ago> There are good arguments that the wealth distribution in our country has some serious issues There are good arguments that as a whole the wealth distribution in your country does not have any serious issues, but this article strongly suggests that it is not true in this particular case. I mean the author, trying to be as transparent as possible, literally says that he can not say how much money they spent on building of this house. Generally that implies keeping your private lives private, but his article strongly suggests that is not the concern of the author. And considering that, there are only bad reasons remains on why he would want to do it. 1. Tax payment fraud. 2. Government subsidy fraud 3. Income from criminal activities
- giancarlostoro 18d ago> Honestly I never even thought about it. I haven't used a mousepad in decades. None of my friends ever commented on it. But I guess it might be a good idea, to prevent wear on the wood finish. Trackball.
- bix6 18d agoThis is dope.
- mattanimation 18d agothis is just cool
- fitsumbelay 18d agoThis is an accomplishment. That it's a couple with two kids elevates it further.
- BorisMelnik 18d agogreat work - and I dont use patch panels, I think I have 20 cat 6 cables in my house going to my switch and its been doing just fine for 5+ years. you don't really have to for your house. it can def make life easier on you, it is kind of an elitest thing for homes, but a mandatory thing for commercial
- rylando 18d agoThis is so sick! Apologies if I missed it but is there more info on how you did the mounting for the folding monitor stations? I love the cat doors everywhere! Great idea to keep the litter boxes sequestered. Howdy from Houston fellow Texan!
- igleria 18d agoEverything is high tech except for the cat litter collection, which tells me the owner already knows cats don't like automated litter collection. I wonder how hard is to keep the house clean tho!
- lai 18d agoSick! Good to see that DDR is still a thing. Make DDR great again!
- lucasacosta_ 18d agoI hope I didn't get deceived, but this was such a human-non-ai read!! It was wonderful to get to know the history which I would think you wrote yourself! Much appreciated, thanks for sharing! Really!
- kentonv 18d agoI never use AI to write! But also I wrote this in 2024, which was before I used AI to do anything.
- lucasacosta_ 18d agoThat's awesome, it's crazy that we would reach a point where knowing it's fully human-written adds so much value to it Thanks again!
- innerHTML 18d agoif you've got the money to spare and you buy a camper, plot of land, a boat or a LAN party room to enjoy your time with your friends that's really cool to me.
- xedrac 18d agoI think this is awesome! LAN parties were so much fun back in the day. And the social aspect is what I miss the most (and my youthful energy to stay up all night).
- ellis0n 18d agoAwesome LAN party. I’d like to be there again.
- deleted 17d ago[deleted]
- dmackerman 17d agoI have core memories of hauling a 69lb 19" Sony Trinitron down a hill to my friends basement, circa 2003. I remember part of the fun for us was getting all the PCs hooked up. It was so janky, but it was our janky and we loved it. Even file sharing felt fun.
- deadbabe 17d agoOne of my dreams if I ever had so much money is to build some kind of non-profit third place for my community that was basically set up to be a big LAN party where people could come multiplayer games together and some kind of DJ type person would choose the games and control the streams that get shown to spectators.
- noufalibrahim 17d agoIt's a beautiful house and I'm very happy for them. My own memories of lan parties were much messier. People bringing their own assembled machines and running cables around the place to get this to work somehow, swapping cards etc.
- jsmo 17d agoWowowow! Thanks hope you can open source some of the home design blueprints and any LEED or Phius / PassivHaus ratings you were able to document in the design phase
- MayeulC 17d agoGreat build! I am certainly taking mental notes for when/if I get my own house one day. The biggest change compared to a regular house is putting the computers in a server room, and this can probably be retrofitted into almost any house during renovation work. The other big thing in my opinion is the furniture that hides everything away when not in use. I am surprised it cost as much as you say. Well, I suppose that there is a lot of it. Taking a few mental notes here as well. I have fond memories of university, where we would play UT99 (and DOOM I, believe it or not) in the computer room on Windows XP computers. Staff eventually found out that most of us were playing games over lunch break, so they tightened up the firewalls. However, one of the PC didn't have password protection on the BIOS, so I retrieved the necessary files, and cracked the admin password offline. Good times! The games went on for years. Back then, around half of us were in a boarding school for a couple years, fully wired with Ethernet and no client isolation despite an extremely restrictive external firewall (that had us using free proxies ~15kB/s to launch Steam, I even saw some students play League of Legends with up to 13s of latency). But LAN was the thing. We had shared NAS, local bittorrent clients, and played soo much UT2004, some Sins of a Solar Empire, supreme commander, dawn of war II, minecraft & a few others. Unfortunately this friend group is all over the place now, and I don't even allow myself to spend time playing single player games these days. Still, I hope that I'll settle down a bit at some point, and make more local friends. It's easier than people seem to think (for me at least), you don't have to be rich either. Meet a few people, meet their friends, etc. We used to have LAN parties with my high school friends too, maybe we should try to reconvene, though much driving would be involved. Even earlier in my life, I was figuring out the rudiments of networking (including these pesky crossover cables) playing Halo 2 with multiple Xboxes. So yeah, this build resonates with me, thank you for sharing. I've had something similar in mind for a wile, though I think I'd do it a bit differently: * probably use Linux as a host. On a single or a couple of servers: older games aren't too demanding, and half the fun is in the nostalgia. * If using a single host, a single link is needed for USB, and can be split over multiple hubs in the gaming room. * Maybe use GOG installers, they work well for LAN: no DRM, no Internet access required. People can buy a copy if they like the game. It's tempting to multiplex displays and I/O over the network, but I am concerned about the necessary bandwidth and latency increase. It's also feasible to send all the data in a single optical fiber over multiple wavelengths, however I just looked it up: DP-SFP converters (fiber KVMs) seem to cost more than $1k, so $30 cables are a better option.
- hn993302 17d agoDoes netboot complicate anything here, aside from needing 10G NICs as mentioned in the article? Maybe game loading times, unless the games are cached on local disks instead which would make sense.
- Hitton 17d agoNice. I noticed that the games they play are mostly for 4-8 players, so this is quite a overkill. Not too surprising - despite our wishes LAN parties nowadays will be just a shadow of those we had in our teens.
- dack 17d agomy first thought was this isn't 2024, right? i remember someone telling me about this back in 2012. Well, turns out that was his earlier house! https://kentonshouse.com/ https://kentonshouse.com/ the view for the new house is insane! congrats, well earned!