[HN Gopher] Kenton's House
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Kenton's House
Author : jumploops
Score : 137 points
Date : 2023-09-03 00:09 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (kentonshouse.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (kentonshouse.com)
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| I worked at a little shop that built PCs in the mid-90's. The
| owner liked to game and always made sure the office PCs were
| decent-enough gaming PCs so we could have LAN parties on the
| weekends. It was a ton of fun and made the office PCs very nice
| for daily office work.
| timeimp wrote:
| I appeciate the Team Fortress 2 "Saxxy Awards" on that photo
| there.
|
| How much has changed since then.
| 71a54xd wrote:
| I remember seeing this on Overclock.net back in the day!
|
| However, as an adult I just don't enjoy video games in the same
| way. Wish I had a SWE salary that could support a build-out like
| this!
| asadm wrote:
| As someone with the SWE salary. It's not the salary, it's
| missing the friends to play with.
| sammy2255 wrote:
| Kenton is my idle he basically made Google protobuf now he makes
| Cloudflare workers or something
| lostlogin wrote:
| It's never occurred to me until now - idle and idol are said
| the same.
| major505 wrote:
| What I miss most about early 2000 during college where the lan
| parties. When I went first live alone I organized a party at my
| appartment. It had so many poeple that there was a guy sited in
| the toilet with the keyboard and mouse on his lap, and the
| monitor on the sink.
|
| The people favorites at the timeL: Quake 3 arena, CS1.6, and Duke
| Nuken 3d using Dukester to play in Lan
| gaws wrote:
| Interesting backstory[1] on how Kenton found the space:
|
| > Housing in this area is ridiculously expensive, though, and
| even after four or five years I had trouble finding anything I
| could afford. There are no empty lots here, so I'd have to tear
| something down, and even a run-down house in a bad neighborhood
| costs $450k in this area. I didn't even bother looking in Palo
| Alto -- it was way out of my range. That is, until something
| really lucky happened. A commercial establishment bordering an
| older residential area of town had some extra land that they
| weren't using. In 2009, at the low point of the recession, they
| put this sliver of land up for sale. I was lucky enough to look
| at exactly the time they did this, and with the help of a loan I
| was able to pick it up for a price I could actually afford.
|
| [1]: http://kentonsprojects.blogspot.com/2011/12/lan-party-
| optimi...
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _Kenton 's House_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36002756 - May 2023 (2
| comments)
|
| _Kenton 's Weekend Projects: LAN-Party Optimized House_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3342044 - Dec 2011 (24
| comments)
| slowhadoken wrote:
| I tested League of Legends during its closed beta in a bar like
| this. It was a blast when bands played. It was cool playing after
| hours with employees from the block too.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| TheGRS wrote:
| When I was in high school going to LAN parties was my main social
| scene. I just loved it, even though it involved a lot of lugging
| around equipment to setup. We did private LANs at each others
| houses and we also went to larger events held at hotel conference
| rooms. And in those years I remember dreaming of building a place
| like this for myself if I ever suddenly had a lot of money. At
| the time I thought that was like a dream house for me, somewhere
| we could all gather and play computer games easily. Really neat
| to see that dream became someone's reality, and it doesn't even
| look all that complicated to put together (it even looks pretty
| nice!). I'll admit that in college I strayed away from the scene,
| I ended up just playing online much more often. I kind of miss it
| sometimes, but being 36 now its not something I have a lot of
| time for anymore, let alone gaming in the first place.
| kentonv wrote:
| Oh this was my house. AMA
|
| Past discussion (way back in 2011):
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3342044
|
| I sold this in 2020 when I moved to Austin. I'm building a
| bigger, better one here, which will be done... in about a month!
| (4.5 years since I first saw the property... phew.)
|
| I'll probably publish something about the new one ~next year. :)
|
| I published a guide and helper code for netbooting Windows
| machines from a single copy-on-write image here (currently in the
| process of updating it, it has unsurprisingly bitrotted a bit):
| https://github.com/kentonv/lanparty/
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| How much did this cost?
|
| I _love_ the idea. I host LAN parties with friends, but it
| looks less organized than yours.
| kentonv wrote:
| I built the house for $1M and sold it ten years later for
| $2M. So, uh, I guess it earned me a million bucks, minus
| mortgage interest.
|
| To be fair, that's just how much housing prices went up in
| Palo Alto over that period, not really anything to do with
| the specifics of the house. Got pretty lucky.
