Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those darn radio waves! Hold on I gotta take this call on my iPhone.
Well, I may want to go to a refuge without any electronics.
There was a guy on Better Call Saul like that.
SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states
181–190 of 270 posts
Re: SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would assume it's so expensive due to data usage. Anything over LTE I've seen has ridiculously low data caps. I think as part of this funding the FCC should have a mandatory requirement of no data caps, or a cap of something more reasonable like 10TB a month that increases 5TB every X number years.
1TB sounds more reasonable than 10. 10 is way over the top
I assume you don't have kids stuck at home during covid. I have friends that are burning through 1TB of data a month like it's nothing. Between zoom/webex meetings all day for everyone in the family, and netflix in the evenings because they can't really go play with other friends, 1TB is a joke.
Heck, Cyberpunk 2077 is a 70GB download ALONE - that's 7% of your cap gone from you or your kid installing one game.
Re: SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
My disagreement with these arguments is not around what gets prioritized. I disagree with the fundamental premise that we have to pick at all . Human civilization is not single threaded. We can absolutely colonize Mars while solving global warming. In fact I can even imagine ways in which colonizing Mars can help solve global warming.
While I'm generally in favor of what SpaceX is doing, I don't think your point holds up in any sort of constrained environment. Could there be a marginal (or even reasonable) tangential benefit to other industries? Of course, but not as much as if those industries were the primary focus to begin with. With limited resources, you have to prioritize or else you can run the risk of being spread so thin nothing is adequa…
What you're saying is true but I don't believe humans to be in any kind of "constrained environment" if more people can work on ad delivery and social media marketing than space exploration and environmental engineering combined.
Re: SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe you're thinking of someone else? “You get really tired of hot dogs and oranges after awhile,” he said. “And of course pasta and a green pepper and a big thing of sauce. And that can go pretty far, too. “So it’s like, ‘Oh, okay, if I can live for a dollar a day then at least from a food cost standpoint, well it’s pretty easy to earn like $30 in a month anyway, so I’ll probably be okay.’ “ This isn’t the only exa…
His father was a seed investor in Zip2.
"We started Zip2 with ~$2k from me plus my overclocked home-built PC, ~$5k from my bro & ~$8k from Greg Kouri (such a good guy — he is greatly missed).
My Dad provided 10% of a ~$200k angel funding round much later, but by then risk was reduced & round would’ve happened anyway."
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1211064937004589056
Also relevant in that thread:
"He didn’t own an emerald mine & I worked my way through college, ending up ~$100k in student debt. I couldn’t even afford a 2nd PC at Zip2, so programmed at night & website only worked during day. Where is this bs coming from?"
"This is a pretty awful lie. I left South Africa by myself when I was 17 with just a backpack & suitcase of books. Worked on my Mom’s cousin’s farm in Saskatchewan & a lumber mill in Vancouver. Went to Queens Univ with scholarship & debt, then same to UPenn/Wharton & Stanford."
Re: SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
1TB sounds more reasonable than 10. 10 is way over the top
I assume you don't have kids stuck at home during covid. I have friends that are burning through 1TB of data a month like it's nothing. Between zoom/webex meetings all day for everyone in the family, and netflix in the evenings because they can't really go play with other friends, 1TB is a joke. Heck, Cyberpunk 2077 is a 70GB download ALONE - that's 7% of your cap gone from you or your kid installing one game.
That game will provide you plenty of content for that data. Anyway, just because a few people use ~1TB of data doesn't mean every LTE plan should provide 10TB. You are asking for a 500x increase in the typical LTE data plan.
Re: SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
My disagreement with these arguments is not around what gets prioritized. I disagree with the fundamental premise that we have to pick at all . Human civilization is not single threaded. We can absolutely colonize Mars while solving global warming. In fact I can even imagine ways in which colonizing Mars can help solve global warming.
While I'm generally in favor of what SpaceX is doing, I don't think your point holds up in any sort of constrained environment. Could there be a marginal (or even reasonable) tangential benefit to other industries? Of course, but not as much as if those industries were the primary focus to begin with. With limited resources, you have to prioritize or else you can run the risk of being spread so thin nothing is adequa…
Again, I disagree with the framing. Colonizing Mars and global warming are not wars, they are opportunities. There are countless ways humans can spend their time and energy but none of them exist in a vacuum. Progress anywhere is progress everywhere.
