Slashdot Mirror
Stepping Off of the Grid?
torpor asks: "Has anyone on Slashdot ever stepped off of the grid? I don't just mean long yuppy vacations to pacified islands, but seriously gone from 'tech-dedicated' to 'doing my own thing in the middle of nowhere for a while'. It's that time of year again. I've killed my TV, and I'm finding myself looking for adventure and mayhem in distant quarters. Have any of you ever done this, and returned with interesting stories to tell?"
Yup, I'll be completely cut off from all my life-sustaining tech...
Except for my Sidekick, that is...that's all.
...and my digital camera...you know...to take pictures of Nature and all...and that's it.
...and my work phone...gotta have my work phone in case a server crashes or something...and that's it.
...and my work laptop...in case I have to VPN in to work...and that's ALL.
...and my personal laptop...after all, they're both in the same case...and nothing ELSE.
...except for my USB thumb drives...
...and my USB hub...
...and my wireless hub...
...and my external HDD...
...and my external DVD-RW...
*sigh*
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Arthur C Clark, maybe...?
but I'm living off grid at the moment.
Well, I did volunteer twice to camp out and (practically) babysit some Boy Scouts for about a week. And yes, except for the mess hall (which I spent actually very little time in) the camp was off the grid.
Other than my week-long absence from IRC, I loved it.
main(0)
Slashdot does not seem like the place to connect with people who have already escaped technology.
I'd suggest finding a local adventure (backpacking, etc.) store.
Anm
I guess you're only gonna get responses from people who have stepped off the grid and then returned.
Or perhaps there are some out there who are essentially off-grid but still have access to it via non-traditional means. So where exactly do you draw the line?
I've wondered once or twice in the dead of night whether it might be good to step off the grid permanently, so that if the pessimistic peak oil predictions come true, I'll have already made the transition and won't be one of the billion newbies trying to figure out how to feed myself. But then the sun rises, the birds chirp, and I drive to work again...
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
My senior year of college I was deployed with the military for a year and had very little access to the Internet or any other piece of technology that wasnt painted green or brown.
When I returned home several months ago I had lost the urge to be signed onto my instant messanger 24-7 or play on the WWW (except for Slashdot).
I've grown to enjoy this new way. I no longer waste time having trivial conversations with people who I don't really care about.
maybe it's not all that interesting, but that is my experience.
Have any of you ever done this, and returned with interesting stories to tell?
Nope. Long story short, too much mayhem, not enough adventure.
If you insist on trying this, I suggest avoiding moonshine, cliffs, drunk friends, and a dare. (But I'm sure there are other equally negative combinations.)
This post brought to you by MortISP, the #1 ISP in the Great Beyond.
If by "stepping off the grid" you mean "gone on a two week bender" then, yeah. Heh, which segues into an old riddle:
Q: What did Abraham Lincoln say after a 3 month bender?
A: I freed who?
Trolling is a art,
When I first read this headline I thought this was yet another discussion on alternative energy sources! I was anxious to hear about someones conversion of a hamster wheel power generator for their beowolf cluster!
Seriously though. I've thought about it but rarely would I have an opportunity to disconnect myself that to that level. Unless I go to my wife's native country where you're lucky to have power let alone a technogadget.
Actually, after watching that commercial for The Real Gilligan's Island where Mary Ann and Ginger smear coconut cream pie over each other and then wrestle in the shower -- maybe that's the way to go! Can you make an MP3 player out of bamboo, coconuts and a bicycle?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
No. Sorry. Some of us work for a living and actually feel obligated to perform and don't feel "right" when we're not working. Being away from work and technology stresses me out.
Dude you posted this on slashdot. Next time try sending this kind of question aloft tied to a helium balloon.
Never let a mediocre career stand in the way of a good time
And then that whole destruction of the earth thing by Skynet that we'd prevented last time around, we totally copped out on and had it happen anyway... our bad, sorry.
I thought he lived in a luxurious mansion, bedecked with all kinds of tech stuff? Not exactly roughing it, by any standards...
Spend amny times off the grid deep in backpack country. THe best place thought is the Tanner Trail in the Grand Canyon. Just be sure to bring enough water -- or you will wind up off the grid forever.
Not sure if I should tell the story, but hey.
.. I kind of envy him.
Someone I used to work with quit his job about one month ago. He worked as a Senior unix engineer / hacker - and had done so for a decade or so.
The reason? He wants to see the world. He's taking one to two years off - depending on how long the trip takes. He's going to visit as many countries and areas as he manages. He's been saving for this for a LONG time - and he's finally realizing his dream.
