'Collapse OS' Is An Open-Source Operating System For the Post-Apocalypse (vice.com) 106
Collapse OS is a new open-source operating system built specifically for use during humanity's darkest days. According to its creator, software developer Virgil Dupras, Collapse OS is what the people of the future will need to reconfigure their scavenged iPhones. For now, though, he's hosting the project on GitHub and looking for contributors. Motherboard reports: According to the Collapse OS site, Dupras envisions a world where the global supply chain collapses by 2030. In this possible future -- kind of a medium-apocalypse -- populations won't be able to mass produce electronics anymore, but they'll still be an enormous source of political and social power. Anyone who can scavenge electronics and reprogram them will gain a huge advantage over those who don't. Dupras believes that the biggest problem for tech savvy post-apocalyptic people will be microcontrollers -- tiny computers embedded in circuit boards that control the functions of computer systems.
Collapse OS will work with Z80 8-bit microprocessors. Though less common today than 16- and 32-bit components, the 8-bit Z80 can be found in desktop computers, cash registers, musical instruments, graphing calculators, and everything in between. In a Reddit Q&A, Dupras explained that the Z80 was chosen "because it's been in production for so long and because it's been used in so many machines, scavenger have good chances of getting their hands on it." According to the product page, Collapse OS currently can run on a homebrew Z80-based computer called the RC2014, and on Reddit Dupras said it could theoretically run on a Sega Genesis console.
Collapse OS will work with Z80 8-bit microprocessors. Though less common today than 16- and 32-bit components, the 8-bit Z80 can be found in desktop computers, cash registers, musical instruments, graphing calculators, and everything in between. In a Reddit Q&A, Dupras explained that the Z80 was chosen "because it's been in production for so long and because it's been used in so many machines, scavenger have good chances of getting their hands on it." According to the product page, Collapse OS currently can run on a homebrew Z80-based computer called the RC2014, and on Reddit Dupras said it could theoretically run on a Sega Genesis console.
Finally (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Finally (Score:4, Insightful)
Nerds call bullshit. You think a cell phone is going to be useful after a tech apocalypse? Useful for anything more than what a 50 year old TI calculator can do? Do you think cell towers will be working? Can this OS get you food, water, shelter, physical security?
"populations won't be able to mass produce electronics anymore, but they'll still be an enormous source of political and social power."
Even more power will be held by those who know how to do long division on paper. QED.
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That is why stocking up on guns is a stupid idea. Guns will be lying about all over the place, there will be no shortage of guns. Bullets on the other hand ...
Re:Finally (Score:5, Interesting)
That is why stocking up on guns is a stupid idea. Guns will be lying about all over the place, there will be no shortage of guns. Bullets on the other hand ...
Danger, I've had quite a few brandies and my brain is off its leash.. long rambly post ahead.
Bullets as we know them had their birth in the late 19th century. Guns are much, much older. Even after a collapse ammo production should be attainable within a decade. Maybe sooner. Small-scale reloaders will have everything they need.
Skill up. Welding, carpentry, machining, chemistry, metallurgy, and a bunch of other hard skills will be quite swell to have when the apocalypse is over. Time to rebuild. Of course there's more, like music and art, but those hard skills are the ones that built the world as you know it.
I know a lot of people study those and some make a living at it, but if SHTF, having even modest skills will come in very handy.
Might as well throw in guns, bow and arrow, spears, and learn hunting fowl and beast. And fishing. Best to be schooled in all that.
You know, all the skills that are apparently currently either uncool or deemed cruel
Dunno bout you, but if I'm deer, I'd rather suddenly go from a .30-30 to the brain than standing in line at a processing farm to be sold at the supermarket.
Heh. Seen the go-pro the fox ate on youtube? So many comments "Oh that fox, how kayoooo000te!" Didn't those people realize that they just witnessed what a rabbit likely last sees? If I were rabbit, I'd rather go with a .22 to the heart than mauled to death by foxie over there. And if I get winged, the responsible hunter will find me and give me the coup de grace.
(They are either uncool or appear cruel to the mainstream. To those who know, those skills are to be passed on and kept alive at all costs, for without them there is no civilization.)
It's not all just phones and apps...
If we do get the classic Mad Max scenario, there will be two kinds of people: Takers and Makers. The Makers will have the skills to keep the Takers at bay... ...or completely rid the world of them.
Makers and Takers. Remember that.
