The un/expected uses for Starlink are interesting, especially because of how primitive the pre-Starlink work-arounds were (and because some things simply weren't possible).

When most of the Earth's surface has internet, it will be difficult to imagine what it was like when it didn't (or when it did but inoperably slow.

I’ll remember it fondly. The primitive workarounds were often a fun challenge even as an individual. But I’m glad more people can get connected so easily, and with more options on the way. The world will never be the same

I'd love to hear about some of the workarounds. Garmin?

I think probably geostationary satellites, such as Iridium: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constellatio...

Mining iron ore is presumably nicely profitable and could afford this for routine use. I know people in academic or charity work, and they have Iridium phones but only for emergency use, Starlink would probably make a bigger difference to them.

Clay Shirky said “Communications tools don’t get socially interesting until they get technologically boring.”

I recently had a gig collecting soil samples in rural Alberta, and we relied on Starlink to upload the data as we worked.[0]

It was surreal trundling through a remote farmer’s field in a skid-steer with a funny-looking square dish on top, surrounded by a herd of bison or cattle.

Stepping outside of the machine to take a piss on a tree and hearing the motors in the dish whir as it repositions itself to get a better connection was startling and neat. It’s one thing to read about the dishes having that functionality but another to experience it while you’re doing something as mundane as a basic bodily function.

Pulling the dish and the mount off the skid-steer and tossing it in the back of the truck, and seeing the off-the-shelf Ryobi battery and inverter that powered it, all scuffed up and covered in dirt, makes you realize that as magical as it is right now, it’s just a machine. People thought that transistor radios were pretty magical when they came out but eventually they just became an everyday thing.

Soon enough these things won’t be so big and expensive, and there will be a market of providers offering even better service. What comes then will be scary from a privacy perspective, but it may also enable so many positive things that we can’t yet imagine.

“The most profound technologies are those that disappear.”

> hearing the motors in the dish whir as it repositions itself to get a better connection was startling and neat

There is a certain beauty in these moments, isn't there? Watching the machines do their jobs.

Thank you for the photos. Really cool to see what people are doing and especially how.

> When most of the Earth's surface has internet, it will be hard to imagine what life was like when it didn't.

I think we'll miss it. I've known both the "pre-connected" and "post-connected" eras. There's a lot to love about being "connected".. and a lot to not like. Constant connectivity kind of sucks and we'd all do better to detox/disconnect meaningfully every so often.

I think that's mostly a "you" problem. Connectivity gives you an option, not a requirement. Rather than being dictated by external forces now it's on you to make decisions that work for you. If constant connectivity is causing problems for you then it's on you to learn to silence your phone or close your email client or what have you and to simply not care about the resulting missed calls or delayed messages.

In general my phone doesn't ring. I respond to written messages every few hours. That works for me but it might not work for you.

I wish it was always my choice. The introduction of internet to the underground in London, has allowed others the choice of holding their conversations loudly within close proximity to me. I have no wish to know why you have fell out with your best friend, I'd prefer silence.

I don't disagree. But you also see many companies act nefariously to intentionally make their connected products difficult to live without and addicting. At some point, when a product is having a lot of money poured into it to make it addicting and many individuals are not able to stop using it on their own, it is not an individual issue, but a policy issue. And, that's the internet in a nutshell for most people.