Hey c/technology,
I've been enamored by this idea of an internet that runs solely off of solar power. To my surprise, a project like this already exists. It's not exactly like I pictured it, and it leans off a lot of existing infrastructure, but it actually exists unlike my imagination. I'm not involved with this project in any way, I only found it recently and well, I think it looks pretty fucking cool.
Anyways, after seeing the discussion on the Mozilla post yesterday (https://hexbear.net/post/3606323), there seems to be a lot of real desire amoung users here for an alternative to the bloated cesspool known as the modern internet. A common thread I read was this desire to return a more text-based, less rich media focused content. Oh, and LESS ADS. The limitations of a solar web server not only encourage a focus on these but actually require it. An excerpt from the Solar Protocol Manifesto says it way better than I ever could:
"In response and by working within natural limitations, we have deliberately chosen not to use large assets nor energy-intensive tracking technologies on this website. A solar-powered web could reduce the opportunity for these kinds of surveillance and data-driven practices and the business models that go with them, something that is likely to have desirable political effects. As Timothy Mitchel points out in Carbon Democracy, different energy regimes create different political possibilities. "
Sounds tight to me. I didn't see any previous posts here so I figured I'd create this discussion to see what c\technology thinks. As for me, I'm pretty close to ordering a few panels myself and get my hands dirty using the blueprints from Solar Protocol. I think it looks fun as hell.
Anyways, enough of my rambling. What does c\technology think about this? Follow up question: would there be any desire to make a solar protocol-compatible Hexbear instance?
I think this is a very good start. One issue is that the internet has the weakness of having its access controlled by ISPs; sure there are some places to get network access like the library, etc. but if these boxes could also have a LPWAN transmitter attached to them and networked up to other boxes nearby, that would be great.
Not long ago I stumbled upon the RNode (I think on this website?) as a cheap, long range transmitter that should be able to easily retool for solar power. However a lot of the radio technology quickly gets out of my wheelhouse. May be showing my ass here, but wouldn't you need a license to operate one of these?
Neat! Im not sure to be honest; seems like some people have handheld lora radios the same way some people have walkies-talkies; would be an important thing to figure out
Wow that's nuts, I was literally just thinking about how this could work yesterday!
Hosting an instance of Diet Hexbear seems like it would fit the project pretty well.
This reminds me of the Disaster.Radio project. https://disaster.radio/
We might need to build our own comms networks very soon.