In a way, we're there right this second.
Makers and Takers.
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Makers and Takers.
Athena and Ares. Ares may get the upper hand at the beginning of the conflict, but Athena always wins.
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". Welding, carpentry, machining, chemistry, metallurgy, and a bunch of other hard skills will be quite swell to have when the apocalypse is over."
They are swell to have now and millions do. All my hobbies have many practical applications and complement each other, especially welding, machining and vehicle mechanics.
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EMP won't reach into steel buildings and shipping containers to kill components not connected to grid. The US military doesn't have an EMP testing regime without reason.
For example the points ignition and permanent magnet alternators in some of my motorcycles are wildly unlikely to be affected and I've spares aplenty. It's relatively easy to rewind motors and generators. It's also relatively easy to wind electro-mechanical voltage regulators and plenty of dead tree media on that subject will remain.
Simple t
Re: EMP is the most likely apocalypse... (Score:1)
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Inmates have built zip guns in prison.
Guns are not that complicated so even if all of the manufactured guns are destroyed (they won't be), people can still build 'em
I think that bombs, and more importantly KNOWLEDGE OF SURVIVING IN THE WILD, should be included in your arsenal.
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Re: Finally (Score:2)
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Bullets are just lumps of metal in a specific shape. What you are really talking about are cartridges. The fact that you didnt know that tells us that your "expert" opinion on this matter is worthless.
Learned people are usually able to switch off the jargon when talking to the public. It's one trait that makes a good communicator.
Re: Finally (Score:3)
Reloading existing cases a few times is pretty easy and plenty of equipment around to do it but what exactly were you reloading it with? Smokeless gun powder is not something easily created in a garage and cartridges usually can only be reused a few times. Modern guns have very tight tolerances which homemade or worn cartridges and blackpower would not work well in.
Re: Finally (Score:3)
Primers would be the problem. Any straight walled rifle cartridge will work with black powder. So the 45-70, 444 Marlin, 375 Winchester and so on will work. And the 38 special, 44 Special, and 45 Colt were all black powder cartridges originally. So the 357 magnum, 41 magnum, 44 magnum, and the 454 Casull will all work with black powder too.
So given primers, it's not so hopeless as you think. And primers were in production by 1870, so they aren't that hard. We might be back to corrosive mixtures again, but
Re: Finally (Score:1)
Hey asshole? If you can't tell, I'm on your side. How about you shut the fuck up yourself and listen for a change?
Jodio gringo de mierda.
If you're a reloader and a nerd then you must agree that if all is lost, ammo production en masse should be attainable in a decade. That means brass mastery, machining, making primers and learning to jacket lead cores.
But by all fucking means, sensei school me!
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Re: Finally (Score:2)
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Re:Finally (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you think cell towers will be working?
Ad Hoc WiFi mode and start making calls to your fellow cave dwellers.
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That's a very blinkered outlook.
Think not "day one" but "several years later".
You still won't have cell networks. But you might well have radio. And automated systems, industrial control, hell even alert sensors that can talk home to tell you there's a horde of raiders on the way, would be useful.
Everything from lighting control, agricultural automation, communication - you might pick up a CCTV camera but how the hell are you going to display it? How are you going to route the packets over radio or a cab
Yes, it will be useful (Score:2)
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>> You think a cell phone is going to be useful after a tech apocalypse?
Yup. Ad hoc wifi will be a thing.
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I'd imagine when the apocalypse comes Github will be the first to fall over. Surely Gitlab would have been a better choice?
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Offline mapping (if you downloaded the maps) and GPS/GLONASS (unless destroyed by ASAT weapons ) will still work. You can still use your devices to read files you previously saved. "Apocalypse" doesn't mean complete destruction because there are so many devices that's impossible in the near term.
A proper backup plan includes live CD/DVDs to boot/reload whatever PCs you can scrounge and PCs interface esaily with phones. My spare PCs reside in my (incidental Faraday cage) shipping container machine shop. Ther
Very cool (Score:2)
FreeDOS? (Score:2)
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He's aiming at the market for partially salvaged hardware; stuff you can't boot FreeDOS on; like a completely shattered circuit board from a machine that used to be able to boot FreeDOS, but still has an intact Z80 chip soldered to it somewhere as part of the less-fragile, less-expensive connection logic.
