If you're tech-savvy and building your own router, you can add those advanced aspects in if you want them.
I'd be willing to bet, though, that the overwhelming majority of people who use consumer routers aren't doing anything remotely advanced. A how-to that covers the majority of use cases is valuable even when it excludes advanced use cases.
There are a whole lot of normal people using mesh networking Wi-Fi routers. Honestly, most of the least technical people that I know are all using mesh networks because their houses require it.
Home mesh is mostly about having wireless backhaul, and you can certainly do that if you have (preferably) two radios, you just set up one radio as a client to your main AP.
Even if you aren't doing wireless backhaul you just rely on regular client behaviour to transition between APs, can enable 802.11r to improve this.
Enterprise "mesh" typically uses wired backhaul for performance and can help clients roam quicker with a controller (auth, not deciding to roam). Controller can also adjusts radio power so APs aren't talking over each other if they're too close.
There are some difference in client wifi interfaces (STA) and access point wifi interfaces (APs, like you'd find on a good router). For example, some wifi interfaces don't have promiscuous mode, or can't scan while maintaining an active connection, etc.
It's like the difference between softmodems (aka winmodems) and full hardware modems. I know there are some projects that use Raspberry Pis as an AP, and it could do like 10 devices stock and 20 devices with firmware changes. Even a low-end router could handle more clients than that.
Where do you live to consider mesh networking a minority use case? I live in a small city apartment so I don't need one, but everyone I know outside of the city needs at least two nodes to cover their houses.
I was looking at various stats and surveys, not going by my personal experience. But if you're asking about my personal experience, I haven't seen any consumer use of it at all, only enterprise and institutional use. That's part of why I wasn't going by by my own experience, because I know that the use isn't zero.
I think one problem is, almost all security cameras are sold with audio these days. If the cameras have a mic, telling people "Oh, we turned the mic off in each camera" or "We don't record the audio" isn't very helpful.
There’s another problem with this because a camera with a mic cable cut would look from the outside exactly like a camera with mic cable intact, and maintenance is a thing, so eventually it’s bound to be replaced by a camera with a working mic either by mistake or “by mistake” on purpose. There’s a trust issue here since people who would be affected by the presence of a mic won’t be able to easily visually verify that it’s disabled.
If you don't have the framework, you don't have to worry about any of this (you also don't get the benefits, bank apps that require validated OS, tap to pay etc, without the framework).
AFAIK, all current versions of Android have Google Play Services. It's an essential part of the "official" Android.
If you run GrapheneOS, LineageOS or whatever, then it's not real Android, and the entire problem of your OS restricting you from installing apps does not exist.
We are not in a meeting at SpaceX trying to please Elon. I dont think you realize what you are up against...Do you know what radiation does to humans?
For example Suni Williams went to the ISS and got stuck for 9 months. Come back white haired, with bone loss, muscle wasting, and vision damage. She retired from NASA within months. And the ISS is inside Earth magnetosphere...
FYI Mars has no magnetic field and almost no atmosphere. The Curiosity radiation detector measured the following:
Mars surface: 0.67 mSv/day (that is about 70x Earth surface)
In Deep space transit: 1.8 mSv/day
for example the ISS in low Earth orbit: 0.5–1.0 mSv/day
Even with VERY optimistic 3 month transits you are looking at a total for an astronaut of about 700 mSv if you have 450 to 500 day surface stay . That is well over NASA entire career radiation limit for astronauts in a single trip. A major solar particle event could add hundreds more in hours...
And if you say they would live underground, then you have sent humans 225 million km to live in a bunker...Every EVA would accumulate 0.67 mSv/day with zero medical infrastructure...And by the way aluminum shielding on the Martian surface actually increases dose due to secondary neutron production, you need meters of regolith or water to make a real difference. Meanwhile, Curiosity has radiation hardened hardware, and after 13 years is still going.
SpaceX already shifted to focus on a Moon base and away from Mars.
The original plan was to send a few self-financed Starships to Mars as a first step which sounded reasonable as an experiment.
Nothing wrong with dreaming about solving hard problems like radiation and how to manage logistics at such a distance. Even if a human base ends up not making sense most of that stuff would still support a robotic base doing most of the exploration, with some temporary human visitors helping set things up.
>> SpaceX already shifted to focus on a Moon base and away from Mars.
Oh boy….beyond Falcon 9 that is just a great but conventional rocket...SpaceX so called revolutionary Starship program is nothing more than a parade of explosions. Just in 2025 they had three upper stages exploding mid flight, one blew up on the launchpad during a static fire test in June, and a V3 booster crumpled during pressure testing in November. After 11 test flights... Starship has never once delivered a single gram of payload to orbit….Not one….Think about that for a minute.
