I also do this. Xfinity went out for a few hours earlier this month and Unifi failed over almost instantly, and within minutes we had high speed internet once I upgraded us. The standby mode would have been plenty for basic web browsing, too.
$5/mo for pretty guaranteed connectivity, plus being able to take it around with me on travels is pretty awesome.
Everything is indirectly tied to musk. A well balanced portfolio has exposure to virtually everything on this planet. You buy nappies, you’re indirectly financing Musk. You post “i really want this” on hn, you’re indirectly financing Musk.
> If you realize how bad the people are, you can do something about it.
The problem is you have no idea what people are invested in what companies. How do you know that when you shop at $friendlySustainableCompany that people like Musk do not have shares there?
What makes Musk different than Blackrock for instance? Or Monsanto, or Shell, or any corporation both of us rely on and support, in return for being able to eat, fuel our car, etc.
Is it because Musk isn't lobbying behind the corporation but doing it publically?
I truly don't understand where ya'll draw the line.
I truly don't care what other people do or want, I just look to ensure I can live the life I desire while respecting that which others want or impose.
As if me being angry or boycotting them will change their hearts. If it changes anything it's their tactics (more deception).
Another example is AI. I despise it, and honestly think it's evil. Yet I'm using it to secure financial stability in a way that does not require AI to sustain.
So when AI takes over my programming job I have the alternative already running, thanks to AI.
Don't reject the massive advantages of Starlink because of a man, just as you're not actively starving yourself despite our food supply being basically poison, caused by boards of men.
This passionate apologia of nihilism is not consistent with not caring what other people do or want. If "virtue signalling" elicits such reaction, perhaps it's actually working. Besides, voting with your wallet, an actual tangible action, is not virtue signalling.
If you ever visit Bonaire let me know and I can show you the abundance of life we are stewarding on my land.
It's mostly setting healthy boundaries on what we perceive we can affect. I don't buy American food (except Cocoa Rice Crispies), functionally it's a boycott. Is that the reasoning? No, it just tastes like crap.
Choosing to stand up for your principles in one instance, doesn't mean you suddenly have to fight all the battles all at once, even those that aren't apparent you (yet). How do you know this person is not choosing principles on other occasions already? IMO doing this is better than doing nothing. You can always choose to pick up more battles later. Other people can fight the other fights. Everyone always choosing self over principles will be worse in the long run
You have a service you want, but subscribing to it is a clear and direct way to financially support the advancement of fascist, extremist political groups and regimes pushing alarmingly racist and xenophobic policies not only in the US but also across the world.
Does your convenience justify a totalitarian shift? I don't think so. Do you think it does?
Wisdom is preparing for the shift using any legal means neccesary.
Morals are a mostly internal issue anyway, not based on solely external actions. You know the whole stealing bread to feed hungry children idea.
What you are doing we teach our kids to be virtue signaling.
Nobody is saying or at least I am not assuming you support Musk if you have Starlink. I simply think you have need for sattelite internet.
Just like I don't automatically assume your reason for eating meat (if you do) is to show your approval for modern slaughtering practices. Or if you wear clothing... does that mean you support exploitative labour?
Also FYI nobody really cares about American policies outside the US. We're mostly busy insulating ourselves from the effects we're perceiving.
More European food cause your food is now weird, more Chinese stuff since you don't manufacture much anymore, less media content cause they all want to teach our kids about more genders we know about.
But we do love Starlink! Fastest internet we ever had here.
> Modern journalism goes for clicks, which means generating outrage.
Is this about journalists talking about musk, or about musk himself? I mostly learn about his views through his own tweets that twitter always makes sure to serve me in my home page, and "goes for clicks"/"generating outrage" seems to fit well how musk uses his platform. In any case, his politics seem awful to me even without any journalistic mediation of them.
Sure, and anyone who thinks that was a Nazi salute fell victim to clickbait.
"My heart goes out to you" with a throwing gesture that ends with your arm outstretched. Of course, only the final position was blasted all over the press.
> Sure, and anyone who thinks that was a Nazi salute fell victim to clickbait.
You need to be terribly naive to ignore the fact that the guy known for supporting a swath of fascist and far-right groups, to the point the guy even hosts their events, wasn't casually throwing around Nazi salutes.
Did you see what DOGE did to the government? In particular to USAID? Estimates are that this has already killed hundreds of thousands of people who relied on that aid.
The issue isn't just Musk's politics. It's that his actions have been evil, the kind of negative impact that major wars have.
