What Happened After Starlink's Satellite Internet Service Arrived in Ukraine? (yahoo.com) 145
The Washington Post looks at what happened after Starlink activated its satellite-based internet service to help Ukraine:
Ukraine has already received thousands of antennas from Musk's companies and European allies, which has proved "very effective," Ukraine's minister of digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov said in an interview with The Washington Post Friday. "The quality of the link is excellent," Fedorov said through a translator, using a Starlink connection from an undisclosed location. "We are using thousands, in the area of thousands, of terminals with new shipments arriving every other day...." A person familiar with Starlink's effort in Ukraine, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said there are more than 5,000 terminals in the country....
Internet flows deteriorated on the first day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 and have not fully recovered, according to data-monitoring services. But since that initial dip, connectivity has remained fairly stable, with mainly temporary, isolated outages even during heavy Russian shelling. "Every day there are outages, but generally service comes back," said Doug Madory, director of Internet analysis for Kentik, which monitors global data flows.
Even before Fedorov tweeted at Musk for help, SpaceX was working on a way to get Starlink to Ukraine. President and COO Gwynne Shotwell said in a talk at California Institute of Technology this month that the company had been working for several weeks to get regulatory approval to allow the satellites to communicate in Ukraine.
In addition, the Washington Post reports, this week on Twitter Elon Musk also "challenged Putin to a fight and followed up by pledging he would use just one hand if Putin was scared. And he told Putin he could bring a bear." Reached for comment by the Post's reporters, Elon Musk responded by telling The Post to give his regards "to your puppet master Besos," following it with two emojis.
But the Post's article also argues Starlink's technology "could have widespread implications for the future of war. Internet has become an essential tool for communication, staying informed and even powering weapons." And The Telegraph reports that Starlink "is helping Ukrainian forces win the drone war as they use the technology in their effort to track and kill invading Russians." In the vanguard of Ukraine's astonishingly effective military effort against Vladimir Putin's forces is a unit called Aerorozvidka (Aerial Reconnaissance) which is using surveillance and attack drones to target Russian tanks and positions. Amid internet and power outages, which are expected to get worse, Ukraine is turning to the newly available Starlink system for some of its communications. Drone teams in the field, sometimes in badly connected rural areas, are able to use Starlink to connect them to targeters and intelligence on their battlefield database. They can direct the drones to drop anti-tank munitions, sometimes flying up silently to Russian forces at night as they sleep in their vehicles...
Should Ukraine's internet largely collapse, the "drone warriors" of Aerorozvidka would still be able to communicate with their bases by sending signals from mobile Starlink terminals, and using ground stations in neighbouring countries including Poland.... As Ukraine's internet is inevitably degraded, Starlink will be an alternative. General James Dickinson, commander of US Space Command, told the Senate armed services committee: "What we're seeing with Elon Musk and the Starlink capabilities is really showing us what a megaconstellation, or a proliferated architecture, can provide in terms of redundancy and capability."
It's not all Starlink. The Telegraph points out that "The Ukrainian system benefitted from equipment given by Western countries, including radio communications which superceded Soviet-era technology, and the US has also poured in millions of dollars to protect against Russian hacking, jamming of signals and attempts to 'spoof' GPS technology."
And meanwhile, weakness in Russia's own communications infrastructure may have played a role in the killing of five senior Russian generals in the last three weeks, according to a recent CNN interview with retired U.S. army general and former CIA director David Petraeus: "The bottom line is that [Russia's] command-and-control has broken down. Their communications have been jammed by the Ukranians.
Their secure comms didn't work. They had to go single-channel. That's jammable, and that's exactly what the Ukranians have been doing to that. They used cellphones. The Ukranians blocked the prefix for Russia, so that didn't work. Then they took down 3G. [The Russians] are literally stealing cellphones from Ukranian civilians to communicate among each other.
So what happens? The column gets stopped. An impatient general is sitting back there in his armored or whatever vehicle. He goes forward to find out what's going on... And the Ukranians have very, very good snipers, and they've just been picking them off left and right.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for submitting the story.
Internet flows deteriorated on the first day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 and have not fully recovered, according to data-monitoring services. But since that initial dip, connectivity has remained fairly stable, with mainly temporary, isolated outages even during heavy Russian shelling. "Every day there are outages, but generally service comes back," said Doug Madory, director of Internet analysis for Kentik, which monitors global data flows.
Even before Fedorov tweeted at Musk for help, SpaceX was working on a way to get Starlink to Ukraine. President and COO Gwynne Shotwell said in a talk at California Institute of Technology this month that the company had been working for several weeks to get regulatory approval to allow the satellites to communicate in Ukraine.
In addition, the Washington Post reports, this week on Twitter Elon Musk also "challenged Putin to a fight and followed up by pledging he would use just one hand if Putin was scared. And he told Putin he could bring a bear." Reached for comment by the Post's reporters, Elon Musk responded by telling The Post to give his regards "to your puppet master Besos," following it with two emojis.
