Exactly. Soekris was the first thing that came to my mind after seeing this news, having used various Soekris boxes for home router for many years. Eventually got replaced by Ubiquiti EdgeRouter 4 (which are now also impossible to get via common sale channels, besides ebay) running OpenBSD.
At work we have hundreds of Alix/APUs in the field and they have been great, very low hardware failure rate (occasionally a NIC going bad). We will probably make a final order to carry us through and then it's back to the drawing board.
I also have fond memories of my personal Soekris box running m0n0wall in the early 2000s (I think back then pfSense was more bloated/slow on limited hardware). My experience with that setup was definitely what made me consider the PC Engines equipment for work.
Similarly I have also switched to Ubiquiti for home use.
I have a feeling that the MIPS-based Octeon SOCs are EOL or close to it, and Ubiquiti is allocating everything to the Unifi versions of the same hardware.
If it is a choice between preparing my sd cards with open partitioning tools, or running some non-auditable official tool in binary form, it is an easy choice.
I'll do the former, as I always have.
By the way, a cool quote from the agreement preceding the download page:
>3. RESTRICTIONS: You agree to NOT: (a) disassemble, reverse engineer, decompile, or otherwise attempt to derive any source code for the SDA Software from executable code;
This should be quite alarming. They insist that we format SD cards with their tool, but they don't want us to know what the tool does.
I will not be the one reversing them, but I checked it is possible to download these through tor, and recommend downloading them that way to prevent potential trouble.
> 3. RESTRICTIONS: You agree to NOT: (a) disassemble, reverse engineer, decompile, or otherwise attempt to derive any source code for the SDA Software from executable code;
Depending on where you live, this might have no legal effect. Some jurisdictions allow explicitly for reverse engineering & co. for different purposes (e.g. research, interoperability with other systems, etc.).
Some manufacturers have proprietary undocumented APIs that allow the host to upgrade the firmware in the card, but I’m not sure every maker does, and very sure most wouldn’t bother to update their firmware unless some horrendous issue came up.
Build the crap out of wind and solar where it works and mix in other non carbon generation where you can; preferably distributed resources. Put up long distance DC lines to places that need extra, such as the north in winter. Install storage everywhere. Install smart controls everywhere. Make up for any emergency needs with natural gas plants that are kept operational for that purpose; we can afford a bit of carbon emissions if we eliminate the worst offenders, IMO. Reduce energy use via more efficient devices and laws around efficiency. Help with tax write offs for energy use for low income and tax heavy energy users to pay for it. Take over all utilities nationally and coordinate everything. Reduce shipping by onshoring manufacturing. Pass laws requiring allowing employees to be remote if they choose, for knowledge work. Spend a lot more on transportation infrastructure other than cars. Tax carbon at the source and let the costs trickle down into the worst offenders.
Nuclear is great tech, but isn’t financially viable today in most situations. I would love to see it in the mix above somehow if new designs were cheaper and safer. Also, energy can’t just increase forever. We have to force reductions in use where practical via the means above.
The infrastructure overhaul needed for a full-on changeover to electric would require an investment on the order of the Apollo program and I don't see that happening. Not just from a financial perspective but the engineering as well. Banning petrol cars and gas cookers and praying the rest of the dominoes fall in place isn't going to work.
> The United States spent $25.8 billion on Project Apollo between 1960 and 1973, or approximately $257 billion when adjusted for inflation to 2020 dollars.
vs.
> The US is spending $369bn on subsidies for green technologies under the Inflation Reduction Act
Yea, I'm not saying it will work, but nuclear isn't going to work either, at this point. This was my ideas for how to do it, and clearly this problem is more complex and harder than just doing it. I figure we'll just continue to drive off the cliff and eventually there will be wars over water and cold climates.
None of these points seem to address the parent’s point which was that restarting a nuclear plant that is much older than its intended lifespan is not safe.
“No more criticisms without solutions” is not a real argument. Obviously criticisms must be considered. And the magnitude of the risks is obviously important.
It sounds like you are arguing nuclear power is expensive, dangerous, and will only work with massive taxpayer subsidies; but we should ignore all of that because we don’t have a viable alternative. I don’t think we should ignore those statements?
Fair enough. Do you think it's easier to add some vent fans or retrofit a building gas->electric in every flat? It's not as easy as it's made out to be. Buildings were designed with sufficient electric service given the utilities available at the time. Buildings with gas have undersized electrics. In other words the service (transformer etc.) is likely inadequate. A massive retrofit from gas to electric cookers would be insanely expensive.
Actually, I think gas->electric is the easier one quite frequently.
Simply because adding vent fans can be a physical impossibility because there's nowhere to vent to. There's more living space on the other side of the wall (in your building or an adjacent building) so you can't vent directly outdoors, and there's no duct so you can't vent anywhere else either.
I'm not an electrician so I can't speak to the cost of upgrading -- but it sounds like that might be required for widespread adoption of EV charging anyways. So if transformers are being upgraded nationwide anyways, then supporting electric stoves might come for free.
The easy assumption is that in cities like Miami, LA, Chicago, St. Louis, and (previously) NYC the violence was confined to particular pockets of the city e.g. those rife with gang violence. It was easy for ordinary people to avoid by staying out of those areas.
In cities like SF and Seattle there is widespread and visible chaos and disorder, even in the large shopping districts and tourist areas. This is perpetuated by their residents' indifference and acceptance of utter lawlessness as normal.
You could likely leave your car parked on the street during a night out in the aforementioned "murderous" cities and not worry.
In SF and Seattle there is a very good chance you will have your windows broken.
