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PaulHoule 20 hours ago [-]
Somebody should have spoken for fiber everywhere 15 years ago rather than telling us rural people to drop dead.
ProllyInfamous 18 hours ago [-]
I live in one of the few US regions where our electric provider also provides fiber internet to every single customer (EPB, Chattanooga).
Even ramshackel cabins in the middle of nowhere can get gigabit internet (25+ syncronous, actually). ISP giants have effectively lobbied to prevent this from expanding outside of the electric-provider's supply area, despite ready availability and demand.
It's a racket.
cpburns2009 20 hours ago [-]
Exactly this. A family member of mine had no good option before Starlink. Dial-up is obsolete, traditional satellite internet was not available due to some angle of a valley or treeline. A 4G signal booster can only do so much with a poor signal.
metalman 16 hours ago [-]
rural here also.
ridiculous to suggest that mega sattelite fleets can be recalled now.
little know fact about high tension power lines: they have has fibre in the core for mreo than 25 years, but in most cases are left unused, per contracts with the telecoms
ie: massive price fixing deals
more?, look into the truely surreal world of overlapping rights of way for power, phone, roads, water,rail etc that are spread and smeared into blurry mess that EATS MONEY, that then dissapears again.
the satellites just fly right over all that.
wolvoleo 19 hours ago [-]
Wouldn't mandated fibre for everyone be considered 'communism' in rural US?
I mean, even public healthcare is vilified.
verzali 18 hours ago [-]
A million satellites is implausible any time soon. You need to launch 300 a day for ten years straight without losing any. Just will not happen.
whattheheckheck 18 hours ago [-]
And we will only use 64kb of ram
verzali 18 hours ago [-]
Not the same at all my friend.
rationalist 14 hours ago [-]
Or launch 3,000 a day for one year.
The comment you replied to indicates that our needs and production capabilities can grow.
jiggawatts 18 hours ago [-]
The science fiction vision of our future is orbiting factories, massive space stations where you can take a holiday, captured asteroids mined for their precious metals, space elevators, etc...
Many people think that this is realistic, eventually.
The eventually is starting now.
How exactly did people think it would happen? Someone clicks their fingers and we live in a sci-fi universe suddenly? Or that magically the entire space industry will restrict their orbits to a few narrow bands to preserve the oh-so-precious long exposure views of sunsets forever?
These articles are just futile bleating.
The future just isn't going to wait for grey-haired astronomers to catch up.
PS: If we can launch satellite constellations cheaply enough to cause an issue for terrestrial telescopes, then almost by definition we can launch telescopes to space at a low enough cost to solve the problem and get a better vantage point without the pesky atmosphere in the way.
ktpsns 9 hours ago [-]
The tragedy of the commons affects not only grey-haired astronomers but everybody who wants to learn about nature. Light pollution is already so real that I assume the majority of people in "industrialized states" haven't seen milky way with naked eyes if they cannot afford traveling to very remote areas (me included, despite I have a PhD in astrophysics, which makes me technically a grey-haired astronomer).
Of course technology will eventually solve the problem and space-based observatories are superior, despite more expensive and thus makes it more difficult to make science inclusive.
The big question is: Will the shift to orbit exclude a big part of mankind from participating? Capitalism most likely days "yes" and this is, in fact, a tragedy.
jiggawatts 5 hours ago [-]
> everybody who wants to learn about nature.
We can't avoid altering nature, especially when we expand our capabilities, which in turn lets us learn more about it. It's like quantum mechanics. Our act of observation affects the world.
And anyway, satellite constellations don't stop us learning about the universe. We can put telescopes in space. They're better than terrestrial telescopes! It's fine. We'll be okay, especially in the long run.
Please remember that change is only bad if it's change for the worse. Change in itself isn't bad.
More subtly: Change can make things worse for certain individuals, those with "night sky photography" as a hobby, or individual researchers working with solely with terrestrial telescopes. The motorcar was terrible for buggy whip makers too!
> I assume the majority of people in "industrialized states" haven't seen milky way with naked eyes if they cannot afford traveling to very remote areas (me included, despite I have a PhD in astrophysics, which makes me technically a grey-haired astronomer).
You really don't have to go that far, even from the most light-polluted places. Simply driving outside of the "greater city borders" will get you a more than good enough view to experience the awe.
> The big question is: Will the shift to orbit exclude a big part of mankind from participating? Capitalism most likely days "yes" and this is, in fact, a tragedy.
Satellite constellations in no shape way or form affect amateur astronomy, other than the "pretty pictures" aspect, and there's workarounds for that too.
It does upset professional astronomers, but I'm betting they'll adapt in the same manner that they've figured out workarounds for everything else. I suspect they'll end up using something like video capture and "median of 'n' frames" digital post-processing to filter out the satellites. Even space telescopes have to filter out noise due to radiation and the like! It's the nature of science.