Re:FreeDOS? (Score:4)
IMO, in a world where you have to scrounge around to find Z80s on shattered circuit boards, you're *really* unlikely to have anything like a multimeter to help you hook up your plundered IC and debug it. Not to mention, finding dead-tree data books for the processor and other ICs will be next to impossible. And to top it off, figuring out how to load this OS onto your MacGyver'd system is going to be a major chicken-and-egg dilemma.
As for me, I still have my first Timex/Sinclair ZX81 in the basement. I doubt it has enough RAM to run a custom OS, but it came with a workable operating environment in ROM. I guess I'll stick with that after the apocalypse hits, unless I decide I need the higher horsepower provided by my Commodore VIC-20.
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Even so, I like the idea that someone is trying to plan contingencies for situations like that.
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Even so, I like the idea that someone is trying to plan contingencies for situations like that.
What is the plan exactly? What calamity destroyed all of the computer hardware except the Z80's that are strewn about, and what are you going to do with that Z80 when you have no power or food? It's not likely that you'll get that local power plant running by plugging a Z80 into the control system when all of the controllers have been wiped out by whatever wiped out the rest of the computers.
I guess you could load it up with CP/M and Visicalc can keep track of your stock portfolio. Though you could do the
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You might be shocked at the value, 2nd or 3rd generation post-apocalypse, in simply being able to store and read text files.
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What calamity destroyed all of the computer hardware except the Z80's that are strewn about
As someone pointed out in another comment, these are subcomponents of various kinds of hardware. e.g. you may find an old modem in the rubble of somebodies home office, but even if the modem is smashed and the circuit board broken in half, there could be a Z80 soldered to it that you could still scavenge from the otherwise irreparable board.
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And to top it off, figuring out how to load this OS onto your MacGyver'd system is going to be a major chicken-and-egg dilemma.
Clearly we are going to make diode ROMs using stone knives and bearskins. And catwhisker crystals for the diodes.
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If you are targeting scrounging up found processors. I think you want to target as wide of an install base as possible. I think you would want to target both Z80 and 6502 as they are very common even in embedded devices today. Even though they are more complex and thus difficult to reproduce plenty of ARM, 6800(0), 8088, 80x86 CPUs out there some would probably be salvageable. And then there are real micro controllers, like the ATMEL chips in the arduinos, many of which might not have the features to run
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Personally I would have thought there would be WAY more 6502 CPUs with all the Nintendo, Apple ][, Apple //e, Apple //c, C64, Atari 400 and Atari 800 computers then an 8080 or 8086.
Do we really need yet another 8-bit OS?
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Personally I would have thought there would be WAY more 6502 CPUs with all the Nintendo, Apple ][, Apple //e, Apple //c, C64, Atari 400 and Atari 800 computers then an 8080 or 8086.
Nope. They're finally failing due to capacitor aging. If the apocalypse waits a few more years, most of them will be dead (all the machines which haven't been recapped.) All the 68k machines (actual 68000) are of about that age now, the Amigas are failing for example.
In another decade, most of the working machines will be SBCs that use solid capacitors. If you want something that will still be working then, try something like this [embeddedarm.com]. They have wide input voltage models (8 to 28 VDC) that would be ideal for a
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Sci Fi (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Sci Fi (Score:1)
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And teach Z80, how to survive, how to expand Z80, how to rebuild and setup manufacturing again too. It would be a difficult book to get right, and come up with all of the details. I would suggest that it is set in the year 4020, 2000 years in the future. Oil has run out, coal has run out, maybe a plague or meteor hit the planet and wiped out enough people that society couldn't function.
It would be a good starting point for a book, that could describe a society similar to how the early West was.
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Emulators (Score:5, Funny)
And when you have 40 leven raspberry Pi computers, you can run a Z80 emulator to take advantage of this OS.
Silly choice (Score:5, Insightful)
No need to go back to the Z80. The microcontroller of choice in microwaves, dish washers, and washing machines is an ARM Cortex-M0+, M3, or M4. There are far more of those than there are cash registers or graphing calculators. Ten years on, a lot of the older ones that don't have such things will have been replaced, and you basically can't buy any of those things without one today. The ARM processor series has gotten so cheap and so easy to develop for that it's muscling traditional microcontrollers out of the market, even when it's vastly overpowered for the task at hand. Hell, even graphing calculators are ARM now. The Texas Instruments Nspire series (approved for use with college board standardized tests) are all ARM.
