On Friday 25 April 2025 14:02:30 Darrell Anderson via tde-users wrote: > On 4/25/25 3:16 PM, William Morder via tde-users wrote: > > I have a pretty fast connection (sometimes 2 mbps or more), but it comes > > with > > Well, if you consider 2 Mbps fast then I guess I should STFU. I have a > "gleeful" 11 Mbps down. ISP is fixed wireless. Birds fart or, soon in > the next few weeks, leaves grow on the trees, and the speed here will > get erratic. Not fast in comparison to others, just faster than what I have been used to in the not-so-distant past. I don't stream video, etc.; the only streaming I do is for some internet radio. Otherwise, I download some old-timey music shows, grab some digital books at archive.org, read a couple of online news sources. I don't need much As an only child for all of my life, I got used to doing things on my own. Also, I grew up with Amish neighbors, in an area where most people still don't have cellular service or wifi. I like having internet for some things; but I didn't even get online until 2001, and the sheen of wonder had already worn off within a couple years. Again, I don't need much. > > Rumor control is Trump and Musk are trying to quash all rural fiber > projects so Mush can coerce rural users to install the expensive > Starlink, which many people seem to fail to realize is Yet Another Fixed > Wireless plan. Yeah, and I just came across a couple more webpages that say they are trying not only to defund libraries and museums, but indeed to shut them down altogether ... again, so that all our sources of information will be privatized, and we can only get books, music, information, culture, etc. by subscription. And some people wonder why I am always buying used books. Or, Why do I bother listening to ordinary OTA radio, when the internet has EVERYTHING!? > > There are worse things than having a slow connection; for example, having > > no control over your connection. > > Not that bad here, but not by much. With fixed wireless ISP, when the > grid power in this area goes bye-bye -- happened only a couple of weeks > ago for four hours, the tower I am connected to has a UPS that lasts > exactly one hour. Then poof no internet. Being in a cell phone dead zone > that means no VOIP either. I have to travel about a mile in either > direction to have any reliable hope of using my little flip phone. > > But I live in the woods for a reason -- much of the time I get along > fine without the mad mass of humanity. And being an only child for > almost five years I long ago learned to entertain myself without help. > I am looking myself for such a place, far enough away from civilization not to be bothered by all that's going on. I am too old to care; I won't live long enough to see how this turns out. I have a satellite dish in storage, which I intend to repurpose somehow or other to get internet. I don't need much. If there are any others like myself out there, they might want to check out a place online called C. Crane. I don't have any connection to this place, by the way, except that I like their stuff, and have bought a fair lot of their stuff over the years. https://ccrane.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Crane_Company This is where I got myself some nice radios; one with shortwave, and a solar windup BT emergency radio, as well as a nifty little pocket radio. Over the past 30 years or so, I've got several other gadgets from them: a long-range wifi antenna, other radios, some accessories and parts. They are also very good about returns, repairs and replacements; although I've only ever returned one item, no hassles at all. Sometimes I need weather information or news, and an internet connection just isn't there. Shortwave, weather, air and other channels are nice to have, if due to some disaster or other unforeseen chaos everything goes down. It's almost impossible to shut down *all* radio signals, especially if one has shortwave, ham, and other channels available. Over the years I've amassed quite a library, too; and the availability of digital books has only convinced me more than ever that I really prefer the physical book to hold in my hands. These machines offer too many distractions, or often just interfere with the very communication and access to information that they are supposed to facilitate. So I will just keep buying used books, then eventually find my hermit's abode in the wilderness. Sort of like Ted Kaczynski's cabin, only bigger, and without the bombs and that stuff. I just want to be left alone to live my life. I don't need much. It seems that there are more than a few of us here on the TDE mailing list who either live in fairly remote areas, or who spend a lot of time in such places, or who just dream about living somewhere like that. I am all of those, sometimes. ;-) Bill ____________________________________________________ tde-users mailing list -- users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe send an email to users-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Web mail archive available at https://mail.trinitydesktop.org/mailman3/hyperkitty/list/users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