|
| (The computers were a relatively insignificant cost compared
| to the house. Like $20k?)
| someone321 wrote:
| [dead]
| auveair wrote:
| I really like this, it's such a fun idea and usually those
| never see the light of day so kudos for you to bring it to
| life, twice! Bringing your computer to a LAN was just annoying
| IMO.
|
| I was curious maybe if you had some thoughts on the more social
| aspects of the project? Did you feel it made it easier to hang
| out on a whim for example?
| kentonv wrote:
| For me, LAN parties were always primarily about the social
| aspect, not actually the gaming. The games are there to give
| people an excuse to get together and spend way more time in
| the same place than they'd normally want to.
|
| I'd definitely say it served the purpose. We didn't really do
| them on a whim, but once or twice a month on a regular
| schedule.
|
| It was also great for networking -- as in, people, not
| computers. Whenever I met someone new I'd invite them to a
| LAN party. People would bring their friends. Made some good
| connections that way. Hope to make more in Austin once the
| new house is ready...
| jakebasile wrote:
| Austin is a great town to be in and make connections. I've
| been here since 2011 and love it (except maybe the heat
| during some summers).
|
| I can guarantee you that you'll be able to start some
| conversations based on a cool house like this! Personally,
| LAN parties were something I always wanted to hold more of
| but just didn't have many friends playing on PC while I was
| growing up. It's cool you've made it into such a central
| component of your home!
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| Hey, Kenton! I had the honor of attending a few events at your
| house. How goes?
|
| The gaming landscape has changed a lot in the last twelve
| years, and I'm now a Linux-first gamer. Are you considering
| trusting in Proton and using Linux as the primary OS for the
| new house?
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| I had basically the same question and Kenton answered it:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37382414
| fjbarrett wrote:
| The guide is so cool. I never knew you could netboot to
| multiple machines and use overlays to allow per-user
| modifications. It seems like a solution that could be used in a
| "computer lab" type scenario. Thanks for sharing!
| extragood wrote:
| First of all: amazing.
|
| Secondly, have you followed Linus Sebastian's ultimate
| tech/gaming home videos at all? He has a slightly different
| objective, but he's done some creative things which you may
| appreciate.
| kentonv wrote:
| I've heard of him, but TBH I'm generally not into that format
| of YouTube video, regardless of topic. I think I'm just too
| impatient to wait through the parts of the video that aren't
| actively interesting, or are telling me things I already
| know.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Didja get any inspiration from TaKe's place where he hosted
| HomeStoryCup?
|
| That place was my dream home for a sliver of my mid 20s when
| gaming was the end all be all.
| kentonv wrote:
| I've actually never heard of that. Trying to Google and I see
| some stories but not a lot of pictures. What is it like?
| rendx wrote:
| I really wouldn't enjoy facing the wall like that. For me, at
| least half of the fun of a LAN party was direct interaction and
| visuals from other fellow humans! Also, where do people sleep?
| Since there is not sufficient space below the tables! I wouldn't
| want to leave so far from my machine! ;)
|
| And of course, it lost some of its appeal when we didn't have to
| carry around and set up CRTs any more.
| ModernMech wrote:
| Sleep? At a LAN party? That's the fastest way to end up with a
| penis drawn on your forehead.
| xwdv wrote:
| I don't think this is how I'd design a LAN party house. I think a
| large round table with monitors is a more social setup, and
| creates equal importance amongst all the people sitting around
| it. There would be space in the middle section of table behind
| the monitors for people to connect their own rigs or setup one of
| the house rigs. With the right circumference, you could see up to
| 4 other people from any specific seating position.
|
| I would also make the use of projectors to project live streams
| for different players in more social oriented areas of the house,
| where placing a TV would be impractical.
|
| Pretty cool though that a LAN party house exists at all.
| kentonv wrote:
| Sounds like your design would require a much larger space than
| I had. The whole house was 1426 sqft, including two bedrooms
| and bathrooms (not shown in the photos). Having the stations
| fold into the walls kept space available for normal living when
| not having a party.
|
| That said I actually think a round table design would be less
| social. With monitors along the walls, you can easily turn
| around to socialize between games with nothing blocking you
| from seeing other people. With the table and monitors in the
| middle, I think monitors would block people from socializing
| across the table.