Now, what kind of guy is this? He's certainly a computer person. He's a code-warrior, server admin and network admin - combined.
He's a regular reader of this site, so he'll probably recognize this posting, if he reads the story - depending on whether he plans on using _any_ computers during the trip.
http://www.plumvillage.org/
Ask These guys they've been off the grid for 60 years: http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/world/117558 29.htm/
I just did it for 3 days (sigh, some of us don't get long vacations). The only tech toy that was with me was my Nikon D70s - I am a photographer at heart, so having a camera is a must.
No internet, turned the cell off. Nothing. Not even radio. Just sit by the fire, relax and think how much better life is when you don't even have a concept of time.
Do it once. Cold turkey and you will do it again and again. Nothing more satisfying than releasing the bonds of technology once in a while.
Go hiking while you are at it.
I did this for a year. Except I went about it in a more extreme way.
Quit my job.
Almost emptied my bank account (just enough to keep it open) and had the cash saved safely.
Moved from my parents place to miscellaneous places under aliases and didn't use my real name.
Never went near "public" cameras.
Paid cash for everything.
Never logged onto the internet and used "my" name or email account... ever.
Didn't contact my family through means where they could trace me (unmarried, no holidays)
Worked jobs where I was paid under the table with my alias.
I did this all half-way across the country. You don't have any clue how much I loved it. New name, new face, new style of living. Hell, even this slashdot subscription I have was paid for by someone I don't know who has never met me in real life or online (except through slashdot). This "alias" of zoloto isn't linked to my real name in any way, shape or form... and that's the way I like it. (someone guessed at my name once thinking he was "cool" but it never worked for him/her)
It's great. It's too bad we can't do this anymore with our real lives since people (companies/govt too) openly share our information and collect "assurances" that we're credit worthy and an assett to society.
...serious overclocking!
um, does fragging at 200 fps count as 'off the grid' if you're not running a server?
But if you stepped off the grid how did you get that article to Slashdot?
My former co-worker and best friend (still really good friends, actually) decided to step out of reality for the better part of two years, but instead of wilderness, he choose heroin!
I know it's not exactly what you're after, but it was interesting from a friend perspective watching his withdrawal from society. I say this all with relative calm these days because he's over a year clean and has re-entered society at large, and also the tech field from where he left (even has a better job than before), but that kind of ignores how depressing it was to watch someone leave both the internet and the real world at the same time.
The moral though is that no matter how far lost in the wilderness you get, you can always make it back if you really want to.
Post this on your blog.
I just spent a year in a tent in the southwest US, where my highest tech was a $25 Radio Shack FM radio. There was a community center with microwave and showers a couple miles walk from my tent, so the living was pretty easy and dead cheap.
The hardest part was that I had to be hidden well enough not to get vandalised, and I had to carry a gallon of water a day from town.
Eventually I got web email via the public library. (I got TONS of reading done.)
I'd still be going that route if the community center hadn't closed.
Camp Jeep
Using the Freedom of Speech while I still have it.
Its hard to say, you can only see so much with the satellite interviews they do in his home.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
I've been doing this for years... I work as a software engineer during the week, but weekends and vacations are all about backpacking and climbing. I've done one 22 day through hike in the CA Sierras, all without technology. In a year or so I'm going to quit my job and backpack the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada. After that it will be some new adventure. Obviously not for everyone (especially the hardcore /. crowd) but being in the outdoors without all the things we've come to rely on so heavily brings a certain clarity and purpose to my life that I just dont find while pounding out code.
I don't know how to live, but I've got a lot of toys.
A friend and I are going to drive a 1966 olds hearse from San Francisco to Providence. Along the way we are planning on seeing what this country has to offer 2 35 year olds. No computers, no tv, no nothing except for 1 cell phone for emergencies only and an aging boom box for cd's, other then that it's just him and me and the great outdoors (oh yeah and a 22 foot antique to get us there.) We plan on taking 2 weeks for the trek but who knows.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Haven't yet, but I plan to in the next 10 years or so if everything works out... ask me again in a few years :)
Place sig here.
...but alas, I had already taken the blue pill.
My wife lived in a remote village in Ghana and taught math. No electricity, no running water. I don't know if I could pull it off. She did-- part of what I found attractive about her.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
I'd like to get off the grid in a different way... one that still lets me use /.
/. fix out in the sticks...
I've found Yurts to be an interesting architectural endeavour, and very affordable... not to mention the interesting psychological/environmental changes that one would experience living in a round building.
In a few years I plan to take advantage of Composting toilets, solar and exercised charged deep-cycle battery power, Solar Cooking, Efficient wood cooking and heating and whatever other kinds of natural/off-grid lifestyles I can find...
