The Offline Outpost, a tech insight
In the post Life of an in-betweener, I wrote that the offline outpost is a place that partially exists and partially imagined.
That still holds true.
A part of the imagined offline outpost comes from the desire for a much simpler and slower life, represented by a cabin in the mountains, far away from the madness of the city.
At the same time, the offline outpost does exist in real life, even if not in the exact form I sometimes long for. It’s a modest one-bed apartment, but with a fully equipped kitchen and just the right size to feel genuinely cosy. I have everything I need, and very deliberately not much more than that.
The same philosophy applies to technology.
I have just enough, and that is by design.
My internet connection at the offline outpost is an FWA 100/20 Mb link with a static IPv4 address, which allows me to set proper firewall rules and ACLs. The bandwidth is more than enough for video calls, basic work, or streaming something on the TV. In a way, it even feels like a luxury, considering that when I first bought this place the connection was 30/3 Mb.
It is not, however, enough to comfortably move large amounts of data. And that, too, is something I accept rather than fight.
The router is the one that came with the connection, a FRITZ!Box 7530. AVM FRITZ!Box devices are excellent routers for small offices and home offices. They also offer DECT and SIP functionality, which I don’t use but appreciate as an idea. What I do use heavily is the relatively recent WireGuard support, which was a significant breakthrough for me. It allows the outpost to connect directly to my mesh “darknet” without requiring additional VPN appliances or per-device setups.
It’s not a new router, but given the access speed, it doesn’t need to be.
Connected via Ethernet there is also a TADO thermostat, which lets me warm up the apartment before arriving. Before having it, the place would be freezing on arrival and it could take an entire night to become comfortable again. This is one of those small pieces of technology that quietly improve life without demanding attention.
There’s also an Amazon Fire TV connected to the television. The TV itself is quite old, probably around ten years, but it has HDMI and works perfectly well. I could have built a small box with a NanoPi and Kodi, but the Fire TV felt like a reasonable compromise between price, effort, and functionality.
I don’t watch much TV or streaming services. It happens maybe once a week, if that. I’ve installed Plex so I can stream from my library in the datacenter when I want to, but most of the time the Fire TV is used for music, ambient videos, or, in winter, a fake fireplace with the comforting sound of crackling logs.
When I come to the offline outpost, I don’t bring much with me. Usually just my phone and my laptop, which on weekends is rarely used. Occasionally I bring my TCL NextPaper tablet or the PursePC, and of course my Kindle. Yes, it’s evil in its own way, with DRM-locked Amazon content, but it’s also extremely convenient. I can throw it in a bag and have a whole library with me, perfect for quiet evenings on the sofa with my favourite blanket and Angie. I think I’ve mentioned that combination more than once in previous posts. 😉
A few months ago I added something that was missing until then: a small white wooden desk in the bedroom, with a sitting or yoga ball that fits neatly underneath. Before that, I worked either on the sofa or at the kitchen table, which is possible, but not ideal when you actually need to work.
The desk doesn’t feel like a battlestation. It feels more like a small transmitting room on a ship. Compact, quiet, and fully equipped. Enough to send and receive, to take notes, to sketch ideas, or to spin up a small virtual testbed when needed. Not a place to accumulate gear, but a place to think.
The equipment itself is deliberately unremarkable: a USB-C Dell docking station, a Lenovo monitor (not my best purchase, honestly), an external keyboard and mouse, a Logitech webcam, and a vertical laptop stand so the laptop can stay closed and out of the way. Depending on the stay, the laptop is either a Chuwi for short visits or a Dell Latitude for more serious work. It’s enough to work from the offline outpost for an entire week or longer, without turning the room into a lab.
This is not about doing more hands-on work. It’s about leaving space for thought, experimentation, and invention.
Now for the least romantic, but perhaps most honest part of the offline outpost.
I use NextCloud to synchronize data between my systems, including files, calendar, and contacts. On a normal day, I can touch anywhere between 4 GB and 25 GB of data. That volume is simply not realistic to sync continuously over the FWA link.
Rather than fighting this, I work with it.
I usually synchronize data once a week, often on Friday evening or Saturday, letting it run for a few hours. Alternatively, I synchronize when I move to a faster connection, such as when I return to Milan, where I have FTTH. I have a small script that pauses and resumes the Nextcloud client from the command line, which makes this workflow practical. There’s also an issue upstream to advocate for a more portable, cross-platform way of doing this.
Very rarely, when data is particularly important, I will synchronize immediately. There is a non-zero risk that something could happen to my NVMe before the next sync, but it’s a risk I consciously accept. I use the same approach when travelling: sync before leaving, pause synchronization, and resume when I’m back on a fast connection. Hotel and coworking Wi-Fi is often worse than what I have at the offline outpost anyway.
Compared to Milan, where I still have boxes of equipment waiting for future projects, the offline outpost is intentionally sparse. This is not a limitation. It’s a choice to focus more on being comfortable, learning, and thinking.
Another essential role of the offline outpost is disaster recovery. I keep two USB disks here: one with encrypted ZFS snapshots, and another with file-based encrypted backups using restic. Twice a year, I bring them to the datacenter to refresh the backups. This protects me against the unlikely but possible scenario where both the active dataset in the datacenter and the on-line read-only snapshots at home disappear.
Without going into details, life has taught me not to rely blindly on systems or people. That data is, quite literally, my life. Sometimes I feel I guard it better than many companies guard theirs. And yes, the offline outpost is far enough away to satisfy DR and business continuity standards used in banking.
I don’t plan many upgrades here. That, too, is deliberate. My ISP claims that FWA could now reach 200/40 Mb in this area, and I might check, mostly for the upload speed. I may also replace the monitor with the Dell one I have in Milan, which has an integrated USB-C dock and would reduce clutter while improving resolution.
The Lenovo monitor was meant to be a temporary experiment after switching from macOS to Linux Mint in my London apartment. Like many temporary arrangements, it became permanent.
Perhaps one day I’ll replace the FRITZ!Box as well, assuming AVM doesn’t slide into enshittification after the recent company sale.
Compared to the imagined cabin I described in Life of an in-betweener, the offline outpost lacks one important thing: cinnamon buns. They’re surprisingly hard to find in this area. They’re tied to a sweet memory from my recent past, and I miss them. But there are decent blueberry muffins in a local shop, and for now, that’s enough.
When I’m alone here, these are the YouTube playlists that usually keep me company:
Incidentally, the playlist Ambient Outpost inspired both the idea and the name of this place.
// Call sign: Tulpe della Montagna - still transmitting in QRP 🌷💜