Now NASA made Starship the sole critical path for returning the US to the Moon. The Artemis III lunar landing requires Starship HLS to work, which requires orbital refueling…
Something that has never been done with cryogenic propellants by anyone, ever... and requires roughly 12 to 14 tanker flights to fill a depot before each Moon mission. NASA own safety panel visited Starbase in 2025 and concluded Starship HLS could be years late.
The propellant transfer demo, originally scheduled for March 2025, has been delayed over a year. The critical design review keeps slipping. As a result, NASA just downgraded Artemis III from a Moon landing to a low Earth orbit docking test, pushing the actual landing to Artemis IV in 2028, and nobody seriously believes that date either...
And who is overseeing all this? Jared Isaacman that is Musk personal astronaut buddy, who flew twice on SpaceX missions, whose company Shift4 processes Starlink payments, whose deal with SpaceX exceeds $50 million... and who was literally recommended to Trump by Musk. Isaacman even publicly criticized NASA for giving Blue Origin a backup lander contract! meaning he wanted SpaceX to be the ONLY option...
As for the Moon pivot... what actually happened? In January 2025, Musk said: “No, we're going straight to Mars. The Moon is a distraction.” ….Twelve months later, after a year of Starship explosions and with an IPO approaching, suddenly it's “Moon first.” ...This is damage control. Any competent NASA plan would never have put a single unproven company, with a rocket that cannot reach orbit, on the sole critical path for a return to the Moon.
More of this. Blathering on about Starship development phase, with its completely expected and normal failures. All concerned because there's "something that hasn't been done before" involved.
Falcon 9 did lots of things "never done before", but.. well, that's OK because with hindsight it's all sensible.
What I'm seeing here is, and now it appears to me in the prior post possibly, is that someone you don't like(Musk) is resulting in this negativity.
It is entirely possible to dislike someone's history, or personality, or politics, whilst at the same time not denigrating their successes. Or attempting to derail their technical work.
NASA has been losing delivery dates forever. Other private sector suppliers have as well. Making a big deal out of this specific instance, seems strange.
No, I'm not endorsing the current administration. But neither am I the prior. After all, everything was late with the prior admin too.
We are not in a meeting at SpaceX trying to please Elon
What are you even talking about? I assure you, before Elon was known to anyone but his mother, Mars has been a dream for countless humans. I find it... repugnant, to have my dream presumed to be someone else's.
If we took the attitude you're taking here, we'd never leave home. Explore. Expand our sciences, our capabilities, our experience.
I find it astonishing that so many in the compute field, find technical issues, then immediately proclaim impossibility predicated upon the weird concept that there is no improvements or advancements possible.
This and other issues, are technical issues to be solved, not just to go to Mars, but to go to the rest of the solar system, to go to other solar systems. And yes, humans should do this. Yes, we should do this.
You may say "how?", with perhaps a smug look on your face, as if my specific knowledge predicates a conclusion on the solution. Nonsense. This is the part of 'economic activity' and 'scientific advancement' I spoke about. Every aspect of space flight has been accompanied with vast improvements in our knowledge to achieve the task at hand. This will be no different, we will solve it, whether by materials science, or generation of a magnetic field, or whatever is required. We'll find a solve, we'll do it, and that's that.
Again, rebuttles of "well describe precisely how" or "that makes no sense, magnetic field?!" are senseless here. You may as well go to 1634, and sound proud and decry how it is impossible to breath in space, how can someone possibly live without air! Of course our materials science improved, we can make viable space suits, our capacity to store compressed gases, filter CO2, and on and on all improved. And now, it seems as child's play.
So such grabbing at the impossible is absurd to me.
Instead, try grasping at the possible.
And know that humans, a great number of them want to make the journey. And yes, we should not stand in their way. Good grief, more humans die from car crashes a day in any major US city, than have every died in space.
More humans die being tangled in bedsheets, in a week, than have ever died in space.
Driving a car is a necessity for some, but to throw concern up about the death of humans, who are literally expanding our species capabilities and scientific knowledge, is extremely short sighted.
I urge you, recant this belief. These ways.
Join us on this side of the line. The side that sees challenges as opportunities, not as liabilities.
>> I find it astonishing that so many in the compute field, find technical issues, then immediately proclaim impossibility predicated upon the weird concept that there is no improvements or advancements possible.
Just because we had a man on the Moon, does not mean we can have a man on the Sun...
Did you even looked at the radiation argument or the soil composition?
Agreed. At a bare minimum it's a hedge against terrestrial existential risks. And if Mars itself sucks, then, well, rotating space stations with simulated G, same principle.
