4 ms·

People have been saying this for a decade, and I still sit there realising how different a bubble a lot of commenters here live. I visit my parents most months

by Macha 5y ago

People have been saying this for a decade, and I still sit there realising how different a bubble a lot of commenters here live. I visit my parents most months. They live in rural Ireland. Not like a one off build down a back road miles from civilisation, but a small village of a few hundred people. They absolutely do not have reliable internet, and at this point they've cycled through every available provider. To visit them I take a few hours train journey. For about half this train journey the internet is not reliable, whether edge/3g/4g or onboard service. Before the pandemic, I visited the US a few times a year, United's onboard internet is very limited, expensive, and reliability is "it sometimes works". So I regularly run into cases where I need to prepare ahead of time for no/spotty internet and still get surprises as some app refuses to launch because it decided now is the time it needed to update over a connection that's doing single digit kilobytes per second, or speak to a license server or whatever.

jcims 5y ago
>People have been saying this for a decade, and I still sit there realising how different a bubble a lot of commenters here live. Nearly every thread involving cars or traffic also makes this abundantly clear.
- Enginerrrd 5y ago
  No kidding. Not to mention the disdain for things that are nearly essential in rural areas: 4wd trucks and gas/diesel instead of electric vehicles, or the right to carry firearms. I live in rural PNW. Electric is at LEAST 20 years from being a feasible and reliable solution. ...and I say that as a civil engineer with some specialization in creating EV charge stations. 30-50 might be even be more plausible. When I'm in the field, small things can turn into life-and-death situations pretty quickly out here when you're an hour and a half drive from cell reception, followed by another hour and a half drive to town with a small hospital/sheriff station, and you're up a dirt road where a tow-truck simply won't come. And the geology is notoriously unstable and slides/washouts/fallen-trees happen constantly. My clients LIVE in those places, I only visit. They drive big diesel rigs (They often NEED to transport big heavy stuff, and you can store diesel for long time periods in a tank onsite), and a lot of them also have transfer tanks in the back of their truck for extra range. (Because it's needed!) They also almost all carry food/water/shelter/A chainsaw/tools/a gun/etc in their vehicle for a reason. Self-rescue is all you got a lot of the time.
  - 5e92cb50239222b 5y ago
    Em. Half of my relatives live in a rural area. Not a single one of them has a 4WD truck (or any trucks at all). Why is it considered a necessity in the United States? It's a pretty big country too, with shitty roads and pretty low population density.
    - jcims 5y ago
      Watch Matt's Offroad Recovery on YouTube, sometimes you need 4WD and ground clearance to get around reliably. Certainly more people own vehicles in that caliber than are necessary, but that's not always the case.
    - skylanh 5y ago
      Trucks or vans with 4x4 drive are pretty common in Mexico, Brazil, the middle east. You're falling into the same trap that the article and GP's are highlighting: your experience that a FWD vehicle is enough "for me / my relatives" does not apply to this situation. 1) survival in animal / vehicle collusions with bears, deers, and moose 2) delivery of goods, including building material, animal feed, human food, etc 3) lack of even basic road infrastructure maintenance by government or municipality 4) "over prepared is only prepared", you're it, you're on your own I lived for 20 years in a semi-rural area; you could certainly live for 99% of the time without a large cargo vehicle or 4x4. The other 1% you were chancing your life. Cargo and deliveries were certainly an issue though. Now just slide that ratio towards the middle.
    - Enginerrrd 5y ago
      Do they raise cattle / own farms like most of my clients? I don't know how you'd get by without one for that use case.
  - jcims 5y ago
    That's my perspective as well and where I have the most visceral reaction. But, to be fair, there are a lot of folks who will say 'I'd never go without a car' that haven't lived in a place with great public transportation. I used to think that way as well until I spent six months living in a place that had great bike paths and lots of options for local and regional public transportation. I started off with the intent of trying no-car daily living and it was perfectly fine. In six months I rented a car one time for a weekend trip, that was it. So to me the lesson is to try to have a bit of empathy for the personal experience of the person making bubble points and focus on expanding their perspective rather than debating their position. This leaks into the misinformation topic as well but there's another thread for that :)
petemir 5y ago
> So I regularly run into cases where I need to prepare ahead of time for no/spotty internet and still get surprises as some app refuses to launch because it decided now is the time it needed to update over a connection that's doing single digit kilobytes per second, or speak to a license server or whatever. Recently I was on a flight and prepared a book on my iPad the day before. iBooks decided that it was a good idea to “offload it into the cloud”, a book that wasn’t even 24 hours on my device with plenty of space available. Who knows…
- inetknght 5y ago
  > iBooks decided that it was a good idea to “offload it into the cloud”, a book that wasn’t even 24 hours on my device with plenty of space available I had the same problem with Google Books on my Galaxy devices. There's a feature that will let you pin the book to be available offline. But you have to do that for every book. It really takes away the usefulness of the devices.
- dont__panic 5y ago
  Or when an app decides that it's too out of date spontaneously, and I literally get stuck on an error screen when I just launch the app that used to work up until today... "just install the latest update to enjoy this app" Yeah, that's a dick move when I'm not on wifi or don't have data access at all on a long hiking trip.
Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
> I visit my parents most months. They live in rural Ireland. Not like a one off build down a back road miles from civilisation, but a small village of a few hundred people. They absolutely do not have reliable internet, and at this point they've cycled through every available provider. This is why state run services matter, Because they will 'serve' in areas where private businesses cannot turn up profit and so they have no incentive to serve. 5-6 years ago, In India only the state run telecom - BSNL's service would be available at remote, hill stations. But with 4G it couldn't keep up with private telecom and the company is nearly done for. So now again there's no connectivity in remote areas and mountains as private players don't bother ~~serving~~ doing business there. This is especially worse with pandemic, many in such areas have lost communication outside world and remote-education is non-existent for children there.
LukeEF 5y ago
We were promised rural broadband! 2 billion of rural broadband.

by Macha 5y ago

jcims 5y ago

>People have been saying this for a decade, and I still sit there realising how different a bubble a lot of commenters here live. Nearly every thread involving cars or traffic also makes this abundantly clear.

