Now I have a great standby generator, though, so I'm sure I'll start taking it all for granted again soon.
The power goes out a lot in the winter but at least we are cozy, particularly with today's LED/Lithium lights.
Back when I had ADSL from the central office my internet would stay up when I lost power so I had enough power to run a cordless phone and one (of two) DSL modems off a small UPS -- so I could keep 21st century comms. Once I got fiber-to-the-node most outages would affect the node so I gave up on the UPS. They're supposed to get FTTH to my house soon but I have no idea how that is going to be affected by outages.
That would depend on the source of the outage and if your power has single points of failure in common with the comms infrastructure. One would hope the exchange has generator backups to cover short complete outages, but I'm not so sure about equipment between there and your residence (does the local cabinet have a power source, perhaps a battery or its power feed being provided by the exchange and its backups, that would survive at least a short area-wide outage?).
I've certainly had full internet access when power has dropped for my (very urban) home and the rest of the local area, so at least in cases like me the exchange and infrastructure between kept running (and my laptop battery & the small UPS protecting the ONT, router, switch, and AP, kept my infrastructure going even though the desktop PC dropped as it isn't on the UPS).
After a few of these outages and typically two to three nines of utility power availability, I got a portable generator for my well (we have an automatic generator for the house, but the well is on a separate meter); but we've also had a well pump fail. That was "fun", I think the well company came out the next day to troubleshoot, and then the 3rd day to replace the pump, which took pretty much all day because of the depth of the well. At least it happened during good weather.
I've been seeing aliexpress battery + hybrid charger deals that could probably support my pump, at least for a little while, will probably do one of those eventually, especially if we build a pumphouse.
When the power goes out, and you’re forced to sit and talk to people or just enjoy the quiet of the night. I think about how much we’ve lost in the modern rat race.
One of the things that sits with me is that for all we’ve been given, most of us have lost the ability to just sit out in a field and enjoy the stars (light pollution, starlink, etc)
I'm not trying to single you out but I am intensely annoyed by the light and airy disregard of an intensely complex graph of interconnected services that make life possible at the density and quality that we enjoy.
We've lost a great deal less than we've gained, and anyone who doesn't think so has not had the joy of involuntarily going without them for a significant length of time.
We are very fortunate to have clean water and sewage. There are terrible stories in Victorian England of like workers popping in water systems and killing hundreds of people.
Electricity powers a ton of basics and maybe you think you could do without heating and air conditioning until a heat wave passes over Europe and kills hundreds of people. I do think beyond that you start to deal in a lot of tradeoffs. I hate they seemed to have systematically replaced wood burning fireplaces with gas. I moved out of a house with a wood burning fireplace and what a mistake,
Except automated bill pay. I swear I could go back and live in the 70’s if it wasn’t for automated bill pay.
Depends on what essentials need power. Furnace? Sewerage lift pump? Water pump?
That's the crux, isn't it? You aren't just dependent, you are dependent on a system that relentlessly stalks you with increased demands. You are tasked with keeping ahead of a pack of hunters who want to take you down -- and not only will your companions leave you for dead the moment that happens, the group will punish any suggestion that we might want to do something about this on a systemic level because they strive to join the hunters themselves.
It's grim and people are correct to behave like it's grim.
>> You are tasked with keeping ahead of a pack of hunters who want to take you down -- and not only will your companions leave you for dead the moment that happens, the group will punish any suggestion that we might want to do something about this on a systemic level because they strive to join the hunters themselves.
...as referring to software engineers as a whole, because it fits.
We're laborers, but a significant fraction of us has misinterpreted having a comfortable salary now as being capitalists themselves, so bought into libertarian propaganda and behave like they're temporarily embarrassed billionaires (for instance, by strongly resisting things like unionization).
Unfortunately, too many of us who are actually interested in "[doing] something about this on a systemic level," are too pampered to have the focus to actually be effective, and get distracted and put all kinds of divisive stuff front-and-center (basically playing into the divide-and-conquer game of the bosses).
We've had that game before. Ask yourself why a the capitalists are so eager to make everyone else a "capitalist" too: Because the relationship between companies is even more adversarial and bent on domination than a formalized employer-employee relationship.
Every CEO would love to have "independent contractors" instead of employees.
You don’t even need to start a business to be a capitalist, just buy capital that can earn you money. That can be as simple as putting a portion of your savings in stocks or as proletarian as buying a lawnmower and a trailer and mowing people’s lawns for extra cash.
Step 1: be rich.
> That can be as simple as putting a portion of your savings in stocks or as proletarian as buying a lawnmower and a trailer and mowing people’s lawns for extra cash.
No, that's not being a capitalist. You're not living of the proceeds of your capital, you're living off the proceeds of your labor. The proof: if you stop pushing that mower, your business (or your profits) collapse. "Being your own boss" != being a capitalist.
Now if you can buy 100 mowers and 100 trailers and hire 100 people to push them (plus a couple managers), you might be able to become a bottom-rung capitalist.
It ain’t perfect - and we’ll work to improve it - but it’s way better than the way it used to be for so many people. Civilization aint all bad.
> and we’ll work to improve it
Who is "we"? The people in power (or the dominant opinion at HN) don't even see a problem there.
I'm also reminded of a while back when the power went out in Spain, and people said it was like a time capsule to the 1970s.
People, outside, talking! Imagine...
Even small things are enlightening, when my slippers disintegrated I didn’t replace them for a month. It gave me a whole new appreciation for something I otherwise considered insignificant.
The entire county lost power for about 8 hours. From the social media posts, you would have thought people were undergoing severe hardship, because they had to wait 1/3 of a day for their propane-heated showers. Also, some were angry that the county hadn't done more to plan for these situations... which happen maybe once every decade or so.
It also fits severe water restrictions due to drought. I would not romanticise that much either.
Life is a series of maintenance tasks + a few moments of rest and happiness followed by death.
I think millenials like minimalism for many reasons but some may be the trauma of having clutter in their boomer parents home as well as the idea that each item is a liability. Each item needs a place to rest, possibly time spent maintaining and repairing it, and possibly energy in the form of electricity/fuel etc. Less items = less potential chaos.
I guess the very wealthy don't feel any of these issues since while they are still there money can handle dealing with the entropy. How I envy them sometimes.