Gridless H4X0R | TTT 218

Gridless H4X0R | TTT 218

A new big tech trend right under our noses? A new generation of nomadic high-tech workers living off the grid, while staying always connected.

These developers ask why is there is much pressure to buy the biggest house, buy the best TV, get a great car?

Before us now is an entire world of possibilities & cultures, some of us have been completely blind to. The ability to live comfortably, in a tiny home, or an RV & move about or bring your home with you when you travel is an amazing way to live. We look at a few remarkable examples.

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Show Notes:

— Episode Links —

Off the Grid, But Still Online | Motherboard

For the last 61 days I’ve been traveling throughout California while living out of my Corolla, collecting stories from people living off the grid.

The people I’ve met have abandoned the chase of the American Dream; they are not battling traffic to work a nine-to-five job in order to live in a big house or buy a fancy car. Instead, their values are centered around new life experiences, connecting with nature, building their own homes, growing their own food, and having a full sense of control over their lives—including managing the amount of time they spend on the internet.

The average American feels lost going a day without logging onto their social media accounts via smartphone, tablet, or computer. By contrast, these people know exactly how much power their solar panels need to generate to charge their phones or watch a DVD on their laptops, and they moderate their usage in the same way they would measure out exactly how much water they need to cook dinner and take a shower.

Joey Hess

So I’ve built etckeeper (managing /etc with git, for sysadmins), ikiwiki (wikis and blogs in git), and git-annex (applying git to very large files). I’m funded by a Kickstarter project in 2012-2013 to build something not unlike DropBox, based on git-annex, that automatically version controls and syncs files between computers.

I’m also a long-time Debian developer, having been involved in building the Debian installer, and I run a 30-year delayed Usenet feed at olduse.net.


This place is nicely remote, and off the grid, relying on solar power. I only get 50 amp-hours of juice on a sunny day, and often less than 15 amp-hours on a bad day. So the whole house runs on 12 volt DC power to avoid the overhead of an inverter; my laptop is powered through a succession of cheap vehicle power adapters, and my home server runs on 5 volt power provided by a USB adapter.

WatsonsWander

Since 2012 we have traveled the U.S. while living and working from our renovated 25-foot Airstream. Follow us on our crazy journey in search of beautiful scenery, fun adventures, interesting people, tasty foods, and more…

Since June 2012 we have traveled the U.S. while living and working from our 25-foot Airstream. We’ve crafted this interactive infographic, which is updated daily with the data from our journey.

Technomadia | Adventures in Nomadic Serendipity

We’ve been perpetually on the road since 2006 combining technology and travel (tech+nomad).

We’re currently full time RVers roaming around in a geeked out vintage bus conversion.

We work remotely as technology & strategy advisors, app developers and authors.. always sucking up mobile internet bandwidth.

We love sharing a slice of our life from the road, provide a little inspiration and some lessons learned over the years.

Best RV Internet Access Options: The Learning Banks Uncensored at dc404 Sep 2015 – YouTube

06:05 Free Wifi – the reality
10:20 Cellular Internet – the reality
19:33 Put it all together
20:23 DIY RV wifi antenna repeater + Verizon (~$200 — Score: C)
26:40 WiFi Ranger + Wilson cradle booster and antenna (~$875 — Score: D-)
36:39 MaxxFi Standard (includes CradlePoint router, plus dual Wilson boosters and antennas (~$1700 — Score: C+)
53:50 Best RV internet options for the DIYer ~ $380
59:39 Part 2: Our solar power setup
1:01:00 Our goals for solar power
1:03:20 Expectation hardware needed
1:04:55 What did we install?
1:12:06 Solar power success!
1:14:26 In a perfect world
1:17:48 Parts list
1:20:26 Q&A

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