But the Post's article also argues Starlink's technology "could have widespread implications for the future of war. Internet has become an essential tool for communication, staying informed and even powering weapons." And The Telegraph reports that Starlink "is helping Ukrainian forces win the drone war as they use the technology in their effort to track and kill invading Russians." In the vanguard of Ukraine's astonishingly effective military effort against Vladimir Putin's forces is a unit called Aerorozvidka (Aerial Reconnaissance) which is using surveillance and attack drones to target Russian tanks and positions. Amid internet and power outages, which are expected to get worse, Ukraine is turning to the newly available Starlink system for some of its communications. Drone teams in the field, sometimes in badly connected rural areas, are able to use Starlink to connect them to targeters and intelligence on their battlefield database. They can direct the drones to drop anti-tank munitions, sometimes flying up silently to Russian forces at night as they sleep in their vehicles...
Should Ukraine's internet largely collapse, the "drone warriors" of Aerorozvidka would still be able to communicate with their bases by sending signals from mobile Starlink terminals, and using ground stations in neighbouring countries including Poland.... As Ukraine's internet is inevitably degraded, Starlink will be an alternative. General James Dickinson, commander of US Space Command, told the Senate armed services committee: "What we're seeing with Elon Musk and the Starlink capabilities is really showing us what a megaconstellation, or a proliferated architecture, can provide in terms of redundancy and capability."
It's not all Starlink. The Telegraph points out that "The Ukrainian system benefitted from equipment given by Western countries, including radio communications which superceded Soviet-era technology, and the US has also poured in millions of dollars to protect against Russian hacking, jamming of signals and attempts to 'spoof' GPS technology."
And meanwhile, weakness in Russia's own communications infrastructure may have played a role in the killing of five senior Russian generals in the last three weeks, according to a recent CNN interview with retired U.S. army general and former CIA director David Petraeus: "The bottom line is that [Russia's] command-and-control has broken down. Their communications have been jammed by the Ukranians.
Their secure comms didn't work. They had to go single-channel. That's jammable, and that's exactly what the Ukranians have been doing to that. They used cellphones. The Ukranians blocked the prefix for Russia, so that didn't work. Then they took down 3G. [The Russians] are literally stealing cellphones from Ukranian civilians to communicate among each other.
So what happens? The column gets stopped. An impatient general is sitting back there in his armored or whatever vehicle. He goes forward to find out what's going on... And the Ukranians have very, very good snipers, and they've just been picking them off left and right.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for submitting the story.
21.th century (Score:5, Interesting)
putin was trying to fight a 20th century war in the 21st century.
It was really interesting, and *uplinking* to see an essentially private citizen (Elon Musk) giving a huge intelligence assistance to a state army. Not only that, but advice to use it safely in order not to be targeted by triangulation attacks.
And seeing Russia fail to adopt with times, and using local cell towers, and being triangulated. This way they lost multiple generals to simple phone calls (and precision strikes).
The game has changed. With Internet, drones, information/disinformation campaigns, real time geotagging, battles will not be the same. Ukraine is paying a very heavy price, and we also get to learn the new rules along the way.
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Re: 21.th century (Score:2)
Re: 21.th century (Score:5, Insightful)
There's only one country that has used nuclear weapons in warfare. They targeted civilians with them too.
To be fair, that was prior to the fourth Geneva Convention, which made targeting civilians illegal. Prior to that, targeting civilians was not against any international laws. That's why during WWII, the world witnessed the German bombings of London, Warsaw, Rotterdam, and Belgrade, the Japanese bombing of Chongqing, the Allied bombings of Dresden and Hamburg, etc. Sure, those didn't kill as many civilians in a single day as Hiroshima or Nagasaki, but many were in the same order of magnitude, just spread over a longer period of time.
Heck, depending on which estimates you use, the U.S. and England may have killed about as many civilians while liberating France as were killed in either Nagasaki or Hiroshima. And France wasn't even the enemy. World War II was just plain messy, and the civilian death toll was horrible all around.
And to play devil's advocate for a moment, the horror of those nuclear attacks likely played a key role in driving the global realization that civilian casualties were getting too extreme in modern wars, which resulted in the entire world agreeing to the fourth Geneva Convention banning intentional attacks on civilian targets back in 1949. So in a perverse manner of speaking, the world is considerably safer because of that act, horrible as it was.
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To be fair, that was prior to the fourth Geneva Convention, which made targeting civilians illegal.
Even more specifically, terms equivalent to the fourth Geneva Convention had been proposed prior to WWII. Germany, with Japanese support, chose to block those terms because they aimed to use, and in the end did use, mass bombing during the war. Complaining, after the fact, that you turned out to not be as good at the use of a tactic as your opponent is a true sign of hypocrisy.
