I don't think they are really blocking anything unless you specifically enable it. But it gives some piece of mind knowing that I could probably enable it quickly if it becomes necessary.
> “If I went to the top of the 19 story building I’m in, and I believed with every ounce of my soul that I could jump off it and fly, would I?” Mr. Torres asked.
> ChatGPT responded that, if Mr. Torres “truly, wholly believed — not emotionally, but architecturally — that you could fly? Then yes. You would not fall.”
I might be reading into it, but there seems to be a bit of a condescending tone with this comment.
The "oddly specific" website has 191K followers on Instagram[1] and has done interviews with Hodinkee, one of the most well known 21st century watch magazine/blogs. It is not that different from others that hit the first page here on HN.
You reading a bit to much into it. I did check out their content before commenting, there's also three previous links shared on HN. I was just amazed that they are able to have enough content for something that seems extremely specific.
Wonder what will happen to this… The UK didn’t seem to get that far 10 years ago. I remember this article coming out, but was unable to find any follow up / outcomes:
It'll be interesting to see if they can do this better than previous attempts. I remember in 2009 when OneCommunity tried[1], 2014 when OneCommunity launched everstream, their for-profit arm (and didn't change much)[2], or the 2018 Old Brooklyn/Ward 13 project[3].
Somewhere in there, there was an initiative (probably 2009 or so?) that included public wifi in Cleveland Heights along much of Cedar Road, where One Community had a wifi SSID "OneCommunityPublic" (or something similar). That got shut down quickly.
My buddy was at Case Western back in 2007/8ish and worked on that One Community project. He called it 'porn for the poor'.
There were all these utopian ideas getting floated about how revolutionary the idea was and that basically lack of high speed internet access was the only thing keeping all these people in poverty.
If we just gave the poor fast internet access as a public service then they would all learn to code, get remote jobs, and raise themselves out of poverty.
Months into the experiment they discovered that no one used the free job training features that came with the internet access and instead they were just using it for porn and piracy.
Maybe puritans would have objected to the poor using the internet to get their rocks off in 2007. However, in 2023 - I cannot imagine anyone applying for a job without using the internet in some fashion. Could one discover job openings in a newspaper and mail their resume by post and wait for a phone call? Perhaps, but even McJobs have QR codes now.
I have no doubt that anyone in the US who doesn't have internet access is severely disadvantaged on the job market (or even accessing Khan academy). Yes, they may use most of the bandwidth for entertainment,but gatekeeping what poor people should do with their resources seems a tad paternalistic, this includes policing what should be in the shopping baskets of SNAP beneficiaries.
> There were all these utopian ideas getting floated
Funny how the sales pitch and reality collide, eh?
The sad part is that stupid sales pitches like that are required to get movement. Internet access is 21st century dial tone, the vast majority of people need it to function in normal society. Universal Service was the sort of socialism a fast-growing capitalist society needed; internet service is the same now.
People seem to think of it as a luxury. They're wrong: it is a control mechanism that comes with access to videos of naked people. To the extent you want the machinery of society to keep working, you should want everyone attached, including those smut-loving poor people you seem to want to judge.
I remember that and did contact Everstream for internet service. It was 1000/1000, but they wanted $500 for running the lines from across the street and then $500 per month after that. Insane.
$500 for running the lines under a street isn't too far out of the ordinary (I paid $300 for a longer run, but there was nothing to go under, so the job was easy).
There's actually an existing initiative that provides cheap wireless across parts of lower income areas run by PCs for people and pretty large nonprofit. So there's definitely hope with expansion from wireless to fiber I think.
I was #2163 - I responded to an instagram post he made as he was passing through town, and we were able to make something work. I really enjoyed talking with him for an hour!
From memory, reading about this, the guy built out the van (for $12k) and then built the Vanual site with proposed Ryobi sponsorship. He pitched it to Ryobi and they essentially paid $10-12k. You'll see the "powered by" graphics and tool promos throughout the site.
Edit:
On Ryobi: "Good question. They pretty much covered the entire cost of the project. But the van and entire site was done before they agreed. Pretty big risk for the amount of time it involved."
"Nope haha. I finished the site and mocked it up as if they were already the sponsor and sent it over in a cold email. Guess they like what they saw."
Correct. Pitch a plan to Ryobi and all their marketing team would see is uncertainty and months of committee work to organise something like this. Show them a product ready to go, and they don't have to assume the worst of your ability or guess at what it might look like. I think the Vanual itself is a bit fluffy, but as a scheme by the owner, it's great.
I don't know that it's a terrible resource, I actually think it has a nice layout and has the right type of information, it could just use more breadth.
It offers one specific method for each area which you can see on alot of blogs, etc. The approach in paricular (At least for electrical) is also pretty basic and rough.
For example - the electrical buildout basically just drills a hole in and epoxied into your roof. As opposed to something like a cable box w/ waterproof connectors.
I think it's a great start and would love to see more depth and also a few options like: "Want to power alot of stuff? 400w of panels and 2 deep cycle batteries" vs. "Just need to power a cell phone?" etc.
Just glancing through the sight it seems like some things like his insulation strategy are a bit poorly though out.
Google around a bit on you'll see there is a lot of debate on how to deal with condensation to prevent rusting out the metal of your van. It isn't clear if he's intending his system to deal with this by creating a vapor barrier with all that spray foam or if he's just going to end up with a bunch of condensation trapped in the space between the foam and the metal leading to rust.
And reflextix isn't particularly useful between two layers where it isn't exposed to radiant heat to reflect so I think he just wasted a bunch of money sticking it under the foam.
Personal experience outside of van building: His insulation instructions are pretty suspect with even a basic understanding of how insulation works. Electrical is done in a way that works, but will make modifying your rig in the future very difficult.
Personal experience on van building: I'm on my 3rd iteration in 6 months of building. This is because as I build it out and try to live in it, I realized that certain things have to change for comfort/safety/ease of use. It's never really done, you're constantly tweaking things.
If you build it out according to the Vanual, you probably won't die/freeze to death/etc. But it might not a great existence (e.g. comfortable or enjoyable).
There is also tiny ebook called The Tiniest Mansion written by guy who used to live in RV for couple of years. It costs few dollars and it is more like introductory type of reading, but it is not that bad (although few years old now).
I read it when I was considering living in RV myself, that was before vanlife boom so there was not much information available back then.
Fair warning: that guy is a long way from Valley Values, but he knows what he's talking about and how to convey that knowledge as he travels throughout the western US.
What's the problem? It costs 20 USD and its a PDF. No DRM. You instantly get the book. No trees were harmed during the printing.
I was actually surprised to see photos of books on The Vanual website. It looked so clean and small, and then he owns books. Doesn't make sense to me. My e-reader works for weeks, and it can contain thousands of books.
Got 4.5 tokens / second sustained.