I’d say this applies to a far broader group; I’ll never forget when a professor asked for a show of hands on the first day of class: “how many of you will have more than 10 million?”
More than half raised their hands immediately. It was a Philosophy 101 class.
$10 million sounds like peanuts in an information environment where discussion is dominated by talk of billionnaires. When I was growing up, I remember Bill Gates and Warren Buffett's wealth being touted as a measly $40 billion or something. Today the numbers tossed around for Bezos, Musk etc are minds numbingly massive, 200 to 300 billion.
Meanwhile most people in "rich" countries will have to reach mid-career status to even reach $100k.
The first time I tried them, it was like I peaked behind the “curtain” in the Wizard of Oz, and knew even in that moment I’d never be able to unsee or forget it. It was the equivalent of being a child and realizing Santa didn’t actually exist.
Life as I had known it, the things that then animated me, were “shown” to be a pantomime - a joke. It was tremendously sad, and - for better or worse - I’ve never been the same since.
Maybe it was a coming of age experience - something I would have more painfully experienced later anyway. But it cost something significant. It changed me. Still, some 25 years later, I don’t know if it was for the better.
Except Ukraine is a sovereign nation - much like Russia (which in today’s form does not hold any reasonable claim to Kyiv) - and renaming either nations capital city to satisfy some man’s thirst for legacy would be equally vulgar. The analogy holds pretty well, from where I’m standing.
I think the thing that I’m most amazed by - and this setup is truly amazing - is the fact that you’ve got a group of friends to enjoy this with. Good for you; this looks like a blast, and I can only imagine how fun that’d be, compared to years of purely solo gaming.
Yeah, it's impressive that someone built this. But the most impressive thing to me is that he has a group of friends who have been doing LAN parties together for 30 years. I can't think of anyone that I know that still does that.
My junior high friends that I've been having parties with for 30 years live in Minneapolis (where I grew up). They fly out for New Year's Eve each year.
But, in fact, some friends who regularly attended LAN parties in the Bay Area moved to Austin around the same time we did. And some others are also willing to travel for New Year's.
Plenty of people in tech moved from Silicon Valley to Austin to get a better tax / quality of life deal, even in my social circle.
Remote working becoming widely available really made a difference.
I'm in a completely different part of the world, but for similar reasons I ended up with a few friends in tech who moved to the same part of the world - and I've also met similar profiles to ours, attracted by the same reasons.
Where did you move to if you don't mind me asking? The chasm between SV tech comp and various "completely different part of the world" is massive. Were you able to meet your employer in the middle?
That's true to an extent, but it's also quite a bit more expensive than the $300 (CAD) I paid for an XBOX with 2 controllers, and I had the side benefit of being able to easily play with the kids (who find it easy to use).
