School of Life Monday: The Point of Travel

We travel more than ever but rarely pause to ask ourselves why we’re going – or what we should be trying to change about ourselves by taking off.

FCC approves SpaceX’s ambitious satellite internet plans

Starlink is well on its way to serving customers on Earth

from TheeLeverage.com

The Federal Communications Commission today granted SpaceX a license to operate an array of broadband internet satellites, marking the first time the government agency has given the green light for a US-licensed low-Earth orbit broadband service. SpaceX co-founder and CEO Elon Musk has been discussing a micro-satellite constellation for providing broadband internet for years, and in 2017 the company began accelerating its efforts by meeting regularly with the FCC and applying for a license that would allow it to operate in an unused portion of the FCC-regulated broadband spectrum. The company plans to call the service Starlink.

Earlier this year, SpaceX launched the first two of its planned 12,000-satellite constellation. It appears that the company is starting out with a 4,425-satellite array, with the FCC requiring it launch at least half of those units within the next six years. “With this action, the Commission takes another step to increase high-speed broadband availability and competition in the United States,” the FCC said in a statement to CNBC. SpaceX is slated to start launching operational satellites for the network starting next year, when it will be going head to head with competing space internet provider OneWeb.

”We appreciate the FCC’s thorough review and approval of SpaceX’s constellation license. Although we still have much to do with this complex undertaking, this is an important step toward SpaceX building a next-generation satellite network that can link the globe with reliable and affordable broadband service, especially reaching those who are not yet connected,” Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president and chief operating officer, said in a statement given to The Verge. SpaceX hopes Starlink may become a big revenue generator that can help offset R&D and operations costs for the rocket company. Financial projections, disclosed by The Wall Street Journal last year, show SpaceX expects more than 40 million subscribers for Starlink by 2025, equaling roughly $30 billion in revenue.

for your sunday viewing pleasure Videos of entire long-distance train journeys

from Boing Boing

YouTube has been an existence-proof of forms of video that were lurking in potentia, unable to come into existence due to limitations of the distribution channel. The two-to-three-minute video has now been firmly established as a genre (with the six-second video hot on its heels), but there's plenty of room at the long end of the scale. Case in point: subculture of YouTubers who post full-length train journeys, hours and hours' worth -- and if that's not long-form enough, how about 134-hour sea crossings?

Given the modern vogue/panic about short-reads being mere "linkblogging" and the practice of spinning out a few hundred words into a "serious, long-form journalism" wheeze that is split across eight or more screens, this may just be the video form for our age (and please let it be a short one!).

I was thrilled to learn, via an excellent Metafilter post, about a small online subculture of resistence to the attention-frittering trend: the existence of scores of YouTube videos documenting entire train journeys, some many hours long, from the perspective of the driver in the cab. The video above is nine hours and 53 minutes long – it's available in spring, autumn and winter versions too – and while I won't claim to have watched it all, I've spent some pleasant work breaks in Brooklyn watching Scandinavian scenery go by. But perhaps you'd prefer Glasgow to Fort William and Mallaig in Scotland? It's every bit as rainswept – and bleakly beautiful, especially in its latter stages – as you'd imagine:

Life too exciting? Enter the calming world of full-length train journey videos [Oliver Burkeman/The Guardian]

Henry Rollins - the DisInfo interview

Henry continues to amaze me with his constant growth and ability to articulate. While I don't agree with everything he says 100% I really respect and appreciate hearing his perspective and hearing him share that with the world.

Dig It!

(no picture, just audio)


Download MP3 HERE if above file does not play for you.

'Holy Cow'

Visualtraveling presents 'Holy Cow' a ten minute piece summarizing a month long [skateboarding] journey through the chromatic & chaotic countries of South Asia.

Pushing and on boards were Walker Ryan, Laurence Keefe, Michael Mackrodt and Kenny Reed.

Directed, filmed & edited by Patrik Wallner

And the previous from Patrik Wallner
'Where do we Land?' Converse China trip to Mongolia.

Both clips are pretty damn cool.


Related: Early skateboard innovator and pioneer Larry Stevenson 81 dies

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I was flying on Virgin America over the holidays to get out to L.A. for my show and to see all the friends and family we have out there. On a recommendation we finally used Virgin America. We get on the plane at around noon, all the windows are closed and the plane is lit up purple like an 80's movie night club. I guess their whole thing is supposed to be "cool". Well, i will admit it was the most relaxed flight crew i've ever encountered, all wearing all black (like night club employees) and the food service situation was pretty good too, although you had to pay for meals, they had stacks of free bottled water in the back of the plane to get for yourself whenever you wanted, and when you wanted food you ordered it from your seat off the touch screen at any time, swipe your credit card, and they bring it to your seat in no more than 2 minutes. (If you don't have a credit card apparently you can't eat, unless perhaps you have a neighbor who will take your cash and swipe for you.) - OK, enough hype, there are other good things too, and i may have had a problem with seating before we got to the airport, so it wasn't perfect, but it was all good. That said, this clip below is the in flight "safety video" they show you just before take off, and as far as i'm concerned it doesn't get any cooler than this: