GEMINILOGGBOOKOBERDADAISTICUS

A month without internet

For readers who might allow themselves to complain about the internet, and the bloated web in particular, here are some thoughts about being shut out from all of it for a while.

One week before Christmas the internet connection mysteriously ceased to work, and exactly one month later the access was restored, as unexpectedly as it was turned off. Thus the outage was neither deliberate nor desired. At least it occured in a time of the year when little of importance happens anyway.

After a few days of frustration, since my habits include spending a lot of time reading articles and participating on forums or publishing material to my own website or gemini capsule, the frustration gradually turned towards the impracticality of lacking access to email, not being able to pay bills (oh, isn't that fun), and potentially missing work-related opportunities. Finally, I had to resort to public libraries to check my email, with strict time limits and even fewer PCs available than usual due to covid restrictions. It turned out that my fear of missing out was baseless; only one or two emails were of a more personal nature and, although there had been an intense debate on a mailing list that I follow, nothing of it was urgent or even very interesting.

My laptop, where I end up doing a large part of my work, was radically transformed. Instead of having access to communicate with any of my contacts, skimming interesting articles, looking at silly cat pictures and inane entertainment, the computer became a much more austere environment, very suitable for focused work. So I spent some time improving my peptalk program and working on video synthesis. I also tried to write a bit, but there I was hampered by the inability to check facts, links, and quotes. Anyway, those texts were intended for online publication, so they had to wait.

With the distraction machine turned off there was plenty of time to read, which I did, mainly art books. I picked up books I had begun reading years ago and given up on, I even bought a print weekly news magazine aimed at the half-educated bourgouisie to make them feel smart and informed. Twenty years ago that magazine still used to keep a reasonable standard. Sometimes it's fine just to check out the consensus reality. There isn't much left of FM radio either, just one station I use to listen to, which broadcasts a daily news show with its particular world view.

Internet fasting, at least of the self-imposed variety, may be popular and even romanticised among over-active internauts. I think the month's experience demonstrates that it is possible to make do with very limited online time, at least in periods when work projects don't require constant access. One cannot follow up the fine nuances of how news stories are spun, when not simply ignored in mainstream media. Everything fast and flashy vanishes beyond the horizon, only the slow but focused reading of books remains.

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