We're talking something like 1 million dead people per year with a quarter of those being children. For a level of assistance that cost the US nothing (0.43% of federal spending). This is an evil that in a few years puts you on the list of biggest mass murderers in history.
A mobile failover would be cheaper and would give you better connectivity in heavy rain.
A 4G dongle can be purchased for $15, rather than $200 for a Starlink Mini. Then, let's say your main internet source fails and you need to actually use the backup plan beyond the standby amount of 0.5 Mbps. That will cost you a minimum of $50 for Starlink, versus roughly $25 for a month of unlimited cell service. As for standby costs, you can find phone plans for $5 per month tat give a small amount of fast data, as opposed to Starlink's unlimited amount of slow data.
But of course this only works for areas that actually have cell service.
Yup, OP is from the UK. In the UK I got a ThreeUK business SIM for £49 that lasted 2 years with 500GB data. It sits in wan failover and manages about 50mbps which is perfect to keep most services running.
Very much location dependent though. I lived less than a mile from Southampton city centre for a while and could never get anything close to dial-up standard download/upload speeds.
I've heard similar from London residents.
Again this is location specific. I have a mini ups on my router/ont. And I assume that my provider also has a UPS, because even when power is out my landline connection just works.
I prefer having a 2nd wired connection as my backup. The satellite connection has some clear benefits, but it's still going to outer space. A DOCSIS failover won't suffer from rain fade or a something landing on the antenna.
If I've got a situation so bad it takes out both of my connections I've probably got bigger things to deal with than internet access.
The buried fiber getting cut by is really the only thing that kills the connection. Fiber can go for a long time without power from the local grid infrastructure. My cable provider has a mostly orthogonal failure mode (goes down like clockwork with the grid).
It honestly has to be very strong rain for it to create connection issues. I dont know where you live but here in germany we have that maybe once or twice a year with our antenna.
I can't give money to Musk. I just can't. OP doesn't live in the US, so maybe they don't feel this quite as acutely, but it's difficult to name someone who has done quite so much long-term damage to the US in such a short time.
> OP doesn't live in the US, so maybe they don't feel this quite as acutely
It's the same sentiment in large parts of Europe, and a major reason for dropping Tesla sales. He actively supports right-wing, eurosceptic politics and parties in several European countries.
As an astronomer, nothing meaningful. Oh, apart from making it possible for me to have a dark sky site that’s miles from anywhere, including the nearest cell tower.
Man, that 500kbit/s is quite generous for that price, can easily be used to access CCTV cameras in remote areas. I currently use LTE for that and it's 10 eur for 15GB data cap per month for that use case
I also do this. Xfinity went out for a few hours earlier this month and Unifi failed over almost instantly, and within minutes we had high speed internet once I upgraded us. The standby mode would have been plenty for basic web browsing, too.
$5/mo for pretty guaranteed connectivity, plus being able to take it around with me on travels is pretty awesome.
What is the role of Unifi here? I read the article and went to their site but I still have no clue.
Most likely to be a router, configured to fail over.
I really REALLY want this, but I just can't give money to Musk.
I guarantee you, you’re giving money to people much worse than him every time you shop, without realizing it.
Yeah but that doesn't mean that you should give money to people where you know for sure they suck?
For all other cases, you can still try to not give money to people who suck by going for fair trade products and stuff like that.
> I guarantee you, you’re giving money to people much worse than him every time you shop, without realizing it.
Your assumption lies on the "without realizing it".
If you realize how bad the people are, you can do something about it.
The likes of Musk are extremely bad, and have been personally responsible for many, many abhorrent developments in both national and foreign stages.
Thus, it's natural that people avoid anything which is directly and indirectly tied to the likes of Elon Musk.
Don't you agree?
Everything is indirectly tied to musk. A well balanced portfolio has exposure to virtually everything on this planet. You buy nappies, you’re indirectly financing Musk. You post “i really want this” on hn, you’re indirectly financing Musk.
> If you realize how bad the people are, you can do something about it.
The problem is you have no idea what people are invested in what companies. How do you know that when you shop at $friendlySustainableCompany that people like Musk do not have shares there?
I don't understand this mentality.
What makes Musk different than Blackrock for instance? Or Monsanto, or Shell, or any corporation both of us rely on and support, in return for being able to eat, fuel our car, etc.
Is it because Musk isn't lobbying behind the corporation but doing it publically?
I truly don't understand where ya'll draw the line.
