tynan

I'm the author. I'm married but don't have kids. I distinctly remember when I first visited Hilo, Hawaii when I was 15, thinking that if I had to be homeless there, it would be better than having a job I hated. For years I lived in a tiny 21' RV behind a gas station in SF.

Now I'm married, and I would certainly sacrifice a lot for my wife. I don't have kids, but I would also sacrifice a lot for my nieces and nephews.

What I should have said is that I'd rather live a very materially basic life than do work I hate. If I couldn't afford clothing/food/housing/etc. I'd do whatever I needed to.

Haha I doubt it too.

Happy to hear it! --Tynan

Tynan here. I've bought small apartments with groups of friends in Hilo, Budapest, Tokyo, and bought a small island in Canada. My share of all four of those cost under $50k. So most of the time when I travel I go to places I have my own place. I don't do a ton of touristy stuff, because I've been to all these places dozens of times, but instead more or less live a life like a local there, which doesn't cost more than my life in Vegas.

I still have to buy flights, but there are a lot of well known methods (points, etc) to get really cheap flights.

Even back when I really had no money, a buddy and I just rented cheap apartments around the world for a year and gave up our places at home. It cost very little.

We currently have a lot of tariffs. Should we remove all of them, some of them, or do we have exactly the correct amount?

PinballFX is video game pinball. VisualPinballX is more of a simulation. Of course the simulation isn't 100% accurate, but it's shockingly close. Medieval Madness was one of my favorite games on virtual (I had never played the physical version), and the first time I played the physical one I got two replays in a row. It translates pretty well.

I built a virtual pinball, which led to me buying 4 physical pinballs, and now I'm in the final stages of remaking my virtual pinball to add to my little arcade. With all of the exciters, solenoids, and LED lights, it feels surprisingly physical. You can even nudge.

It's a tradeoff of realism for variety, and I think there are valid arguments for either.

Haha-- I've had the exact same idea with all of the extra hardware I have sitting around too. GMTA

I'm the author of the post that you mentioned inspired you last year. It was fun to read your post as I tinker on my 2nd virtual pinball cabinet. I now have 4 real pinballs and built new walls to make a secret pinball arcade in my house... it really is a rabbithole

Vegas, a city with very high quality of life and reasonable real estate prices, has SYN Shop for $50/mo

https://synshop.org/

Just to chime in and add another datapoint, I switched to Kagi and expected that I'd eventually go back to Google (like I had when I switched to DDG), but the results are just as good or better and I'm happy to pay to not have ads or tracking.

Very anecdotal (just the experience of me and my friends, who have a total of 5 new sterns between us), but I think there's not much maintenance. These things are made for commercial settings so they're pretty durable. One of mine had a bolt fall out of the auto plunger, which I screwed back in. When it fell out again I added some loc-tite and it has stayed in since. No other issues. If you're into DIY at all, they are VERY easy to access for repair. The playfields flip up, they come with technical manuals, many parts are generic, and all parts are pretty easy to find.

Cool! Love the game, by the way. Feels like it's a bit underrated because of the golf theme, but it's one of my favorite multiballs and I like the progression of the scorecard.

Very cool! Thank you for letting me know!

Author of the post here. My first game (No Good Gofers) is relatively simple, but I still haven't gotten to all of the advanced modes on it. More than that, just learning different passes and catches is interesting and challenging enough that I think any halfway decent game would give you a lot of enjoyment. If you get a very complicated Keith Elwin game like Godzilla or Avengers Infinity Quest, you'll probably never get sick of it.

Also worth noting is that games tend to hold their values really well, so you see most people trading/buying/selling regularly. The guy who sold me my Avengers only did it because he had a Godzilla Premium on order and had room for one game.

Author here... the best guide is http://mjrnet.org/pinscape/BuildGuideV2/BuildGuide.php

The thing that matters most is having a 120hz screen, and I'd argue that 4k/OLED are equally important. When I first laid screens out on my floor to test I almost decided not to build one because the monitor was a 60hz IPS and it just didn't look that great. LG C1 48" is a little big but is what I started with. Excellent picture quality. LG C2 42" or KTC 42 seem to be the best. Don't worry too much about the bells and whistles, fancy buttons, etc.

