Except Ukraine is a sovereign nation - much like Russia (which in today’s form does not hold any reasonable claim to Kyiv) - and renaming either nations capital city to satisfy some man’s thirst for legacy would be equally vulgar. The analogy holds pretty well, from where I’m standing.

I think the thing that I’m most amazed by - and this setup is truly amazing - is the fact that you’ve got a group of friends to enjoy this with. Good for you; this looks like a blast, and I can only imagine how fun that’d be, compared to years of purely solo gaming.

So real. Most valuable component of this setup

Yeah, it's impressive that someone built this. But the most impressive thing to me is that he has a group of friends who have been doing LAN parties together for 30 years. I can't think of anyone that I know that still does that.

I do, but the group is nowhere near large enough (3-4 people) that we need a house dedicated to it…

Especially amazing considering that he moved from Palo Alto to Austin. Did all his friends move too?

My junior high friends that I've been having parties with for 30 years live in Minneapolis (where I grew up). They fly out for New Year's Eve each year.

But, in fact, some friends who regularly attended LAN parties in the Bay Area moved to Austin around the same time we did. And some others are also willing to travel for New Year's.

(Most parties are just local people, of course.)

Hey Minneapolis for the win! Blaine area here :D

Plenty of people in tech moved from Silicon Valley to Austin to get a better tax / quality of life deal, even in my social circle. Remote working becoming widely available really made a difference.

I'm in a completely different part of the world, but for similar reasons I ended up with a few friends in tech who moved to the same part of the world - and I've also met similar profiles to ours, attracted by the same reasons.

Where did you move to if you don't mind me asking? The chasm between SV tech comp and various "completely different part of the world" is massive. Were you able to meet your employer in the middle?

I think it's a pretty sad state of affairs if the most amazing thing about this is having friends.

This is fantastic. I really admire your dedication to the project, and can’t wait to watch the episodes. Thank you for doing this!

(7) get super uncomfortable sitting in the office chair all day and just want to play on the couch with the TV.

That's actually (6) - a living room PC with Steam 10ft UI and a wireless game controller is a thing.

That's true to an extent, but it's also quite a bit more expensive than the $300 (CAD) I paid for an XBOX with 2 controllers, and I had the side benefit of being able to easily play with the kids (who find it easy to use).

Isnt such setting doable with PC?

Surely - but with kids, an XBOX also offered the ability to share the experience a little easier.

Small SC II events still get referred to as “LAN” often because, while it requires an online connection, it’s still the same vibe/format: a bunch of boxes in a room.

My experience with my teen has been that, post-pandemic, he and all of his friends simply decided they didn't want to be inside/bored like they were. We're struggling big-time to keep ours in class. We've tried incentives. We've levied punishments. It's like neither they nor their friends care - at all - about any of it (certainly much less afraid of consequences than I ever was).

Add the much more common use of drugs to the mix (from 14 on), phones that are not required to be put away in class, and it's very tough to keep them on track.

I didn't have half of the distractions/opportunities for entertainment kids these days have, and it was hard for me to muster up the enthusiasm.

One of the things I’ve struggled with as a parent, having grown up with an angry and remote father, is being able to follow through on consequences/being conflict avoidant (something I generally struggle with) due to an internal guilt and innate discomfort with being “mean”. Over time, this has started to change out of necessity, as my oldest figured this out about me, and began taking advantage of my resistance to anger.

Having two children 7 years apart (with a chance to improve significantly as a parent remaining), I now really understand the wisdom of what you shared here, and try to remind myself of this every day. Love doesn’t always mean pleasant moments. Being firm when called for and establishing rules/consequences makes things easier in the long run, and helps avoid blow up moments.

Does it? That's certainly a theory, though events such as World War 1 and, more recently, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, seem to indicate otherwise.

WW1 coupling is a blip compared to today.

I'm not sure how a singular war somehow disproves centuries of declining conflict levels and overall still the most peaceful period in modern memory post-1960s.

Your claim was that economic decoupling increases conflict (which has not been fully bourne out by the evidence), not that conflict levels overall have been declining over time.