The Machine Stops

Introduction

Woke up this morning and noticed my phone wasn't internet connected and when I looked at my router, it was flashing a very angry red. My home computer is Windows 11, and I have Microsoft Office 2021 plus all the other accoutrements of the system

As I write this using WordPad (Word is too much for a simple set of words) I just received a text from Virgin telling me there is a service outage in my area, despite their previous implication that there were problems with my wiring, connections and router.

The only slight issue with WordPad is the lack of wordcount and spelling and grammar checking, but that happens when I drop the written text into the Vocal editor.

The thing is, because it is so basic, WordPad is very fast, and not only that, as you are editing on your home computer, you have a backup of your initial text.

I am sure that other operating systems have similar basic editors.

So, What Can I Do With My Disconnected Computer?

First of all, I can write this story and tell you what has happened so far, although Wordpad does not have a word count, but that is fine. I will find it out when I paste it into my Vocal story when I am back online.

Now I have just realised that all my games are on Steam, Quake I doesn't work, but it doesn't anyway, Quake II sort of works, but obviously can't connect to Steam, but it looks like some of the games are good to play.

I can work on putting a few of my books together because the Kindle book creation software is PC based, so maybe that will push me into formatting my next book. I have four that I am working on.

I also have the option to burn CDs from my digital collection, although that is something I seldom do and only for new digital albums that I have bought, and to download an album, I need the Internet.

On my network discs, I have photographs from 1990 to the present day. In fact, I have scans of photographs going back to before I was born, so I have a lot of pictures. I can just look at and enjoy them in my digital photograph library.

The thing is that even without the internet, I can still write, and all that I write, I can share with people once I get reconnected.

When I am away from my computer, I use my disconnected time to come up with ideas for stories, and this is just one of them.

Pete Townshend once came up with the concept of "The Grid" for an album called "Lifehouse". It never surfaced, but the remains appeared as the album "Who's Next".

Then there is the recent Hawkwind album, "The Machine Stops" which is based on a story by E.M. Forster published in 1909. The story, set in a world where humanity lives underground and relies on a giant machine to provide its needs, predicted technologies similar to instant messaging and the Internet.

I suppose for me, at this moment, the machine has stopped.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading, and I hope I have given you a few ideas if you are ever disconnected.

I must admit I was impressed that working offline meant that everything worked very quickly, and I know I have been very lazy using the Vocal editor as my primary writing tool, and that may change going forward, but I know that my laziness may tempt me back to just using the Vocal editor, but we shall see.