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And there's more. You could be fairly affluent and have four children, each with their own console and mobile phone, but struggle to use corporate video confere

And there's more. You could be fairly affluent and have four children, each with their own console and mobile phone, but struggle to use corporate video conferencing software for them all in a single household, especially when parents and guardians also work from home. How many families have six computers? How about children with SEN, who are now deprived of their teaching assistants while learning at home, and need an adult to assist them in their learning for five hours a day? Then there's bandwidth. I am luckily able to provide computers to my two children, but when myself, my spouse and my kids are all online at the same time, as well as every other person in our estate, there are understandable capacity issues. What about families that have access to technology, but not the physical space to allow all their children to home school and their parents to work from home simultaneously? How can you attend online lessons when you share a room with a sibling? Or have a baby screaming in the background while you're trying to learn algebra. I'm not particularly bothered that religious communities are struggling at the moment. I am concerned that a generation of children are missing out on an education that most countries consider a fundamental right, and that the most disadvantaged and disaffected children are suffering the most.

leesalminen 6y ago
> I'm not particularly bothered that religious communities are struggling at the moment. Would it be fair to assume religion doesn’t play a central role in your life? It doesn’t in mine, but I have lots of family to whom it does. And they’re hurting. Practicing ones’ religion is also a fundamental right. For many, education is equally as important as religion.
- testesttest 6y ago
  Yea, hacker news is pretty anti religion and people generally don't care about things that don't effect them or their views. I am also not religious but I find this sentiment sad as many of us are in the position to help bridge the digital divide.
  - pbourke 6y ago
    Many of us do not want to enable activities or messages that we are morally opposed to.
    - testesttest 6y ago
      Morally opposed to religion or helping people?
- MarcScott 6y ago
  Yep, religion plays no part in my personal life. My spouse is deeply religious though. She has the freedom to pray every day, read her book and sing her songs. There's no need to have collective worship. No religion stipulates this as a requirement. Collective worship is only important with regards to collecting money from a congregation. It's a money making scheme, not a religious prerogative. My sons, however, needs teachers to educate them. My wife can school them in any faith she desires, but I want someone with a knowledge of Shakespeare, Geometry or Classics to be teaching my children.
  - RhysU 6y ago
    A minyan requires 10 individuals.
  - sethc2 6y ago
    > There's no need to have collective worship. There is probably at least a billion people on earth who disagree with you. Curious if you were raised in American Evangelical Protestant Christianity? It sounds like the kind of thing I hear often from exvangelicals. > Collective worship is only important with regards to collecting money from a congregation. It's a money making scheme, not a religious prerogative. Those tv preachers who have gotten filthy rich probably disagree with the necessity for corporate worship to make money. They’re probably seeing the covid lockdowns as a great way to make even more money. I do strongly agree with you in teaching our children about Shakespeare, geometry, and classics though. We might have different motivations for doing so, but I’m glad to see that even a non-religious person sees a necessity for those things.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    > There's no need to have collective worship. No religion stipulates this as a requirement. Collective worship is only important with regards to collecting money from a congregation. This is not true in Islam (the religion of my home country) nor in Christianity. Worship within a community is a critical aspect to the practice of both of those religions. It's necessary for supporting each other, socializing children, etc.
lotsofpulp 6y ago
> Then there's bandwidth. I am luckily able to provide computers to my two children, but when myself, my spouse and my kids are all online at the same time, as well as every other person in our estate, there are understandable capacity issues. This is off topic, but lack of sufficient bandwidth is only due to government sponsored monopolies such as Verizon and Comcast. There is no reason fiber can’t be extended everywhere. Somehow, the great US of A can get water, gas, sewer, and electrical utilities to a vast majority of homes, but not fiber internet. Therefore, I don’t think one should accept lack of bandwidth as “acceptable”. It’s only a political consequence of lobbying by entrenched interests. The municipalities that have cleared this political hurdle enjoy access to plentiful bandwidth.
- toast0 6y ago
  > There is no reason fiber can’t be extended everywhere. Somehow, the great US of A can get water, gas, sewer, and electrical utilities to a vast majority of homes, but not fiber internet. I would be surprised if water and sewer serve a 'vast' majority of homes. Lots of rural and semi-rural homes have wells and septic. Same thing with gas, but more so, rural might have propane tanks; but many homes have all electric, some have electric and heating oil, etc. But that wasn't really your point. The vast majority of homes (in the US) have electricity, and some phone service, why don't they have fiber? It's because it costs a lot of money to construct, and there won't be many customers to amortize the costs over. I've got a recent quote to install municipal fiber of about $30k to do 6000 feet of aerial fiber on the right-of-way to get to the pole at the corner of my lot; then about another $20k to get 600 feet from the pole to my building. (Might be able to do better on site with a contractor, will see about quotes on that). The monthly service charge is a little more than local incumbents, but it's not quite apples to apples because the speeds are different and the fiber option has better quality of service and time to repair. I think electric construction costs are higher than that, but you don't sell a house with no electric service, and it's hard to sell a lot without a plan for service. But either way, it's a hard sell to say for $50k you can get what you have, but a little bit better, and if you built it for the neighborhood, it would be less per house, maybe $30k per house because a lot of the cost is undergrounding to each building... but people wouldn't likely pay that for a little better.
tomjen3 6y ago
You share a room with 20 other students at school, you can share a table with two siblings. You don't need a computer, you can use your phone, though kids should get their own computer before a smartphone.
- leesalminen 6y ago
  The difference being that in a classroom the 20 kids are all performing the same task at a time. Not the same as 3 kids at the same table all doing different things- one could be taking a math test, another playing the trombone while the third is doing jumping jacks.
gruez 6y ago
> And there's more. You could be fairly affluent and have four children, each with their own console and mobile phone, but struggle to use corporate video conferencing software for them all in a single household, especially when parents and guardians also work from home. How many families have six computers? Do they need computers? zoom/teams/webex all work on phones/tablets.
- MarcScott 6y ago
  Try submitting an essay on a mobile phone, while simultaneously engaging in an online lesson. How many of us here use dual monitors just to cope with work? Could you meet, write documents, and submit them to your boss, all just on a shitty phone with a limited data plan?

