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Cake day: March 23rd, 2022

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  • I hate Musk and his companies just as much as the next person on here, but in this case it’s a physical limitation. Starlink, as well as all the other orbital mesh networks in construction or proposed, all have to deal with these issues or simply not exist (I personally don’t think such orbital meshes should exist).

    We already have satellite internet using satellites in geostationary orbit. Those can stay up for a long time (they’ll function until the satellite hardware fails, then continue to orbit for thousands of years), but they’re much more expensive to launch and performance is really bad with regards to latency and bandwidth because they’re few and very far away.

    Starlink tried something new, which was a low earth orbit positioning for better internet performance, but that means you need lots of satellites since they’re so close to the earth, and they come down relatively quickly due to atmospheric drag. Even at the 550km or so where Starlink is orbiting, there is enough atmosphere to create drag that eventually pulls satellites down, unless they have propulsion of their own which adds weight, cost, and complexity. And even then, the satellites will come down once something fails or propulsion fuel runs out.






  • I’ll see if I can listen later today.

    On first thought, this is proof of US influence. Sure the currently governing US capitalist faction (tech billionaires) likely won’t see their party of choice (AfD) in government, but the traditional Wall Street and MIC establishment will be very happy to see a hawkish Chancellor from Blackrock in Berlin.

    But of course this result was made possible by older people voting CDU as they always have, regardless of the candidates, contemporary policies, and conditions. Younger people tended to vote for non-centrist alternatives, whether reactionary or nominally leftist.