3 ms·

A very well encapsulated display of "fuck you, I got mine". Of course you are good with it, hopefully whatever you do with Internet everywhere you go is more i

by piva00 2y ago

A very well encapsulated display of "fuck you, I got mine". Of course you are good with it, hopefully whatever you do with Internet everywhere you go is more important, and impactful than what radio astronomers could do without the radio pollution.

agos 2y ago
let's see if this Starlink thread will go were the others went, with HN commenters suggesting all astronomy moves to space because having Internet everywhere you go is too important
renewiltord 2y ago
Astronomers don’t own frequency exclusively. I think we’ll be fine. Same as we were fine with every other thing that seemed like it was going to destroy the world.
- close04 2y ago
  You don't own a restaurant or its TV exclusively and yet with your own words you'd forcefully turn such a TV off if it's distracting (to you) [0]. It's never about who owns what, it's about what you want at anyone else's expense. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41595171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41595171
  - cromka 2y ago
    That’s some crazy level of entitlement here at display.
  - kamalamomala 2y ago
    [flagged]
- ben_w 2y ago
  Astronomers don't have any control over the frequencies of light emitted by the stuff they're looking at, and they could previously rely on radio-quiet locations existing somehere on planet Earth. > Same as we were fine with every other thing that seemed like it was going to destroy the world. We might be, or not. Anthropic bias: we can only observe the dice rolls that don't kill us. For all we know, attitudes like yours are the solution to the Fermi paradox. But this isn't about "will destroy us", this is about "is this interference even necessary?" and "do your personal benefits outweigh the harms to others?" If I were in charge of the would I would say "let's put the telescopes in space" — but as I'm not, that's promising jam tomorrow to someone who wants food today.
  - throwaway48540 2y ago
    For all we know, the solution to Fermi paradox are people who insist on tradition and not upsetting the status quo instead of taking advantage of the possibilities of truly global high speed internet coverage for low prices. I agree this should be fixed if it's possible. But if it meant 2x the price of the subscription, I'm pretty fine with them keeping it as it is. Global internet is just way too good for humanity to not do it.
    - ben_w 2y ago
      I'm not suggesting we don't want or benefit from high speed internet, I'm saying there's other ways of getting the same result, alternatives which don't mess with fundamental science for however long it takes to get around to building replacement radio telescopes in space. And I'm saying this as someone who was seriously considering getting a Starlink connection (wired internet turned out to be good as well as cheap, but I was seriously considering Starlink). > But if it meant 2x the price of the subscription, I'm pretty fine with them keeping it as it is. If it was just about prices and nothing else, I'd be promoting the construction of an orbital ring launch system, which would inherently double as a global power grid and be a good place to mount PV. Cheap space access (cheap enough to be used as a global 90-minute railway even if you have to go the long way around), cheap power supply (no clouds and less sun blocked by the air), cheap power transmission (because it's cross-subsidised with the other two). > Global internet is just way too good for humanity to not do it. So is "knowing where the asteroids are".
- GJim 2y ago
  > Astronomers don’t own frequency exclusively. So we should just let a commercial entity piss away our (and our children's) ability to see the natural beauty of the universe then? "You don't know what you've' got till it's gone, they paved paradise and put up a parking lot".
  - renewiltord 2y ago