|
| We'll see though, the new house actually features both designs
| in different rooms... :)
| xwdv wrote:
| That's not fair. If a person sitting at a wall can turn
| around to socialize, then I propose people sitting at a round
| table can just stand up and talk to each other in a circle.
| hgsgm wrote:
| Standing up is a lot more work.
| hgsgm wrote:
| Wow, the photo makes the house look much bigger.
| pwb25 wrote:
| Honestly sounds quite lame. The whole thing with a LAN party is
| carrying your own computer and giant CRT screen and setting up
| cables all over
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Maybe for the person bringing the computer. In 1994 I picked up
| a dozen coax NE2000's and cables and terminators to facilitate
| LAN parties. So I was the guy plugging those cards into
| everybody's computers and setting up drivers. What a giant
| PITA. Those cards were cheap for a reason, there was a reason
| companies were dumping them en masse.
| gunapologist99 wrote:
| 10base2 faded out pretty quickly too.
| kentonv wrote:
| Having done classic LAN parties for 15 years before building
| the house, I understand this feeling. That's why I specifically
| designed the house such that people could bring their own
| machines if they wanted.
|
| No one ever did. The only time people ever even busted out a
| laptop is if all the built-in machines were occupied. But often
| at that point the others would just hang out until a machine
| became available.
|
| The thing is, when you bring your own machine, you tend to have
| to spend time setting it up, installing games, updating
| drivers, etc. There's always that one person who has to
| reinstall Windows from scratch. I remember many LAN parties
| where we couldn't even get started until late at night. LAN
| parties had to be overnight affairs otherwise you couldn't get
| any gaming in.
|
| With my house, I had all the machines ready to go in advance.
| All identically configured, all games installed, just sit down
| and go. It turned out really great. We could get more done in a
| 12-hour LAN party than most 24-hour parties, and we could still
| go home and sleep in our beds. (I did still have an annual
| 48-hour party, though.)
|
| All this mean people were willing to do them on a monthly basis
| or more. Whereas in my teenage years 3-to-4 times a year was
| about all we could muster.
| pwb25 wrote:
| "The thing is, when you bring your own machine, you tend to
| have to spend time setting it up, installing games, updating
| drivers, etc. There's always that one person who has to
| reinstall Windows from scratch. I remember many LAN parties
| where we couldn't even get started until late at night. LAN
| parties had to be overnight affairs otherwise you couldn't
| get any gaming in.
|
| "
|
| Exactly, that's half the fun of it :)
| archi42 wrote:
| Updates? Installing games? For our last LAN I brought a
| machine with LanCache[0] installed and mildly warmed up. I
| convinced the host to finally unpack his new switch with
| SFP+, connected a DAC and had the host point the DNS to that
| machine.
|
| Having a bunch of people install cached games at GbE speed
| all at once, on a 100MBit/s internet line, was pretty nice :)
|
| Obviously with 10GbE this is limited by disk speed. But a
| minimal Linux can buffer a few games in 64GB of main memory.
|
| I had it cache Steam, Epic, Riot, Blizzard and Windows
| Update. The cache was warmed at home over night, based on our
| list of "games we might play". Though Steam was limited to
| games I owned.
|
| [0] https://lancache.net/
|
| (But yeah, I totally get what you did and would do the same!)
| kentonv wrote:
| Did people have to install a custom root cert or something
| to get their machine to trust the cache?
|
| In old-fashion LAN parties, we were usually copying games
| from each other. (Which doesn't necessarily mean piracy --
| Steam is pretty good about letting you copy game files and
| then use them under your own account.) I feel like
| bandwidth wasn't the issue as much as it was
| troubleshooting configurations and stuff. But it was a long
| time ago.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| When I used it at my work for a bit, it didn't require a
| custom root cert. Steam's client has native support for
| it by checking a "lancache.steamcontent.com" DNS entry. I
| believe the rest were served over http; it looks like EA
| Origin switched to https at some point and broke caching
| for it.
|
| Though Steam now does support computer-to-computer
| transfers over LAN (added for Steam Deck). You do have to
| enable a setting to allow other users to download, but
| it's definitely less hassle.
| archi42 wrote:
| Yeah, I remember the copying. At some parties we spent a
| lot of time doing that.
|
| Some CDNs use HTTP with post-download verification (I
| hope). I suppose local caching is the reason for that
| decision; think big LAN parties with a "only" a few
| gigabit/s of connectivity (if at all).