I truly don't care what other people do or want, I just look to ensure I can live the life I desire while respecting that which others want or impose. As if me being angry or boycotting them will change their hearts. If it changes anything it's their tactics (more deception).
Another example is AI. I despise it, and honestly think it's evil. Yet I'm using it to secure financial stability in a way that does not require AI to sustain.
So when AI takes over my programming job I have the alternative already running, thanks to AI.
Don't reject the massive advantages of Starlink because of a man, just as you're not actively starving yourself despite our food supply being basically poison, caused by boards of men.
This passionate apologia of nihilism is not consistent with not caring what other people do or want. If "virtue signalling" elicits such reaction, perhaps it's actually working. Besides, voting with your wallet, an actual tangible action, is not virtue signalling.
How is it nihilism?
If you ever visit Bonaire let me know and I can show you the abundance of life we are stewarding on my land.
It's mostly setting healthy boundaries on what we perceive we can affect. I don't buy American food (except Cocoa Rice Crispies), functionally it's a boycott. Is that the reasoning? No, it just tastes like crap.
Choosing to stand up for your principles in one instance, doesn't mean you suddenly have to fight all the battles all at once, even those that aren't apparent you (yet). How do you know this person is not choosing principles on other occasions already? IMO doing this is better than doing nothing. You can always choose to pick up more battles later. Other people can fight the other fights. Everyone always choosing self over principles will be worse in the long run
How do you know that the shareholders and directors of the places you shop arent secretly way worse than Musk?
I literally don't, so I don't choose to be a moral warrior in that area. I would say healthiness is the main driver there.
There I read the labels and where possible buy local.
I think this is one of my favorite comments on HN. Thank you for putting it into words.
> I don't understand this mentality.
I think it's pretty easy to understand.
You have a service you want, but subscribing to it is a clear and direct way to financially support the advancement of fascist, extremist political groups and regimes pushing alarmingly racist and xenophobic policies not only in the US but also across the world.
Does your convenience justify a totalitarian shift? I don't think so. Do you think it does?
It's going to shift anyway.
Wisdom is preparing for the shift using any legal means neccesary.
Morals are a mostly internal issue anyway, not based on solely external actions. You know the whole stealing bread to feed hungry children idea.
What you are doing we teach our kids to be virtue signaling. Nobody is saying or at least I am not assuming you support Musk if you have Starlink. I simply think you have need for sattelite internet.
Just like I don't automatically assume your reason for eating meat (if you do) is to show your approval for modern slaughtering practices. Or if you wear clothing... does that mean you support exploitative labour?
Also FYI nobody really cares about American policies outside the US. We're mostly busy insulating ourselves from the effects we're perceiving.
More European food cause your food is now weird, more Chinese stuff since you don't manufacture much anymore, less media content cause they all want to teach our kids about more genders we know about.
But we do love Starlink! Fastest internet we ever had here.
You know if your internet drops out you could just use your phone or idk not have internet for a bit.
You dont NEED a starlink like you need food or being able to commute etc.
Tesla, starlink are more a luxury for an average hn user.
My local internet is 5 Mbit. I am a programmer. Average latency to servers I work on is 200ms.
Tell me more about how Starlink is a luxury.
Especially considering it's a full $10 less than the monthly robbery by our local Telco.
I'm a fairly average HN user but I earn my livelihood by working from home. Backup connectivity is cheap.
His politics are less extreme than you probably think. Modern journalism goes for clicks, which means generating outrage.
> Modern journalism goes for clicks, which means generating outrage.
Is this about journalists talking about musk, or about musk himself? I mostly learn about his views through his own tweets that twitter always makes sure to serve me in my home page, and "goes for clicks"/"generating outrage" seems to fit well how musk uses his platform. In any case, his politics seem awful to me even without any journalistic mediation of them.
I've seen his tweets direct. You don't have to spin his opinions for them to look horrendous.
> His politics are less extreme than you probably think.
Just look at the whole DOGE mess. Brush aside anything you believe can be brushed aside due to incompetence. Look at the result.
Explain exactly what can possibly lead you to believe that his politics are less extreme than you possibly think.
You're talking about the Nazi salute guy, by the way.
Sure, and anyone who thinks that was a Nazi salute fell victim to clickbait.
"My heart goes out to you" with a throwing gesture that ends with your arm outstretched. Of course, only the final position was blasted all over the press.
> Sure, and anyone who thinks that was a Nazi salute fell victim to clickbait.