Re: 21.th century (Score:2)
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That's why during WWII, the world witnessed the German bombings of London, Warsaw, Rotterdam, and Belgrade, the Japanese bombing of Chongqing, the Allied bombings of Dresden and Hamburg, etc. Sure, those didn't kill as many civilians in a single day as Hiroshima or Nagasaki, but many were in the same order of magnitude, just spread over a longer period of time.
The firebombings were more destructive than the atomic bombs.
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Have you read the testimony of people like the emperor of Japan and of Japanese commanders? The nukes frightened the Japanese into immediate surrender rather than a brutal and protracted war.
Re: 21.th century (Score:5, Informative)
Where are you finding such claims? The Wikipedia article is fair and lists contrasting analyses. I'm afraid that the "they were ready to surrender" claims are tremendously optimistic.
The Japanese emperor discussed, with McArthur, the difficulty he'd had trying and failing to rein in the most aggressive generals. As horrid as as the nuclear results were, it's astonishingly easy to underestimate the number of boots on the ground needed for a military conquest of an entire nation, especially a remote one.
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I gave up correcting the bullshit WP entry years ago, including links to reports in US newspapers which openly covered (celebrated, even) this in 1946, before the official line changed. The reason for the airbrushing of the true story seems to have been the realisation that radiation made nuclear attacks on civilians a much more horrific thing than "just" a big bomb. It took quite a while for the US to even admit that radiation sickness was happening among the survivors. So the idea that the US had just don
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It is recorded history that Japan's original objection to surrender was its objection to dismissing its emperor and under MacArthur's takeover the Japanese government retained its emperor. It us total propaganda that the atomic bombing prevented a bloody final battle against surrender. It was Truman's decision to unnecessarily murder many helpless Japanese civilians to convince the Russians that nuclear weapons gave the USA absolute power to dominate the world and both MacArthur and Eisenhower made public statements to confirm that the use of atomic bombs was totally unnecessary.
**citation needed...
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I'd agree that one critical objection by Japanese patriots was dismissing their own emperor. The emperor, himself, was appalled by the war, and managed to convince McArthur of his sincerity and desire to save his nation from devastating destruction. The emperor had to overcome a military coup by his own officers in order to surrender. The emperor had to step outside of centuries of bureaucratic isolation: it was a surprise that he managed to do so.
MacArthur.... was a very optimistic and aggressive US comman
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I doubt if Putin's generals would obey an order to launch nukes against Ukraine. They would probably shoot Putin in the head after such an order.
That's not a gamble I would take lightly though. This is the only planet I can live on!
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an essentially private citizen (Elon Musk) giving a huge intelligence assistance to a state army.
It has happened before: Juan Pujol Garcia [wikipedia.org].
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While that Juan Pujol Garcia's contributions are praiseworthy and heroic, it doesn't compare in scale to what Musk is doing. I'd be surprised if there has been a time in the past few hundred years where a private citizen had so much power that they could meaningfully influence the course of a war like this.
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The world has changed.. the demands of the world have changed, and the USSR (as a concept in his mind) is legacy..
Its basically the Russian equivalent of "America First" and "Make America Great Again".. (just swap America for USSR)
Re: 21.th century (Score:2)
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Russia claims to have used a hypersonic missile. If they are in the mood for testing their 21st century weapons, I wonder if taking out a Starlink satellite might be on the cards.
What would the implication of taking out a privately owned satellite that belongs to a US company? Not enough to get NATO involved I would guess.
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Russia depends on space as much as anyone else. Push them far enough down the economic collapse hole though, and they will have less to lose.
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Russia claims to have used a hypersonic missile. If they are in the mood for testing their 21st century weapons, I wonder if taking out a Starlink satellite might be on the cards.
What would the implication of taking out a privately owned satellite that belongs to a US company? Not enough to get NATO involved I would guess.
A military attack on a US owned satellite could definitely be enough to trigger article 5 however it becomes a US choice since they can either decide to do that or not. Biden is lying when he claims that fighting between the US and Russia is automatically WWIII. There have been plenty of limited actions that didn't go far. E.g. the shooting down of spy planes etc. etc. etc. The response to a Russian attack on a US satellite could be to destroy all Russian satellites with the hope that things stop at that s
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Destroying all Russia satellites would be a major escalation, and also create a vast amount of debris in orbit that would probably prohibit everyone from using it.
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You are wrong, there is no "etc. etc. etc." There has been ONE intentional, acknowledged killing in direct conflict between the US and USSR / Russia during the entirety of the cold war, and that was the downing of a U2 over Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis, during which the world came incredibly
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You are wrong, there is no "etc. etc. etc." There has been ONE intentional, acknowledged killing in direct conflict between the US and USSR / Russia during the entirety of the cold war, and that was the downing of a U2 over Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis, during which the world came incredibly close to utter destruction. It could have gone either way, really.
