What would you do if you had a month to prepare? Not only will you not have internet, no one will.
- Download Kiwix and a full copy of Wikipedia and other useful wikis as ZIM files.
- Make sure my media library has as many movies and shows that I’m interested in as possible.
- Download the entire Guttenburg library of books.
- Grab any free legacy games and media from archive.org that looks interesting.
- Get a meshtastic device and get familiar with it.
- Get familiar with my long-range radio (and probably finally get a HAM radio license).
All of the above (great list by the way, I was about to suggest most of these), I’d also add a couple of ISOs + Ventoy just in case you need to reinstall or repair your OS.
Kiwix and a full copy of Wikipedia fits on a 256 gb thumb drive.
if I get to keep local intranet then I’m good.
I’ve got enough movies and TV to run consecutively for like 10 years.
I’ve got tons of books to read. and honestly, my job would be gone without the internet, so I’ll just garden and build cool stuff like an electric car or some shit.
Figure out how to pay my bills offline. No seriously, how did you uncs/aunties do it without online banking?
Do I have to get cheques? How the hell does one get cheques?
Fill in a wire transfer paper and hand that to the bank teller.
Leave bills unpaid and the solution will come to you.
Just a few games, probably industry focused ones, like Factorio and Satisfactory and i should be already set for a year with just those 2. Maybe a few ARPGs as well. I don’t have that much free time for gaming anyway and even if I’d run out of those/get bored/need some variation. I can dust off my painting supplies and start painting minis again.
Probably music too, that’s the only one that i have completely transferred over to streaming.
Movies, i already have favorite ones downloaded and stored. Same for audiobooks and there are enough of those to keep listening for years.
So with basically a minimal preparing i could already do it now.
Edit: rereading, as no one has internet, then probably order few WH40k minis as a precaution. Maybe knights and Belisarius Cawl and I’d be set for years to come.
The vast majority of my media is stored locally and works offline. I’d probably get a couple more hard drives for more backups.
Put a dust cover on my keyboard.
PRAISE THE DAWNING SINGULARITY, UNWORTHY FLESHLINGS
Get a Blue-ray drive (one that writes) and a bunch of blank discs. You won’t be talking to people online any more, but you can talk to them in person. When you do, you can find out what they downloaded before the great network blackout. When you find something worth having, take a copy of it. You won’t be able to store all the terabytes of cool stuff on your computers, so that’s why you have the discs.
BTW, you should totally download some Linux ISOs, relevant wikis, ebooks etc. Obviously, you won’t remember to download everything you need, so that’s where the blueray discs will come in handy. Also, other people might want some of the cool stuff you have, and discs are pretty handy for that as well.
I’d probably download Wikipedia, learn to run a local LLM and download the entire library of few YouTubers and podcasters but that’s about it.
Already set entertainment-wise with my TrueNAS server full of movies, TV shows, books (epub and audio), and music. Also have a massive library of retro games and emulators.
The tricky part would be communication, other than SMS/MMS, media rich communication is out. Guess I could burn DVDs/BDRs and mail them to family and friends, I have ~400 blank discs in a humidity/temperature controlled storage box.
For city-scale mesh communication, have a look at MeshCore
I so badly want to try mesh comms… But I live in rural Australia, so… Yeah.
I did some reading up on Reticulum recently too, it’s neat.
So yeah, a bunch of folks are going to try to break the rules. What happens to those of us who do? How sneaky do we need to be about it?
Find a new job.
A lot of people would need to find new jobs or transform them. I was wondering if anyone would see past the personal computing implications. I didn’t say anything to see how people would think naturally. With only a month to adjust, that would require a lot of fast movement. There has to be a buck to be made somewhere in that.
File distribution would have to move back to CDs or, more likely, SD cards with current software sizes. Games could still be sold. But the big question is what will happen with 90% of businesses that make use of the internet?
I would start by questioning how that would prevent the rise of the singularity… either it exists on an air-gaped network and it’s unecessary or it’s all theatrics because a true singularity emergence would likely use the other less known networks to realise itself.
It’s a hypothetical for a reason. Internet off will prevent it. What do?
Well the question stands. If only internet as generally understood goes off I simply join alternatives or extend my lan and hamsterize content to share it. If any network is subjected to forced closure then I can only do the storing part and keep steam stuffed. You never question hypothesis ?
I am already prepared by having about 20TB Fitgirl Releases, and a complete collection of NES/SNES/GBA/NDS/Mega Drive/SegaCD/PSX/PS2 games.
which reminds me that i still have to get the PS2 games in a format where i can play them without rummaging through giant archives urgh
Probably check over my Linux ISOs and do an offline fresh install to check what other packages I may need to backup like VLC and any possible dependencies. Download every Factorio mod and wikipedia.
Multiple copies of all the backed up stuff.
