I don't understand why this is "hard". Doesn't a donut have this coveted property? I can't think of a way to drill a hole in a donut that would allow a donut through.
TCP would be too wasteful - Whatsapp already has retransmissions/etc. You'd want to proxy at a higher layer such as HTTP and just relay HTTP messages (or ideally QUIC traffic so that you take advantage of header reuse/compression, etc - but somehow disable retransmissions since you're already on a reliable link).
I think that's essentially what my HTTPS proxy does; except rather than actually being over WhatsApp (i.e. using WA messages or w/ever), the SNI tricks their authorization into thinking I'm using WA, while I am connecting to my proxy.
I once did an internship in a small town in Germany. There were 2 bakeries in this town. One closed for all of July as vacation, the other took all of August as vacation. They had coordinated this with each other so that everyone could always buy bread and pastries, but the bakers could also get their vacations. They would even put signs on their doors letting people know that the other bakery was open during their vacation.
I feel like in the US or Asia this would never happen. In these hyper-capitalist and competitive societies, both bakeries would jump on the opportunity of extra business, sacrifice their family and fun time, and neither would take any vacation. Two bakeries in a town would see each other as mortal competitors instead of collaborators and take every opportunity to eat into the others' business.
> - Meta's mission is to build the future of human connection and the technology that makes it possible
Meta arguably achieved this with the initial versions of their products, but even AI aside, they're mostly disconnecting humans now. I post much less on Instagram and Facebook now that they almost never show my content to my own friends or followers, and show them ads and influencer crap instead, so it's basically talking to a wall in an app. Add to this that companies like Meta are all forcing PIP quotas and mass layoffs which in turn causes everyone in my social circle to work 996.
So they have not only taken away online connections to real humans, they have ALSO taken away offline connections to real humans because nobody has time to meet in real life anymore. Win-win for them, I guess.
TFA> “In space, you get almost unlimited, low-cost renewable energy,”
Why is this exclusive to space? If you're powering datacenters on solar, one would think covering the Sahara or other large desert in datacenters would be easier than launching them into space. Renewable energy is just as plentiful and free there, you can connect it to the rest of the world with multiple TB/s of fiber links, and the construction/maintainence costs would be a few orders of magnitude less.
No, there aren't, not in the way you imply. There is the IEEE 802 PoE standards, which are all compatible (save for not enough power), and designed to carefully negotiate and especially never break non-PoE devices. And there is bullshit (sorry) like "Passive PoE" that is ironically an active violation of the IEEE specs, can break pretty much anything, and you shouldn't buy so the likes of Ubiquiti and Mikrotik finally get the wallet vote and stop f*cking doing. Unfortunately, the proper PoE PD logic is a few dollars of extra expense.
Yes, there is a slightly higher risk of killing devices due to faults in the PoE supply logic. I have the official PoE HAT for a RPi 4. I have to say it is somewhat poorly designed due to space constraints; the isolation between 48V and 3.3V should be better. I'm not even sure the RPi PoE HAT is spec compliant.
But I don't think you can/should blame this on PoE.
I have a ubiquiti 30w poe+ injector that somehow doesnt provide enough power for 20W aruba AP. When I plug it in a 120W switch it works unless the cable gets too twisted or something. I vote not awesome
Don't buy Ubiquiti. Personally speaking, anyone doing passive PoE (even if only on other device series you're not looking at) is automatically on my shitlist.
I'm not surprised they can f* up a basic PoE injector. The reason for doing passive PoE is saving a few bucks, on the back of safety and compatibility. Of course they would try to pinch hard on the PoE injector too.
Oh and I'd say they (together with Mikrotik) are responsible for 90% of the bad rep PoE gets. The IEEE 802 stuff really just works. And I say that having been part of rolling out 15000 people conference deployments with several hundred wifi APs in the span of a few days. The only real problem is broken cables, but the Ethernet link commonly fails before PoE is impacted.
Fwiw, I’ve had a few different PoE switches from Ubiquity and at least so far haven’t had any problems with the switches.
My current one is the 48 Pro-Max etherlighting , and I have around fifteen PoE devices and it’s pretty much plug and play always.
I did have issues with some of their other products - eg an old CloudKey gen1 that I had remotely in my parents place that I think ran out of space to the point it can’t update itself and can’t compact some old mongodb.
Ubiquity only did passive PoE in the very early days. Everything has been 802.11 variants for a long while wow. The injectors that shipped a decade ago with my APs were all 802.11af.
The UniFi line has moved away from passive PoE. The "UISP" line is almost exclusively passive PoE, even for brand new products. Ubiquiti has proven they know how to make devices that support both when they transitioned the UniFi line, but they actively choose not to and to enforce the use of bad nonstandard trash with their new products in their ISP product line.