    Ah man you should go out and see the night sky sometimes. I have, all my life, and it’s great. You’ll see meteors and the satellites and the ISS. It’s fantastic. Seeing the satellites makes kids wild. If this is piss, then call me P Diddy.
- scpmw 2y ago
  This is broadband 10-88 MHz. The Starlink bands are somewhere between 10–86 GHz. They are jamming almost an order of magnitude of scientifically highly valuable spectrum for no reason at all. It is outsourcing EMI testing of their satellites to LOFAR at this point.
- piva00 2y ago
  Some things don't need ownership to be treated with respect. Animals in the jungle are not owned exclusively by anyone but we still want to collectively protect them. One can try to be a good neighbour and mindful of others sharing that space (in this case, radio frequencies coming from out of Earth), or one can be an asshole and say "no one owns this, I can do whatever I want". > I think we’ll be fine. Same as we were fine with every other thing that seemed like it was going to destroy the world. You can't know what will be missed, it's not about "will destroy the world", it's getting noisier, we will miss signals in those frequency ranges, and for what? So you and some others can travel around connecting to the Internet and posting on Hacker News? I don't think that improves our understanding of the cosmos, while the work of the people being impacted by the radio noise actually does improve our understanding of the fucking Universe. I think it's quite clear what is more important for humanity... But assholes don't care about that, they launch some satellites to make some money, damned be others in their way.
  - jart 2y ago
    The people won't have any understanding at all if they can't access Wikipedia. At this point radio astronomy has got to be hitting the long tail of scientific achievement. Unless someone can demonstrate otherwise, I'd be more concerned about the careers of the people still doing it rather than humanity's ability to understand the universe. The stars ain't going to change. Maybe you'll miss a few supernovas. If I were a radio astronomer I'd actually be rejoicing now, because this gives me a legitimate need for the budget required to build my own Hubble-like telescope, far away from Starlink.
    - piva00 2y ago
      That's the thing, the vast majority of people paying for Starlink's service could already access Wikipedia, Starlink is not democratising internet access in places where people never had access before, as much as that is their PR selling point. The amount of people actually getting to access Wikipedia reliably for the first time because of Starlink is a tiny, tiny fraction of all users. The pure hubris of not even communicating with the scientific community to tackle potential obstacles that could hinder their exploration is what's absolutely wrong, just a one-sided decision to fuck it up because they can. > The stars ain't going to change. Maybe you'll miss a few supernovas. If I were a radio astronomer I'd actually be rejoicing now, because this gives me a legitimate need for the budget required to build my own Hubble-like telescope, far away from Starlink. Oh, that's great, go tell that to the PhDs in radio astronomy right now that might be getting fucked in their observations while on a time crunch to get their doctorate because someone decided to turn on GHz radios in space that mess with their instruments developed through the research of thousands before them. Also tell us the taxpayers that investment in our expensive radio astronomy equipment on Earth is getting less useful because one company decided they can fuck with the spectrum they've been developed to listen to, I'm sure that the observatories on this list [0] don't really care and now are tingling with joy because they can spend even more public money to build radio telescopes but in space™. Have you ever tried to get grants to build instruments that cost 9 figures dollars, and a decade or more to be finished? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_radio_telescopes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_radio_telescopes

