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Comment by brandall10 | Hacker News Reader

Just for people new to who Tynan is, he's a pretty far out guy. Some things I recall (sorry haven't kept up over the years)

1) Ran a successful professional online poker playing business, actually hired employees and trained them to predictably win.

2) Was one of the main characters in the book The Game (yes, that PUA one).

3) Did polyphasic sleep experiments in earnest (was it a couple months or so?).

4) Had a giant inflatable outdoor pool inside his house, taking up his entire livingroom.

5) Sold all his belongings, including said house, and travelled the world for a year with almost nothing... probably in 2k8 or so before such an idea became more commonplace.

There's probably some much cooler stuff I'm forgetting, but hey it makes perfect sense he'd be part of an island buying crew.

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Not common place before 2008? A lot of anti materialism propaganda started way before that: AdBusters, Culture Jam and lots of other films that were even main stream.

Travelling the world for a year (which requires not having a lot of possessions) is not necessarily part of the same trend (frankly, of garbage) that you cite.

I think he means before stories like that started popping up on HN...

And much sooner than those there was the whole counterculture movement of the 60s. Anti-materialism is about as old materialism itself.

> There's probably some much cooler stuff I'm forgetting, but hey it makes perfect sense he'd be part of an island buying crew.

He mentions these and more on this page: http://tynan.com/about

>Although I'm happy to be saving money, my _primary reasons_ for living in an RV are that it _forces me to be minimalist and focus on what matters_, and it's a lot of fun. I've modified nearly every aspect of the interior of my RV (...) Some of the changes include:
> Maple and marble floors
> Brazilian granite countertops
>Japanese-style tea room in the back complete with rush-reed tatami mats and mulberry shoji screened rear window.
>Golden tin ceiling
>Gold-leafed 10 foot curved section of the wall
>Home theater system with LED projector, 50" screen, and 12" subwoofer.
>Handmade zebrawood desk

>Controllable low-wattage LED lighting system with over 1000 bulbs

Minimalist and focused on what matters indeed.

Consider it this way, in an RV has a small amount of room so there is a limit to the cool stuff he can put in it. So he has to CHOOSE what stuff to keep.

I men lets not forget about the giant inflatable pool in the living room incident. you simply can NOT do that in an RV

>So there is a limit to the cool stuff he can put in it. So he has to CHOOSE what stuff to keep

First world minimalism.

Thanks! That's definitely the highlight reel!

"I type on a Dvorak keyboard instead of QWERTY" ... Wow, didn't it existed. Do you still use Dvorak ? (wondering if its worth the switch)

I use Dvorak, I believe it helped with my hand and wrist RSI issues, but I have no more than anecdotal evidence. I also type faster, which is verifiable, but it might just be due to ~7 years extra practice.

Keyboard layout shootout: qwerty vs dvorak(s) vs colemak

http://patorjk.com/keyboard-layout-analyzer/

Can we get a blog post about the pool thing? I've always wanted to try that but my brother told me my house would collapse :-(

It's really poorly written, but here's what I wrote about it 8 years ago: http://tynan.com/the-infamous-ghetto-indoor-pool

Wow! Great point about being 72 degrees. I never thought of that.

> To ensure that the pool would be environmentally friendly, Crystal simulated a retarded dolphin swimming in the dry pool. It was a great success.

Glad I'm not the only one that wants to have an indoor inflatable pool that takes up an entire room. The wife does not approve.

He did it for a higher calling -- namely having a penguin as a pet. Maybe if you make that your justification too your wife will jump on board, so to speak.

It's funny that the pool made it on the list of interesting things about tynan, but not the penguin.

To be fair, I never got the penguin :(

So the pool in your living room was just a preemptive one? ;)

Way back in the early days of Internet, there were pictures of some fellows who moved all the furniture out of their dorm room, got a sheet of heavy-duty waterproof plastic big enough to cover the floor and three feet up the walls, and ran a hose from the bathroom...

> Sold all his belongings, including said house, and travelled the world for a year with almost nothing... probably in 2k8 or so before such an idea became more commonplace.

Has this really become more commonplace since 2008? People have always done this. Even before 2008. Maybe blogging about it is a fairly recent thing, though.

Ages ago, I also had this idea, including posting about it online. But it turns out I'm a dreamer rather than a do-er. Or maybe I'm just too addicted to comfort.

> 5) Sold all his belongings, including said house, and travelled the world for a year with almost nothing... probably in 2k8 or so before such an idea became more commonplace.

Didn't Jesus do this?

I don't think Jesus ever had belongings like that to sell. He did recommend it to others, though.

He's also been living out of an RV for a while.

Off-topic, I know, but are we calling 2008 "2k8" now? Is last decade the 2k's?

I believe the practice starts with resistors, and because of differences in use of . and , and the fact they are hard to tell apart, the units are placed in stead of the . ie 1,500 ohm -> 1k5 ohm

Exactly, which means 2k8 is actually 2800, and not 2008.

Knowing nothing about resistors, though, 2k8 intuitively means 2008. So I like this way of doing it.

Really? Because I would prefer "2008" to "2k8"... It's literally one more character...

For written communication, yes. For verbal communication, the 2000s can be a bit burdensome to pronounce.

I look at the k as a algebric constant, i.e. SI prefix http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SI_prefix#List_of_prefixes

so 2k8 is 2000 +8,

2k1da3 would be 2013

2k8=16000

Wouldn't that be 2.8k?

The way people seem to reckon it is 2k8 = 2 * 1000 + 8 = 2008

On the other hand, if it were 2k8h then it would be 2800 (2 kilo, 8 hecto).

Slightly different in that case, as Ives has pointed out. For example, 4k7 = 4.7 kilohms. Extra zeros are significant, e.g. 4k700 = 4.700 kilohms.

Sports video games have been doing this for years.

e.g. http://www.ign.com/games/nba-2k8/xbox-360-866314

…or as I've recently taken to calling it, 2k plus 8.

I'd always hoped they would be known as the naughties.

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