And in what world are cash registers a Z80? They're friggin' x86 PCs now, running some version of Windows, practically everywhere. My grocery has replaced their point of sale machines twice in the past 20 years. The Z80s went into the trash (in Africa)(yay for fake 'recycling') long ago.
And no, the global supply chain is not going to collapse in 11 years. Idiot.
----
But if it did, it would be the year of Linux on the Desktop.
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And no, the global supply chain is not going to collapse in 11 years. Idiot.
It's a coping mechanism for dealing with existential anxiety coupled with the feelings of powerlessness in the face of a gnawing feeling of personal obsolescence in an ever changing world.
A regression towards a vision of a simpler world for people who can not cope with the current world and who fear the future rather than feeling curiosity and excitement about it.
That's why old hardware.
Or in the power fantasies of less-electronically-inclined - that's why guns and even arrows, knives, swords...
There's neve
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I agree we need to minimize our environmental impact but going around and telling children they have a dozen years before the world ends is not the way to go about it.
Waiting for meteor to hit... (Score:2)
Apocalypse? What apocalypse? (Score:2)
Y1K was supposed to be it. Some thought Y2K for sure.
I'm not holding my breath.
Re:Apocalypse? What apocalypse? (Score:4, Interesting)
19 January 2038
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I'd expect more problems with the 4B unsigned int about 60 years later, except by then everything will be replaced with newer hardware. the 2038 number is assuming signed int's for time.
Thinking about this, on x86/x64, changing the comparisons from signed to unsigned requires a single bit change in the comparison instructions. A single bit.
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A single bit.
For want of a bit, the int was lost .....
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They said the same about flying machines until somebody built one.
Practical use Y2K vs Flying machine. (Score:2)
They said the same about flying machines until somebody built one.
Except there's some practical use in flying machine and thus people are likely to be interested into building one and will throw time and ressource in trying to achieve that.
A end-of-the-world killer bug is only interesting to fantasy writers.
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Try the past 50,000 years, at least. With all sorts of messiahs, devils, gods. It's like a very bad Hollywood movie being rebooted over and over and over....
Now in this reboot, the messiah is the magical dead carpenter that will be coming back 'any day now'.
Most zombies can't code (Score:3)
Maybe I'll lose my Geek Card over this, but during the apocalypse I'll be running around going "Aaaahhh!" instead of tinkering around in an OS.
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There are those of us (nerds) that can turn an old desktop and webcam into a motion sensing security system from scratch, and then there are the geeks. Most slashdot users are geeks, not nerds.
(for those that think the programming information wont be available... MAN pages for linux/bsd, that set of MSDN discs on the shelf, and ralf browns classic 16-bit era interrupt list says different)
Re: Most zombies can't code (Score:3)
from scratch
So from ore? That would be impressive.
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During the apocalypse, I will be sitting in a lawn chair, with a beer and a pack of cigarettes at hand, and I'll be sitting back and enjoying the shitshow,
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DC?
I'll be Making Hand Crank Generators (Score:2)
Unless someone thinks we'll be able to scavenge enough solar panels.
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Oh yeah , and hold on to any capacitors you can get your hands on. Existing lithium ION batteries will be about as useful as a handful of AA's.
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I don't think you realize how many backyard sidewalk lights are out there, I find plenty of them as scrap with dead (usually NiCd) batteries. Some of them glue in the panel a bit too hard, but a 2" solar cell is pretty useful when you can get a dozen of them together.
The real problem is that after a decade or two of operation, solar cells wear out and their output is reduced. (LEDs do this too.) So you'll have to go out into that post-apocalyptic hell to find new ones, preferably ones that have been kept o
Scavanged iPhones? (Score:4, Insightful)
Where can I get some of these fabled iPhones with Z80s so I can stockpile them for the coming zombie apocalypse?
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Yeah, I hate when a reporter feels the need to make an article "relatable" by inserting some nonsensical tagline that doesn't actually make any sense with regards to the content. From what I can tell, the project itself makes absolutely no mention whatsoever of "iPhones".
Sounds nifty, but impractical for the task (Score:2)
The "Collapse OS" thing is one of those ideas that sounds sorta nifty until you think about it a bit. How many folks can build their own computer now, with NewEgg and Amazon and YouTube vids and a million Google search results showing you how to do it?
Now how many think they're going to disassemble a radioactive cash register with your wood-fired soldering gun and build a Z80 computer?