Re: SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
SpaceX has had 42,000 satellites approved. They have just under 1000 operational and are about half-way to phase 1. Which will only be able to provide broadband for a limited number of users at latitudes for Canada and some northern US states. (That is why they are doing beta programs, they don't have the capacity for more.) Money to launch more satellites will give the company the ability to get broadband for more p…
Not quite. The subsidy isn't large enough to pay for all the satellites they need. They have money to launch more satellites and will be doing more launches subsidy or no subsidy. The subsidy will only go directly to their bottom line.
Your reasoning has several holes.
First, the fact that they have the money to launch more satellites does not mean that they have the money to launch ALL the satellites that the full system needs. Indeed their projected cost for fully setting up Starlink is $10 billion dollars, which is more than the projected operating profit that they have had over their entire history. So it is easy to see that they won't be able to complete unless they get more money along the way.
In fact there is a significant risk that if they make less than they hope, that the company runs out of money and goes out of business. This subsidy reduces that risk, and therefore makes them more likely to complete, and likely to complete faster.
To achieve this purpose, the subsidy should be sized to help them over the hump, and not to pay all their costs. (Whether we should be handing out subsidies is a different question that I'm ignoring. Our government has chosen to, and the question is how to succeed.) Therefore there is nothing odd about the fact that it is less than 10% of the total amount of money that they think they will need. They aren't doing Starlink in the hopes of getting the subsidy. But the subsidy improves their odds of succeeding at Starlink.
And finally, you claim that the subsidy will only go directly to their bottom line. Which is to say that it shows up as profit and goes to Elon and other shareholders in the company.
It is true that plenty of companies operate that way. However after 20 years of running companies, it is extremely safe to say that Elon does not. In fact he tends to take every scrap of money that his company is generating, finds ways to borrow or raise more, and then reinvests it into even more ambitious projects.
So he won't be taking it as profit. What will he use it on?
Well, the three big projects that Elon is working on right now is building Starship, building Starlink, and preparing to settle Mars. Of those, Starship is required to finish Starlink at a price point where it is a viable business, and Starlink is required to fund Mars. Therefore it is essentially certain that he will pour this money directly into Starship and Starlink, rather than taking any of it as immediate profit.
Therefore we have good reason to believe that this money will be used for its intended purpose. We have good reason to believe that this money will in fact improve the odds of success, and enable them to deliver that success sooner. And therefore this money actually helps achieve the goal that the US government has set.
Re: SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why should rural lifestyle be subsidized ?
(playing devils' advocate) City/population-center living is wildly inefficient for a host of reasons, and a dollar of urban development towards a major metropolis goes much less far than a dollar of urban development for a rural community. We deal with the inadequacies of living in such big population dense areas because we want to; not because it's efficient. Turns out it's not efficient to stack up as many people v…
Can you provide a source with actual numbers on the inefficiency of cities?
Re: SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states
#189Danger, Will Robinson!
Years from now when humanity finally wakes up (or worse, does not), let it not be said we were not warned.
International Appeal -- Stop 5G on Earth and in Space: https://www.5gspaceappeal.org/
Podcast -- The Shocking Truth About Electricity & EMFs: https://www.westonaprice.org/podcast/272-the-shocking-truth-...
Book: "The Invisible Rainbow: A history of electricity and life".
Planetary Emergency: https://www.radiationresearch.org/news/planetary-emergency/
Deadly Rainbow: https://www.nationofchange.org/2020/07/07/deadly-rainbow-wil...
Restoring a Vibrant, Living Planet: https://www.creationsmagazine.com/2020/06/26/restoring-a-vib...
Satellite Radiation: http://radiationdangers.com/satellite-radiation/
Re: SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, I may want to go to a refuge without any electronics.
If you find a spot on Earth with no radio waves let us know. AM goes pretty far, even amateur radio can travel across continents in the right atmospheric conditions. GPS Satellite TV Every other civilian and military Comsat since we started launching things. Starlink isn’t the problem if you are worried about being “irradiated”, the nuclear fusion reactor at the center of our solar system is likely of greater concern…
GPS and Satellite TV are different, plus, your way of thinking is flawed - just because there are precedents, it doesn't mean we should continue to add on top of them! In addition to light pollution, radio pollution is worse than ever. After Starlink setting a brew type of precedent, more will try doing the same.