HN Explorer

Ask HN: What would you work on without internet access?

41 points by bkcreate ↗ HN
My job frequently takes me to places without reliable internet access. What kinds of projects can be worked on with no or unreliable internet? I don't want to be forced to stop working on my side projects just because I don't have all the data I might need.

51 comments

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noobermin
If you have good books you could always use those. I'm a scientist though, so often stuff I could read through is already in pdf form or in paper form, but I don't doubt one could find books on various things if need be. Moreover, especially for non-web stuff you always can have the code to look over yourself.
tlb
Consider Dash [0], an offline documentation browsing tool. It takes a little while to set up, but then you have all the docsets you need offline with very fast search.

It also helps me control my internet addiction when I'm not off the grid, because I can have no browsers running while I code, so I'm not a tab away from HN.

[0] https://kapeli.com/dash

bkcreate
Is this mac only?
dddw
Zeal is a good offline code docset reader for linux and windows (but not mac!)

https://zealdocs.org/

The docsets come from Dash, which is very nice since that is payware. So here apple users pay for non-apple users it seems :)

abathur
Use Dash on mac, Zeal on NixOS.

I see it as a no-brainer for anyone who has more code to write than time to write it. I can't always solve a problem in Dash, but it enables me to work for hours at a time with wifi off. This is even more important for productivity when there is wifi available. Only downside that I know I'm reducing my chance of stumbling on Google Foobar trigger terms :)

cimmanom
Anything you can run a working copy of on your laptop.
stephenr
This is the answer that makes the most sense. While I understand that sometimes we need to check online reference manuals or check if a problem is caused by a known bug in a runtime or library, I don't quite understand the concept that you literally need an internet connection to be able to work.
ekarulf
UNIX systems programming can be accomplished by looking at man pages and referencing kernel / user land source code.

I find something cathartic writing C applications and tools. Perhaps I should seek professional help.

jxub
Not an expert in C, but there's definitely a refreshing feel of purity about something old and "sharp", that is powerfully entrenched in the UNIX ecosystem but can also be dangerous and bite you.
monk_e_boy
A game? Something like Terraria.

Or something cutting edge like a kitesurf kite. They are only about 15 years old, so plenty of room for improvement. Just takes time and many prototypes. Cloth is pretty cheap.

xhdix
Traditional agriculture :|
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navs
Writing a book. I’ve been tinkering with writing a choose your own adventure book that provides a glimpse into a depressed mind. I’ve actually forced myself to work on it at the local library , where internet access is slow, as a means of forcing focus.
HenryBemis
(my) Scrivener works offline, and with just me and the editor I can focus on developing my ideas and drawing when necessary (simple mspaint and paste on Scrivener). Offline is underestimated!
scarecrowbob
Getting more reliable internet access.

I want to move out of Austin. One of my research projects is how to do rural internet. Just because I am curious if it's doable.

I know that some folks end up in Terlingua cause they want to get away from everything... I'd just like to get away from most things and keep the comms channel.

thinkingemote
Cartography: get the osm rendering stack on your laptop and a bit of data, then map away!

Programming: get the documentation first, manuals API reference, tutorials, and use a language that doesn't have much "now install this library" dependencies.

cedricium
> get the documentation first, manuals API reference

DevDocs[0] (offline collection of API docs) is perfect for this.

[0]: https://devdocs.io/

jitl
I travelled to China recently and was unpleasantly surprised to find the HTML/CSS/DOM docs totally unusable offline, even though I “downloaded” them in my user preferences before leaving.
jimktrains2
Qgis is a good, f/oss desktop gis system.
DoreenMichele
Download reading materials in PDF form or other offline friendly formatting and plan to read them during those times.

If you are on mobile -- phone or tablet instead of a laptop -- some apps will let you take notes or whatever offline and sync up when internet is available.

Do brainstorming type exercises at that time. Free time to actually think has real value.

bart42_0
Art, without distractions from Facebook, Whatsapp, google, etc etc...
dev_dull
Get out in nature and think about your problems. Go on walks. Hike. Take up photography and stargazing.

