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.
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.
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 :)
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.
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.
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.
If you're sticking to rivers and lakes it not only solves the problem of internet access, but solves the increased corrosion from the salty air.
It might decrease your power production (if you're using one of the green alternatives other than solar). However, if you're running a diesel engine for your prop, you can probably charge your battery bank with it too.
There was another post a while back about living a free life where I also mentioned living on a boat, and I got asked loads of questiong, both the objective part about the life and the hands-on part about how to buy a suitable boat, internet, anchoring, electricity, etc. etc.
I, half-jokingly, wrote that maybe I should write an e-book about it, and got pretty good feedback. So I'm actually gathering material and have written up a table of contents. I don't know whether I'll finish it yet, but I might :-)
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.