The devices—developed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX—have a warming feature to prevent snow built up from disrupting the signal
discuss
so disappointed in all of you, i missed the original struggle session and i honestly have no idea what it was actually about, and now all of you are refusing to relitigate it for my entertainment
so fine, ill start, outdoor cats...good? fite me cowards :meow-knife-trans:
The phrase "outdoor cat" is a cognitohazard, and as such may not be discussed openly.
Seriously, if we start talking about it now there will just be another argument. It's not worth it
Id rather be a dick to cats and keep the environment good.
Fine, I’ll divulge the forbidden knowledge
From what I remember someone posted an article saying that outdoor cats disturbed the ecosystem by killing too many birds (their words, not mine) in around the first month of the site’s existence and it led to the front page being filled with discussion and memes about it for the next few days
Outdoor cats also spread a disease that causes miscarriages in both humans and other mammals.
If there were no outdoor cats most indoor cats would be healthier. Feline AIDs only exists because of outdoor cats now.
discuss
Can we discuss that like all Musk enterprises, there already exists a technology and means of giving people something that doesn't invent these kinds of problems? The reason why rural people don't have internet in the US is not because running lines is really hard. It's because a for-profit business doesn't fined it profitable to run lines to sparse rural areas. It east into their profit margins. It's also not like those companies haven't been heavily subsidized to do the job either. The money was there the businesses just refused to use it because of the lack of strings attached to the grants. That's doesn't change that wires fucking exist and work if you take the time to install them. Yes there are places that's it is actually impossible to run lines to, but we have wireless solutions for those people.
Instead the solution is to give Musk all the money to fly dozens/hundreds of rockets into space, dropping off space trash, and using satellite dishes to receive the world's highest ping. But there's snow so the dishes need to be heated, and now they have to be made animal-proof. The solution causes more problems and requires more technology precisely because moneyed interests run the world. It's not an actual technical problem that needs Innovation™️ to solve.
In fact if we dump all those resources used by Musk into the existing technology, then it would improve and be more useful to everyone, even the non-rural people. How many people with terrestrial fiber connections or 5G are going to give that up for Starlink? Fucking none. So the grand special innovative solution isn't even useful to people.
can't wait until the solution isnt to make a better design but to cause preventable cruelty to the animals that dare get near one these devices
I was previously neutral on outdoor cats but this has really put a PAW on the scales in their favor.
Are we sure Starlink dishes actually have a heating feature or do they just run hot for some bullshit reason?
They're apparently only rated to -5c / 22f. I don't think Snow was high on the design priority list here truth be told.
