

What does it take to be a programmer out at sea? - Simucal
http://www.mattmcdole.com/blog/?p=9

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Raphomet
Boat, schmoat. Call me when I can be a hacker in my flying, Mario 3-esque
airship. I'll be in my room under the green pipe.

Seriously, this is a pretty awesome article. It looks like the main problem is
Internet access, for which there are few solutions, all laughably expensive.
The site linked in the article is clearly targeted at people who own yachts.

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mixmax
I live on a boat, and I can tell you that it realy isn't a problem. It was
five years ago, but not now. Almost all marinas have wireless, and you can get
3G phone cards that will give you decent transmission a few miles off shore.
If you're further out than that you're probably not programming anyway. Not
unless the weather is really calm and you're at anchor.

This is in Europe, but I expect it is the same in the US.

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Luc
What are the rules about anchoring off the coast? Can you just drop anchor
wherever you want, as long as it's not in a shipping lane or something? I'm
dreaming of living on a boat, but apparently harbours charge quite a lot if
you're just visiting for a few days. It sounds romantic to just sail to a
quiet spot and stay at sea or in a natural harbour until supplies run out.
Strangely enough I haven't found a good information source for this kind of
idea, possibly because I'm a noob and it's a crazy one :)

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dhimes
A lot of people who do this type of thing blog about it. There might be a
better one now, but I used to use this repo of links to peruse:
<http://cruisenews.net/> One of my favorite links from there was
<http://www.katiekat.net/> by an engineer who detailed how he hacked his cat
for cruising. I also like the way he renders his experiences.

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Tichy
A cat = a sailing boat. At first I thought he hacked his cat (pet). After all,
I wouldn't see it as a given that a cat would feel at home on a relatively
small sailing boat? But there is the concept of a "ship's cat", so maybe not
impossible to have pets.

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matthewking
Probably started when old cargo ships were swarmed with rats eating the
supplies and spreading diseases.

I have read about several people sailing around the world though that have
kept cats aboard in more recent times. Robin Lee Graham
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Lee_Graham>) had several during his
voyages, his book Dove is excellent by the way for anyone interested in
sailing and exploration.

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sammyo
'Out at sea' past a 50 mile line, communication is very slow and very
expensive. Some exceptions, there is free email with a ham license, non-
commercial and certainly no images, A single sideband HF transceiver and modem
is 1-2k$, think 9600 baud in optimum conditions. Within a mile of the shore of
any industrialized nation, standard wifi is supposed to be pretty available.
The boat in the picture is not getting too far offshore with one neophyte and
one cat.

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dcurtis
Well, I can say one thing: SSH over satellite internet is... an interesting
experience, to say the least. A 2 second delay is really annoying.

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HeyLaughingBoy
This is too funny: just half hour ago I finished _A Mile Down: The true story
of a disastrous career at sea_

Hope he ends up better than David Vann did :-) I would put the laptop in a
Pelican or a NEMA4-rated case to limit corrosion and extend
keyboard/monitor/mouse cables through the case. Seal the cable exits with
gland seals and filter the incoming air.

No matter what, you'll be dealing with a lot of salt air corrosion in a small
boat on the ocean. I was trained as a Merchant Marine officer and know what a
never-ending battle it is, even on large carriers.

Personally, I'd leave the computer in a sealed case and only use it in harbor.
Too many other important tasks will take up your time when at sea.

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noonespecial
A gps that twitters your location to friends and family would be cool.

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TriinT
Twitter is for pussies. APRS is much cooler:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Position_Reporting_Sy...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Position_Reporting_System)

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lsb
It's stunning that packet losses are so high at sea that they need to
_exponentially_ distribute it for transmission to be successful.

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Vivtek
Oh man, oh man, this is exactly what I want to do when I grow up. I keep
hoping satellite access will get cheap(er). In the Caribbean, apparently, it's
not so horrible.

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andreyf
Curious that this was deleted on SO, but rose to #1 here...

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eru
What's SO?

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nutmeg
SO == StackOverflow

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tezza
Lifejacket

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Kadin
Plus one for the cat, if they make such a thing...

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Luc
People sometimes hang a thick rope, a bit like a cat's scratching pole, off
the side of the boat, so the cat can get back on if it falls in the water.
Some people even put some catnip on it to make the cat used to climbing up and
down it.

Only useful when in harbour, of course...

