Here's my plan.

mortifiedpenguin · Heavy Crude Joined: Oct 15, 2004 Posts: 119

1. I'm going to install solar power for my house. That will save me some money in the long run, and I'll still have video games & the Internet for entertainment. Very Happy

2. I'll try growing vegetables, so I don't have to spend as much on food.
3. I'm living alone. It's a lot less expensive that way. Besides, I have my parrot for company.
4. When it's winter, I won't use heating. I'll just build a fire in the fireplace for warmth.
5. Where will I get the money for this stuff, you ask? Well, I'll sell things I don't need. Like my car. I never even needed a car in the first place. I'll just ride my bike to work.

So basically, I'm just going to try to keep on living a normal life, by severely cutting down on expenses.

Thoughts? Comments? Also, I'd like to know how much a solar power system costs. And yes, I know the plan's kind of just thrown together, and I'm sure there's a lot of flaws in it, but it's a good start.

Tyler_JC · Posted: Sat Oct 23, 2004 8:20 pm Post subject:

#1 Where do you live? Solar panels are rather useless in cloudy Seattle.
Also, how can the internet continue to work if no one else is hooked up?
The internet is not a needed for survival, despite popular belief. When the money gets tight, AOL will go under just as quickly as Delta or Ford. Global economic slowdown will crush the bottom line of the ISPs. Electricity will cost a lot more.
SO, even if you have cheap (solar) power, very few other people will. Meaning, you won't really have an internet.

#2 That works. If there is a slow crash, you can sell the extra to others. If there is no crash, you can eat the corn/beans/whatever yourself. If there is a fast crash, you will outlive your neighbors and can eventually turn their land into more farmland.

#3 What does your bird eat? Can you supply it yourself without having to go to a pet store? Can he/she eat from the wild? Make sure to grow a little bird food along with the "people food".

#4 Is your house surrounded by forest/ do you have a plentiful supply of wood around you? Wood's great, but there ain't a whole lot of it in New York City. If you have a lot of land in a mild climate, you should be fine.

#5 Get a Segway and hook it up to the solar panels, you can start a new eco-fashion trend. (jk, a bike is fine)

mortifiedpenguin · Heavy Crude Joined: Oct 15, 2004 Posts: 119

1. I live in one of the best places for solar power: Kansas. Wichita, Kansas, to be exact. And yes, we probably won't have much of an Internet, but hey, you never know.
2. I must be uber-lucky or something. There is, seriously, two fields of farmland less than 200 feet from my house. One isn't very big, but the other is just huge.
3. This won't be a problem. My bird can eat fruits and vegetables. He'll be fine.
4. This might be a problem. The nearest forest isn't exactly near. I'll probably figure out something.
5. You know, that reminds me of my awesome idea for the Segway. Instead of putting in all that expensive technology to keep the Segway balanced, all they really needed to do was put a third wheel in the middle. It would work just as well, too. And Dean Kamen, my friends, is the 69th person that has had their ass handed to them on a silver platter by me.

You know, I think this is a good plan. My house is already paid for, and assuming I can afford the solar panels (what are the prices?) there goes the electric bill. And no car to pay for, no food to buy (or at least not near as much), and no expensive oil to pay for. And no gas to pay for, since I won't be using the heater much, if at all

Tyler_JC · Posted: Sat Oct 23, 2004 9:45 pm Post subject:

You live out in corn country, you might want to investigate ethanol. That might solve the problem of staying warm in the winter.

mortifiedpenguin · Heavy Crude Joined: Oct 15, 2004 Posts: 119

Would it be very expensive after the peak?

duff_beer_dragon · Posted: Sun Oct 24, 2004 6:03 am Post subject: think neural networks

The internet is designed to be availble in the event of just about anything that leaves a planet still orbiting here ;

don't confuse the proliferation of commercial and overpriced isp's with 'the internet' - they are www-only, and are the equivalent of bad channel packages being availible via satellites.

You can set up your own server at home - you can dial a computer with it's phone number as long as it is hooked up - so in terms of the kind of connections we are using here to post and so on, as long as there is a phone number, wireless or landline, connecting is possible - the internet doesn't have a central brain or controlling machine, it's designed to stay active even if large sections of it were gone.

What would be a good idea anyway, and I mean for me as well, would be to learn more about connecting without an isp (thru port 23, telnet for example) - radios are a survivial tool, so anything else that can provide news, webcams, information, is going to be important.

Plenty of www free webspace can host pages that you would likely still be able to upload to and access - esp. if you use multiple servers to host, or mirror the site or pages elsewhere. A lot of these things are fully automated already.
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the frogurt is also cursed