The obvious one, given what you said is the Gary Powers U2 incident. However, there are 18 air to air combat losses alone listed in Wikipedia under the cold war ignoring both the Korean and Vietnam wars [wikipedia.org]. In both of those wars there were official US pilots facing off against Soviet "trainers" who were on the Red Army payroll but pretending not to be. In Grenada 30 Soviet advisors were captured, though I believe that they didn't resist so you might not count that? There were also reputedly some special ope
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In checking that wikipedia page and its main source [archive.org] at least a couple examples do seem to conflict with what I stated, which is weird since I read the claim recently. Maybe there was an extra caveat on it that I didn't notice.
I do also think there have been numerous unacknowledged intentional killings in US / Soviet/Russia relations. But it makes things much harder to keep from spiraling out of control whe
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I think this stuff has been kept deliberately murky. E.g. pilot spots lost plane from the other side, deliberately shoots it down. Local commanders decide nothing really happened. Nobody admits that there was an incident at all. There are probably a bunch of interesting definitions floating around making it difficult to understand who is really claiming what, often exactly with the aim of confusing public opinion. If you find some interesting stuff please do put a comment up.
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Note this article on Military liaison missions [wikipedia.org] which includes actual official military people being shot on the ground and even getting talked about in congress.
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Have a look at this image [aljazeera.com]. Sitting front and centre is Putin trying to project the image of man in charge of nation with a modern powerful military. He apparently unaware the equipment to his left is so old many western teenagers may not recognise as a land line phone and a PABX switch board.
I hope for his sake it isn't digital switch board. If it is he has no hope of getting replacement electronic parts for it as they all come from the wes
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putin was trying to fight a 20th century war in the 21st century.
I hope it is not the case. Nuclear weapons are 20th century weapons. Firebombing cities, agent orange, mustard gas, etc... all 20th century.
There is a reason we don't have ridiculously powerful nuclear bombs like the Tsar bomb anymore. These were weapons designed to destroy their targets even if they missed. Want another idea of a 20th century weapon? Look at "project Pluto". A planned nuclear powered cruise missile capable of delivering multiple hydrogen bombs while leaving a trail of radioactive exhaust o
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Putin was trying to fight a 20th century war in the 21st century.
Putin was not attempting to fight any war at all. What has been revealed from their logistics and planning is that they clearly never expected any resistance in Ukraine. It would be like Crimea or maybe the recent collapse of Afghanistan.
Sure they moved lots of people and hardware around, mostly to set off fireworks to scare Ukraine into submission. But it was all supposed to be over with in a couple of days, with the arrest, death, or exile of Zelenskyy the well-known Nazi. A Splendid Little War.
Of
Re: 21.th century (Score:2)
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This post oozes "I live in my moms basement".
Well at least the basement is not one of the Russian soldier's family zemlyankas, but a normal basement with flowing water and electricity.
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He's your typical whiner. Tries to talk game but can't stand his ground when challenged and immediately retreats. It's why there is no longer a PR group at Tesla. Every word would have to be vetted before it sent out a tweet due to Musk's previous copious lies which the SEC called him out on.
Re: Cat got your tongue? (something important seem (Score:4, Insightful)
Honestly I see no reason to stop somebody from belittling Hitler, or wannabe Hitlers like Putin. And to be honest, if I had to pick any billionaires for providing the most benefit to humanity, it's definitely Elon Musk, and definitely not Jeff Bezos. Musk's only fault is that he's really eccentric, and the only people who it pisses off are prudes, his competitors, and people who tried to short his companies only to lose their asses financially. Everybody else doesn't really care what he says.
Re: Cat got your tongue? (something important seem (Score:5, Insightful)
You're glossing over his anti government tantrums of which there are many. He definitely frequently acts like he's above the rules and does so in extremely public fashion. You can tell his tantrums are all bullshit too because if any of them ever had any merit he'd be suing the government only he never does.
I don't think anyone really cares he gives his children robot names or any of the other eccentric stuff he does, I think a lot pf people just plain don't like billionaires who think they're above the rules. I know this is exactly the reason why I don't care for him as an individual.
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You're glossing over his anti government tantrums of which there are many.
Yeah, just like 3/4ths of the population in every democracy. What's your point?
He definitely frequently acts like he's above the rules and does so in extremely public fashion. You can tell his tantrums are all bullshit too because if any of them ever had any merit he'd be suing the government only he never does.
I'm not sure what you mean by public fashion. There's some guy that put up a twitter feed dedicated solely to tracking his whereabouts. He's also the richest guy on the planet. What exactly is he going to do that nobody will notice? Oh look at that, last week it was in the news that he's having a second child, which they actually tried to keep secret for a very long time. But media noticed, and now it's public. That's kind of how
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Yeah, just like 3/4ths of the population in every democracy. What's your point?
Yeah, I have no idea how you're getting that.
