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Comment by lianna-vba | Hacker News Reader

Then vice president Teddy Roosevelt was on a hiking trip in the Adirondacks when he received word that president McKinley had been assassinated. It's crazy how back then the VP could be so hard to track down. In fact, I believe the night FDR passed away VP Truman had ditched his secret service agents to head to the bar.

https://www.adirondack.net/history/midnight-ride/

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More generally, the idea that people really should be on the communications grid has been normalized in a lot of circles. I see a fair number of people, including here, rather uncomfortable about the fact that someone may not always be able to reach you or that you may not be able to call for help.

(Of course, if you talk about government VIPs, satellite/staff mostly does provide an always on-call ability. And for others, there are increasingly reasonable satellite options available as well.)

Even in the eastern US, there are many remote areas where there is no communication coverage except for satellite.

While I think a lot of people should be a lot more comfortable being out of communication range (and proper planning, packing emergency gear, spares, etc can greatly help), in recreational areas that are not so remote, the spread of low band 5G (basically extra 4G+ coverage) really makes the ability to work remotely (even more) valuable..

Until recently, visiting a family member's beach house meant I didn't have cell service (at least for my carrier). They seem to have added a new tower to the island, or maybe adjusted their beam spread and now I can get a signal there.

But I still tell work that I'll be out of touch. Because if I'm on vacation - I'm on vacation.

> the spread of low band 5G

Also StarLink. A couple of years ago I really wouldn't have been able to work from my dad's place in Downeast Maine. Now I could if not always reliably.

Nuclear tipped ICBMs put an end to that. It's even questionable how much should a president drink alcohol while in office. A drunk president ordering a preemptive nuclear strike likely would be ignored by the military but a drunk president when an attack is incoming would be a very bad situation.

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