What is it going to take to admit that The City has a problem? Because the collective denial and doubling down on our failed policies clearly isn't working.
A commenter on the SF Chronicle page made an interesting argument: the city should return to at-large elections for the Board of Supervisors. Even though a significant majority of the city roughly agrees the city needs stricter enforcement of the laws, it can't quite get there. Citywide elections typically result in center or right-of-center (in relative SF terms) winners; for example, the most recent left-of-center mayor in SF was Art Agnos, 1988-1992. But a majority of the Board of Supervisors is now left of center; district neighborhoods are too susceptible to pandering and cheap promises.
"Comcast's Xfinity Mobile broadband Internet access service ("Xfinity Mobile service" or "Service") utilizes Wi-Fi service - both Xfinity WiFi and Wi-Fi provided by other Internet Service Providers ("ISPs"). When not connected to Wi-Fi, the Service utilizes our carrier partner's mobile broadband Internet access service network and is subject to its network management practices and controls."
Basically they roam onto cellular when their WiFi is out of range.
3. OP keeps claiming that he never agreed to anything blah blah yes you did. When you sign up for anything with Comcast they make you sign an agreement that you agree to their ToS. See South Park episode "Human CentiPad".
4. The service OP signed up for is at a discounted price because of trade offs. The trade offs are that your device will prefer the Xfinity hotspots over cellular. That's literally how it works. That's why you're getting it for cheaper because the service sucks by design. That's on the customer.
5. People attempting to point these facts out have been getting downvoted which is just sad.
We don't know much about the OP's WiFi setup other than he chose to use his own equipment and not to use the carrier's gateway - which would broadcast its own, stronger, passpoint SSID in his apartment and likely these issues would go away.
Consider the following scenario: the OP's router is flaky and disassociates stations during which time the phone gets kicked off then "sees" the carrier's SSID from the neighbor and joins it. Now it's on that network. Suddenly this becomes a self-created problem. The solution is to not use Xfinity mobile or any other "Wi-Fi first" MVNO.
It can both be true that OP is getting what they asked for, and that this is a bad thing for Apple to unilaterally allow. How does Apple know that OP signed up to have their preferences ignored?
This has been going on for years. Not many people know of the deep integration between Apple and the carriers. Your iPhone, when a SIM is inserted, pairs it with a "carrier profile" which is downloaded from Apple's servers. This profile, among other things, has network settings and preferences such as the APN. That's why you need to have the phone connected to the internet to "activate" it; it's part of the provisioning process. These wifi offload networks (along with likely a setting if it can be disabled or not) is likely downloaded as part of that profile.
This is reminiscent of those "ad supported" ISPs of yesteryear that people would subscribe to then complain that it has ads.
Here's something Apple could do: pop up a dialog saying something to the effect of, "this carrier wants to manage your wifi settings. Agree? [yes] [no]". If the user doesn't agree, that's communicated back to the carrier who is free to not render the service. Presto, Apple doesn't have to take the carrier's word that I agreed to a third party managing my networks.
That it's been like this forever doesn't make it right.
ETA: the ad-supported ISP analogy misses the crucial distinction that the ISP knows I signed up for them to MITM my data. Apple knows nothing of the sort.
I like your fervour, but does any of what you said apply when cellular isn't involved and OP wants to use their own WiFi network but can't because of an unnecessary restriction in their phone OS?
Replying to the top-voted comment, for visibility rather than relevance, is something I haven't noticed much on HN.
I'm not saying it's wrong, but it seems to be unilaterally subverting the voting mechanism, with the rationale that person is confident the message is so important that the voting mechanism is irrelevant or can't be trusted.
A person could be right, in an instance, but imagine if everyone did that every time they were confident. We'd need a way to mitigate the conflicts from all that individual confidence. Maybe with a democratized voting system.
Nothing in the terms of service you linked says they can disable my devices ability to NOT join their network.
And their advertising absolutely does not suggest they are “WiFi first”, they advertise cellular service with hotspot access. AT&T and Verizon do the same thing (advertise all these great free hotspots you get).
No one intentionally signs up to lose control of their WiFi system on devices they own, so stop making excuses for Apple’s behavior.
That's great when you never leave a 10 square mile bubble in the Bay Area.
There's a > 40 mile stretch of state route 542 (mt baker highway) in WA where there is no cell signal. Zip. Nada. No matter the carrier. And this road can carry nasty rapidly changing weather conditions in the winter. Your iPhone 26 will continue to proudly display "No Service." So, no, it has not replaced this.
iPhone 14 has satellite connectivity for emergencies, other handset makers are doing this too. in 10 years the picture will look much different, and i doubt any phone will ever have truly “no service” again.
T-mobile's claim is that by 2024 their customers will get emergency satellite connectivity on their existing handsets, even cheap $200 ones. They might need to be new $200 handsets in order to get the software support, but the hardware support is supposedly there already. The specific language T-mobile uses is the "vast majority of smartphones already on T‑Mobile’s network" which sure sounds like it includes $200 phones. With the help of Starlink, T-mobile is going to put cellphone towers in space, pointed down, and your existing cellphone will be able to pick up the signal and the satellites will be sensitive enough to hear the cellphone's transmissions.
T-mobile's service will be limited to various forms of texting and possibly also Twitter, which is used by many emergency departments to broadcast information, which is slightly different than the iPhone's offering of dire emergency service coverage. Still doesn't replace AM radio use cases though.
Satellite connectivity for emergencies will be just that, for emergencies. Technology will have to progress greatly (which, 10 years could do it) before "for emergencies" will include "you get data connectivity to tell you details of the road conditions" like you're imagining. In the interim, AM radios are still necessary.
