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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?

#71
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Yo…

Local large language models can give feedback and be a private tutor.

https://gpt4all.io/index.html

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

#75
the biggest problem is libraries. Almost all languages, need you to connect to some cdn/library/repo in order to check version, get, download dependent libraries for your project. Without that ability, you're in rough shape. You could use a cacheing proxy as others have recommended to get around this. And then downloaded books would let you continue to experiment. Trying programming is the only way to truly learn it. Books and articles and videos let you know what you can do, but you don't absorb it until you're actually doing it. Is it possible starlink isp is available where you are for a satellite ISP?

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

#76
I would also recommend reading as many books as you can. Don't know what is the condition there, whether you can get the physical books or not. However, https://www.pdfdrive.com is a a good source for e-books, download as many as you can and store them.

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

#77
It's hard to really understand what it must be to live through such a tragedy, so I'm not sure how relevant my suggestions will be.

But I would do three things (some of which I see mentioned in several post below):

1. download as much as you can – wikipedia, stackexchange (e.g. https://archive.org/download/stackexchange), openstreetmap; possibly, set up a local wifi router to allow others to access these and, if you keep it technical, it might be that this will enable you to get in touch with others with similar needs, which should keep you learning together as much as possible

2. if the conditions allow, try and get your hands on StarLink. Getting a dish and router might be problematic. But if you like diy and assuming you can actually sign up to it, it should be possible to self-build a connection kit using spare parts and an ordinary sat dish.

...which brings me to...

3. consider getting into ham radio. This, once again, depends on the situation in the country, and whether licensing is an option or not. But, providing you can and that you have electricity, this could get you in touch with others, who will usually be techies and may be able to also answer coding questions (although this is a willingly long stretch). And, albeit at very low speed, Internet via ham radio is itself a possibility, e.g. https://spectrum.ieee.org/build-a-longdistance-data-network-...

All the best to you, and I hope the situation improves quickly!

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

#78

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...

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.

Nice that you recommended HTTrack.

That's a name I haven't heard in a long while: a blast from the past :).

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