leesalminen 6y ago

> I'm not particularly bothered that religious communities are struggling at the moment. Would it be fair to assume religion doesn’t play a central role in your life? It doesn’t in mine, but I have lots of family to whom it does. And they’re hurting. Practicing ones’ religion is also a fundamental right. For many, education is equally as important as religion.

testesttest 6y ago
Yea, hacker news is pretty anti religion and people generally don't care about things that don't effect them or their views. I am also not religious but I find this sentiment sad as many of us are in the position to help bridge the digital divide.
- pbourke 6y ago
  Many of us do not want to enable activities or messages that we are morally opposed to.
  - testesttest 6y ago
    Morally opposed to religion or helping people?
MarcScott 6y ago
Yep, religion plays no part in my personal life. My spouse is deeply religious though. She has the freedom to pray every day, read her book and sing her songs. There's no need to have collective worship. No religion stipulates this as a requirement. Collective worship is only important with regards to collecting money from a congregation. It's a money making scheme, not a religious prerogative. My sons, however, needs teachers to educate them. My wife can school them in any faith she desires, but I want someone with a knowledge of Shakespeare, Geometry or Classics to be teaching my children.
- RhysU 6y ago
  A minyan requires 10 individuals.
- sethc2 6y ago
  > There's no need to have collective worship. There is probably at least a billion people on earth who disagree with you. Curious if you were raised in American Evangelical Protestant Christianity? It sounds like the kind of thing I hear often from exvangelicals. > Collective worship is only important with regards to collecting money from a congregation. It's a money making scheme, not a religious prerogative. Those tv preachers who have gotten filthy rich probably disagree with the necessity for corporate worship to make money. They’re probably seeing the covid lockdowns as a great way to make even more money. I do strongly agree with you in teaching our children about Shakespeare, geometry, and classics though. We might have different motivations for doing so, but I’m glad to see that even a non-religious person sees a necessity for those things.
- rayiner 6y ago
  > There's no need to have collective worship. No religion stipulates this as a requirement. Collective worship is only important with regards to collecting money from a congregation. This is not true in Islam (the religion of my home country) nor in Christianity. Worship within a community is a critical aspect to the practice of both of those religions. It's necessary for supporting each other, socializing children, etc.

lotsofpulp 6y ago

> Then there's bandwidth. I am luckily able to provide computers to my two children, but when myself, my spouse and my kids are all online at the same time, as well as every other person in our estate, there are understandable capacity issues. This is off topic, but lack of sufficient bandwidth is only due to government sponsored monopolies such as Verizon and Comcast. There is no reason fiber can’t be extended everywhere. Somehow, the great US of A can get water, gas, sewer, and electrical utilities to a vast majority of homes, but not fiber internet. Therefore, I don’t think one should accept lack of bandwidth as “acceptable”. It’s only a political consequence of lobbying by entrenched interests. The municipalities that have cleared this political hurdle enjoy access to plentiful bandwidth.

toast0 6y ago
> There is no reason fiber can’t be extended everywhere. Somehow, the great US of A can get water, gas, sewer, and electrical utilities to a vast majority of homes, but not fiber internet. I would be surprised if water and sewer serve a 'vast' majority of homes. Lots of rural and semi-rural homes have wells and septic. Same thing with gas, but more so, rural might have propane tanks; but many homes have all electric, some have electric and heating oil, etc. But that wasn't really your point. The vast majority of homes (in the US) have electricity, and some phone service, why don't they have fiber? It's because it costs a lot of money to construct, and there won't be many customers to amortize the costs over. I've got a recent quote to install municipal fiber of about $30k to do 6000 feet of aerial fiber on the right-of-way to get to the pole at the corner of my lot; then about another $20k to get 600 feet from the pole to my building. (Might be able to do better on site with a contractor, will see about quotes on that). The monthly service charge is a little more than local incumbents, but it's not quite apples to apples because the speeds are different and the fiber option has better quality of service and time to repair. I think electric construction costs are higher than that, but you don't sell a house with no electric service, and it's hard to sell a lot without a plan for service. But either way, it's a hard sell to say for $50k you can get what you have, but a little bit better, and if you built it for the neighborhood, it would be less per house, maybe $30k per house because a lot of the cost is undergrounding to each building... but people wouldn't likely pay that for a little better.

tomjen3 6y ago

You share a room with 20 other students at school, you can share a table with two siblings. You don't need a computer, you can use your phone, though kids should get their own computer before a smartphone.

leesalminen 6y ago
The difference being that in a classroom the 20 kids are all performing the same task at a time. Not the same as 3 kids at the same table all doing different things- one could be taking a math test, another playing the trombone while the third is doing jumping jacks.

gruez 6y ago

> And there's more. You could be fairly affluent and have four children, each with their own console and mobile phone, but struggle to use corporate video conferencing software for them all in a single household, especially when parents and guardians also work from home. How many families have six computers? Do they need computers? zoom/teams/webex all work on phones/tablets.

MarcScott 6y ago
Try submitting an essay on a mobile phone, while simultaneously engaging in an online lesson. How many of us here use dual monitors just to cope with work? Could you meet, write documents, and submit them to your boss, all just on a shitty phone with a limited data plan?