|
| A nice solution is what Steam does: The client checks a
| magic DNS entry (lancache.steamcontent.com), which you're
| intended to override [0]. It then just works.
|
| For Riot, Blizzard, Epic and Windows Update I've set 36
| overrides in dnsmasq (they supply a script for that);
| those are branded akamai hosts and such. It supports more
| launchers and platforms/consoles, but from the big list
| [1] that's all we needed.
|
| Now GOG uses HTTPS, so for the reason you stated that
| can't really be cached for random 3rd party machines.
| Subsequently, if LanCache gets an HTTPS connection, it
| simply proxies the encrypted connection to the correct
| server using SNI sniffing.
|
| Regarding bandwidth: Two games on our list were CS:GO and
| LoL. IIRC four people had to install CS:GO and six people
| had to install LoL. We could have setup file shares,
| copied the data (as usual, with multiple people
| saturating the first share to come online, and nobody
| using the second or third share), hope laymen know where
| their steam library lives and to put the correct folder
| there... or just let them download the games directly
| from the client, except on a virtual 10 Gb/s pipe ;-)
|
| Though to be fair: In Steam you can configure the client
| to allow others to download their games from you on the
| local network. If enabled, you can configure to share
| with "only me", "steam friends" and "everyone". They
| added the feature earlier this year[2]; probably for the
| Steam Deck? One of the attendees installed Baldurs Gate 3
| (>100GB) from a friend that way. However, the local
| download feature wins over the lancache, which messed
| things up a bit when everyone installed CS:GO and pulled
| that from a single PC instead the server; so we had
| everyone disable that.
|
| I'm now running a smaller cache on my home server.
| Additionally, I have a spare server sitting here that's
| collecting dust. I think I'll permanently designate that
| my LanCache server for future LAN parties.
|
| [0] https://lancache.net/news/2020/01/14/steam-client-
| now-suppor... [1] https://github.com/uklans/cache-domains
| [2] https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/46BD-6BA8-
| B012-CE...
| [deleted]
| kentonv wrote:
| Definitely sounds like a lifesaver for LAN parties where
| everyone is bringing their own machines! Or really when
| machines are maintained by any method other than my crazy
| one... :)
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| I notice that he started with Linux to create his copy-on-write
| disk setup and then switched to Windows 7.
|
| I wonder if/when he rebuilds it in Austin if he'll just use
| Linux, now that Proton has made Linux gaming more feasible.
| kentonv wrote:
| Indeed, Linux gaming is way more viable now than it was in
| 2011, and it almost worked in 2011, so it probably works OK
| now. I have friends who I game with regularly who only use
| Linux and do OK.
|
| That said I'm currently prioritizing Windows for the new house,
| because I know it works. Once that's all up and running I will
| experiment with Linux as well. Netbooting makes it easy to
| change OS on a whim. :)
|
| One reason Linux would be nicer is that I know how to use a
| local disk (on the client machine) to hold the copy-on-write
| overlay, so only the base image need be served over the network
| (read-only). I have no idea how to make Windows do such a thing
| (if it's even possible) so I end up having to do all the copy-
| on-write stuff server-side. If I could use a local disk then
| it'd be much less of a performance issue when people decide to
| install extra games during the party.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| How does the moving focus of Windows to telemetry, online
| accounts, and ads, and games to online affect the viability
| of this?
| kentonv wrote:
| For the time being I'm installing Windows 10 and setting it
| up without ever logging into a Microsoft account. (There's
| a trick during first-time setup where if you disconnect
| your internet, it lets you create a local-only account.) I
| haven't actually tried Windows 11, but I hear it makes this
| significantly harder or maybe impossible, which is
| definitely making me wary.
|
| People at LAN parties actually do log into their own Steam
| accounts, but logging the whole machine into a guest's
| Microsoft account feels worse. Then again, I haven't tried
| it, maybe it'll turn out convenient, if it lets people sync
| their settings between machines? Note that at the end of
| the party, all changes anyone made to any machine are wiped
| out.
|
| That said it's definitely comforting to have Linux as
| another option if Microsoft makes Windows unusable for this
| use case!
