Kenton's Weekend Projects: LAN-Party Optimized House | Hacker News Reader

Kenton's Weekend Projects: LAN-Party Optimized House

kentonsprojects.blogspot.com

75 pointspbradv24 comments

For those unfamiliar with Kenton Varda - he wrote most of the protocol buffers library in Google. Great work.

Awesome project, was surprised when he said he bought all of the computers, I was expecting him to just get friends to bring their machines and plug them in out the back somewhere. I guess buying the machines allows an even playing field and lets friends without fast PC's play as well.

Gotta love someone who follows through with their dreams. We all wanted this house at some point but he actually built it!

Are all software engineers at Google this wealthy?

Back of the envelope for the computers is what, $12k? Add in $2k or so for the TVs and you're at at about $15k. That's a pretty doable amount for someone without other expensive hobbies at ~$100k/year, which is around the starting salary for Google SWEs. So I guess if normal SWE compensation in the Valley is defined as wealthy then yes?

It's not the computers that prompted my comment, it's the whole house. The computer desks are just part of a custom built home. Just look at those photos. Especially in California. I don't live there, but from what I hear, a custom home of that size has got to be in the millions?

I only deal with making glass for windows, but the last all custom entrance we did was supposed to have cost something like $30,000. So I'm thinking you're probably right.

Oddly enough, we have made quite a few windows for Google lately, but that $30k entrance was for someone else.

Yeah the computers were a tiny fraction of the cost of the house.

In absolute terms, yes, the house was expensive. However, it's actually probably below-average for Palo Alto. It's not very big (don't need that much space), and building a house does not actually cost that much more than buying one (assuming you can find an empty lot, which I was lucky enough to do).

Even the unique customizations didn't cost a whole lot. There are some cable tubes in the walls, and some custom cabinetry. The awesome architecture was free -- my dad designed it. :) Building curved walls and clerestory windows isn't that expensive; design is the hard part.

In any case, I've been working at Google for six and a half years and spending very little of they money I earned. The savings from that and a hefty mortgage were enough to build the house. :D

idk if this is a cultural thing, but imho half the fun is that everybody brings their own computers. And besides, PCs are personal. They are not consoles which are easily interchangeable. You have your own settings and programs on your computer, and some generic machine isn't just as fun.

Bringing your own computer to a LAN party is also a reason why it often takes 12 to 24 hours to get started with the gaming, there's something wrong with one or more of the computers.

It maybe easier if the idea is to play a certain game or two and everyone pre installs it.

it also has an overly formal feeling to it, like walking into a campus computer lab. to each his own though.

That's a fair point. I designed the stations such that people could bring their own computer and hook it up to my monitor and peripherals. However, in practice, almost no one has ever bothered to do this. People bring their laptops and leave them in the bag, because why bother when there's already a high-end machine available with all the games installed? And with the Steam Cloud / Battle.net / Chrome synchronizing their configuration, it's like they're using their own machine anyway.

I can tell you, having been doing LAN parties for over 15 years, we definitely get far more gaming in on these machines than at any heterogeneous setup. Typical LAN parties involve several hours of copying games around...

I remember coming as the sole Linux user once. That was sure 'fun'. :-) My own fault of course, but it was an interesting experience.

Yeah, I remember that. :) These days you can totally go to a LAN party running Linux. I went to one running FreeBSD, even. And my machines actually ran only Linux up until this past weekend. WINE is pretty good... Starcraft 2 works, Steam works, most Source-engine and Unreal-engine games work, etc. But there were just enough bugs that I eventually gave in.

I've been lucky enough to attend a few of these parties. I have been to a few other lan parties as well, and while there is something to be said for bringing your own computer, having all the computers with all the games preinstalled definitely makes it a more frictionless experience. From "let's play something" to playing it is typically about five minutes (except GTA, but that's probably because it's old enough to still offer IPX networking as an option).

THis is pretty EPIC!!

I have always wanted to do it, but thought it would be too hard or expensive or w/e. I am glad that someone else has done it, to re-ignite that dream of mine.

This is epic beyond epic.

My question is: how on earth you explain this to your wife?

I'm gonna guess he doesn't have one

I'm his girlfriend (gplus.to/ckelly) and I work in the gaming industry. I started dating Kenton when the house was just blueprints, and I've had the privilege of seeing it come to life and even helping with some of the wiring, etc. It's a damn fine house, let me tell you (even with the challenge of stringing HDMI cables through the walls).

What, is she an alien? She doesn't understand the concept of games? Why would explaining it be a problem?

This is beautiful <3

It would be neat if those TVs could hook to any computer. That way, you could host a tournament at your house =D

This is how the 1% do their LAN parties.

Naw, I may be in the 5%, but I'm not in the 1%. I just have a nice job at Google and didn't spend money on anything else for five years. :D

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