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Comment by deftnerd | Hacker News Reader

Is there a recommended place where geeks in need can apply for donated laptops?

I took a year off with my wife in kids in the cheapest US locale I could find (agricultural area of Puerto Rico) so I could survive on my passive income projects while I learn some new skills (C++, Go, deep learning, and a few others)

I didn't expect to lose both laptops I brought - One to power surges caused by bad infrastructure and one to tiny sugar ants that decided to build a colony inside the laptop.

I've ended my sabbatical and am heading back to the mainland, but it's hard to do dev work on the laptop I managed to breath life back into when I know that if it dies, I have no way to replace it.

I'm sure I'm not the only poor geek out there. Where should we look for cast-off equipment that doesn't get mined by opportunists who just want free stuff to sell on ebay?

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Where are you at in Puerto Rico? I am in San Juan, and have a laptop I can give you. Would be happy to help a fellow-geek.

Overlooking Adjuntas. We wanted to go somewhere with perfect weather and Adjuntas fits that bill :-)

Shout out! We're moving there in the next couple of years to grow coffee.

We'll be in Ponce in August (that's where we know the most people, so we'll rent there for a year or two while learning the ropes from some coffee-grower friends and looking for the right land).

You're picking a great place to live. The people are friendly, fairly low crime rate, and the weather is amazing. I don't think it's been over 80 since I've been here.

Everyone here grows coffee or bananas, so make sure you're not planning to sell locally.

Water and Electric are inconsistent. Make sure wherever you live has a backup water tank that you keep filled and that your fancy electronics are on a good surge protector or better yet a UPS. It wouldn't be a bad idea to get an inexpensive generator.

Internet is available too! alphanetwireless.com is a local WISP that serves the valley and surrounding mountains. I pay $60 for a 10 down/4 up connection if I remember correctly. Uptime is about 99%. Strong mobile phone signals in the area too across at least 3 different networks my visitors have had.

Downsides? Not a lot of variety in restaurants. Most stuff is fried. Chinese food even comes with french fries. Also, berries are rare and expensive.

My email is in my profile. Send me a message if you have any questions.

Ha. I know all that. We lived in Puerto Rico for five years a couple years back.

No, local sales are not at all profitable. The wholesale price of coffee is fixed to benefit the big roasters - our plan is to roast it ourselves and sell retail online as a boutique brand serving the mainland. Our friends already do this, and do OK with it.

The electricity is fine in Ponce (water can be a temporary issue there, too, but every house has a tank); when we do come to Adjuntas, we'll be building a solar house, ideally somewhere with its own spring water.

No hurry. It's PR. :-)

I guess it depends on where you live. I'd search for some sort of giveaway communities on Facebook or elsewhere online. It will probably be something local, due to shipping costs etc. For example in Croatia I give old hardware away over:

- poklanjanje.com ( https://www.facebook.com/Poklanjanje-142113603722 )

- cipele46 ( https://www.facebook.com/Cipele46 , http://cipele46.org/ )

You may have to go to a more urban area, but look for local techie Meetups or a local makerspace / hackerspace. Or reach out to some remote ones where you know people. We have dozens of laptops sitting at our local hackerspace. Get to know them, help out with a project, etc. and there's plenty of gear to be had.

My wife has floated the idea of moving somewhere ultracheap for a year to save up money while I work remote. Aside from ant and power issues, how was your experience otherwise?

We probably wouldn't move to Puerto Rico, but likely somewhere cheap on the mainland - maybe Texas, or somewhere in the midwest.

I just replied up in the thread, but overall the experience has been great. It was just too much of a culture shock for my wife and kids.

If you're looking for an inexpensive place on the mainland, I would suggest looking at small towns (under 10k people) adjacent to agricultural areas. Areas near or in the Appalachian Mountains would likely be beautiful and inexpensive, albeit a bit neglected culturally.

PR was hard to get set up because we couldn't move our possessions and had to start from scratch here. It also was difficult because there isn't a culture of "charity shops" that I was used to. Without a salvation army or goodwill or even garage sales, we had to buy everything new or travel for hours to find a store that sold used appliances.

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