You need to be terribly naive to ignore the fact that the guy known for supporting a swath of fascist and far-right groups, to the point the guy even hosts their events, wasn't casually throwing around Nazi salutes.
Did you see what DOGE did to the government? In particular to USAID? Estimates are that this has already killed hundreds of thousands of people who relied on that aid.
The issue isn't just Musk's politics. It's that his actions have been evil, the kind of negative impact that major wars have.
We're talking something like 1 million dead people per year with a quarter of those being children. For a level of assistance that cost the US nothing (0.43% of federal spending). This is an evil that in a few years puts you on the list of biggest mass murderers in history.
This, I refuse to use anything he is even remotely part of.
[flagged]
Why is not using a product based on cultural or political reasons make you part of a cult?
Because when you derive your values from what others around you think, rather than from first principles, you are indeed in a cult.
[flagged]
Why? Hackers using / not using products or creating products based on political or cultural reasons was a thing looong before reddit.
A mobile failover would be cheaper and would give you better connectivity in heavy rain.
A 4G dongle can be purchased for $15, rather than $200 for a Starlink Mini. Then, let's say your main internet source fails and you need to actually use the backup plan beyond the standby amount of 0.5 Mbps. That will cost you a minimum of $50 for Starlink, versus roughly $25 for a month of unlimited cell service. As for standby costs, you can find phone plans for $5 per month tat give a small amount of fast data, as opposed to Starlink's unlimited amount of slow data.
But of course this only works for areas that actually have cell service.
Using a 4g/5g router is much easier and probably cheaper/power efficient.
Depending on your area you don't even need an external one. A simple 4g dongle would do.
Unifi (which the OP uses) even has dedicated devices for this type of failover: https://help.ui.com/hc/en-us/articles/29887153953559-UniFi-5...
Yup, OP is from the UK. In the UK I got a ThreeUK business SIM for £49 that lasted 2 years with 500GB data. It sits in wan failover and manages about 50mbps which is perfect to keep most services running.
Very much location dependent though. I lived less than a mile from Southampton city centre for a while and could never get anything close to dial-up standard download/upload speeds. I've heard similar from London residents.
Yeah definitely. Where I am the coverage and speeds are decent on most networks.
When here is local power outage and everyone switches to 4g/5g, it is overwhelmed and unusable.
Again this is location specific. I have a mini ups on my router/ont. And I assume that my provider also has a UPS, because even when power is out my landline connection just works.
And the local power outage takes out the 4g/5g mast too.
I prefer having a 2nd wired connection as my backup. The satellite connection has some clear benefits, but it's still going to outer space. A DOCSIS failover won't suffer from rain fade or a something landing on the antenna.
If I've got a situation so bad it takes out both of my connections I've probably got bigger things to deal with than internet access.
The buried fiber getting cut by is really the only thing that kills the connection. Fiber can go for a long time without power from the local grid infrastructure. My cable provider has a mostly orthogonal failure mode (goes down like clockwork with the grid).
It honestly has to be very strong rain for it to create connection issues. I dont know where you live but here in germany we have that maybe once or twice a year with our antenna.
I can't give money to Musk. I just can't. OP doesn't live in the US, so maybe they don't feel this quite as acutely, but it's difficult to name someone who has done quite so much long-term damage to the US in such a short time.
> OP doesn't live in the US, so maybe they don't feel this quite as acutely
It's the same sentiment in large parts of Europe, and a major reason for dropping Tesla sales. He actively supports right-wing, eurosceptic politics and parties in several European countries.
That and what it's done for ground based astronomy.
What has it done for ground based astronomy?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/spacexs-dark-sate...
Even more distressing is that the photo is from 2019.
As an astronomer, nothing meaningful. Oh, apart from making it possible for me to have a dark sky site that’s miles from anywhere, including the nearest cell tower.
Bastards.
I agree. As much as Starlink is a technological miracle, the fact that I should finance the dealings of this man is too much.
SpaceX IPO is the next in the long grift chain.
Let me guess, spacex have never had a single successful launch, right? Bezos is way ahead - and he’s such a great guy!
Man, that 500kbit/s is quite generous for that price, can easily be used to access CCTV cameras in remote areas. I currently use LTE for that and it's 10 eur for 15GB data cap per month for that use case
TIL standby mode. Is that enough to operate a remote webcam? Not real time video feed but say uploading a photo every 1 minute or so
Apparently you get unlimited data capped at 500 kbit/s. So that would be a clear "yes".
You can find something similar with IOT sims. And then you just need a standard 4g/5g dongle/router