The majority of UISP devices they sell are all relatively old products. For example the 'NanoStation 5AC Loco' is a great $50 product that continues to work well, but it was released in ~2019. And they continue to sell new models of products that have been unchanged for over a decade.
In the last 2 years they've released very few new UISP products and you're right that they continue to be passive PoE. I suspect this is for continued compatibility with their older product line. Upgrading from passive PoE to active 802.3 PoE requires replacing the injector and maintaining passive PoE makes it easier to upgrade. And the UISP product line is really meant for wireless ISP operators, not consumers, where the risks of passive PoE are smaller.
Anyway, I agree with the sentiment, but I don't hold it against Ubiquiti too much for continuing to use passive PoE for their UISP line, since I think it makes sense for their customers. As so-so work around you can get a 802.3 -> passive 24V converter: https://store.ui.com/us/en/products/ins-3af-i-g
> And the UISP product line is really meant for wireless ISP operators, not consumers, where the risks of passive PoE are smaller.
I'm afraid that's not how it works out in actual practice, it's the other way around:
WISP devices are installed in random people's windows, roofs and chimneys. The injector might end up behind their TV set. If their TV doesn't work, they unplug and replug random things. Which will fry whatever has the unlucky pleasure of ending up on the output side of the injector. I'm unfortunately speaking from experience.
Meanwhile, people buying and putting up a wifi AP beyond their CPE wifi router tend to have a bit of understanding. If you told them to never plug anything other than the given device into the output side of an injector, it'd probably go reasonably well.
> If they had just stuck with 12VDC and buildings had 12VDC wall sockets everywhere, everything would have been fantastic.
Huh? We used to have low-voltage AC and DC powered cameras in the world (and we still do, too).
Those are awful in implementation because buildings, whether or old or new, don't have 12VDC sockets everywhere -- or at all, really.
Nor should they have 12VDC sockets for cameras; they're unnecessary.
I've run my share of siamese coax for low-voltage-fed analog cameras, and also separate power for low-voltage Ethernet-connected cameras, and I'm completely over those concepts.
With proper-fucking IEEE POE, we have standards and it only takes one cable to make it work properly instead of more than one.
If a switch isn't up to the power demands of a particular camera, then: No big deal. I can upgrade or supplement that switch without rewiring even more of the building than was already necessary to get Ethernet going.
I use a PoE "extractor" to power my RPi over PoE and it works great. The extractor does the negotiation and safely gets the normal 48V PoE power, then converts that to 5V outputted on a USB-C cable that powers the RPi. Extractor also has an Ethernet[1] passthrough port that goes into the RPi as well. A bit basic, but seems relatively error proof.
240V AC and 5V DC manage to live close in a charger without problems. Problems with quality does not depend on voltage.
I love the concept of PoE with one exception that it requires constant 1W or similar load to work even if it is not needed for low power device.
> 240V AC and 5V DC manage to live close in a charger without problems.
I mean, yes and no. My laptop case is at 78VAC to ground right now. It gives the tingles. I don't use my laptop much while plugged in. They all skimp on making proper 3-pronged chargers these days. My desktop has a grounded case and doesn't have this issue.
My phone, when plugged into wall AC, the touch screen stops working because the whole phone is at an elevated potential and it messes up the capacitive sensing.
I find myself always struggling between being ambitious and being happy.
Ideally I'd like to be both. But when one gets on the "ambitious" treadmill, capitalism wants one to work 24/7/365. Your competition is showing off how they worked until 4am, worked through the holidays, launched products on Sunday, and slept in the office, as "dedication". That culture makes me unhappy because I lose my physical health and mental health doing that. I'm happy and do my best work when I can go home, cook creative dinners, enjoy company of my partner, and enjoy the sunrises and sunsets in the mountains on the weekends.
> how they worked until 4am, worked through the holidays, launched products on Sunday, and slept in the office,
I've worked at companies that did stuff like that, and they failed. It's not sustainable and doesn't lead to success. And yes, capitalism took care of correcting that, because competitors who didn't do those things are still around.
Hm. It's still quite common though. Politics aside, Elon Musk, Jetson Huang, Sam Altman all have successful projects in terms of ambition and impact on the world. They don't spend their weekends in the mountains. They probably hire cleaners and cooks to deal with their food. They probably spend very little time with their partners. They have probably not taken a real 2+ week vacation in ages.
I'm perfectly okay with technological progress happening 50% slower than it is. I'm fine with launching an ambitious, groundbreaking technical project next year instead of this year. I'd be happy launching something that ambitious while enjoying every step along the way and having fun.
Capitalism is the one that isn't okay with that approach.
> Delivery, however, has increased the number of times people buy a meal made by somebody else.
No, I'd say it's work expectations that have increased the number.
I took a several-month career gap and didn't order delivery even once. Delivered food tastes bad and as long as I have time I either make food (most of the time) or dine-in. But when "everything is on fire" and deadlines are tonight, delivery it is.
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