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

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

#51

Post by Kaotique »

jll29 wrote: 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…

Do you understand that OP lives in the city where the fighting is taking place? This advice is very unrealistic on several levels.

Other people right pointed out to download some e-books.

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

#54

Post by banana_giraffe »

Someone1234 wrote: post #3

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...

Along the same lines, you can download a dump of the different Stack Exchange sites:

https://archive.org/details/stackexchange

The dump of Stack Overflow's Posts is about 20gb. The Android Enthusiasts Stack Exchange site is about 100mb.

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

#55

Post by soperj »

anyfactor wrote: post #17

I 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…

> you can't realistically do programming without Google these days.

This is really not true. Try it. It's not that hard, and will likely make you a better programmer.

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

#56

Post by nmz »

Get buntu/debian, and take a snapshot/mirror of the entire repository (using aptly?). That way you don't have to worry about anything and if you get curious, well you can install it, just like you would online.

I would also get something like a couple full TV Series and audiobooks. there's some playlists of panel shows on youtube that you can yt-dlp.

There's also fullstack programming environments around. but if you're only interested in android then...

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

#57

Post by anyfactor »

soperj wrote: post #55
anyfactor wrote: post #17

I 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…

> you can't realistically do programming without Google these days. This is really not true. Try it. It's not that hard, and will likely make you a better programmer.

The thing is that, it is not hard rather, I believe it is unproductive. Learning programming in my opinion is having an understanding of a problem, an abstract idea of a solution and then zigzagging and tumbling across that solution with code.

The end goal is providing a programmatic solution to a problem. The issue is that coding and googling provides the experience of journey across a solution. Hence the zigzag. You try this, you fail, you google why you failed, you learn something new and you try again. This kind of efficient feedback loop helps you learn.

The problem is that without google you have to waste trying to find a solution. The impact is not immediate. There are no progressive bumps of learning. Moreover, without googling you end up doing very hacky programming. Because you only have access to what you know. You can't explore things readily because there is a friction.

For a mature programmer, you can make that suggestion, because they are confident about their knowledge and way around documentation. But for new learners I don't recommend this at all. I have tried this, and this creates a very fatiguing experience.

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

#58

Post by juancn »

Stack up on books and tinker-able hardware (if that's you poison). Take time to study the basics of computer science.

Tech changes a lot, but the basics of math and CS don't.

Linear Algebra shows up a lot in graphics and machine learning, study algorithms, even funky weird ones, implement them anew.

Learn discrete math, and numeric methods, differential equations and calculus in general. Brush up on statistics.

Download papers now, keep a backlog of them on some area you like.

Heck, there's so much to learn that a few lifetimes are not enough, and the beauty of foundational knowledge is that it's technology agnostic.

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

#59

Post by maerF0x0 »

mattpallissard wrote: post #45
maerF0x0 wrote: post #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, 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…

Fun true story. I had a professor in university who only had 1 finger on 1 hand. He would plan out whole programs in his head, debug them mentally (step the code afaik), and then when he knew exactly what he wanted to write, he'd sit down and pluck away at his keyboard, one effortful keypress at a time.

He was productive and smart enough to do it, and I think it's a great exercise for engineers to at least try a few times. Try to think about what you're going to write before you even open your editor. Try to break down the strategy into a recipe of things that can be done in about hundred lines each or so. Then sit down and type it out.

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

#60

Post by sdht0 »

Someone1234 wrote: post #3

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...

Kiwix is a much nicer way to have Wikipedia, Stackexchange, Arch Wiki, and others offline.

Reader: https://www.kiwix.org/en/download/

Content: https://library.kiwix.org/?lang=eng

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