jat1's comments

jat1 | 13 years ago | on: Living in a Van

This is almost exactly what we are doing now but in Europe. We have done 8700miles over the last three months. We mostly free camps and have a very similar routine as you did. We have stayed in some amazing places. Currently in Lithuania. Poland Tomorow or Monday I think!

Http://www.wanderingeurope.co.uk is our blog

jat1 | 13 years ago | on: Living in a Van

I lived in the van Monday-Thursday while working in London (my home is around 130miles to the east). Not a problem and not uncomfortable. I sometimes used the showers at the office but my van is fully equipped with shower,toilet heaters etc. I wasn't the only one doing it either, and after a while you spot other likely vans.

jat1 | 13 years ago | on: Living in a Van

I'm currently living in a van! Me and my long term girlfriend have taken some time from the 9-5 to travel around Europe for a while. Been on the road for almost three months now and it's done wonders for my mental state.y mind is clearer, I'm calmer and I feel better. I'm still trying to work on small projects and I have an osx utility I wrote entirely on the road using my MacBook Pro and the solar panels on the van to power it.

It's not cheap, we are able to live on basically half of what we were living on before, but that's not the point of this journey for us.

If your interested in our travels our blog is here http://www.wanderingeurope.co.uk

jat1 | 13 years ago | on: Ask HN: App idea for travellers

As a note there are some apps that do this, and one I saw in offered some gaming elements to help you 'discover' the sights and information about them. Looked pretty cool but I don't know if they released it.

jat1 | 13 years ago | on: Ask HN: App idea for travellers

I was looking into an idea similar to this and I started looking at using open street map to generate map data to solve this issue. Open Street map db has tons of info that you don't see on the normal 'maps' so making custom maps was really the way to go. The idea being to download map 'packs' that contain sufficient detail to get to the areas of interest then more detailed maps only for those areas (to avoid having to download huge datasets before you travel and to make it possible to download new ones from wifi points while away)

This idea really interests me and as I am about to embark on long term travel I intend to explore these ideas more.

The audio though, thats another story.

jat1 | 14 years ago | on: Ask HN: How often do you use a debugger?

For Java work I use the debugger a lot. When working on my Django or Python projects I use it a lot as well since its built into PyCharm. When writing code in emacs etc I tend to not bother.

I also make heavy use of logging statements, but these are usually left in for debug builds and used to help find unexpected bugs rather than active debugging.

Just recently had to start using JavaScript so I have spent some times figuring out FireBug and its debugger. I must say I was pleasantly surprised that it works well.

jat1 | 14 years ago | on: Ask HN: What do you think when you see Twitter bootstrap

My reason for picking it is this. Rapid way to get to MvP without concerning yourself making a site presentable. The defaults look good and most importantly most of your customers won't know or care.

Once idea is proven, and tech is built then I will move onto fixing the way it looks (most likely pay a designer)

jat1 | 14 years ago | on: Ask HN: Accepting clients payments

BACS, cash, or Paypal. I prefer BACS or cash as no fee's. Speak to your bank they will guide you through your options. I am with Natwest in the UK and they have a small business helpline/guide that will happily discuss things like this.

jat1 | 14 years ago | on: What would you do?

You should probably email them first to check that they are aware of the issue or if indeed it is intentional.

If it is, and it is not mentioned in their T+Cs or anywhere on their site so that their customers are aware that their affiliation with the service can be discovered easily by third parties then I would consider it a problem. In this case I think disclosing the company name so that its customers are informed is not an issue but I would not release the tool to get the data.

jat1 | 14 years ago | on: Drop out of uni and go freelance?

Consider the experience at Uni as a challenge. Try and do your best to make it through, it is valuable and it gives you the confidence to make it through something your not particularly enjoying (which will happen again either in the work place or freelancing) but it will also keep your social network quite large and give you a qualification which in the UK does matter. See if you can transfer onto a course that is more interesting to you, or at least some modules. The uni probably has an advisor you can speak to about it. What year are you in?

I struggled with exams, but I found that at uni a large percentage of the assessments was based on assignments and projects. This meant I did not have to worry so much about the exams and was able to get good marks.

Enjoy uni, it really is a good experience and I wish I could go back (I am aware that technically I could, but age wouldn't be on my side this time)!

jat1 | 14 years ago | on: Ask HN: What do you do on your commute?

Depends on my mood but when I commute its usually at least an hour so I typically read on my kindle, RSS on iPhone or if I am in the middle of an interesting project (or working towards a deadline) I will sometimes try to work. I typically find the time quite productive in this situation, as I use it to do the annoying stuff that I can time box to the commute time.

jat1 | 14 years ago | on: Ask HN: What service would you pay me 10$ a month for?

Currently working on a concept similar to this, but around classifieds and private sellers rather than companies.

The basic premise is along the lines of "Tell us what your looking for or interested in and we will tell you when a good deal turns up somewhere"

The point being it may not be available now, but when it is we will let you know.

Still in early prototype at the moment and focused on a specific niche but we aim to expand rapidly.

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