301–310 of 374 posts
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Above ground power lines make up most of the it. A pole and wire isn't that expensive. Burying is drastically more expensive.
So run the fibre on the power line
No free lunch, as they say.
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Yes, it’s sad, but I guess it’s expected. Elon bought Twitter to have a propaganda platform, use it for himself, and sell disinformation-as-a-service. Why wouldn’t he pay for astroturfing on popular websites as well? A website like HN where you can find a lot of tech people and investors. It’s easy, it’s cheap, it’s mean. I see no reason he wouldn’t.
I'm not cheap, I am a highly paid SRE. If you're going accuse me of astroturfing please don't call me cheap.
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> Astroturfing is going strong in here. You made the above statement in response to one user, and then a different user replied who has a 9-month-old account and 1/3 of his comments include "Tesla": https://hn.algolia.com/?type=comment&query=author:ripjaygn+T... You called it. The astroturfing is off the charts! And the user who replied to your comment pulled the "As a black man" routine just like the user you replie…
Tesla doesn't even have a PR team because Musk is cheap and Musk totally pays me(a highly paid DevOps/SRE btw) to astroturf by offering me 7 figures! Please get a grip on reality.
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It might not have meaning for you, but someone on the ground had a real need and asked for it. These people can't get Internet via WiFi or cellular and you know it. This is concern trolling at best
Asteroid stated earlier: "At worse this is nice gesture " I mostly wanted to correct that to say at worse it is a non gesture. Somewhat helping a couple hundred people out of a million plus, is not quite the "nice" gesture. Particularly a relatively poor population. IDK, a pedantic debate of "nice and meaningful" vs "nice but not significant" is not interesting. Non-gesture I would equate to the latter. It is not lik…
Yeah no correction needed here buddy - I get it you have anti-Elon syndrome and anything any of his companies do are bad, and you have decided to use your intellectual prowess to delude yourself into this conclusion regardless of facts.
These devices are not even being setup by the locals, and no one is forcing them to buy into the ecosystem. The FIRST RESPONDERS REQUESTED THIS CHANGE, because they are bringing them on the ground with them. They successfully removed a hurdle which was preventing them from a rapid rescue effort. The fact you are willing to cast that as some sort of evil advertising campaign to hook them on hardware they can't afford is perhaps one of the dumbest things I have read here -- and apparently quite a few people here are influenceable enough to fall for this nonsense.
How you can manage to be so upset that they removed the device activation hurdle is beyond me -- but I'll go ahead and judge this situation based on the facts on the ground not my pre-conceived decision about a companies motives.
How poor appalachia is entirely irrelevant, the people aren't helicoptering out to bring StarLinks back to trick the community into getting locked into hardware. First responders had trouble activating and responding and made a direct request, which was granted for humanitarian reasons whether you like the company or not.
The fact that you are letting your biases cloud your judgement and drive absurd villain arcs is clear for everyone to see, and I for sure don't need you 'correcting' me (you also spelled my name wrong btw).
You are calling out other people for polluting the dialog by accurately calling you out, and in the same breath claiming this is really about Elon's savior complex. Maybe if you stop letting Elon live in your head rent free, you can make room for some nuance and critical thinking. Every claim you made here is based on a complete misrepresentation of the facts.
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What part of "the road story" is nonsense exactly? Washed out roads and cut off communities AFAIK is obviously an issue. There are only so many helicopters. Are you implying each and every one were able to get water, food, evac all adequately via helicopter in a timely manner? > This offering was requested by people on the ground I agree. Though, I just don't see there being scale behind it. Is it still worthwhile? S…
You aren't dismissing the scale. You're dismissing the entire effort. There's people with pack mules delivering aid. Including starlink receivers. Without collaboration with SpaceX
Before that, a more direct response to my question would have been appreciated too.
I finally see you are responding mostly to: "Those in the cut off areas (via land transit) can't get the equipment anyways, and to boot any cost is a complete barrier."
By that I was mostly thinking of people going out and getting the units themselves. That scales well. I see the statement was not super clear though as to why I was saying that.
The claim in contention is whether the starlink units are more than marginal. I was not willing to accept that claim, and I added the claim that had they been widely deployed in the immediate first two days following - the utility would have been super significant. Stores going from cash only to allowing credit cards is huge. Now that we are almost a week later, the "conventional" systems are coming back online.