Enginerrrd 5y ago
No kidding. Not to mention the disdain for things that are nearly essential in rural areas: 4wd trucks and gas/diesel instead of electric vehicles, or the right to carry firearms. I live in rural PNW. Electric is at LEAST 20 years from being a feasible and reliable solution. ...and I say that as a civil engineer with some specialization in creating EV charge stations. 30-50 might be even be more plausible. When I'm in the field, small things can turn into life-and-death situations pretty quickly out here when you're an hour and a half drive from cell reception, followed by another hour and a half drive to town with a small hospital/sheriff station, and you're up a dirt road where a tow-truck simply won't come. And the geology is notoriously unstable and slides/washouts/fallen-trees happen constantly. My clients LIVE in those places, I only visit. They drive big diesel rigs (They often NEED to transport big heavy stuff, and you can store diesel for long time periods in a tank onsite), and a lot of them also have transfer tanks in the back of their truck for extra range. (Because it's needed!) They also almost all carry food/water/shelter/A chainsaw/tools/a gun/etc in their vehicle for a reason. Self-rescue is all you got a lot of the time.
- 5e92cb50239222b 5y ago
  Em. Half of my relatives live in a rural area. Not a single one of them has a 4WD truck (or any trucks at all). Why is it considered a necessity in the United States? It's a pretty big country too, with shitty roads and pretty low population density.
  - jcims 5y ago
    Watch Matt's Offroad Recovery on YouTube, sometimes you need 4WD and ground clearance to get around reliably. Certainly more people own vehicles in that caliber than are necessary, but that's not always the case.
  - skylanh 5y ago
    Trucks or vans with 4x4 drive are pretty common in Mexico, Brazil, the middle east. You're falling into the same trap that the article and GP's are highlighting: your experience that a FWD vehicle is enough "for me / my relatives" does not apply to this situation. 1) survival in animal / vehicle collusions with bears, deers, and moose 2) delivery of goods, including building material, animal feed, human food, etc 3) lack of even basic road infrastructure maintenance by government or municipality 4) "over prepared is only prepared", you're it, you're on your own I lived for 20 years in a semi-rural area; you could certainly live for 99% of the time without a large cargo vehicle or 4x4. The other 1% you were chancing your life. Cargo and deliveries were certainly an issue though. Now just slide that ratio towards the middle.
  - Enginerrrd 5y ago
    Do they raise cattle / own farms like most of my clients? I don't know how you'd get by without one for that use case.
- jcims 5y ago
  That's my perspective as well and where I have the most visceral reaction. But, to be fair, there are a lot of folks who will say 'I'd never go without a car' that haven't lived in a place with great public transportation. I used to think that way as well until I spent six months living in a place that had great bike paths and lots of options for local and regional public transportation. I started off with the intent of trying no-car daily living and it was perfectly fine. In six months I rented a car one time for a weekend trip, that was it. So to me the lesson is to try to have a bit of empathy for the personal experience of the person making bubble points and focus on expanding their perspective rather than debating their position. This leaks into the misinformation topic as well but there's another thread for that :)

petemir 5y ago

> So I regularly run into cases where I need to prepare ahead of time for no/spotty internet and still get surprises as some app refuses to launch because it decided now is the time it needed to update over a connection that's doing single digit kilobytes per second, or speak to a license server or whatever. Recently I was on a flight and prepared a book on my iPad the day before. iBooks decided that it was a good idea to “offload it into the cloud”, a book that wasn’t even 24 hours on my device with plenty of space available. Who knows…

inetknght 5y ago
> iBooks decided that it was a good idea to “offload it into the cloud”, a book that wasn’t even 24 hours on my device with plenty of space available I had the same problem with Google Books on my Galaxy devices. There's a feature that will let you pin the book to be available offline. But you have to do that for every book. It really takes away the usefulness of the devices.
dont__panic 5y ago
Or when an app decides that it's too out of date spontaneously, and I literally get stuck on an error screen when I just launch the app that used to work up until today... "just install the latest update to enjoy this app" Yeah, that's a dick move when I'm not on wifi or don't have data access at all on a long hiking trip.

Abishek_Muthian 5y ago

> I visit my parents most months. They live in rural Ireland. Not like a one off build down a back road miles from civilisation, but a small village of a few hundred people. They absolutely do not have reliable internet, and at this point they've cycled through every available provider. This is why state run services matter, Because they will 'serve' in areas where private businesses cannot turn up profit and so they have no incentive to serve. 5-6 years ago, In India only the state run telecom - BSNL's service would be available at remote, hill stations. But with 4G it couldn't keep up with private telecom and the company is nearly done for. So now again there's no connectivity in remote areas and mountains as private players don't bother ~~serving~~ doing business there. This is especially worse with pandemic, many in such areas have lost communication outside world and remote-education is non-existent for children there.

LukeEF 5y ago

We were promised rural broadband! 2 billion of rural broadband.