I'm not sure what you mean by public fashion
I mean regular Twitter posts very much in Trump fashion complaining about the man persecuting him. This has been fairly well documented on Slashdot.
But how bad is he really? Look at how Alec Baldwin...
No, I don't think I will. "Well sure this person raped someone but at least they're not a murderer". You can always point to someone worse, that doesn't mean a thing.
But you're going out of your way to brow tip a guy because he has a tendency of saying things that you think are a crime against humanity
And now you're just being a twit. I said I didn't like him as an individual, don't put fucking words in my mouth.
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But how bad is he really? Look at
blah blah blah shit that isn't relevant to how bad Elon Musk is or isn't.
The real problem with Elon is that he doesn't act like he has sycophants. The more people follow your lead, the more responsibility you have to consider the impact of your words and actions. None of those other people are at all relevant to this discussion.
If you think his behavior is acceptable, that says only things about you and nothing about him.
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OK, that prosecutor's a PC idiot, but the Obamas had nothing to do with it, so maybe you're a PC idiot, too, just for the other side.
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Musk's only fault is that he's really eccentric
That's not eccentricity. He exhibits enough symptoms of narcissism publicly for a positive diagnosis. But this is not exceptional. It would be very weird if he wasn't NPD. Since Putin will assassinate rivals, I'd appreciate it if Musk would STFU, because eve with his NPD, he is still somewhat of an American asset (not a national treasure, mind you, just an asset.)
Re: Cat got your tongue? (something important seem (Score:4, Insightful)
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It's currently above Bill Cosby.
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The word is he's kind of a dick in real life and doesn't tip wait staff.
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Why tip waitstaff? If they wanted a job that pays money, they should have gotten one.
Ah yes, those foolish poors.
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The guy's a child, but he's worshiped here as some sort of tech god. What gives?
One of the more popular gods sets people on fire for not worshipping him, so Elon's childish behavior is rookie-level at best.
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The guy's a child, but he's worshiped here as some sort of tech god. What gives?
Well, he's admired for accomplishing things (particularly at Tesla and SpaceX) that nobody else could for decades.
That said, you're right; he's become steadily more childish over time. I think he's suffering from the same sort of "I have become master of the universe, immune from all consequences" psychological issues that are effecting Putin's judgement. At least Musk doesn't have an army or a nuclear arsenal to mismanage.
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Because he calls his enemies "pedos" for no reason. That's the kind of tough guy he is.
Admirable attributes (Score:4, Insightful)
The guy's a child, but he's worshiped here as some sort of tech god. What gives?
Billionaire, genius, playboy philanthropist?
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Obviously, you need a little more schooling in pop culture.
I’m thinking he doesn’t have the suit to help out if Putin drops a missile on his Californian home, though.
Re: Cat got your tongue? (something important seem (Score:4, Interesting)
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You just described someone who only needs to sleep four hours a night, is autistic, and has a lot of money. A _lot_ of money.
So why don't we give lots of money to more autists? Look what can result..
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You just described someone who only needs to sleep four hours a night, is autistic, and has a lot of money. A _lot_ of money.
Putin and his cronies also have m.f. tons of money. I'm not sure that should be considered a differentiator of anything worthwhile.
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Almost all leadership is finding a parade, and jumping out in front of it. Musk has knack for repeating this, and doggedly taming the parade into whatever he wants from it.
Determination and brains are an interesting combination. If you consider that Apple is much the same, a dogged visionary beating design and vision into products, they also made a lot of dough in a similar way.
That he says strange things and can't seem to keep his personal relationships in order is part of the shtick. What Musk can do, is
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The big question right now is when Musk finally admits self driving wasn't possible (and he's been hinting at that, and it doesn't help his refusal to allow LIDAR to be a part of it has undermined his own engineers ability to produce a working product), is that going to create a wave of lawsuits that'll kill Tesla for good?
Surely you jest. I'm not saying truly full self-driving can be achieved using Tesla's existing camera system — there are serious resolution and angle limitations in the front-facing cameras that make handling cross traffic problematic, and the lack of any side-facing rear cameras is a show-stopper for backing out of any non-slanted nose-in parking place — but they've done a remarkable job at creating robust point clouds from camera data, making LIDAR largely moot.
Based on what we've seen in var
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he's bought a space ship company
What? When and which one?
Space X has benefited from very obviously not being run by Musk.
The company is literally being run by Musk and Shotwell, as CEO and CTO, and president and COO, respectively. So what exactly do you mean by that?
Since Musk took over, the positives inherent in the founding ideal have prevented Musk from doing too much damage,
You're making it sound like Tesla was heading in some glorious direction and then Musk came and almost drove it to the ground, when in reality Tesla was almost driven to the ground by Eberhard and then Musk, supported by the company board, had to step in.