Comms before the storm would either have been via cell tower, landline, sat phone, satellite plus generator, or ISP (perhaps other?). The more remote, the more likely there will be satellite (from my observations, I suspect that would be true provided that the remote area is not that impoverished; which they might be). Which does leave a niche that would still benefit from starlink. Early on, most of conventional comm systems were down. That niche would have been even larger. A week later, a lot of "conventional" comms are back. Yet, there is still a niche of utility (even at this time) for starlinks.
Per FEMA, they deployed 40 starlink units to NC [1]. That is potentially 1000 to 4000 people benefitting. Cajun navy efforts might have deployed more. I'm guessing the small towns that most benefit are order 50 to 100 people. If there is another 60 units deployed via cajun navy, we might be talking 10k people. Of 1M in western NC, that is getting significant and certainly very helpful for those people. With those wild ass guesses, I would concede that the utility is likely more than just marginal (which is me changing my mind here and starting to accept the claim of more than marginal utility).
I will point out as an observation, even earlier deployments would have been even more useful. Specifically my family in western NC would have benefited. They had SMS only comms the next day of the storm. The "cash only" for a week was one of their major challenges.
I think for grocery stores, them having conventional satelite is a good backup since that is more cost effective. Though, there is still a place for starlinks since they are highly portable. Particularly for getting payment systems back online, and emergency comms for places without cell coverage (that don't already have someone with conventional satellite plus generator or solar)
[1] https://www.fema.gov/press-release/20241003/biden-harris-adm...
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> A 5kW solar system is about $25k to 35k in my area before batteries. Do you live on the moon? Earlier this year I installed a 7.8kW system in Canada for $13k CAD all in, inc the inverter and labor. (Then I got a $5k subsidy to bring it to $8k out of pocket.) It’s cheaper now, panel prices fall every month.
California - the moon might be cheaper. The whole system here is corrupt due to regulatory capture. There are high permitting costs, high cost hardware requirements, and high cost of labor. The state requires a 4 years of training to become a solar installer, so there is little competition. Also, with every new house required by law to have solar, installers know they have a captive market and are milking it for all…
I'm always amazed at how for regular life things it seems you guys has less "freedom" than we do.
It's my house, so I got up on the roof and installed the panels myself (with a friend). I did pay for a licensed electrician to wire the inverter into the main house breaker and double check everything, and he did get a permit for that work (which was $150, IIRC). Then I emailed the electric company, three days later they came out and installed a bi-directional meter for $32 and I'm good to go.
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It's actual charity addressing a particular expressed and asked for need. Someone who had dishes asked for this. It's not a wouldn't this be nice gift. Someone needed this enough to ask for this
Ok, I went and looked and the free 30-day trial was already in place weeks before the natural disaster: https://www.cnet.com/home/internet/starlink-internet-review/ They didn’t do anything but offer the same deal they would to anyone else.
Do you mind demonstrating how you can unpackage the device and connect straight to the internet without going through the activation hurdles?
If not, this is the most irrelevant piece of information you could possibly use to make your misguided point.
First responders on their own volition brought StarLink terminals on site, which REQUIRE ACTIVATION regardless of the 30 days free. This activation effort was getting in the way of rescue efforts, likely due to credit card processors being wary of gift cards. They literally couldn't connect due to this barrier (which has since been removed).
They removed the activation wall, and now anyone with a dish in the vicinity can connect. Do you see how that is different than buying a dish, taking it home, activating it in a safe area with an active credit card that the processor approves? And can you fathom a situation where maybe removing that activation wall will do tangible good?
How can you possibly not see the difference here?
Why don't you go pick up a StarLink kit, take it home and try to connect to the internet without activating it first - then come back when you have an understanding of what you are trying to explain to those who actually have used the things. Or sell your elite hax0r 0day on the dark-web for big money if you succeed.
You can even cost "StarLink" or whatever evil company dared offer their gear a restocking fee when you return it out of malice or frustration.
It should be a win-win if you want to stand on that point.
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> Because you're sharing the medium you'll get interference if multiple satellites service the same area I’m going to simplify because you seem to misunderstand what’s going on. Your eyes allow you to see a clear image of your surroundings because photons come from even slightly different angles aren’t interfering with each other. Starlink uses a phased array antenna to achieve a similar effect where satellites in di…
I'm not at all misunderstanding what's going on, I know what phased array antennas are. It's not really like our eyes, we cannot perceive phase differences in light. A phased array is (at theoretically best) like a satellite dish which can move without actually having to physically move. >Starlink uses a phased array antenna to achieve a similar effect where satellites in different locations broadcasting on the same…
> If by next to each other you mean several km apart, yes
By close I mean inches. Phased array’s aren’t great at directionality, but both the satellite and the receiver are using them which makes a real difference because the satellites are in different locations even if the receivers aren’t.
