
Kenton's Weekend Projects: LAN-Party Optimized House - pbradv
http://kentonsprojects.blogspot.com/2011/12/lan-party-optimized-house.html
======
eliben
For those unfamiliar with Kenton Varda - he wrote most of the protocol buffers
library in Google. Great work.

------
rodh257
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.

------
pat2man
Gotta love someone who follows through with their dreams. We all wanted this
house at some point but he actually built it!

------
dangrossman
Are all software engineers at Google this wealthy?

~~~
frew
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?

~~~
dangrossman
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?

~~~
Natsu
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.

------
zokier
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.

~~~
kentonv
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...

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

~~~
kentonv
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.

------
marcamillion
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.

~~~
exDM69
My question is: how on earth you explain this to your wife?

~~~
Axsuul
I'm gonna guess he doesn't have one

~~~
peanutsc
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).

~~~
kentonv
<3

------
Axsuul
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

------
robinduckett
This is how the 1% do their LAN parties.

~~~
kentonv
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