One terrible thing wrought by billionaire Mars fantasies is a backlash that I think has become too sweeping. It's wrongheaded for a million reasons, but it's nevertheless true that hedging against terrestrial existential risks is something we should have an interest in.
Sorry, I'd love to hear exactly how a mars habitat with a half dozen people or a space station are "hedges against terrestrial existential risks"? Those are both "unfriendly" environments that lack the resources required to sustain themselves for any appreciable amount of time. And certainly don't have the number of people required to repopulate.
I'd love to see you make more of an effort to try and understand the idea you're engaging in than just engaging in an emotionally charged dismissal. I try to profess the principle of charity here from time to time, which means tackling the version of an idea that credits it with making the most sense.
So if the version of the idea that you're engaging with is one that doomed to fail, doesn't have the resources or technology or population to succeed... maybe assume that's not the version I'm talking about?
There are contexts where I love to get into these kinds of details (there was an amazing conversation on HN from a few months ago [1] about what would be involved in sending a bunch of voyager-style space probes to alpha centauri), but you have to want to try.
I be quite blunt, what you're saying here seems wildly unreasonable.
Why on earth would you presume someone talking about such hedges, is discussing 6 people? The very idea is absurd, and you're certainly not discussing this in a way that seems reasonable, or fair.
In terms of resources, Mars has plenty. The fact that you view Mars through a time-locked, current view is weird. Mars is a path. It's not just about now, but 2 centuries from now as well. You take a step on a road, and you're not there immediately.
Arguing that "Well, what's the big deal, you want to take a step down the sidewalk?! Where will you be then, no where!!" is a very, very strange way to discuss this.
If I’m to believe the experts, LLMs are a panacea to all problems to have ever existed, like Blockchain before it.
Therefore it is a non-issue as given that LLMs have only gotten exponentially more impressive, in [current_year+n] you will be able to prompt Claude to materialize a fast terraforming machine and FTL it over to mars.
>> Nonsense. Just going to Mars with humans creates economic activity, and the R&D to do so.
Ok layout here your scientific or economic case...please.
Because so far, the only trickle economic effects, where geriatric billionaires creating sub 100 km space rides to impress their Silicone Sally girlfriends...
It'd kind of sad, how the market went. I suppose there are pluses too.
But back in the 80s and 90s, margins were significantly higher. If you look at hardware, I recall selling hardware with 30% margin, if not more... even 80% on some items.
Yet what came with that was support, support, support. And when you sell 5 computers a month, instead of 500, well.. you need that margin to even have a store. Which you need, because no wide-scale internet.
On the software side, it was sort of the same. I remember paying $80 for some pieces of software, which would be like $200 today. You'd pay $1 on an app store for such software, but I'd also call the author if there was a bug. He'd send an update in the mail.
I guess my point is, in those days, it was fun to fix issues. The focus was more specific, there was time to ply the trade, to enjoy it, to have performant, elegant fixes.
Now, it's all "my boss is hassling me and another bug will somehow mean I have to work harder", which is .. well, sad.
It really depends, support is usually the first thing companies adjust when they want to improve their margins.
Even when you're paying millions to AWS you have to get through their first line of support and they will ask silly questions until you can convince them to escalate.
Not really, you get "really dedicated support" at most, but not a "really good" one, otherwise all those decades-old bugs common in many software producs would've been fixed since they affect people at all tiers
Back then, computers didn't had competition from the analog world, so vendors had to provide excellent service such that users would be convinced into switching over to the digital way if doing things. Now comouters have a monopoly on how we work and live, so vendors care as little as possible.
Meta may be manipulating things to try to ensure they don't pay for age verification, but I think the state's true goal is more about foreign influence.
The very fact that we allow armies of state-actor paid posters to work diligently to undermine the views of our own citizens, and even more important our impressionable children, is beyond bizarre. Advertising works, manipulation works, and in an age where you can make up any story you want, create any visual appearance you want, create any history you want, this sort of manipulation is at an entire new level.
There is always more than one reason for any action, but I think a primary for this literal world wide push to add age verification, and eventually identity verification, is because states are finally waking up to the wide-scale manipulation happening on platforms today.
States take years and years to make policy change.
From the perspective of the state, they already know who you are when posting domestically. What they're gaining is an enhanced ability to ban externals from posting. To end or significantly reduce sock-puppetry.
Corps like Meta, X, etc would hate this on its own, for an enormous amount of accounts are fake accounts. Realistically, however, it would be a one time correction...
Anyhow.
Point is, when you see every democracy passing these laws, it isn't Meta.
None of this is nefarious, either. An example? Every decade or so every country in the world sends representatives to discuss ... effectively, "roads" and "road safety". One thing they do is, try to make the rules of the road as similar as possible everywhere.