Let's not forget Intel's WiMAX technologies that should let me get my
Luckily I should be aquiring 5 acres of land for free or cheap in the next few years, which makes this whole thing much more feasible.
Wow! This must be a PERSONAL letter, just for me!
I went through one of those wilderness survival programs, where we first hiked using packs we fashioned out of a poncho, sleeping bag, parachute cord, and seatbelt strap, then collectively pushed/pulled a wooden hand cart with all our gear (through mud, over rocks, in the snow, etc), and finally hiked the tough trails with 80lb packs. Not once the whole time did I touch one electronic device or set foot inside any kind of permanent structure.
You certainly get to know the people you're with, as well as yourself, and get quite a connection to nature and the environment around you. Drinking only water that you find in streams, lakes, and if you're thirsty enough, green, tadpole filled sludge that's collected in the bottom of a rock canyon will really give you an appreciation for tap water. That, and I can start a bow drill fire with just a shoelace and items found in nature (a rock, sage, a stick).
It was a memorable once-in-a-lifetime experience.
If this turns out to be true, it will be quite amazing. Mindanao is not some desert island. It is a very large island with a very large and modern population.
It seems ludicrous that two men could be "lost" on Mindanao for 60 years without getting a clue!
I was off the grid for 5 months and 10 days when I hiked the Appalachian Trail from Maine to Georgia in 2003. I had a cell phone, but if you look at Cingular's maps, there is a thin strip up the East coast where you can't get reception. That strip is the AT, which I hiked. It was really easy, I didn't miss the internet at all, didn't miss IMing or e-mail, and I sure as hell didn't miss all the spamming and ads all over. I would write letters to my parents that they would type up and e-mail to my friends, but that was about it for the internet. Not having to deal with technology was a great relief. But, being back here it's hard to live without it, my lifestyle at the time just didn't require it.
I remember when I stopped by a town in NH and I saw the last week's newspaper in the trash. It read "Great 2003 Blackout!". It's amazing to have missed something like that. I even heard stories of hikers who didn't hear about 9/11.
I'm planning to do long hikes in the future, so that won't be the last time I'm off the grid. (I know some people who hiked without ID, I still had my DL).
Anyway, if any of you have question or are just interested, I have all the answers. You can e-mail me at aberkowi@student.umass.edu
"Man, I am so unbelievably stupid."
I'm not sure what your goals are, but I've spent my share of time wandering. The amount of preparation required depends on your plans after you're done. If you don't give a shit about the square world, you can pick up and go right now. The more about your present life you care about, the more you need to do to ensure it'll be there for you when you get back.
If you plan on travelling around the US, I suggest being very friendly and getting a gun. Really. Hell, this is a good idea everywhere outside of Europe. I don't want to scare you. Chances are that you'll never need it. But feeling safe in nearly any circumstance is a good thing.
And I hope you don't have a problem with going hungry for days at a time. Unless you're rich to start with, you won't be eating much. But if you have any personality at all, you'll be giving it to hot girls all over the world. I think that's a good trade off.
After all, I am strangely colored.
The flip side? Living in a river valley with a family of about 25 deer that slept at our back door. Brown eagles flying overhead in the morning and at night so many stars that you felt really small and really short-lived. I'd like to say that I spent countless hours hiking, canoeing and enjoying nature, but spending hours a day commuting and the weekends on maintenance and going into town for supplies left little for enjoyment.
So, the lesson is: If you go off the grid, make sure you can do it all the way. Trying to live in both worlds is very tiring.
Check out this guy. http://www.strikingviking.net/ He's been traveling the world on a motorcycle for 2+ years, keeps a laptop handy and writes journals which he uploads via cyber cafes all over the world. His book, Two Wheels Through Terror, is quite interesting also, he was captured and tortured by rebels in South America.
My family has a cabin in Michigan's upper peninsula. No running water, no electricity, virtually no cell phone service. I have been off the grid for three weeks at a time occasionally.
Quite fun, really. I get a lot of reading done, and wander around the woods.
/usr/games/fortune
At one point, I was leaving the digital world to enter the biological world (professionally speaking), and I spent a month on the Appalachain Trail hiking from MA down to VA. At least, that was the original plan.
I wound up getting sick after a week into it and needed to come off the trail after ten days and limit myself to day hikes. That was still enjoyable, but a huge let down.
That first ten days though, was amazing. I had a forty-five pound pack on my back, and only what I could carry went with me. No laptop, not even a digital camera. I met lots of people on the trail who were doing similar things to get away from the world. I was amazed at how many techies were out there. It seems to be a common thing for people in the techie world when they want to leave it temporarily or permanently.