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| If you have a Pro license and you specify you intend to
| domain join the PC, Windows 11 drops you out to a local
| account, but there's no escape for Home licenses. It's
| pretty much impossible to remove that from Windows unless
| they decide to let you domain join from the OOBE, but
| that would be too convenient for sysadmins so it'll never
| happen.
| noxvilleza wrote:
| Do you run your own Steam content caching server, or do
| weekly Steam Backups to have local kinda-recent images of
| the bigger games (or do you just download it fresh post-
| wipes)?
| ganoushoreilly wrote:
| I'm not sure about op, but I actually run Lancache
| (lancache.net) locally on our network. It supports Steam,
| Windows Updates, Epic games, and pretty much anything
| else served over http.. (https://github.com/uklans/cache-
| domains).
|
| This is all assuming you're not using a domain etc.. and
| have any of the myriad of other tools setup. We run
| lancache strictly for the _fun-net_ segmented network.
| kentonv wrote:
| I maintain a primary disk image with all the games
| installed. During a party, all the machines boot from
| that same image, except each with a private copy-on-write
| overlay. Any changes made on a machine are written only
| to the overlay. At the end of the party I delete the
| overlays. The primary image remains in exactly the state
| it was in before the party.
|
| So before each party I just have to install updates on
| one computer, like a normal person would. No need for a
| special cache. (Or arguably, the primary image is the
| "cache".)
|
| Full details and code in this github repo:
| https://github.com/kentonv/lanparty/
| Farbklex wrote:
| For LANs, Linux is just too much of a headache since a lot of
| games require Anti-Cheat that won't run in Linux.
|
| I did that a few times but as soon as someone wants to play
| Valorant, you're out.
| kentonv wrote:
| TBH we usually just turn off anti-cheat. No one at a LAN
| party is going to cheat against other LAN party participants.
|
| It's only an issue if we want to join an internet game but we
| usually don't really want to deal with internet people
| anyway.
| dieantwoord wrote:
| no one? ;-D
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EJXTh4HMAE
| kentonv wrote:
| Never really understood the appeal of that kind of LAN
| party TBH. Too many people, not enough socialization
| opportunity, might as well just play on the internet from
| home.
| barbs wrote:
| Awesome. I remember being mildly obsessed with LAN parties when I
| was at uni, about the same time this house was built. My friend
| was working (and living) in an old office for a boat warehouse,
| so there were plenty of desks, power outlets and sleeping space
| available. We'd bring our laptops and mostly play older games.
| Good times.
| ModernMech wrote:
| Holy cow this was my dream growing up. I had designs and
| everything. My last LAN party was in 2005, and I never got around
| to it as an adult as we all kind of went our separate ways. But
| I've still had the dream!
|
| Now, there are some things I would do differently here. To be a
| true LAN party, people need to bring their own rigs. That's half
| the fun. Providing the computers really defeats the purpose and
| makes it feel more like an internet cafe.
|
| The question I have is, are they all in one room? Seems like
| there might be two, so that's good. Because one of the things I
| really wanted to do was have two rooms, one for each team so
| there was no screen cheating. Because that kinda thing happened!
|
| The other plan I had was to have Bawls on tap. I don't know how
| that would have been possible, but that was baked into the design
| along with a soda fountain. We didn't do alcohol.
|
| But you know what, as I thought about it more, I realized that
| the ad hoc nature of the LAN party was the best part. Scrounging
| up a 16 port switch and putting it in the middle of the floor,
| duct taping down the cords. Balancing the loads between walls and
| the inevitable tripping of breakers when some extra guests show
| up. Accidentally unplugging a daisy chained surge protector and
| turning off someone's rig, prematurely ending a 12 hour session
| of Age of Empires. We still talk about that to this day.
|
| I miss LAN parties.
| pelalmqvist wrote:
| > The house has twelve of these fold-out computer stations, six
| in each of two rooms (ideal for team vs. team games)
|
| He thought about it !
| kentonv wrote:
| Indeed, you might even notice in the pictures that one room
| has a wall painted blue and the other one reddish. When
| people asked which team to join the answer was: "What color
| is the wall?" :)
|
| That said, in practice we don't do a lot of competitive
| stuff. Instead we tend to prefer to focus on cooperative
| games, like Deep Rock Galactic, Ark, Factorio, etc. This
| works a lot better when everyone is somewhere between a
| casual vs. hardcore gamer with very different skill levels.
|
| The one thing we regularly do play versus is Left 4 Dead 2.
| I've gotten pretty good at assigning my friends to teams for
| that one such that the games end up reasonably balanced...
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