An example is, in BC, Canada, a 'flashing green light' used to mean 'pedestrian crossing is active'. I kid you not. Meanwhile in Ontario, it meant 'turn left is OK'.
That's not how it works any more. BC now changed that flashing green light, and everywhere has almost completed the 15+ year long migration to an actual left arrow for 'turn left'.
Road lines were yellow in Canada most of the time, even in the middle of lanes. The logic was, you can see yellow easier than white, when there is some snow on the ground. Now, all lines tend to be white in Canada. Why? Because they're white everywhere.
The goal with road signs, is to have them as pictures, rather than words, and the same everywhere on the planet, so anyone of any language can understand them.
This is the sort of generic collaboration that happens in the background constantly. And its sensible, everyone wants tourism, everyone wants drivers to be safer, understand the rules of the road when traveling, and so on. Everyone benefits.
So from my perspective, to see all democracies passing laws, I simply see that probably there was a conference somewhere, and everyone discussed it, and thought "yeah, this is a problem".
> Point is, when you see every democracy passing these laws, it isn't Meta.
Sure. And the outpouring of support for ratification of OOXML as an ISO standard wasn't motivated by Microsoft. Nor was the large influx of new "P" members who arrived just in time to vote to adopt OOXML. Absolutely.
The fact that those "P" members refused to meet their obligations to cast a vote in any later ballots (resulting in the failure of several key ballots, bringing ISO to a standstill) only strengthens the claim that their actions were genuine grassroots activity. No. Doubt.
Megacorps never use their massive gobs of money and influence to co-opt processes that require all participants to mostly operate in good faith. Nope.
> States take years and years to make policy change.
The USian post-9/11 hysteria would like to have a word with you. Authoritarians rarely miss an opportunity to manufacture (or inflame) a crisis in order to present their pre-prepared rules changes that just happen to further expand their power and influence.
> I think the state's true goal is more about foreign influence. ... From the perspective of the state, they already know who you are when posting domestically.
Not in the US, no. Not without a fair bit of legwork. Though, I don't know much about the situation on the ground in countries like Britain and Germany. Perhaps things are so now bad there that you need to attach your Posting Loicense/Papers to everything you post, IDK.
> What they're gaining is an enhanced ability to ban externals from posting.
Yeah, here it is. "Keep those fuzzy foreigners out of our discussions!".
For the sake of discussion, let's assume that banning and/or jailing "Those People" is a reasonable thing to want to do. [0] The problem with this is that once you deploy and normalize this sort of "social technology", it always, always creeps further. Today it's "dangerous foreigners" with their "subversive ideologies". Five, ten years from now, it's whoever is the equivalent of today's LGBT&etc underclass.
[0] It's absolutely not. The remedy for bad speech is more speech. The remedy for falsehood is truth. The remedy for invalid attempts to sow discontent is to show how those attempts are not grounded in fact.
> Sure. And the outpouring of support for ratification of OOXML as an ISO standard wasn't motivated by Microsoft. Nor was the large influx of new "P" members who arrived just in time to vote to adopt OOXML. Absolutely.
Yes - Meta is most definitely taking advantage of the situation, but it’s surfing the waves, not generating them.
> [0] It's absolutely not. The remedy for bad speech is more speech. The remedy for falsehood is truth. The remedy for invalid attempts to sow discontent is to show how those attempts are not grounded in fact.
I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this defense (more speech) has been defeated.
We (humanity) have developed attacks that avoid these defenses. Our defenses were primarily against government control of data. The current attacks leverage the mechanized production of speech, and achieve influence via an abundance of content.
Between attention seeking algorithms, the death of classifieds and the revenue sources for independent journalism, the creation of party+media entities, and actual foreign influence operations - theres a surfeit of content traps to catch voters up. “Flood the zone”, so to speak.
It’s very similar to the sub prime mortgage/ NINJA loan scenario: On the one hand you have professional teams / media market makers which specialize in figuring out content that works. On the other side you have the average joe who is entering the marketplace with their wits and experience.
This iteration of the market place of ideas result in unfair fights between the average person, and whichever entity decides they have the money to spend.
> ...this defense (more speech) has been defeated.
Very loud incorrect buzzer
The minute humans gathered into groups larger than one could talk in-depth to in a week -let alone a year- we've had the "too much information" problem. So, we've had that problem for hundreds or thousands of years. It's nothing new.
Censorious authoritarians want to convince people that it's new and that the best solution is (obviously) to curtail free speech and association, but that's also nothing new.
that the Heritage Foundation (creators of Project 2025) wants these laws and has been pushing similar agendas in a number of countries makes me doubt this.
I get by without it, but I can imagine some won't be able to.