It's definitely not all the new controllers, although with the UDM line you might be right. I think there's a huge intersection between people who would buy those specific devices and people who are perfectly happy to have remote access to their control plane in the cloud.
It is also about dark patterns. I never had the cloud option enabled. One night after a long day I upgraded the controller software. I noticed a message like “do you want to login?” and wasn’t awake enough to realise that it asked for my ui.com account and that after that cloud management was enabled and my phone switched to authenticate from a direct connection with the local credentials to using the ui.com credentials.
It looks like what I was referring to is that they recently made the initial controller setup on the cloudkey require a cloud account [1], but you can migrate to local only after the initial setup.
So the only remaining 'local only' from start to finish is for self-hosted I guess.
I have a cloud key gen2 plus and do not have a UI.com account. I would classify getting the network controller setup without having one initially "mildly annoying but worth it".
I'm also floored at the number of people who are spinning the existence of a self-hosted controller as somehow a bad thing...?
The UDM and UDM-Pro force you to set up a UI.com account, and cannot be used with external Unifi controllers like one you might run on a server, PC or cloud key (Ubiquiti's management software on a Power over Ethernet powered dongle, does not require a UI.com account).
They do - first thing I did though was then go in and add a local account, and disable remote access (I have a wireguard tunnel that terminates on a server behind my firewall if I need remote access).
I didn't even think of it when I wrote the original reply, but if the locations share power grid wires internally you can always g.hn over that copper to get the connection through the wall.
Ah, I thought about that as well, but I hear conflicting things about what that means for ham radio. I don't have a license yet, but certainly plan to have one.
Someone else suggested Ruckus in another subthread here. If they support wireless downlinks, that may be a good option.
EDIT: If it's known that (quality) power line stuff does not cause interference, it does become a good option.
haven't noticed any interference from powerline stuff, but the link-quality is definitely hampered by interference from other stuff (ie. temporary packet loss when some electric motor starts).
i consider it somewhere in between wifi and an ethernet cable in terms of quality.
This. The amount of gaudy 2 story mansions that's standing vacant while delapitated and for sale. Most of them end up as rentals as they don't sell, and deteriorate even more in value as they're not cared for. Add this to the inevitable fire insurance quotes you'll get for owning in a place that can accommodate such a monstrous build and it all comes out extremely wasteful and risky.
Aren’t reverse-mortgages big with Boomers too? A lot of them want to die penniless and spend everything lavishly on themselves on their way out. “Let the bank deal with the house after I croak!”
I don't doubt for one second that you're right about this being prevalent as well. Tom Selleck sure tries his best to talk more boomers into this line of thinking.
I grew up in Norway. As a grid customer I could shop around for the best power company that fit my situation (e.g. solar? Apartment?). Norway is covered in snow 8-9 months of the year. I think what you're describing is a problem with money not reaching infrastructure investment locally for whatever reason: not public owned infrastructure issues in general.
Its a complicated subject, the power company is a mandated monopoly, its fully owned by the government.
In the 50s or so the infrastructure was created, including power plants etc, it was a profitable venture for the government, so they borrowed against the profits of the energy company, then failed upgrade/update any infrastructure. Add to to that the retirement pensions of all the people which they did not fund and it creates a big problem.
So now as it stands the energy company is in debt ( technically the government owes the energy company money but the government is insolvent ) and they are trying to sell it to a private entity.
Also if you are wondering why anyone would want to get a private pension plan instead of a 401k, well you werent allowed to put your money in a 401k ( same thing happened to the teachers by the way ). It actually very sadto hear the stories of people that worked theur whole life and have nothing to show for it due to the greed of politicians.
It's the same for the grid in Sweden (Svenska kraftnät), also how optic fiber is deployed here in Stockholm, the costly infrastructure was developed and is maintained by the government, private ISPs can lease out capacity but aren't the ones maintaining it. That avoided the costly deployment of multiple similar infrastructure per provider like you see in the US, where corporations cornered some markets and made the barrier of entry so costly that they became de facto monopolies.
Ah, now I get that. Adding my two cents on this discussion: if there is a profit motive for any modern basic human need (food, shelter, energy, communications, healthcare) it should be very well regulated to protect society. It may sound paternalistic when seen with a neo-liberal eye to it but I have developed a firm belief that neo-liberalism has utterly failed as a societal experiment to move us forward.
I replied to (a comment) and tried to contrast how a state owned power grid can still have profit models attached and function both technically and for it's intended customers.
(Like most hospitals in the US, by the way, coming back to the original "There shouldn't be a profit motive attached to basic services like electricity, policing (private prisons), or medicine" comment.)
My understanding is that they're registered as a charitable organization, not a non-profit. These terms are often used interchangeably, but from a tax and earnings perspective they mean different things. This is often further confused with not-for-profit organizations, which is yet another thing.
501(c)s, including 501(c)(4)s, are nonprofits, so “not a nonprofit” was wrong.
501(c)(3)s are charitable organizations, so “as a charitable organization” was also wrong. But 501(c)(3)s are a subset of 501(c) and thus are also nonprofits, so your implication that they could be a registered charitable organization but not a nonprofit was also wrong.
As a 501(c)(4) they are a nonprofit and not a charitable org; if they were a 501(c)(3) they would be both.
No. My point was that 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) are not the same thing. The important point to note in this case is:
"501(c)(4) organizations may engage in unlimited lobbying in furtherance of their social welfare purposes."
"The more generous limit of non-exempt activity permissible to a 501(c)(4) explains why a 501(c)(4) organization may engage in substantial amounts of political campaign intervention activities even though the regulations make clear that such activities do not constitute the promotion of social welfare."
It's less pedantic and more: you can call a fork a spoon all you want, until you have to eat soup with it.
Ok, so when I said “ERCOT is a non-profit” and you replied “they're registered as a charitable organization, not a non-profit” you really didn’t mean that it was not a non-profit and your point was that it’s a 501(c)(4) non-profit which is not the same thing as a 501(c)(3) non-profit. And a spoon is not the same thing as a fork. We agree on both counts.
Edit: or maybe you were referring to hospitals? In that case you may be right and I was using the term loosely when I said “most”. There are different kinds of hospitals. My later comments were about ERCOT, not hospitals.
I haven't done any research on this particular system/device myself. I skimmed this article and just finished the Twitter thread about the other product designed to count people.
Beyond the boogeymen watching the feed threat, this device itself can easily be taken over given the relaxed/non-existent security mentioned (everyone getting admin). This can in turn lead to all kinds of shenanigans ...
I honestly think the article skims this point in an effort to focus on the bare necessary information to communicate this to relatively non-technical people.
It's written as a statement, not as a figure of speech. If it's not intended to be factual, it should be annotated as such. It literally claims theft as it stands, which makes the article seem juvenile in use of language.
You're interpretation of it isn't wrong. You're still wrong in asserting that it wasn't presentes as a fact in the article. It clearly, linguistically is.
> The single pane of glass to view everything when I am many miles from the networks I support is essential
It's also why we're talking about this.