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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?"
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.
Maybe someone found the bodies^w skeletons in his closet? :)
:)
Sounds like fun, but for a lot of geeks, maybe not practical. IE: to live and survive you need to make money somehow, and most of us (/. readership) work in computers, so you'd probably end up back in a job working with computers to make a "new" living. That kinda kills the "step off the grid" thing.
Of course, if the grandparent emptied their bank account to get $$ to live without working, then yea, go for it. Just make sure you have a job or skill you can come back to (assuming you want to come back).
Not hugely practical after you hit a certain age though, I doubt my wife and cats would appreciate me just disappearing one day
Note that unless you have a huge swath of land with lots of wood, then wood doesn't provide very efficient energy. Don't get me wrong, I know they have all kinds of new(er) technology in the wood burning arena, but it's still not as efficient as a nuclear power plant or natural gas.
Now if you've got tons of free wood to use then yeah, it's gonna be cheaper.. otherwise wood is pretty damn expensive (relative to energy output) if you have to buy it.
Exercised charged deep-cycle batteries? Hmmm, how much energy do we really put out? I'd be willing to bet not much. You have to figure all this stuff out to really see the big picture. Like excisering for 1 hour a day might provide enough power to keep a small light lit for 20 minutes (ie. the whole idea would be pointless because that's like 0.00000001 percent of a penny in energy). Then factor in the cost of buying the battery and generative equipment and you actually end up spending more.
The only true way to get cheap energy is to live near something with massive potential. Rivers, creeks, waterfalls, wide open windy areas, etc. Nothing else really does the job (eg. solar sucks because you'll never get your money back).
It's like just a lot of the fancy high-tech hybrid cars that only get like 40 or 50 MPG. It's just not worth it because those cars will eventually break and be impossible or really expensive to fix (ie. there goes your energy savings right there).