I would definitely encourage people to do it, but be prepared. I have lots of great stories from it (like cresting four mountains in one day and listening to people complain about how tall a mountain was when they were up there with their coolers and big blankets... it makes you chuckle). Personally, I think the AT is crowded and doing it again would go out to the west coast...
"A wolf's eyes can see into your soul"
My writing
Prior to my discovering the online community in 1980, my longest stint off the grid was my three years in the Army '85-'88. Not only was I off the grid but completely computer-less. I made up for it by coming back to the fold with a nice new Amiga 2000. Man was that a sweet machine with tons of online community activity around it as well. So, even my year Studying abroad (or was that studying a-beer?) in Germany '93-'94 and my six months in Croatia (in a bombed out town during the tail end of the Yugoslavian war) were not so bereft of computers and online access as my time in the Army.
They're off the GRID.
this is the way I'm planning on doing it
sail around the world for a few years (or more).
it can take a month to cross an ocean during which time you are totally self reliant
---- Put Sig here:
It was mostly "troubled" (for a various reasons) kids from California.
Oh, and the islands are kinda cool - but in a different way.
"In a hierarchy every employee will rise to his level of incompetence". The Peter Principle
1 motorcycle
1 wallet w/ cash and credit card(s)
1 backpack
2 days worth of clothes
1 pair extra shoes
1 digital camera
1 map of the country
time
ride off the middle of nowhere, camp under the stars, snap a few pics, get lost, find yourself and return home when ready. nothinig like a good soul cleansing from time to time.
This is SkyLofts at MGM Las Vegas.
http://www.skyloftsmgmgrand.com/
Very Luxurious, very wonderful and many electrical outlets.
If you wanted extreme:
A motorcycle: (Scrape off serial numbers, use fake/other peoples numberplates, never go over the speed limit and study road rules, DON'T drive by day, install fog-lights if necessary.)
Buy a bike trailer, with this you can store a ground-standing airbed and foam matress, sizable tent and install solar panels upon the side of the trailer essentially becomes your "power plant".
Sleep outside as often as possible.
1 wallet w/ cash and credit card(s) (Use only cash and use gloves while handling it, silicone gloves are very flexible)
Cameras: (always print out your photographs on paper, Ensure the computers used for printing are fully off-line, if you haven't got a laptop then reboot an internet cafe's computer with a customised live cd and print from there.)
1 backpack: (Remove the brand, or even make one yourself, and leave it stashed in your vehicle compartment at all times, therefore there is no possibility of brand/colour identification by people whom you interact with)
Clothing: (Have at least eight sets of clothing, remove all labelling/brandname, wear no-pattern dim coloured clothing)
Footwear: (Use ex-military boots, nuff said.)
Maps: (Surprisingly this also takes a beating, usually the shop at which you got the paperwork has some kind of ID number, paper can easily identify you if your bike is taken as you cannot easily ruffle through paper with gloves on, to resolve this buy a used PDA and download all the maps off the web, ensure the PDA has no wireless capabilities, always use an internet cafe whom will accept cash if you wish to buy online, select an abandoned building for the delivery of packages and always pay via money order.)
Somoewhat OT, but please bear with me. This was back in the early 1950s in Britain. I was about 4, and the family moved in with my mother's parents for about six(?) months. I learned many years later that a badly-insured business venture had been wiped out by a flood, taking most of my father's savings with it. So my parents were now suddenly poor, but these grandparents had been poor for decades. They lived in a ramshackle and none too clean cottage with no mains electricity, no mains sewerage, and no running hot water. Cooking was with bottled gas supplemented by an ancient solid-fuel range. Heating by the range and an open fireplace in the front room if it was really cold. Lighting with bottled gas supplemented by kerosene lamps and candles. No fridge. Battery-powered tube radio (transistors were still a few years away), used sparingly because of the cost of the batteries. TV was restricted to the well-off at that time even if there'd been mains electricity, telephones were a bit more widespread but totally out of the question for us. My grandparents kept chickens and had a large vegetable garden; it must have helped a lot.
I was of course oblivious to all this and still remember happy afternoons spent exploring the further reaches of the attic, and I was really upset when my dad eventually found a job and we moved on to a more conventional house. It took about another 10 years of scrimping and saving with both my parents working to pay off all the debts and eventually, helped by a bequest, to buy a small (and partly self-built) home of their own. I think my parents both regretted never being able to afford a second child, it's too late to ask now. I do know they frequently went without things themselves to give me a good start in life, and I duly became the first person in the family to get to university. After graduating I a took a job as a computer programmer; I was good at it, had found it interesting and fun, the money was quite good, and it looked as though IT would be a big growth area. A couple of years later, it belatedly dawned on me that I really didn't need to track every penny of my day-to-day spending any longer....
