I mean... is getting out something you're looking at? Seems like it might not be a bad move? Perhaps people here could help you out with that if you're lucky.
Ask HN: I won't have Internet access for months, How could I use my time?
41–50 of 79 posts
Re: Ask HN: I won't have Internet access for months, How could I use my time?
#42You can download all of Wikipedia (20 GB for English): https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data_dump_torrents#English_W... You can also download Android documentation: https://androidsdkoffline.blogspot.com/p/android-offline-doc... You can KINDA download MDN (very YMMV and $$$): https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/plus/docs/features/offli...
Another thing you can checkout is for example HTTrack, you can use it to make a local clone of a website. I have used it when moving to a remote location where I wouldn't have Internet for a long time.
Re: Ask HN: I won't have Internet access for months, How could I use my time?
#43You can download all of Wikipedia (20 GB for English): https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data_dump_torrents#English_W... You can also download Android documentation: https://androidsdkoffline.blogspot.com/p/android-offline-doc... You can KINDA download MDN (very YMMV and $$$): https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/plus/docs/features/offli...
"You can KINDA download MDN"
Or you just download them zipped here:
https://kapeli.com/mdn_offline
In general, you can use a crawler and download (allmost) any website you like. Works better with static sites of course, but learning ressources usually are.
Re: Ask HN: I won't have Internet access for months, How could I use my time?
#44> but almost every development environment/learning resources requires internet access.
Figure out how to use your environment offline while you still have some access. Nothing is a replacement for actual experience. It's not going to be the same, the main thing you will miss is dependencies, but that can be a good thing - it will force you to be more minimal, write less glue code, and get your hands dirty which forces you to understand more of what's actually going on.
Just make sure you have access to all the reference material you need to figure things out without stackover flow and using other peoples solutions (dependencies).
Re: Ask HN: I won't have Internet access for months, How could I use my time?
#45Old guy here, About 1/3 of my computing time was pre internet. Before that we did a lot of trial and error, reading electronic documentation (READMEs etc) and also books. Depending on your current skill level perhaps the following would help. I would recommend getting a book on each of your interest areas of the stack and work through them ~2 hours per day per book. eg: a curriculum could be: - A book on linux, andro…
I agree with this. I travel a lot and read a lot of ebooks. I also get a fair amount of work done without internet connectivity.
* plan out exactly what you'll be working on, to the minutia
* save source and upstream dependencies locally
* have a local environment where you can build and run the code locally
* download specific sites and documentation with `wget -r` and the like
* have multiple things stacked up for if you hit a blocker on one project.
Re: Ask HN: I won't have Internet access for months, How could I use my time?
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
So if one can't find bread, one should go for cake.
Your point is what? OP should single handedly bring the conflict to an end instead? Is he Iron Man?
I think the point is, that this is slightly overkill and not so practical. He could be offline for unknown time any minute now. Applying now is a little bit late. Now you just download what you can
Re: Ask HN: I won't have Internet access for months, How could I use my time?
#47I spent about a month without internet. I will be honest the last thing I touched was the learning resources. I downloaded youtube videos using ytdl and kept watching them on repeat. I would see a tv series every now and then, but nothing beat YouTube videos. You can request your entire liked videos information from Google. Moreover, it is very difficult learn programming without actually doing it and you can't reali…
"Don't go on a downloading spree."
Why not? Where is the harm?
It is better to have a book you don't need, than to not have books you discover you do need and memory is cheap.
I spend lots of time off grid and I surely did not touch every ebook I had in my collection, but it was still nice browsing through what I had and then choosing the one I wanted that moment.
Re: Ask HN: I won't have Internet access for months, How could I use my time?
#48I would hedge my bets and also download plenty of fiction. The risk of becoming blocked by one little thing you need to download, but can't, seems quite high.
Re: Ask HN: I won't have Internet access for months, How could I use my time?
#49I don't have specific recommendations for improving your development skills, I can suggest a few things that may be helpful given the circumstances:
- Download as many ebooks as possible. You can try using websites like libgen.rs(or search the r/piracy subreddit for alternatives)
- Look for software like Briar, which allows for local communication over Bluetooth, WiFi, and of-course the internet. If you have an android phone, download an APK for it(and keep a backup of it to share with others).
- Host a local linux mirror for whatever distro you wish. Also download all the manpages.
- Download a copy of Wikipedia
- Consider setting up projects like Internet-in-a-Box, which aims to provide offline access to digital resources(including some of the suggestion I said above).
I hope these suggestions are helpful.
Re: Ask HN: I won't have Internet access for months, How could I use my time?
#50Wow, that sounds harsh, stay safe. I would recommend using the time to focus on basics. The older I get the more I appreciate that I learned C, some assembly, traditional multitasking, basic data structures and algorithms on manageable platforms. Also networking protocols, implement a UDP based protocol for something from scratch and learn about handshakes, timeouts and retries.
This could be done on Linux, Windows or even a real-time OS like FreeRTOS. Could be on a solar-powered Raspberry Pi or something that requires almost no other infrastructure.
Is ham-radio based networking an option? Could be useful in crisis areas.