I don't want this to come across the wrong way, but fundamentally: science never was "democratic", doesn't (really) pretend to be so, and especially modern science can't possibly be anything other than the plaything of very rich nation-states.
Historically, science was done by the wealthy. Lords, and the like.
These days, science is done with budgets in the millions or billions, especially astronomy where bigger and better telescopes are the name of the game.
I don't accept criticism of "global internet coming down from space" because it might stop someone from doing astronomy that is so poor that they can't even drive a few hundred miles to get a better view of the sky! They're not going to meaningfully contribute, no matter how noble their effort.
SilverElfin 18 hours ago [-]
I am absolutely frightened but the satellite constellation arms race. Especially by the Chinese companies that are launching constellations into very high orbits, where debris will take thousands of years to decay. These satellites are also ruining the night sky for astronomy. The public should not have to suffer for the greed of a few companies.
CamperBob2 19 hours ago [-]
It is truly a time of insanity.
Why doesn't Musk just put the data centers on container ships, if he wants to avoid red tape?
Even ramshackel cabins in the middle of nowhere can get gigabit internet (25+ syncronous, actually). ISP giants have effectively lobbied to prevent this from expanding outside of the electric-provider's supply area, despite ready availability and demand.
It's a racket.
more?, look into the truely surreal world of overlapping rights of way for power, phone, roads, water,rail etc that are spread and smeared into blurry mess that EATS MONEY, that then dissapears again. the satellites just fly right over all that.
I mean, even public healthcare is vilified.
The comment you replied to indicates that our needs and production capabilities can grow.
Many people think that this is realistic, eventually.
The eventually is starting now.
How exactly did people think it would happen? Someone clicks their fingers and we live in a sci-fi universe suddenly? Or that magically the entire space industry will restrict their orbits to a few narrow bands to preserve the oh-so-precious long exposure views of sunsets forever?
These articles are just futile bleating.
The future just isn't going to wait for grey-haired astronomers to catch up.
PS: If we can launch satellite constellations cheaply enough to cause an issue for terrestrial telescopes, then almost by definition we can launch telescopes to space at a low enough cost to solve the problem and get a better vantage point without the pesky atmosphere in the way.
Of course technology will eventually solve the problem and space-based observatories are superior, despite more expensive and thus makes it more difficult to make science inclusive.
The big question is: Will the shift to orbit exclude a big part of mankind from participating? Capitalism most likely days "yes" and this is, in fact, a tragedy.
We can't avoid altering nature, especially when we expand our capabilities, which in turn lets us learn more about it. It's like quantum mechanics. Our act of observation affects the world.
And anyway, satellite constellations don't stop us learning about the universe. We can put telescopes in space. They're better than terrestrial telescopes! It's fine. We'll be okay, especially in the long run.
Please remember that change is only bad if it's change for the worse. Change in itself isn't bad.
More subtly: Change can make things worse for certain individuals, those with "night sky photography" as a hobby, or individual researchers working with solely with terrestrial telescopes. The motorcar was terrible for buggy whip makers too!
> I assume the majority of people in "industrialized states" haven't seen milky way with naked eyes if they cannot afford traveling to very remote areas (me included, despite I have a PhD in astrophysics, which makes me technically a grey-haired astronomer).
You really don't have to go that far, even from the most light-polluted places. Simply driving outside of the "greater city borders" will get you a more than good enough view to experience the awe.
> The big question is: Will the shift to orbit exclude a big part of mankind from participating? Capitalism most likely days "yes" and this is, in fact, a tragedy.
Satellite constellations in no shape way or form affect amateur astronomy, other than the "pretty pictures" aspect, and there's workarounds for that too.
It does upset professional astronomers, but I'm betting they'll adapt in the same manner that they've figured out workarounds for everything else. I suspect they'll end up using something like video capture and "median of 'n' frames" digital post-processing to filter out the satellites. Even space telescopes have to filter out noise due to radiation and the like! It's the nature of science.
I don't want this to come across the wrong way, but fundamentally: science never was "democratic", doesn't (really) pretend to be so, and especially modern science can't possibly be anything other than the plaything of very rich nation-states.
Historically, science was done by the wealthy. Lords, and the like.
These days, science is done with budgets in the millions or billions, especially astronomy where bigger and better telescopes are the name of the game.
I don't accept criticism of "global internet coming down from space" because it might stop someone from doing astronomy that is so poor that they can't even drive a few hundred miles to get a better view of the sky! They're not going to meaningfully contribute, no matter how noble their effort.
Why doesn't Musk just put the data centers on container ships, if he wants to avoid red tape?