Episode: 221
Title: HPR0221: Being Powerless
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0221/hpr0221.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-07 14:13:17

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You
Welcome to Huckabuck Radio everyone, my name is Soak. In this episode I'm going to be
talking about being powerless. Once again I did the script for this and I'm recording
it later. I'm sitting here writing, guess writing, this today. But first let me explain
a few things. A few weeks back Mr Soak's company moved. Due to the post allow apartment
being as bad as reliable as if it's being delivered by a blind snail, we set up power
bills and similar important mail to be sent to her workplace. Last time in her old building
when she received her utility bill, she wrote a check and note about the change of address
on there. Although the mail was going to be forwarded anyway for a little while, the
reason she writes a check does not have a direct debit set up. Its local power company
does not allow you to pick when the bill was paid, so you have to make sure the money
is in the account on the correct day. Anyway, so she moved to the new building and when
the power bill came she paid it. Unfortunately, they'd not updated her address and the mail
forwarding had taken about three weeks together. The disconnect notes were also gone out
to the old address of course, and it's presumably on her way to the new address. Her check
arrived today, unfortunately it was also today that the power was shut off. So this is why
I'm sat here writing this with an actual pen. Not that I can't write, I just generally
don't, I can tie much faster. The wife phone number's toll power will be restored
today, so that presumably means by 5pm the end of the work there is the power guys presumably
leave after about 5pm. It's gone for and the power is still off. I found the wife and
she's contacted the power company again. Now they say it's going to be within 24 hours
after when she phoned. But anyway, as in the side, the last time we had the power shut
off, which was what caused her to change the mailing address anyway, I tried to phone
and pay, however I was told I could not actually pay because it was not my bill and I didn't
know her social security number. I even said I did not know how much the bill was, which
they rightly said they could not tell me. But I had a previous bill and I was going
to pay that plus another 50 bucks which should hopefully cover everything, but they still
would not let me do that. So suffice it to say I'm not that impressed with the power
company, but having no other companies around to offer power, we don't really have any
choice. But having no power reminded me how much we rely on it, no TV, no computer,
no phone or cordless anyway, no refrigeration, no lights, but we have flashlights and candles
fortunately. I was tidying up a part of clothes in the corner and figured I would vacuum
under it, but it wasn't until I brought up the vacuum in and plugged it in and tried to
turn it on. I realised it, of course, requires power. In some ways, it's quite refreshing
to be reminded of these things. It's like taking a day off from the internet and realizing
life does continue without you. Certain things do still work, of course. Water is gravity
powered, so it taps toilets and showers work. We have hot water from the gas powered boiler,
but there's no air conditioning or oven, both require electricity. I remember when I
was a child, Christmas morning, one day we had a power cut. Fortunately, my parents had
a gas oven, so the turkey was not ruined. But it would have been interesting how we had
an electric oven. It's quite fun not actually having power. I'm being forced to do other
things, being forced to pull out that board game and play, being forced to talk to people,
being forced to do other things. I'm realising how dependent we are now on electricity. Personally
whilst I do enjoy the internet, I can live without it for a while. A few years back when
I was doing my travelling, I was in Australia and we were out in the middle of nowhere, absolutely
nowhere in West Australia, where it was 800 miles to the next town. There was no cell
phone reception, not with our satellite phone or similar. And yet we survived, we found
other things to do. The wife on the other hand, I believe, would have a bit more of a
fit. She was freaking out that she might not be able to check her email and log on and
play various little games and things she has. But I think sometimes we were a little
too dependent on the technology and the electricity, to where it is actually detrimental. And some
people do find a lot of use. There's a guy I used to work with and his wife, after
giving birth to their children, had gone through the whole depression thing. I can't go
out of the house because I'm looking after the kids which moved on to the, I don't want
to go out of the house, which then became, I can't go out of the house, people might see
me. And she was using the internet as a lifeline to actually talk to people and actually try
and interact with people and get people to reinforce her thoughts so she might actually
one day leave the house again. So I understand there are a few things like that. But for most
of us, we're not going to die if we don't have the internet access for a day. We can go
outside and do other things. We can talk to people, we can play a board game. We can go
out for a walk. We can look at the sunsets. There are some beautiful sunsets here in Nevada.
They're fantastic. And sometimes it's just nice to walk outside and stop and watch. Now
don't get me wrong. I really do enjoy the internet and I don't think I could live without
it. But I can't go for a small period of time without it. And I think everyone should,
it's like the last page of the internet if anyone's seen that. The last page of the
internet now turn your computer off and go outside. I think everyone should, we should
go outside every now and then maybe not for a long period of time necessarily, but just
doing it. So every now and then, I don't log into ISE or I don't check my email. I'm
trying to move with that. We stop being this whole Pavlovian response of every three
seconds bouncing around between email, ISE and websites to see if anything's updated.
Have a good anything new in my artist's feet? Have a good new email? Have a good new
list? Have a relax. Chill. Take a step away. Forget about it for a bit. Go off, do something
else for several hours and then come back more aware about it. I think people need to
actually slow down a little and take the time to smell the roses as the phrase goes.
I know I think I'm rambling on a bit now and starting getting a bit philosophical and
possibly even religious here. So, it makes me very odd for a tech podcast for me to say,
don't use tech, but just as an experiment. For one day, don't check the internet.
Go out do something. Doesn't have to be something groundbreaking. Go to a bar with a few friends.
Go play a board game with your parents. Just try something a little different and then
come back and realise the world just continue without you and it's not so much that everything
has to be done now, now, now. Things can wait, relax, slow down a little and I think
you will feel better for it. And that's it for this episode. Yes, I know it was a bit
of a weird one. I was planning on doing something else actually and as I said, the power
ended up being cut off and it just made me reevaluate a few things and I only decided
to do an episode about this. Anyway, I'm still trying to get Mini-Zoke to install Windows
and Ubuntu. That is still coming, I hope. Assuming I can get in and actually sit down and
do this. I may end up having to wait for it when he has a day of school or something
for him to actually do it. I haven't forgotten about that and I do notice the sound of
this is a bit weird. There's a hum in the background. I'm working on that. Sorry about
this one. I've tried to tidy it up. I was late on doing this episode, so apologies if
it sounds a bit more rough than it does normally. Thank you for listening. If you've got any
questions, you can email me at zokesorryatgmail.com. That's xray osca kilo echo Sierra osca
Romeo Uniform at gmail.com or you can visit me at zoke.org xray osca kilo echo.osca Romeo
Golf. Thank you for your time and you've been listening to Hacker Public Radio.
Thank you for listening to Hacker Public Radio. HPR is mounted by Carol.net, so head on
over to cah.org.inc for all of us to meet.