Heres what you do - go to the bank today, get $50 in pennies…

One of those unique business opportunities that provides both actual work experience as well as the reason for their future work behind bars

I cant say enough great things about these rural electric companys rolling out their own fiber. I had an interesting opportunity a while back to do contracted field work for a bunch of small midwest/gulf state electric companies, and was absolutely blown away by the work they’re doing.

The first one I worked, I was extremely confused by the communications on all of their poles thinking ATT came through and delivered the nicest fiber id ever seen to cows and corn until I came across the linemen casually splicing fiber on the back bumper of their bucket truck. ATT was copper only in the area, even in the small town they werent even trying - the electric company was dominating.

The whole mood was wild really, most of these companies were co-ops that were tied into the community already, and its really the community that decided the co-op should do internet too. I never got to be an actual customer of any of these, so i never got to know what it feels like to tell ATT to kick rocks and then actually be able to do something about it. But every single customer and employee was feeling it and it wasnt hard to get them grinning about it.

The options available to them were also something to behold. Its their poles. Communications always go under power, and normal communications companies kinda sorta just work with what they get after the electric company uses all the space they need. These guys can rearrange their electric lines to make way for communications all in the same day. ATT would probably get bogged down under 8 months of red tape if they tried to do that.

One of these co-ops would even use space on their poles for directional wifi antennas. Some rural houses would have a half mile driveway, and the power line has long since been buried, so they just beam internet wirelessly from fiber on the main road and skip the expensive buildout to lay fiber for one person. I got to chatting with one guy that had this setup. His house was downhill from the road, so right next to his house they ended up installing the absolute tallest wooden utility pole i have ever seen, i dont even remember the footage, but all that was on it was a single 10 inch wifi dish at the very top. He still got a few hundred both ways, those directional antennas were impressive, and they just power them off their own electric grid.

It really was a daily eye opener of how it could be if these shit ISPs didnt control everything. I strongly encourage everyone to look up to see if youre served by one! You might be surprised, they sometimes whittle in close to some larger cities, if you live in some newer neighborhoods on the outskirts…but man look at me ramble

When I took handwriting lessons I had to draw each number 100+ times in a row, so I guess I could say I’ve been googoling since 1987

I see a hoverboard at my apartment dumpsters practically once a week. I rip them open for the battery pack, its always a stack of 18650s. I guess i should start collecting the motors too?

There’s even a particular style of massive highway interchanges nicknamed ‘Texas style stack interchanges.’

Basically their outer roads(frontage roads) are just smaller highways, and those all get their own interchange right on top of the main highway interchange, resulting in a giant pasta bowl of overpasses.

Their highway infrastructure is absurd

This actually fits pretty well with the infantapulting hypothesis and I choose to believe they are evidence of each other.

https://youtu.be/94_omZ2RnfI