Use the time to unplug. When you do return to your screen you’ll have a fresh prospective on a lot of your problems. You’ll also be happier and healthier.

ryanwaggoner
I think this is fantastic advice, but only up to a point. Unplugging regularly to recharge is so important, but the length and percentage of time matters. OP might spend 80% of their time in parts of the world without internet, for weeks or months at a time. In that context, I don’t think this advice applies in the same way that it would for someone who spends a day or two offline every other month.
kopo
Check out kiwix or zeal. Allows reading entire archives of wikipedia/stackoverflow/ted talks etc etc offline. Plus search. Throw in elasticsearch and you get really powerful customizable search. You can also create your own archive of web content. Given the size of modern harddrives people have no idea how much quality content can happily live on your local machine. No internet required.
leowoo91
TIL entire wikipedia is less than 100 GB when compressed.
arthurcolle
That's with no images, and iirc it also didn't include any of the math markup last time I looked at one of the xml dumps in one of the loaders (think it was kiwix)
leowoo91
Totally forgot about images. I just dug little further and found this:

"The size of the media files in Wikimedia Commons, which includes the images, videos and other media used across all the language-specific Wikipedias was described as well over 23 TB near the end of 2014"

Considering 30 TB hdd costs around 1500$, still interesting.

crtasm
If you grab those WD Easystore 8tb drives when they're on sale you can have 32tb for around $560
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arthurcolle
I wonder what the size is as of this moment, maybe double? I read somewhere recently that 90% of the content on the Web was created in the last 2 years. Not sure if thats "special media" focused, i.e. video & pictures, as opposed to text. But I'm sure the size of the dump has increased substantially in the last 4 years.
leowoo91
Very likely, there at least need of a filter at some level to size down (maybe getting single language or converting videos to low-res)
kopo
You can find versions that are 50GB if you dig around the kiwix download page! The entire stackoverflow dump is around the same size.
ythen
Sadly, with a 128GB MacBook Pro, this doesn't really apply to me without bringing around an external drive.
yitchelle
Obviously projects that do not required internet access. :-)

But seriously, personally, I would do some writing. Either a blog post, or compose a letter / email (to be sent when Internet is back on).

I would also read a physical book as I find the rather therapeutic.

burtonator
Some sort of satellite constellation to bring Internet online for the masses.
JensRantil
godoc, git and Google Cloud AppEngine SDK all works offline. That's all I need.
hprotagonist
There’s a whole bunch of pen-and-paper mathematics i need to relearn.
nimonian
I like to write maths tutorials. Anything in particular you're interested in?
janci
Writing project documentation.
dabockster
Anything that can be run in a VM with port forwarding. If Docker can be run without a connection, that's another option as well.
inimino
I have been using Go recently, and I do almost all my development with it offline. The docs are included and you can run a local doc server so everything you need to look up is as close as localhost:6060. It's also an ecosystem that encourages building on the standard library, unlike some other popular languages I could mention. I absolutely love the productivity and focus that this setup allows.

I also have a ~/research directory full of academic papers, saved copies of web pages, for anything I want to implement or play with. When I don't feel like programming, there's plenty waiting for me to read, rather than needing to get online and probably distract myself.

There's something very satisfying about being able to sit down and do productive work with what you have locally, and not needing to worry about losing productivity because the coffee shop wifi dropped out.

On the other hand, unplugging in general is good for us and I agree with the other commenters' encouragements to get out in nature or talk to people face to face. If I'm on a train or plane, I'd much rather put my laptop away and engage with what's around me.

Constant access to computing systems and networks is very new, and we know it is changing us, but we don't have the perspective to know how. The precautionary principle suggests we should spend as much time away from these systems as possible, especially for those of us who make our livings with them.

deathanatos
I've been enjoying working on Rust code for the same reasons: Rust can, for every library you have in a project, generate static HTML documentation for all of them. The only part you need Internet for is downloading the dependencies, but that needs only be done once.
wjossey
Two years ago I went on vacation after having downloaded a bunch of the US Census and ACS datasets. I spent my days by the pool drinking Bahama Mamas and poking at the data, which was in a local Postgres instance.

Some people like reading a book by the pool. I like looking at demographic data. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

edoo
Whenever my internet goes out I start tinkering on random things that almost immediately require internet searches to make progress. I also seem to forget the internet is out and continually open up search windows for all the new exciting things I'm working on.