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the government throws money at it too, and the government sets some rules so no matter what the kid wants, the space ship company actually does something useful
Interestingly enough this doesn't seem to be working out for Boeing et al. So if government throwing money at projects were a sufficient condition for success, as you seem to be suggesting, why is SpaceX so ahead of everyone else in the US? The government repeatedly throws *much* more money in directions different from SpaceX. For example in case of CCtCap, the government threw $2.6B at SpaceX and $4.2B at Boeing. [space.com] We all know the results -- SpaceX has had five crewed missions by now while Boeing has had jus
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For example in case of CCtCap, the government threw $2.6B at SpaceX and $4.2B at Boeing. We all know the results -- SpaceX has had five crewed missions by now while Boeing has had just one unmanned test.
An unmanned test which, lest we forget, failed so catastrophically that it would have endangered the station had it been allowed to proceed.
Money definitely isn't the only thing. If anything, SpaceX vs Boeing is a study in how too much money hurts the chances of completing an ambitious engineering project.
Re: Cat got your tongue? (something important seem (Score:5, Informative)
He doesn't make any space rockets. He has the relationship to SpaceX a kid with billions of dollars would have - he's bought a space ship company and throws money at it, and the government throws money at it too, and the government sets some rules so no matter what the kid wants, the space ship company actually does something useful....
Not sure how this got modded up. You clearly know absolutely nothing about the guy and your opinion is driven entirely by personal animosity. He has been living at the SpaceX facility and is intimately involved in the day to day. He has extensive interviews, which you can watch for free on YouTube, where he goes into painstaking technical detail on his rockets and the technical challenges they are working on. As well as comments on his leadership style. He's also built the first, and so far only, successful electric car company in the west.
Take a step back and ask yourself for a moment, what are the odds that a random rich guy invests money in three unrelated companies and all three become world-beating successes (PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX)? The odds are so astronomical that its essentially impossible. His leadership and engineering are the reason these companies are successful. His juvenile behavior on Twitter doesn't change that no matter how much you might want it to.
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The guy's a child, but he's worshiped here as some sort of tech god. What gives?
Fine, I'll say it. It's called Asperger’s syndrome.
Say that next week (Score:5, Insightful)
Bad timing.
Next week, he'll probably say and do some really dumb shit. Point it out then.
This week, this story is about the company doing something that saves lives and helps repel invaders. Not good timing to call him a loser today.
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I don't know that he's worshipped. I think his accomplishments, and the accomplishments of some of his businesses, like SpaceX, get hyped up because they are, for most, quite stark in contrast to competitors. But even those of us that are considered "space nutters" by the rabble see Elon is a little bit ego-maniac, a little bit drug-addled, a little bit over-the-top, and a lot out-of-his-element when it comes to social graces. That said, it's rare for people that push themselves to his level of success to n
Holy crap (Score:3)
Re:Holy crap (Score:5, Interesting)
It's pretty typical Russian military strategy actually. Basically just throw bodies at them until they give in. Sometimes, like in WWII, it works. And they did lose a lot of bodies even during that war, multiples more than their enemies did in fact. I think this is just the first time that the world has actually been able to witness how Russia's military really does its handy work, and that is only possible because of the technology available now where it can be documented and instantly broadcast all throughout the world. Russians in their own country are still only seeing what Russians typically see in a war, hence in a broad sense they don't really know any different. Their government simply covers up everything bad that happens, no matter how disastrous, and in the past that has allowed the truth to just get lost over time. Though they're finding it immensely more difficult to cover up than it has been in the past.
Another way to look at this is, what would we have known about Tienanmen Square if the journalists hadn't been able to smuggle the evidence out of China? Probably a hell of a lot less as there would have been a hell of a lot less certainty and a hell of a lot more speculation that ultimately drowns out the truth.
Old Vladimir, being the 19th century person that he is, thought the formulas Russians used in the past would still work. Will it? Time will tell, but one thing is certain: Nobody outside of Russia is going to forget this time.
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Bull hockey. Stop with the gaslighting.
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Westerners are the Russians kept in the dark and fed bullshit.
The Russians are literally those Russians. Westerners are fed different bullshit, though with equal amounts of exceptionalism.
Re:Holy crap (Score:5, Interesting)
The only real explanation for all of this is that the senior leadership didn't think there would be a war. The assumption must have been that nobody in their right mind would fight against such overwhelming odds. Tanks would roll across the border, the president would run away, and Ukraine would be the first state in the new Soviet Union.
WHY they thought that is the fascinating question. It couldn't possibly have been an intelligence failure. Was it extreme overconfidence by Russia's generals? Was it a chilled critical culture around Putin, who very obviously wants to be remembered as the founding father of a new Soviet state? Did the corruption and cronyism get so bad in the Russian army that they themselves didn't realize how much their fighting force had degraded?
