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Comment by rlv-dan | Hacker News Reader

> Please keep in mind that I wrote the majority of this post ~7 months ago, so it’s likely that the IT landscape has shifted since then.

Not sure if this is serious or intended as a joke. It made me giggle nonetheless. Which is kind of sad.

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It’s serious presumably because Starlink coverage includes the poles now. 7 months ago was around the time they did a demo with the McMurdo base IIRC.

McMurdo has starlink. South Pole doesn't, but not due to technical reasons from starlink's side. From what I understand when they tested at Pole they noticed interference with some of the science experiments, its possible they will engineer around that at some point but for now starlink is a low priority compared to ensuring the science goes on. I forget the exact distance, but its something like 5 miles from pole that they ask groups traversing to turn off their starlink.

that is to say, the starlink terminals radiating EM sufficient to mess with the sensitive sensors at the south pole, which is fascinating since they're supposed to have passed compliance testing that they're not doing too much of that. but the south pole has a different definition of too much, it seems. fascinating!

They're being obtuse. What "it's likely the IT landscape has shifted" actually means is "they got Starlink and their connection is fast now, and I know this for certain but I want to downplay it as much as possible because I'm trying to make a point".

Or they could be making a joke about how quickly trends shift in IT. It's like how people joke (or at least used to joke) that you'd get a dozen new JavaScript frameworks daily.

Exaggeration for comedic effect, in other words.

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