I was thinking this afternoon when the work day came to a close, it’s been one year of remote work, since the start of the pandemic. While in autumn, there was a few work days in office, there wasn’t a lot. Most everything was remote, often in my case, from quite remote country. I’ve survived a year without ever having to get permanent Internet at home, by a mix of having a work laptop with mobile broadband (always keeping a watchful eye on data meter), my cellphone, and later upgrading my phone to a hotspot plan and using that with my laptop. And lots of hours spent at the Town Library and Town Park, Five Rivers, the laundromat, along with numerous other places with free Wi-Fi. For a while, I really got into bird watching while I worked from truck. Eight hours a day looking out the windshield at the birds can do that.
Maybe I am just stubborn about refusing to get my apartment wired for the Internet. After all well over 80% of Americans do have home internet, and probably in my fairly well-off suburban neighborhood, the percentage is much higher. For a suburbanite household where the primary resident is under 65 percent, probably Home Internet is close to 95% percent. I will be the first to admit it kind of sucks at times on particularly hot, cold or rainy days to be working down at the library from the cab of my truck, although these days with my phone set up as hotspot or Zoom on my phone I can usually work from home when things are particularly inclement. I probably could afford it, although I’d have to find money somewhere in the budget, and I always keep a tight budget with little money left in non-interesting bearing account at the end of week.
From time to time I get advertisements for Verizon Fiber and Time Warner Cable, although after all these years, they’ve kind of given up on me. I may be just a bit too stubborn about not having Internet at home, although I have to say since I upgraded to the 20 GB a month hotspot plan for my phone and unlimited mobile phone data, I’ve been far less careful about my internet use at home, and I certainly use it more for recreational purposes then I wish. It used to be I didn’t do internet at all from home. It was something that was a special trip to the library. But it’s not as convenient to go down to the library anymore, as they don’t allow use from indoors until the pandemic is over. That means if I want to use the library WI-FI, I have to drive down there and sit outside in the cold or heat. Although more recently, since the worse of the virus has slowed, I have walked down there and sat on the bench or park table — I’m not so worried about touching things any more based on what we now know about the virus.
For sure, there where some awful hot summer days working down at the library last summer, sweating like a dog. Other very cold days in December, shivering in my truck with the windows fogged up from my breath. There were times I was staring at the power gauge, wondering if I would make it to five o’clock with the battery under-voltage meter not tripping out again. Or that rainy day my laptop camera fogged up on the Zoom meeting. But then again, there were some fun days hanging out in Green Mountain National Forest in a hammock writing reports for work, or sitting at the Lake Pleasant Beach with my laptop answering emails. Then there was the time I was on a phone with a client, and a float plane splashed down on the lake drowning out the call briefly. Or that time answering client calls from the side of Lows Ledge outside of Horseshoe Lake outside of Tupper Lake. I can’t think of the countless hours doing Zoom meetings or sending text messages from the Speculator Library. I almost lived there for a while from the cab of my truck.
Last spring through the autumn, I used over 50 kWh generated by the solar panel alone on my truck, from all the time I spent charging my laptop off the solar panel. To say nothing of power generated by the alternator. It was 63 night camping out in the wilderness last year, several weeks just working out of the woods or a lot of the time spent up in Speculator. I spent enough time out by Lake Pleasant Park, I almost was became a permanent resident. I got to know the Mason Lake – Speculator Tree Farm – Perkins Clearing easement really well, maybe too well.
I am the first to admit things are probably coming to end at some point in the but it’s been fun and crazy too. Eventually I will be going back to working downtown, and I will end my hotspot plan. I don’t really want unlimited Internet at home. I like the walk to the library. And no more days writing reports or answering emails from the hammock or taking phone calls and writing memos from the shores of Lake Pleasant. No more playing on my computer at home, or being able to watch random Youtube videos from my bed in the evening. I liked having my Internet limited to the time period spent at the library or park. But regardless, it really was a pretty crazy year in a good kind of way.
As I have 20 GB of data per 30 day period or an average of 682 MB/day of data to use with my hotspot device I use at home for Internet during the winter months for work and play, I have to be careful on how much data I use. While I only used about 11 GB during the December 24 – January 23 period, it’s important that I be measured with my data use.
I wrote a short script to output my connection strength, 5-minute / 1 hour / 1 day data use and current top application using data that I display in the XFCE panel using gen-monitor. For example, this is the display:
Here is the PHP script I use to generate it — it’s a mix of PHP and BASH. I could have done it all in BASH but truth be known I’m lazy and I’m better at PHP coding.
I actually enjoy watching the meter and being careful with my usage. It forces me to be deliberate, and make sure I’m careful with the data I’m consuming, using my smartphone for video meetings and watching video. I am actually surprised how little data ordinary web surfing uses – it’s really the video and downloads that eats a lot of data – especially the big GIS files. But I can go to the library for such purposes.
While I don’t have a good count based on SSID, it looks like I used about 11.2 GB on the hotspot and 19.2 GB on wired networks, mostly at the library and some at my parents house, downloading videos for later watching, updating or installing Linux apps, and downloading large GIS files. Downloading Youtube videos for later consumption really is a big bandwidth suck.
I like the challenging of being aware of my internet consumption and being responsible about the amount of data I use each day.
So far I’ve been managing the data well enough with my phone as a 20 GB hotspot and using my cellphone for doing Zoom and streaming video. This should get me through the winter, and if it’s still remote work come the spring, I’ll either cut down to 10 GB plan or end it all together in favor of working down at the library or park.
It seemed after about seven or eight years that the Time Warner Cable and Verizon had given up on trying to get me to sign up for Cable Television and Internet. And then I got another advertisement in the mail just this week. I chucked it in the paper recycling bin. And sighed. I am quite happy not having Internet at home, especially because with my new 4G Smartphone that can do about 90% of the stuff I need to do on the Internet. When I need larger files or something I can only do on my laptop, I walk down to the library or the park, which both have fast, free Internet which I can use. I also bring my laptop to work, and can connect to the wireless guest network they have there.
I don’t plan on ever having Internet at home. It just seems like an unnecessary expense, not to mention an unnecessary distraction. By walking or driving down to the library, it is a good way to limit your time on the ethers of the World Wide Web, although, honestly, most of that same stuff can be done with a modern smartphone. I don’t want a connected home or the ability of hackers to enter my living space, I’m quite happy building my own dream cabin with 12 volt power, LED lighting, controlled by automotive relays and maybe an Andruino. Don’t get me wrong, I like technology. I blog, I like the Internet. It would be cool to have the LED lights come on in my home at 6:30 with a bright blue colors to wake me up on a cold winter morning. With cellphone service in more and more places, and the StraightTalk data service cap ever growing, it seems like I have all the connection I need to our modern society, without the wires tying everything on in.
I’ve spent six years reporting on deeply alienated people on the internet, during which time I’ve come to see conditions of disconnection and frustration everywhere the Digital Nation touches: on social media, in search algorithms, in the digital economy. In myself. The feelings of powerlessness, estrangement, loneliness, and anger created or exacerbated by the information age are so general it can be easy to think they are just a state of nature, like an ache that persists until you forget it’s there. But then sometimes it suddenly gets much worse.
