Hi I'm technomadness and I'm a refugee...

[technomadness]

Last fall I was looking at buying a house— after 30 years of working and saving and good investments, this would have been my first house. But I was facing paying a lot of money for a lot that was too small and poor construction... or doing it myself on some land, and then at the end of that I would be beholden to every building commission lackey and tax & spender who saw me as a captive audience to exploit.

I know a couple who wanted to build an earthquake proof house in California. He had a PhD in geology. He wasn’t able to because the 20 year old at the building commission wouldn’t approve the plan. So now their dream house will collapse if there is a serious earthquake at the nearby fault.

Previously I’d found that the treatment of tourists is better than locals in many countries, and it occurred to me that this factor might play well here in the states— tourists bring in money, where as locals are seen as a captive audience (the exodus of people from California is still not having an impact on their fiscal policies, for example.)

So with this build, instead of spending $500k on a house, I’m spending way less than $100k on a van. Hell if somehow I manage to spend $100k, I’m still cheaper than an airstream interstate (new) and it will be closer to what I want. I think I’ll get something much better for much less than even a Winnebago.

Which is not bashing Winnebago— they have economies of scale, but they are addressing a market which is not me.

So I’m not going to think twice if this buildout costs me $20k. That’s what I paid in rent alone last year— so would represent a 2 year breakeven period.

I will care if this build becomes a slog thru the swamp and no fun.

I love making things and after decades of making software my time in combat robotics was a chance to make physical things— and I remember being stumped by a problem early on that a friend solved by saying “oh you just need to buy a bracket”. It was quite a shift into thinking in terms of materials— and robot combat was a crash course in materials science!

So it’s important to me to push my abilities and to also push the state of the art a little bit.

I was the first one ever to use Lithium iron phosphate batteries in ranked robot combat. In those days most builders were using old “tried and true” technology.

Mike Tyson says “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face”.

The robot combat version is: “everything is reliable until it gets hit by a spinning bar of titanium with a several kilojoules!”

But when you operate from first principles you can determine the results you can expect. This is what engineering is. Knowing the bridge will carry the weight of the train despite never in history there being a bridge like that.

I’m going to push myself here, rely on my physics background, and try to achieve my dream result.

But I’m also building pretty modular. So if something doesn’t work out, I can rip it out.

Apologies in advance if I reject tried and true solutions seemingly out of hand. Plywood would be easier, copying everyone else’s choices would be easier. And I’m certainly going to do that on a lot of my decisions. I had planned to use aluminum slotted extrusions already because I worked with them in the past—- but seeing how popular on they are on sprinter builds means I’m not cutting new ground like I thought— which is great, already picked up a bunch of tips from those guys.

So something’s I’ll follow, but sometimes I’m going to try to lead.