Regardless, Russia is good and screwed. The damage will be lasting. Even if they "win" the war, they will have a nearly impossible time holding the territory. If they cut and run, it could very well destabilize the power base of the Russian elite (it'll be interesting to see if some of the old trouble spots for the Russians start to flare up after this fiasco). Best case scenario is they take Ukraine and China decides to throw caution to the wind and openly prop up Russia... at which point Russia might as well be a client state to the Chinese. There's virtually no scenario where this ends well for Russia and especially Putin. Lets just hope that there are enough sane people left around Putin to stop him from pressing the big red button in a fit of rage.
Re:Holy crap (Score:5, Insightful)
Was it extreme overconfidence by Russia's generals?
No. A former general warned Putin in an open letter [dailymail.co.uk] there would be thousands of Russian casualties if he invaded. As the article relates, this general correctly described exactly what is happening now: sanctions against Russia not seen anywhere else, Russia becoming a pariah state, thousands of dead Russian soldiers, the use of western and NATO military equipment against the invading forces, and unbridled animosity between Ukrainians and Russia.
Was it a chilled critical culture around Putin, who very obviously wants to be remembered as the founding father of a new Soviet state?
To some extent, yes. Putin is the head of Russia and others carry out his orders, even if they disagree with him. No one wants to get on his bad side. At least one Russian general has found this out [independent.co.uk]. There are also reports members of the FSB (successor to the KGB) have been arrested and/or purged for what's happening. Western military officials have surmised Putin is becoming paranoid and is now self-isolating, both because he fears contracting covid as well as letting any other than his absolutely trusted guards near him.
Did the corruption and cronyism get so bad in the Russian army that they themselves didn't realize how much their fighting force had degraded?
Again, to some extent yes. Everyone knew there was corruption in the Russian military. While stationed in Belarus for "exercises" it was known Russian troops were selling off radios and other equipment to earn some money. I can't remember his name, but the previous guy in charge of arming Russia's military was eventually forced out because he tried to tamp down the corruption and waste. Which obviously didn't sit well with those close to Putin who were getting a cut from every supply order.
In short, the Russian military is one big bro party. Everyone reinforces what the other says because that's what you do. To step out of line would risk one's livelihood and possibly health. It's a prime example of yes men.
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it was known Russian troops were selling off radios and other equipment to earn some money.
Where can I place my order for a Dragunov [wikipedia.org]?
Re:Holy crap (Score:5, Interesting)
The assumption must have been that nobody in their right mind would fight against such overwhelming odds. Tanks would roll across the border, the president would run away, and Ukraine would be the first state in the new Soviet Union.
Not that war is a sporting contest, but it seems often enough that life imitates entertainment.
Overwhelming odds of losing did not preclude the Ukrainians from having to play this grisly game against the invading Russians. Like with all upsets, a couple of remarkable, confidence-building things happened to the Ukrainian advantage.
A hand full of hopelessly outmatched border guards on Snake Island famously told the Russian War Ship to go frack itself, and the comedian/actor/President revealed himself to be packing testes made of Ukrainium.
Sure. It seems now that Putin screwed the pooch assuming they'd roll in to little resistance and the Ukrainian President would flee the country, but to be fair, when the war started, not a single pundit predicted it would last this long, or go this way.
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Ukrainium. Toughest material known to man.
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I suppose that depends on what you call a pundit. I've found Beau of the Fifth Column's YouTube commentaries on military engagements to be pretty on-point for a long time now, and he actually called out the mainstream pundits for making completely baseless predictions about the outcome.. He mostly stays away from making specific predictions without really compelling reasons, but does a good job of laying out the most likely different outcomes, and some of the big things to watch out for as things unfold t
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"Sure. It seems now that Putin screwed the pooch assuming they'd roll in to little resistance and the Ukrainian President would flee the country, but to be fair, when the war started, not a single pundit predicted it would last this long, or go this way."
So... you mean that they *weren't* greeted as liberators? :ducks:
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A hand full of hopelessly outmatched border guards on Snake Island famously told the Russian War Ship to go frack itself
And then they surrendered [archive.org].
Re:Holy crap (Score:4, Insightful)
There's an old quote:
Putin has surrounded himself with yes-men, in a system where corruption and graft is common. He was too far removed from the problem to realize that the Russian army was arguably a paper tiger, and that the Ukrainian people didn't really want to be part of Russia.
He created a system where the propaganda pushed the idea of a Great Russia, and he ended up playing himself.
Everybody watched porn again (Score:2)
What did you expect?
I remember it fondly (Score:5, Insightful)
"also argues Starlink's technology "could have widespread implications for the future of war. Internet has become an essential tool for communication, staying informed and even powering weapons."
When Elon came up with the idea, people laughed and laughed, the very idea, thousands of satellites?
Like the Google Balloons, ridiculous.
He's crazy, nobody can put up thousands of satellites. (over 2000 already)
They thought this guy wants to bring porn to the South-Pole, he's nuts.