by piva00 2y ago

agos 2y ago

let's see if this Starlink thread will go were the others went, with HN commenters suggesting all astronomy moves to space because having Internet everywhere you go is too important

renewiltord 2y ago

Astronomers don’t own frequency exclusively. I think we’ll be fine. Same as we were fine with every other thing that seemed like it was going to destroy the world.

close04 2y ago
You don't own a restaurant or its TV exclusively and yet with your own words you'd forcefully turn such a TV off if it's distracting (to you) [0]. It's never about who owns what, it's about what you want at anyone else's expense. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41595171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41595171
- cromka 2y ago
  That’s some crazy level of entitlement here at display.
- kamalamomala 2y ago
  [flagged]
ben_w 2y ago
Astronomers don't have any control over the frequencies of light emitted by the stuff they're looking at, and they could previously rely on radio-quiet locations existing somehere on planet Earth. > Same as we were fine with every other thing that seemed like it was going to destroy the world. We might be, or not. Anthropic bias: we can only observe the dice rolls that don't kill us. For all we know, attitudes like yours are the solution to the Fermi paradox. But this isn't about "will destroy us", this is about "is this interference even necessary?" and "do your personal benefits outweigh the harms to others?" If I were in charge of the would I would say "let's put the telescopes in space" — but as I'm not, that's promising jam tomorrow to someone who wants food today.
- throwaway48540 2y ago
  For all we know, the solution to Fermi paradox are people who insist on tradition and not upsetting the status quo instead of taking advantage of the possibilities of truly global high speed internet coverage for low prices. I agree this should be fixed if it's possible. But if it meant 2x the price of the subscription, I'm pretty fine with them keeping it as it is. Global internet is just way too good for humanity to not do it.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    I'm not suggesting we don't want or benefit from high speed internet, I'm saying there's other ways of getting the same result, alternatives which don't mess with fundamental science for however long it takes to get around to building replacement radio telescopes in space. And I'm saying this as someone who was seriously considering getting a Starlink connection (wired internet turned out to be good as well as cheap, but I was seriously considering Starlink). > But if it meant 2x the price of the subscription, I'm pretty fine with them keeping it as it is. If it was just about prices and nothing else, I'd be promoting the construction of an orbital ring launch system, which would inherently double as a global power grid and be a good place to mount PV. Cheap space access (cheap enough to be used as a global 90-minute railway even if you have to go the long way around), cheap power supply (no clouds and less sun blocked by the air), cheap power transmission (because it's cross-subsidised with the other two). > Global internet is just way too good for humanity to not do it. So is "knowing where the asteroids are".
GJim 2y ago
> Astronomers don’t own frequency exclusively. So we should just let a commercial entity piss away our (and our children's) ability to see the natural beauty of the universe then? "You don't know what you've' got till it's gone, they paved paradise and put up a parking lot".
- renewiltord 2y ago
  Ah man you should go out and see the night sky sometimes. I have, all my life, and it’s great. You’ll see meteors and the satellites and the ISS. It’s fantastic. Seeing the satellites makes kids wild. If this is piss, then call me P Diddy.
scpmw 2y ago
This is broadband 10-88 MHz. The Starlink bands are somewhere between 10–86 GHz. They are jamming almost an order of magnitude of scientifically highly valuable spectrum for no reason at all. It is outsourcing EMI testing of their satellites to LOFAR at this point.
piva00 2y ago
Some things don't need ownership to be treated with respect. Animals in the jungle are not owned exclusively by anyone but we still want to collectively protect them. One can try to be a good neighbour and mindful of others sharing that space (in this case, radio frequencies coming from out of Earth), or one can be an asshole and say "no one owns this, I can do whatever I want". > I think we’ll be fine. Same as we were fine with every other thing that seemed like it was going to destroy the world. You can't know what will be missed, it's not about "will destroy the world", it's getting noisier, we will miss signals in those frequency ranges, and for what? So you and some others can travel around connecting to the Internet and posting on Hacker News? I don't think that improves our understanding of the cosmos, while the work of the people being impacted by the radio noise actually does improve our understanding of the fucking Universe. I think it's quite clear what is more important for humanity... But assholes don't care about that, they launch some satellites to make some money, damned be others in their way.
- jart 2y ago
  The people won't have any understanding at all if they can't access Wikipedia. At this point radio astronomy has got to be hitting the long tail of scientific achievement. Unless someone can demonstrate otherwise, I'd be more concerned about the careers of the people still doing it rather than humanity's ability to understand the universe. The stars ain't going to change. Maybe you'll miss a few supernovas. If I were a radio astronomer I'd actually be rejoicing now, because this gives me a legitimate need for the budget required to build my own Hubble-like telescope, far away from Starlink.
  - piva00 2y ago
    That's the thing, the vast majority of people paying for Starlink's service could already access Wikipedia, Starlink is not democratising internet access in places where people never had access before, as much as that is their PR selling point. The amount of people actually getting to access Wikipedia reliably for the first time because of Starlink is a tiny, tiny fraction of all users. The pure hubris of not even communicating with the scientific community to tackle potential obstacles that could hinder their exploration is what's absolutely wrong, just a one-sided decision to fuck it up because they can. > The stars ain't going to change. Maybe you'll miss a few supernovas. If I were a radio astronomer I'd actually be rejoicing now, because this gives me a legitimate need for the budget required to build my own Hubble-like telescope, far away from Starlink. Oh, that's great, go tell that to the PhDs in radio astronomy right now that might be getting fucked in their observations while on a time crunch to get their doctorate because someone decided to turn on GHz radios in space that mess with their instruments developed through the research of thousands before them. Also tell us the taxpayers that investment in our expensive radio astronomy equipment on Earth is getting less useful because one company decided they can fuck with the spectrum they've been developed to listen to, I'm sure that the observatories on this list [0] don't really care and now are tingling with joy because they can spend even more public money to build radio telescopes but in space™. Have you ever tried to get grants to build instruments that cost 9 figures dollars, and a decade or more to be finished? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_radio_telescopes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_radio_telescopes