Either just buy a Raspberry Pi and accessories and store it in an ammo can (redneck EM shield) until Doomsday, or if you're
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Its a lot simpler than you apparently think. [maker.pro]
Z80 is overpowered! (Score:4, Insightful)
Z80's were the first domino to fall in our ongoing collapse of civilization. Clearly the post-apocalyptic economy will be based on the wholesome 6502 processor. Humanity must start stockpiling KIM-1 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KIM-1) and SYM-1 single board computers asap in the vaults at Svalbard.
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Firefox preparing for this ... (Score:2)
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You're thinking of Passenger Pigeons (extinct 1914). A carrier pigeon is just a domestic pigeon that carries messages, there are plenty of them.
Supplies (Score:2)
Food is going to be the currency. iPhones and electronics won't be worth shit when the power grid fails.
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If you hook enough lemons together you can charge an iPhone. Food is not only currency but our power source!
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Keep in mind that the power doesn't come from the lemons, but from corroding the electrodes.
But maybe there's some good idea behind that! (Score:2)
Use fewer hardware power for doing more or less the same. I could browse the internet 10 years ago with a cell phone/tablet/PC which was a fraction of the power or current ones.
Repurpose older hardware or used hardware would lower the needs for new hardware fabrication.
Make simpler and more environmental-friendly fabrication (because I assume simpler and smaller hardware is easier to build than more powerful).
Then, the world collapse seems to be bullshit. Making a 9000 (or 3000) transistor chip requires som
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Then, the world collapse seems to be bullshit. Making a 9000 (or 3000) transistor chip requires some silicon foundry technology that would be hard to find in a post-apocalypse world.
Or looting a good electronics store for their stockpiles of 2N2222, 2N3904, and 2N3906 transistors.
Re: But maybe there's some good idea behind that! (Score:2)
But then you'd need a whole lot more energy to run a discrete components z80. At a much slower clock rate. Better reuse a mobile phone as a computer.
FO4 Virgil (Score:1)
Virgil? Postapocalypsis?
I guess he found the serum.
https://fallout.fandom.com/wik... [fandom.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Nascom 3 (Score:2)
OS post-apocalypse should run... (Score:3)
On the right track, although focusing on the wrong (Score:1)
The problem that will occur in any doomsday scenario (where we are magically still alive) is energy shortage.
So being able to do simple tasks on an 8bit micro is an important endeavor. We may not even have enough power to distribute development on a global network, like we do now.
So we may become stuck with what ever large code bases we developed prior to some human catastrophe.
So... (Score:2)
gentoo, eh?
Finishing compiling (Score:2)
Yup, Gentoo is the post-apocalyps OS:
if you start the upgrade now, it's probably going to finally finish re-compiling by then.
i think i would have more important things (Score:2)
What about display (Score:1)
Whenever I think about building a useful computer out of junkyard parts, the thing that always stops me is the display. If you have access to a fully functional display and power source, it seems unlikely that you couldn't also find a working computer as well.
If you don't have a display what could you use? LED's or some kind of printer? I think that's starting to push the boundaries of being useful in this post apocalyptic society!
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Will it be ready for November 1st? (Score:5, Funny)
Things donâ(TM)t look good here in the UK at the moment. I just want to know if Collapse OS will be ready for prime time on November 1st? #brexit
Hardware itself will not be the problem (Score:1)
The problem is data.
Being able to access data storage will be critical and no amount of 6502 or Z80's will help with that. The next issue will be communications. For this, you do not really need microprocessors initially. The notion that some event would throw us back into the stone age is not realistic in any way. It is not like people would suddenly forget their education or what life was like before the event.
At worst, the world would be set back to early 20th century standards, a state which arguably a
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Fuck This, I have TempleOS!! (Score:2)
Power has two meanings (Score:2)
"populations won't be able to mass produce electronics anymore, but they'll still be an enormous source of political and social power."
Maybe for a day or so until the battery runs flat and there's no means of recharging it in the post-apocalypse world
I'll be busy growing food (Score:2)
And protecting my food with my guns.
I love apocalypse stories (Score:3, Funny)
All the comments from creepy white dudes talking about their gun collections and food stores... thing of beauty.
Missing Bigger Picture (Score:2)
Post-apocalypse? (Score:3)
Imma agree with others (Score:2)
Without the infrastructure in place, cell phone won't do shit.
However, guns on the other hand ....