Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: I won't have Internet access for months, How could I use my time?

news.ycombinator.com

21–30 of 79 posts

Re: Ask HN: I won't have Internet access for months, How could I use my time?

#21
Old 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, android, or iOS operating systems. Learn about filesystems, reading binary files, and at least one binary file layout to get a sense of "it's all just data" (Hexdump or C)

- A book on networking (learn all the OSI layers, practice working with the various envelopes, see them in TCPdump / Wireshark or other sniffing tools

- A book on internet like technologies eg: https://hpbn.co/

- A book on Frontend development. perhaps React

- A book on Backend development. Perhaps something about making HTTP + RESTful + JSON apis (alternative GRPC development)

- A book on a datastore of choice, I recommend postgres and you can grab the manual and books from here: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/

just my 2c of how I'd spend ~1 month per book offline but still progressing.

The hardest part is going to be the discipline to actually work at it every day consistently and for more than like 15 mins :)

Re: Ask HN: I won't have Internet access for months, How could I use my time?

#23
Get ebook dumps while you can. Some of those are Russian, but most are not.

https://rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5705905

The first post includes an index that leads to a dozen more dumps, grouped by programming language and/or field. Look for links named "Скачать".

If you manage to see this comment before moderators remove it, good for you. If not, at least I tried — there's no contact info in your profile to contact you privately. (Sorry dang. I've been through similar shit and the last thing you care about in that situation are "intellectual property rights" of some Mr. Moneybags from the opposite side of the globe).

Re: Ask HN: I won't have Internet access for months, How could I use my time?

#25
post #4

You 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...

https://devdocs.io/offline can also download 600 documentation sets into the browser. I don't know how reliable it is over several months "Note: your browser may delete DevDocs's offline data if your computer is running low on disk space and you haven't used the app in a while."

Shame they don't offer something like an electron app with guaranteed persisted storage. Or even just a .zip containing everything, to be served from a local web server.

Maybe install it into a separate browser profile & make a backup of it just in case

Re: Ask HN: I won't have Internet access for months, How could I use my time?

#26
I would read a couple books about software architecture principles and design patterns (not just the good, but also the bad and the ugly), how to write good tests, TDD, etc. I remember reading about all this as a teenager and this knowledge (both, which principles to follow and which not to follow) has become invaluable to me over the years.

Re: Ask HN: I won't have Internet access for months, How could I use my time?

#27
Not sure if practical or affordable, but could consider getting your hands on a Starlink, then selling wifi access to people around you to help cover the cost of the Starlink subscription. Seems like there's coverage in Khartoum.

Good luck out there!

https://ts2.space/en/starlink-in-khartoum-khartoum/

Re: Ask HN: I won't have Internet access for months, How could I use my time?

#28
post #15
post #13

You could apply for funding from a charity to get a copy of the Internet Archive. The IA is making incomplete copies including search function available in form of a container containing several 19" racks called the Petabox: https://archive.org/web/petabox.php This is still useful after the conflict is over, as rebuilding infrastructure can take decades, and the container could be beneficial if hosted e.g. by a schoo…

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?

Re: Ask HN: I won't have Internet access for months, How could I use my time?

#30
I think the rise of GPT is going to push more engineers into being subject matter experts. My advice is to pick a subject that you are interested in and have resources to learn about and become an expert. That way when your access is restored you can better work with gpt
Post reply on HN