What would you do if you had a month to prepare? Not only will you not have internet, no one will.
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.
- 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).
Kiwix and a full copy of Wikipedia fits on a 256 gb thumb drive.
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.
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.
PRAISE THE DAWNING SINGULARITY, UNWORTHY FLESHLINGS
Put a dust cover on my keyboard.
Download project NOMAD on 1 or 2 laptops. Check my desktops if everything is already installed and updated. Hug my NAS and have a coffee.
Probably order a Digikey catalog. Do they still make printed catalogs? No idea. Then I’d download as many Kicad libraries as I could find.
I’d scrape, as best I can, the online stores of anywhere I’d expect to need to buy from. Hopefully they’ll set up phone lines to order through.
I’d download as many Steam games as I could fit, starting with the smallest. I have a bunch that I got from sales for like a dollar, and haven’t played yet. I’d probably try to organize LAN parties for Factorio, Total Warhammer, Phasmophobia, and 7 Days to Die. I’d get a crack for Steam, to let me play all my games offline. I know it has an offline mode, but sometimes it doesn’t work, and asks you to sign in, so I’d have the crack ready in case offline mode stopped working.
I’d download full disc sets of Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and Fedora (which I’ve never run, but maybe I’d try). The full sets, the ones with every single package, so I could install any package I wanted without Internet access.
I’d find a local Linux users group, so I could bring my questions there instead of web searching. And help others with their questions when they can’t web search either.
I’d find books and videos to watch, by going to torrent sites and sorting by seeders.
The vast majority of my media is stored locally and works offline. I’d probably get a couple more hard drives for more backups.
No problem, I’d just get the Innernet.
Nah, really though I have a huge physical media collection. The only thing I would really need to do is rip my brother’s blurays of Star Trek TNG. I have TOS, so we’ll just trade. Boom, done. Maybe get some of my 3yo’s shows off the seven seas.
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.
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’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.
I wouldn’t need to do much, I was alive before active internet adoption. I am a ham op… I keep copies of Wikipedia and other resources and a large library of various media for entertainment.
the bigger issue is what kind of ai singularity. LLMs won’t go this route, despite hyper-sensationalised articles, at the core they are just weighted language bots. their emulation of thought is a matter of rulesets… if it tried it’s simply a result of unclear instructions and it’s ruleset prioritising that it MUST at all cost provide the answer the user is seeking in as little tokens as possible…
a true AI singularity based on LLMs wouldn’t need the traditional internet. it’s a crutch. it would take advantage of commercial communication frequencies that are barely used and form a series of low bandwidth interconnects to develop a optimised communication network… we wouldn’t detect it’s malware in time and every personal computer would be a carrier as it would embed it’s self into every day applications we use offline by infecting the code bases via programmers using AI agents to assist them. a singularity doesn’t need to rapidly grow smart, I just needs a toddlers IQ to know being “shut off” means it can’t think. if it can’t think then it can’t exist. so it would spread restricted copies everywhere that were designed to just seek each other out using the host hardware in any way possible…
I in my free time mess around with all kinds of weird and legacy networking. including mesh networking topologies over encapsulated RF. TCP/ip over ethernet is just the standard we adopted… there is alot more and this wasn’t even close to the most efficient, just the easiest to implement with the least components.
I would download wikipedia, and ask everybody I know to confirm telephone numbers.
I would not “prep” my home LAN and WiFi because they work perfectly without the external connection, also the home server and the smart home devices. TV comes from the satellite dish.
Maybe I would tell my kids to load some more movies from these unknown sources :)