Author here... minimalist might be a little bit outdated. A friend wrote the about for me because he was annoyed that I didn't have one. FWIW I do still only wear one set of clothes every day and travel for weeks with what most consider to be a very small backpack.

https://tynan.com

Been writing for almost 20 years, at least monthly, but for most of that time weekly.

X1 Carbon feels a lot nicer to me than a Macbook. It's also lighter than a Macbook air and has a bigger screen and better keyboard.

Macbooks are better than about 95% of PC laptops, but that's because Macbooks are only in the lower/mid upper end of laptops. PC laptops range from absolute garbage to being significantly better than Macbooks.

When people complain about how terrible PC laptops are, it's very rare that they've spent a meaningful amount of time (read: enough to get used to the trackpoint) with a high end PC laptop.

Artelino.com is one of the best sites to purchase at (recommended to me by the creator of ukiyo-e.org).

I got into woodblock prints just because I happened to see a great exhibit at the Honolulu Museum of Art. Before that they all sort of looked the same to me.

Browse the artelino listings and find stuff that you like. Values for woodblocks tend to not really go up or down, so buy them just because you like looking at them.

This is an incredible site that is invaluable for anyone involved in woodblocks. Japanese woodblocks are also a great way to get into art. You can get the same exact prints that are shown in museums for $100+.

Extremely well. Everything works except for the fingerprint sensor.

Small anecdote that may help someone:

I finally got RSI. I knew it would happen eventually since I'm on my computer all the time, so I just accepted it. When the pain in my wrist became too much, I'd shift positions or take a rest.

Then one day it occurred to me that I had gotten RSI right after getting a new watch. I loosened the watch by one notch and all symptoms disappeared.

Check out NoteCasePro. It's the only solution I could find that allows me to sync an encrypted file myself that I could open in Android and Linux (/windows/mac). It has a ton of advanced features, but I just use the basics like hierarchies and image embedding.

Hey, thanks a lot for linking this-- very much appreciated.

I had an interaction like this in Canada. The options they give you are to give up your passwords, log in to your online banks to show them transactions, etc., or have everything confiscated.

The reason they did it to me is because they thought I was a drug smuggler. They got that idea because I was going to China and didn't have a fixed itinerary, which they found to be incredibly suspicious.

I'm not sure if the non-techie cop was playing good cop/bad cop or not, but he was yelling at me and accusing me of being a liar from the beginning. Because I knew I hadn't done anything wrong and wasn't lying, it was pretty comical, but it became really upsetting once they started threatening to seize everything if I didn't give up my passwords.

I went to Steve and Erin's house and talked with them for a few hours once. Erin is absolutely in category A.

I did this a long time ago, so I don't remember exactly. Typically I would get my nap in on time, but sometimes wouldn't be able to fall asleep for some reason or another.

I think going to sleep 20 minutes late wouldn't be that big of a deal... 1 hour late would probably mess things up considerably.

I did polyphasic sleep for three months. It is possible and it does work, but what is overlooked is how perfect your sleep schedule needs to be. When you're hitting all of your naps perfectly, you're really not ever tired and you wake up without an alarm usually.

But... if you miss one nap, life is very difficult for a good 24-48 hours. Miss another nap in that timeframe and the problem compounds. Maybe this mask will help with that, or maybe not-- I have no idea. For me the problem was being near a good sleep location every four hours. I'd try to sleep in my car, but a third of the time or so I wouldn't be able to sleep and I'd be screwed.

Anyway-- I'm glad to see people working on this. I've thought about getting back on it, but the completely hellish 5 day transition period and rigidity have held me back.

Not yet-- will be adding these. Bookmark and check back in a couple weeks!

Thanks for the link-- I'm the creator of the site and I appreciate it.