8 ms·

I'm an astronomer who's been following the situation, and this comment of yours is entirely false. For example, there was only one satellite painted dark, and

by wumpus 4y ago

I'm an astronomer who's been following the situation, and this comment of yours is entirely false. For example, there was only one satellite painted dark, and it didn't work well enough. The next mitigation after that worked well, but not well enough.

dylan604 4y ago
Sorry, you think I was making a comment in support of Starlink? What are you saying is false? Do you think that I believe Starlink's PR spin (what is confusing about those words?) to paint satellites black would fix the problem they created? Do you think that I belive the FAA/FCC have told SpaceX that they could no longer go ahead with their plans until a solution was in place? Where's the disconnect?
Teknoman117 4y ago
As much as people may hate the prospect of putting that many satellites up, the service is so darn useful. What's the alternative? Force anyone who wants to participate in the modern world to live in a city or suburb along a fiber line? Neither public nor private groups have expressed much interest in actually getting internet connectivity to everyone. My parents live in a rural area in Northern California and only about 5 miles away from a fiber drop point. However, there are only about ten houses on their street and the local ISP and the big one that actually owns the fiber wants $10k USD a pole to bring a fiber line over to them (there's about 80 poles that would need work) plus connection and maintenance fees after that point. Needless to say, they're _loving_ their Starlink connection.
- throwawaylinux 4y ago
- roflyear 4y ago
  Cities are greener, believe it or not.
  - karottenreibe 4y ago
    Source?
    - roflyear 4y ago
      Lots of discussion around this if you look around, this is the first I found that wasn't a news publication: https://news.berkeley.edu/2014/01/06/suburban-sprawl-cancels-carbon-footprint-savings-of-dense-urban-cores/ https://news.berkeley.edu/2014/01/06/suburban-sprawl-cancels... Logically, it makes sense: while you need to get a lot of things into the city, you can do that at scale in ways that are efficient (like trains, boats, etc..). Also, if you live in a city, you're probably taking up much less of a footprint. Individual houses are really inefficient. Nevermind driving everywhere! :)
  - Teknoman117 4y ago
    But they're not necessarily better - disease spreads much easier (as we are still having demonstrated to us), the noise is bad for your health, the air is bad for your health, the population is completely unsustainable when technology fails, at least in the US they tend to be smelly, dirty, etc. Until the masking and restaurant restrictions were lifted, there were next to no COVID cases in town and no one around us caught it. Meanwhile, my entire friend group (20+ people) in SF all caught it at some point. I'm the only one of the group that hasn't had it.
- dylan604 4y ago
  I would be interested in seeing actual numbers of people that are positvely benefitting from Starlink in the manner you are describing. Remote locations in Africa numbers just don't seem like a very high number of actual users. I will be most pleasantly surprised if that's where large numbers of users are found. However, I'm guessing users are mainly all techno nerds looking to escape evilCoMonopolyISP. A segment will probably be US based far reaches remote type users. After that, it's a whole lot of stuff in space to benefit a very small number just so other people can point at potential uses
  - mlindner 4y ago
    Starlink has 400,000 active paying subscribers at the moment, worldwide, as of a few weeks ago. The customer count is a pretty good indicator of those who find it useful. It's not going to match completely as there are some who will buy it for a backup connection, but that's going to be a small minority.

by wumpus 4y ago

dylan604 4y ago

Sorry, you think I was making a comment in support of Starlink? What are you saying is false? Do you think that I believe Starlink's PR spin (what is confusing about those words?) to paint satellites black would fix the problem they created? Do you think that I belive the FAA/FCC have told SpaceX that they could no longer go ahead with their plans until a solution was in place? Where's the disconnect?

Teknoman117 4y ago

As much as people may hate the prospect of putting that many satellites up, the service is so darn useful. What's the alternative? Force anyone who wants to participate in the modern world to live in a city or suburb along a fiber line? Neither public nor private groups have expressed much interest in actually getting internet connectivity to everyone. My parents live in a rural area in Northern California and only about 5 miles away from a fiber drop point. However, there are only about ten houses on their street and the local ISP and the big one that actually owns the fiber wants $10k USD a pole to bring a fiber line over to them (there's about 80 poles that would need work) plus connection and maintenance fees after that point. Needless to say, they're _loving_ their Starlink connection.

throwawaylinux 4y ago
roflyear 4y ago
Cities are greener, believe it or not.
- karottenreibe 4y ago
  Source?
  - roflyear 4y ago
    Lots of discussion around this if you look around, this is the first I found that wasn't a news publication: https://news.berkeley.edu/2014/01/06/suburban-sprawl-cancels-carbon-footprint-savings-of-dense-urban-cores/ https://news.berkeley.edu/2014/01/06/suburban-sprawl-cancels... Logically, it makes sense: while you need to get a lot of things into the city, you can do that at scale in ways that are efficient (like trains, boats, etc..). Also, if you live in a city, you're probably taking up much less of a footprint. Individual houses are really inefficient. Nevermind driving everywhere! :)
- Teknoman117 4y ago
  But they're not necessarily better - disease spreads much easier (as we are still having demonstrated to us), the noise is bad for your health, the air is bad for your health, the population is completely unsustainable when technology fails, at least in the US they tend to be smelly, dirty, etc. Until the masking and restaurant restrictions were lifted, there were next to no COVID cases in town and no one around us caught it. Meanwhile, my entire friend group (20+ people) in SF all caught it at some point. I'm the only one of the group that hasn't had it.
dylan604 4y ago
I would be interested in seeing actual numbers of people that are positvely benefitting from Starlink in the manner you are describing. Remote locations in Africa numbers just don't seem like a very high number of actual users. I will be most pleasantly surprised if that's where large numbers of users are found. However, I'm guessing users are mainly all techno nerds looking to escape evilCoMonopolyISP. A segment will probably be US based far reaches remote type users. After that, it's a whole lot of stuff in space to benefit a very small number just so other people can point at potential uses
- mlindner 4y ago
  Starlink has 400,000 active paying subscribers at the moment, worldwide, as of a few weeks ago. The customer count is a pretty good indicator of those who find it useful. It's not going to match completely as there are some who will buy it for a backup connection, but that's going to be a small minority.