I guess the point I'm trying to make with these rambling recollections is that the 'simple life' is fine if you undertake it by choice and have the option of going back to the 'normal' world if it ceases to be attractive. Being forced into it by real poverty is another matter entirely: you never totally escape the habits acquired in such times.
I've noticed that many Slashdotters have a strong interest in this topic, of getting at least partially off-grid. I admit that I too would like that quite a lot.
So why do so many of us, on a site that by nature of the topics covered, have a VERY high dependance on a reliable supply of electricity, want to get away from the single best source of such a supply available (at least in the US)? This strikes me as somewhat paradoxical.
Personally, I'll admit a bit of paranoia in my motivation. I simply don't trust the electric company to provide cheap electricity to me for the duration of my life, and simply can't imagine living without access to a computer. But I doubt I share the majority opinion in that regard.
Any thoughts?
Although the movie was admittedly rather cheesy, this quote from the movie Contact really hit home for me: "The question IÂ'm asking is, are we happier? As a human race, is the world fundamentally a better place because of science and technology? We shop at home, we surf the web, but at the same time, we feel emptier, lonelier, and more cut off from each other than at any other time in history... (gets drowned out by Pulses from outer space). ... maybe itÂ's because weÂ're looking for the meaning, well what is the meaning? We have mindless jobs, we take frantic vacations. Deficit finance trips to the mall to buy more things that we feel are gonna fill these holes in our lives. Is it any wonder that weÂ've lost our sense of direction? "
I'm as much of a techo-addict as anyone, yet I've found that, especially as I get older, technology can often detract from my quality of life, rather than enhance it.
I do buy a lot of stuff from eBay and Amazon, but it's a poor replacement for actually walking into a store and physically laying your hands on the merchandise and examining it before you purchase.
I also use IM to keep in touch with people, but no amount of video conferencing or VOIP will ever replace sitting around a picnic table in the backyard and sharing a few beers with your friends.
I also find my microwave to be very convenient, but nothing that comes out of there will ever come close the the taste of a nice, thick porterhouse cooked on an open grill over wood coals.
I think stepping off the grid completely is a bit extreme (unless it's for a short vacation), but I have to admit that with each birthday that goes by, technology becomes more and more "just a paycheck" to me, and that I gain my real satisfaction from simpler things: keeping my lawn looking nice, eating a meal made from vegetables that I grew in my own garden, spending casual time with people I care about...
Personally, I've managed to find a very nice balance between technology and simplicity in my life, but it took awhile. A lot of geeks do tend to get way too immersed in technology (myself included, when I was younger), and I believe that this desire to "step off the grid" is simply the natural backlash that occurs when the realization sets in that you're missing out on other very important and fulfilling aspects of the short time you have here on the planet.
A 2000 calorie (actually kcal) diet produces 2.33 kW/h of energy.
Think about it.
If you were an olympic-class cyclist you would have a nearly impossible time producing $1 worth of electricity in a day, much less after the loss of conversion and storage.
I live in texas and every summer my family and I take a trip up too new mexico. We go to a house we inherited deep in the mountains. we don't get cell phone service or more than 1.5 channels on the tv at best. I can't get the internet or even dialup because every ISP is long distance. To combat the boredom I run around Riudoso and go to the Magic Mushroom shop all the time. I also attempt to be a cowboy. a few summers ago I started riding horses and this summer I will learn how to rope steers.
Didn't Clarke go away to avoid legal problems he had ? IIRC, he was under scrutiny for similar things that Michael Jackson now is.
Oh, I can't help quoting you because everything that you said rings true
Think of it as being in line with things like the "slow"-food movement or "slow" movements in general. The tech and clutter doesn't make your life better, just busier.
People are simply finding that the rat race isn't all it's cracked up to be, and there is a perception (both real and imagined) that life would be better if only we could get back to simpler times and cut out some of the crap and distraction.
I see an increasing revival of hippy-esque aspects of life that many people (including myself) are starting to get back in touch with. If only as simple as being more environmentally conscious, more aware of the foods we eat, more in tune with ourselves, or just living more simply so we don't have to keep trying to make more and more money each year like we've always been told we need to.
YMMV of course.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
While in the Navy stationed in Guam, we had two supertyphoons within 6 months of each other. Both times, I was thrown off the grid for two to three months. No power, no water, no phone... Quite the experience, I must say. The worst part, in Guam at least, was no air conditioner.
--- Keep the choice with the user..