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I can tell the world is getting squeezed. This has been posted to HN several times in the past 20 years, and it usually receives a great reception because of th

I can tell the world is getting squeezed. This has been posted to HN several times in the past 20 years, and it usually receives a great reception because of the hacker ethos involved, the love of lan parties, and the success in tech. It's just cool as hell. This is the first time it's been posted where most of the comments appear to be resentment that you could afford to do the project at all. Money isn't the point: some people have it and some people don't, and that can change over time. What's interesting is how you use the money. And in this case, designing a living space around hosting lan parties is a really interesting hack! I like the fold-away keyboard monitor setups especially. You didn't have to write about any of it, and yet you did, and you keep the post up, and it continues to be something interesting to discuss. So thank you!

nancyminusone 1mo ago
Taken from another forum where such money is thrown around, the correct response is "congrats and fuck you". Not much point in argument beyond that.
throwitaway222 1mo ago
I feel bad. I posted a negative comment (under a different user name) one of the other times this was posted. I was in a bad spot in my life - still am, but I'm getting better.
- imthatsteve 1mo ago
  Your only human (i think), it happens to all of us at least some of the time. If your willing to acknowledge and admit it then your already doing better than most. In addition to giving yourself a break we should all try to give others a break because you never really know what a stranger could be dealing with.
ryandrake 1mo ago
> This is the first time it's been posted where most of the comments appear to be resentment that you could afford to do the project at all. Despite the negativity, I'm glad that we can at least talk about the topic of wealth and privilege on HN now, rather than comments pointing it out being flag/voted down into oblivion. I don't harbor any resentment about OP's home/project, but I can totally understand the resentment from others, especially in these times, and it at the very least deserves to be mentioned.
- dabluecaboose 1mo ago
  By contrast, I think that every post on HN doesn't need a bucket full of crabs complaining that they can't do the same thing. It's not intellectually stimulating.
  - vrganj 1mo ago
    You don't think questions of how we design our societies, who gets to benefit from it, how power is distributed, of systems design and how we relate to each other socially are intellectually stimulating? May I suggest the problem is not with the questions then?
    - dabluecaboose 1mo ago
      I don't see any of those discussions. I see people complaining that Kenton is "privileged", that him enjoying himself his somehow harmful, that his house is too big, and implying that all is a problem; with little to no specifics on how or why. You're completely welcome to make a post that raises those questions, but I think its irrelevant here. I don't think its productive for every fun project posted to have an inquisition in the comments on whether or not the project deserves to exist. > May I suggest the problem is not with the questions then? It's against the guidelines to make swipes like this.
      - vrganj 1mo ago
        Fair point on the swipe, apologies there. I find it frustrating that people cannot have a conversation about what enables a project to exist without people going shhh just look at the shinies. To me, it is a very surface level uncritical attitude directly counter to the hacker ethos of looking at how systems work. We tend to examine projects by their inputs and outputs. I don't think it's fair to exempt capital and resources, one of the key inputs, from examination. That's not to say this isn't a cool house or the person building it did anything bad themselves, they're just an actor in the bigger incentive system.
  - fortran77 1mo ago
bityard 1mo ago
HN drew me in years ago because it had a higher signal-to-noise ratio, and deeper conversations than you'd find in other places popular with tech nerds. There was an overall culture of technical optimism, which I like to sum up as: Learn cool technology, build cool things, meet cool people. Now, HN is one of the more pessimistic communities I frequent. Most posts are berating or belittling the author, the technology, someone's politics, other commenters, capitalism in general, and so on. It's all so tiresome to read and the amount of time and energy wasted doesn't hold a candle to whatever the AI companies are doing. It's gotten to the point that I pretty much never scroll past halfway down the comments page, because that is almost always about where the useless and most whiney comments tend to start. It used to be lower, like 10-20%. It may be creeping up even higher. I would love to find an online community where the pessimists don't rule the roost. Haven't found it yet, but if anyone wants to drop me a hint, my contact info is in my profile.
- jader201 1mo ago
  > HN drew me in years ago because it had a higher signal-to-noise ratio, and deeper conversations than you'd find in other places popular with tech nerds. There was an overall culture of technical optimism I feel like people are much more pessimistic towards technology in general, vs. the days you're referring to. Big Tech was still "cool" then, the wealth divide wasn't as big as it is now, social media wasn't (as) toxic, and AI wasn't actively making everything worse. Nowadays, it's hard to be optimistic for how technology is progressing. People do hack away and share interesting, fun, and (often) useless projects, and those still draw less pessimistic discussion. But these are the exception, among other news of how technology is getting worse, or making things worse. So I guess my point is, it not so much that HN or the community has gotten worse, but there's just less to be excited about in tech these days.
  - modemNoises 1mo ago
    I think it's less pessimistic and more aware of its limits now and thus not as impressed When we were all younger it seemed the sky was the limit But we've gotten wiser and realize the ceiling with tech like iPhones and PS5 Hedonic treadmill just goes in a loop of experience. Consumer tech is just attention seeking codependency on the part of corporate The real cool stuff going on with tech is in domains like regenerative and longevity medicine; see Michael Levin at Tufts for truly sci fi Wolverine healing type mind blowing ideas

nancyminusone 1mo ago

Taken from another forum where such money is thrown around, the correct response is "congrats and fuck you". Not much point in argument beyond that.