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ok, but he still has to show it's more practical than Starlink.
Incidentally, I'm not complaining. I think it's great I can get an internet connection in the depths of the Amazon, or on the Mongolian Steppes. I will be happy to use it. I just don't think it will be profitable.
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People didn't laugh. They were offended. It was abundantly clear that it would be possible to make thousands of small sattellites, and launch them, especially when you also have a rocket company. The problem is the _problems_ that those satellites cause. So far, everyone has been right.
No one has been laughing. They've been pinching the bridge of their nose sighing. Some have gone to regulators trying to stop the problems before they become problems.
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In fairness, most of those who have gone to the regulators have been companies that are in direct competition with Starlink. So... almost certainly ust business as usual trying to avoid competition.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Why would people laugh at the idea of lots of satellites for global communication? Musk's idea isn't new.
Because Iridium itself was a laughingstock that went bankrupt and got a government bailout?
Until the owner of a rocket company decided to do it, with modern solar cells and modern radio encodings, the idea was laughable. It was radically too expensive for anyone to seriously consider such a thing. When Elon Musk first said SpaceX was going to do it, people did laugh. Nobody believed SpaceX could afford it. But then, to this day, the usual suspects still don't believe how little SpaceX spends per rocket.
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Another old idea Musk made happen now the technology is capable of doing it .. ..Starlink has helped in Ukraine but as the above says Internet has not gone down in Ukraine except when the Russians are bombing, for some key people in the wrong place it has been invaluable, but generally it is a minor part of a diverse communication strategy
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Nobody laughed. People criticized it as a bad idea, but "thousands of satellites" is hardly a radical unheard of unrealistic idea.
What color is the sky in your world? Yes they did. An Atlas V launch cost $430 million. Let me repeat that, since somehow you've forgotten. $430 million. For one launch. And that was the prevailing price, inflation adjusted, for decades prior.
Yes people laughed. They multiplied $430 million by 1000 and laughed and laughed. It was totally unrealistic at that price and everyone knew it. They laughed about the price and they laughed about the required deployment cadence too. There was no rocket famil
Can we get them to Xinjiang? (Score:2)
They would do more good in showing the world what's happening in Xinjiang. Not much in the way of video gets out, and what does is horrific, maybe some more exposure would help the situation there?
So, this is big story, eh? (Score:1)
So what is Starlink doing about China's "great firewall? Or Birma's? India? Malaysia? Brazil? So many places they can do some good to tear down the barriers to open communication
Re: So, this is big story, eh? (Score:2)
Well, providing capability to a country that is defending itself from direct invasion is different than pushing it into countries that are not asking for it under the assumption it's somehow morally right to do so.
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So what is Starlink doing about China's "great firewall? Or Birma's? India? Malaysia? Brazil? So many places they can do some good to tear down the barriers to open communication
Why would Musk build a Tesla factory and then just hand it over to the Chinese like that?
Never going to happen.
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So what is Starlink doing about China's "great firewall? Or Birma's? India? Malaysia? Brazil? So many places they can do some good to tear down the barriers to open communication
Starlink starts operation in Ukraine *after* Ukraine government approves / requests it. For Starlink to operate in tyrannical nations, it could only happen if the company declares ignorance and dismissal of those nations' laws and sovereignty. For India and Malaysia etc, they are not tyrannical but I also don't think the local ISPs there will welcome Starlink entering their market. The local ISP companies there will probably try their best to lobby the government from issuing permit of Starlink operation th
So much BS (Score:2)
All the talk of Ukraine receiving fighter jets is BS. I doubt Ukrainian pilots are sufficiently effective to accomplish any meaningful kill ratio. Russian pilots I expect to be better trained, their antiaircraft capabilities entirely competent. I would expect also Russian air supremacy would lead to jets destroyed on the ground. No ally will send their jets to certain loss. Not worth it.
Drone warfare makes sense, and is a textbook asymmetric warfare example. Even as a harassing tactic, it demoralizes, and t
fantasy (Score:2)
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The idea that StarLink in its current form could be a cost-effective way of bringing high speed low latency connections to rural areas in the U.S. is laughable btw -- my relatives were on the waiting list and finally were given their chance to get equipment this week and they were quoted several thousand dollars for the equipment purchase plus ~$500/month for service.
Oh stop lying you ignorant twat. That's the business class connection Starlink is offering, not the residential, and SpaceX doesn't have the personnel to be calling people trying to upsell them. They're not the phone company. The residential price hasn't changed. I'll be paying my $99 tomorrow.
Also notably missing from the plan details was the original promise of sub 100ms latency...
Let me check...
PING 8.8.4.4 (8.8.4.4) from 129.xxx.xxx.xxx: 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 8.8.4.4: icmp_seq=0 ttl=116 time=42.433 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.4.4: icmp_seq=1 ttl=116 time=33.469 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.4.4: icmp_