Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days for Hurricane Helene victims

starlink.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 374 posts

Re: Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days for Hurricane Helene victims

#351

Post by bri3d »

dotnet00 wrote: post #164
bri3d wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the base subscription types, your account needs to be "activated" with the dish associated, and the address on your account has to match the rough location of the Starlink. This gives you a giant chicken-and-egg problem where you need the Internet to set the account location and perform account activation, but you don't have the Internet because you have a Starlink that's not set up yet. It's odd that Starlink do…

Strange, everything I've heard about the setup says that they do provide a captive portal for doing the initial setup stuff that needs a network connection.

This must be new as of ~9 months ago; it definitely didn’t used to work on retail dishes (directly purchased dishes came pre activated anyway). Thanks for the correction!

Re: Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days for Hurricane Helene victims

#352

Post by h0l0cube »

jrflowers wrote: post #339
h0l0cube wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Growth” can be skewed if you only look at a person’s words and actions I guess my point is that his words and actions haven't been one sided. e.g., He assists Ukraine, but he also supports Trump who has implied he will withdraw US support and force a 'peace', which likely will be at the expense of Ukrainian territory and embolden Russia to make future incursions in neighboring countries. He kickstarted the battery…

Exactly. If we simply imagine that a person’s actions contain contradictions then we can properly imbue them with a complex unknowability that elevates them from human to mythological enigma. Where a simple mind might look at Musk and Russia and conclude “he supports Russia” based off his words and actions or similarly conclude that he has no interest in the environment or conservation based on the same process of ob…

Everything you said is right. Everything I said is wrong. Wisdom can't beat Very Smart, so go give yourself a pat on the back for 'winning the argument' with your deep and canny observations. Maybe one day, you, too, will outgrow your gifted child persona. Hope springs eternal.

Re: Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days for Hurricane Helene victims

#353

Post by WalterBright »

bena wrote: post #269
seadan83 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, the important communication is door to door. Letting distant relatives know you're okay is lower on the priority list. To boot, conventional satellite works fine for that purpose as well. Two issues though: stores need internet to allow credit cards. The cash only economy in place is painful. Second, lot of folks in Appalachia are poor. I'm told via family in the area that some people wanted to stock up before…

When we lost our house in a hurricane, the best part of the day was seeing Red Cross coming with hot food.

I have no doubt. When cold and dirty and wet and hungry, hot food is the greatest!

Re: Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days for Hurricane Helene victims

#354

Post by inemesitaffia »

h0l0cube wrote: post #250
rasz wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>proactive "causing something to happen rather than responding to it after it has happened". Instead Elmo denied the fact russians had working terminals in the first place, and was later forced by State Dep to enact some measures. Those measures are still ineffective as evidenced by recent Starlink controlled Iranian Shahed drone sighting.

I misspoke. They've been very quick to react to Ukranian intel. If they were staffed, perhaps they'd have the capability to be proactive, but I can't necessarily say they would be motivated to, esp. when the military is doing that for them. And the Ukr. military are perhaps more effective because they know where their communication centers are supposed to be under the fog of war. That said, I'm only going on what has…

The Feds said they were proactive. It's not SpaceX that claimed that

Re: Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days for Hurricane Helene victims

#355

Post by inemesitaffia »

realce wrote: post #6
wnevets wrote: post #3

Is this separate from what federal government is paying for? [1] [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-he-spoke-musk-ab...

Yes it is separate. This program is about base stations that are publicly accessible wifi, which Verizon is also doing in the area. This is just a "first month free" promotion.

It's not a first month free promotion. Or a promotion.

Re: Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days for Hurricane Helene victims

#356

Post by inemesitaffia »

bena wrote: post #81

This might be good for responders, but not so much the victims. But then responders will have their own networks so won't need this. When you've been hit like this, you aren't going to use your power for this. You have bigger issues. You have to dry out your house, demolition, etc. And that's when you get power. You might not get it for weeks. And honestly, once power reaches residences, power to other services has u…

It's okay not to know what you're talking about.

Something wrong in every paragraph

Re: Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days for Hurricane Helene victims

#357

Post by ahmeneeroe-v2 »

svnt wrote: post #192
ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starlink is bearing a real cost to service these new users. Yes they could donate more, but that is literally true for every single person providing relief right now.

Yes, offering the service probably has some marginal cost, but I am positive it is well within their projected (and profitable) CAC. People who are donating have zero chance of a positive financial outcome. That is why it is called a donation.

Yes, Starlink does not meet your custom-made definition of the word. Especially since you've done the work of assuming their future cash flows

Re: Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days for Hurricane Helene victims

#358

Post by parl_match »

h0l0cube wrote: post #328
parl_match wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My quick math came up short on batteries. But as you say, it's worth running those numbers every year. I can't imagine I'll be sitting here in 2030 saying "batteries aren't there yet".

> I can't imagine I'll be sitting here in 2030 saying "batteries aren't there yet". Or if you're looking now at sodium ion. It's only just hitting the consumer market, but it's already cheap enough for energy storage at the scale GP is talking about. Might take a few years for cell quality, inverter, and charging technology to improve, but by 2030 it will be so dirt cheap to the point that it would be economically se…

Last year, when I did the math, batteries still had a 15 year payoff time. I'm not going to be in this house in 15 years. If the state subsidized it more (it is kind of a public good imo), or I could easily roll it into house value, I'd do it.

I'm trying to move to a nicer house. When I do that, I'll almost certainly just go for it.

Re: Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days for Hurricane Helene victims

#359

Post by h0l0cube »

parl_match wrote: post #358
h0l0cube wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't imagine I'll be sitting here in 2030 saying "batteries aren't there yet". Or if you're looking now at sodium ion. It's only just hitting the consumer market, but it's already cheap enough for energy storage at the scale GP is talking about. Might take a few years for cell quality, inverter, and charging technology to improve, but by 2030 it will be so dirt cheap to the point that it would be economically se…

Last year, when I did the math, batteries still had a 15 year payoff time. I'm not going to be in this house in 15 years. If the state subsidized it more (it is kind of a public good imo), or I could easily roll it into house value, I'd do it. I'm trying to move to a nicer house. When I do that, I'll almost certainly just go for it.

I'm not sure whether you read my comment, but I was specifically talking about sodium ion which are absurdly cheap even before efficiencies of scale enter the equation. I don't think many are doing the math on that because it's only just become available on Alibaba. BMSes and chargers don't really exist for it yet, but there are whole battery packs for sale.

Re: Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days for Hurricane Helene victims

#360

Post by mlindner »

h0l0cube wrote: post #203
qsdf38100 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> He likes to help people if he can come out as a hero, otherwise you’re a "pedo" I made reference to exactly this if you read carefully. I actually think this rejection is an inflection point in his behavior. He ought to have been more gracious and received the rejection without hurt to his ego (and reacting as he did). I think since then he’s wrongly viewed that event as ‘No good deed goes unpunished’ and become mo…

> I made reference to exactly this if you read carefully. I actually think this rejection is an inflection point in his behavior. He ought to have been more gracious and received the rejection without hurt to his ego (and reacting as he did). I think since then he’s wrongly viewed that event as ‘No good deed goes unpunished’ and become more and more defiant in his attitude.

Regarding this I think it's also worth a detailed study of that event. Unsworth (the guy doing the insult/who got insulted) wasn't even a diver. https://savingjournalism.substack.com/p/the-real-thai-cave-r...

Post reply on HN