throwitaway222 1mo ago

I feel bad. I posted a negative comment (under a different user name) one of the other times this was posted. I was in a bad spot in my life - still am, but I'm getting better.

imthatsteve 1mo ago
Your only human (i think), it happens to all of us at least some of the time. If your willing to acknowledge and admit it then your already doing better than most. In addition to giving yourself a break we should all try to give others a break because you never really know what a stranger could be dealing with.

ryandrake 1mo ago

> This is the first time it's been posted where most of the comments appear to be resentment that you could afford to do the project at all. Despite the negativity, I'm glad that we can at least talk about the topic of wealth and privilege on HN now, rather than comments pointing it out being flag/voted down into oblivion. I don't harbor any resentment about OP's home/project, but I can totally understand the resentment from others, especially in these times, and it at the very least deserves to be mentioned.

dabluecaboose 1mo ago
By contrast, I think that every post on HN doesn't need a bucket full of crabs complaining that they can't do the same thing. It's not intellectually stimulating.
- vrganj 1mo ago
  You don't think questions of how we design our societies, who gets to benefit from it, how power is distributed, of systems design and how we relate to each other socially are intellectually stimulating? May I suggest the problem is not with the questions then?
  - dabluecaboose 1mo ago
    I don't see any of those discussions. I see people complaining that Kenton is "privileged", that him enjoying himself his somehow harmful, that his house is too big, and implying that all is a problem; with little to no specifics on how or why. You're completely welcome to make a post that raises those questions, but I think its irrelevant here. I don't think its productive for every fun project posted to have an inquisition in the comments on whether or not the project deserves to exist. > May I suggest the problem is not with the questions then? It's against the guidelines to make swipes like this.
    - vrganj 1mo ago
      Fair point on the swipe, apologies there. I find it frustrating that people cannot have a conversation about what enables a project to exist without people going shhh just look at the shinies. To me, it is a very surface level uncritical attitude directly counter to the hacker ethos of looking at how systems work. We tend to examine projects by their inputs and outputs. I don't think it's fair to exempt capital and resources, one of the key inputs, from examination. That's not to say this isn't a cool house or the person building it did anything bad themselves, they're just an actor in the bigger incentive system.
- fortran77 1mo ago

bityard 1mo ago

HN drew me in years ago because it had a higher signal-to-noise ratio, and deeper conversations than you'd find in other places popular with tech nerds. There was an overall culture of technical optimism, which I like to sum up as: Learn cool technology, build cool things, meet cool people. Now, HN is one of the more pessimistic communities I frequent. Most posts are berating or belittling the author, the technology, someone's politics, other commenters, capitalism in general, and so on. It's all so tiresome to read and the amount of time and energy wasted doesn't hold a candle to whatever the AI companies are doing. It's gotten to the point that I pretty much never scroll past halfway down the comments page, because that is almost always about where the useless and most whiney comments tend to start. It used to be lower, like 10-20%. It may be creeping up even higher. I would love to find an online community where the pessimists don't rule the roost. Haven't found it yet, but if anyone wants to drop me a hint, my contact info is in my profile.

jader201 1mo ago
> HN drew me in years ago because it had a higher signal-to-noise ratio, and deeper conversations than you'd find in other places popular with tech nerds. There was an overall culture of technical optimism I feel like people are much more pessimistic towards technology in general, vs. the days you're referring to. Big Tech was still "cool" then, the wealth divide wasn't as big as it is now, social media wasn't (as) toxic, and AI wasn't actively making everything worse. Nowadays, it's hard to be optimistic for how technology is progressing. People do hack away and share interesting, fun, and (often) useless projects, and those still draw less pessimistic discussion. But these are the exception, among other news of how technology is getting worse, or making things worse. So I guess my point is, it not so much that HN or the community has gotten worse, but there's just less to be excited about in tech these days.
- modemNoises 1mo ago
  I think it's less pessimistic and more aware of its limits now and thus not as impressed When we were all younger it seemed the sky was the limit But we've gotten wiser and realize the ceiling with tech like iPhones and PS5 Hedonic treadmill just goes in a loop of experience. Consumer tech is just attention seeking codependency on the part of corporate The real cool stuff going on with tech is in domains like regenerative and longevity medicine; see Michael Levin at Tufts for truly sci fi Wolverine healing type mind blowing ideas