At the limit satellite A has a few spot beams one is aimed at say one World Trade Center which also covers several blocks around it. It’s 5 miles from satellite B which isn’t aiming at that location, but another satellite say G that’s 20km away is.
Hypothetically 2 ground stations X1 and X2 are 1 foot apart on the roof of one trade center. X1 can get a signal from satellite A at 25 DB higher than the signal from satellites G because there’s a few degree difference in incoming angle and 50DB higher than from B which is both a degree off and aiming elsewhere.
Similarly A receives a single from X1 that’s 25 DB higher than from X2 because their signals are aiming in different directions. (DB numbers were picked from a hat but I had a several variables already.)
The real world isn’t that simple, and there’s no way in hell their software is setup for that many satellites but phased array antenna on both side makes a big difference here.
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Asteroid stated earlier: "At worse this is nice gesture " I mostly wanted to correct that to say at worse it is a non gesture. Somewhat helping a couple hundred people out of a million plus, is not quite the "nice" gesture. Particularly a relatively poor population. IDK, a pedantic debate of "nice and meaningful" vs "nice but not significant" is not interesting. Non-gesture I would equate to the latter. It is not lik…
Asteroid stated earlier: "At worse this is nice gesture " I mostly wanted to correct that to say at worse it is a non gesture. Somewhat helping a couple hundred people out of a million plus, is not quite the "nice" gesture. Yeah no correction needed here buddy - I get it you have anti-Elon syndrome and anything any of his companies do are bad, and you have decided to use your intellectual prowess to delude yourself i…
With that said, I now concede there is more than marginal utility happening and I've done the numbers in sibling comments. The fact I've evolved my opinion based on further information I think makes most of your screed moot.
> The FIRST RESPONDERS REQUESTED THIS CHANGE,
Are you referring to FEMA? Since there is at least one cajun navy style person who requested this that I am aware of, I would largely agree.
My contention is whether any of this actually all that meaningful. For that, I'm not going to assume it. Which was my initial position.
> and I for sure don't need you 'correcting' me
My apologies. I am stuck on a phone and my diligence is not what I would like it to be. Rather than "correcting", I was disagreeing with you (pending more information). I should have said something more like: without yet seeing the full numbers of how much this helping, I am not sure whether this is worst case even more than a non gesture. Since you wrote "worst case", my initial thought is the "worst case" was even lower on the spectrum than "nice:
> Every claim you made here is based on a complete misrepresentation of the facts.
Every claim?? Can you give a few examples? This feels like hyperbole.
Though, I try not to make unsupported claims. It would be a useful learning to me to know which claims I positively made without facts. (Please keep in mind not accepting claims is very different from putting forward a claim - perhaps you are conflating the two?? If not, I'm happy to apologize and retract any unsupported claims.)
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Hard to say, given I just found out about this situation. I think it's higher than $20 for sure, but probably less than half than a billion. I think a more in depth analysis of the circumstances that led to the need to spend that money in the first place would be in order. Can you tell me why I am supposed to answer your questions, but you have successfully dodged all of mine while levying personal attacks however? S…
Blame Congress. (1) they control budget and can add the additional funds. They also know that half a billion is being "diverted" from acute disaster relief. The budgeting is on them. (2) Congress needsto amend the asylum law to allow asylum claims at ports of entry or not at all. That congress has a law disallowing asylum claims at ports of entry is why people are crossing deserts and then surrendering to the first a…
Zero sum or not, the attitude you have about budget discussions is why we are about to print ourselves into a depression. If you can't discuss prioritizing spending based on whatever criteria applies to the situation, you simply can't discuss budget concerns.
I do not take the view that the budget our taxes pay for is beyond reproach. I have no problem evaluating it from the perspective of 'money is not infinite, and no specific agencies spending is so inherently special that it can not be discussed under the context of where potential waste or inefficient spending happened, and how it can be adjusted to avoid that in the future."
'X seems like a better use of the money and more representative of what the taxpaying public wants it spent on, to ensure things are prioritized properly while properly representing 'We The People' -- as such it may be worth looking back to determine if this money was allocated in a manner that provides the most benefit to the taxpayers while maintaining consistency with the agencies core responsibilities' -- there is nothing wrong with this type of discussion/analysis, and anyone trying to claim there is has there own agenda they want to impose on you.
Your line of thinking leaves absolutely no room to discuss the budget in a meaningful way, because 'having priorities' is not allowed under that framework.
It's a dialectical trap meant to make people fall in line. I'll pass, thanks.