Category Archives: Computers

A first experience with Starlink high-speed internet

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In less than two hours, our Hawaiian Airlines flight will land in Long Beach, California. We’ll be there for a week, mostly to see several Lind cousins, along with a friend from high school, and another old friend of about 50 years who happens to now be retired in LB.

My dad grew up in Long Beach before finding his way to Hawaii, and three surviving cousins are still living in the area.

But getting there provided an opportunity to try out Starlink. Hawaiian started offering free in-flight Starlink internet last year, I believe, but this is the first time I’ve tried it out. And I have to report that the user experience is excellent.

Screenshot

I am sorry to say that Starlink is several times better than whatever system United has been offering. Sorry because I have a very strong hostile reaction to Elon Musk and would rather not support his enterprise. But Starlink just works. And it’s fast. I haven’t experienced any lost signal or dead periods. United is reportedly shifting over to Starlink, but I haven’t run into it yet on any United flight. I would say that they should get a move on and complete the transition, based on my single-flight experience.

It was simple to join the Starlink network once our flight got underway. It was as simple as turning on wifi and selecting the “Starlink WIFI on Hawaiian” network. Bam! Instant connection. And it is impressive in use. Little latency, and a snappy feel.

I’ve been able to send texts with photos, go through email, read the news, etc, etc. All the normal online activities have worked fine. And it works well both on my phone and iPad.

So I would give it a 10 out of 10!

I wonder what Hawaiian has to pay to offer complimentary Starlink?

Anyway, this is just a quick report from the field. Or the sky, I guess, to be precise.

Another lesson in “don’t rely on Google”

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In a couple of weeks, we’re flying to Long Beach, California, to visit with a few cousins and other old friends. My dad grew up in Long Beach, and his younger brother’s daughters stayed in Long Beach, and his sister’s sole surviving son lives only a short drive away.

So as part of our planning, I asked Google something that seemed pretty straight forward. I searched for “Elks lodge closest to Long Beach California.”

Google quickly returned a direct answer. The closest Elks lodge is located in downtown Long Beach, according to Google. Elks Lodge 1937.

Just one small problem with Google’s answer.

Elks Lodge 1937 is located in Long Beach, Washington. That’s more than 1,000 miles from Long Beach, California.

Different state. Not even a contiguous state.

I’m finding out that every answer I receive from Google needs to be independently vetted.

Another example of AI wildly missing the mark

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Looking through some of my old photos, I found this photo of the poster used to advertise the first “Sovereignty Sunday” event held on January 16, 1977.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have a closeup of the poster that allowed the text to be read. So I did the natural thing. I Googled it, hoping to find that someone, somewhere, posted a better photo.

My search prompt was simple: “All Hawaii Stand Together 1977 poster.” I assumed it would be pretty straight forward.

Google now prefaces its search results with an AI summary, which in this case turned out to be totally, absurdly wrong.

It’s answer:

WTF?

It appears to be another example of an IA system unable to simply say, “sorry, I can’t find anything.” Instead, it made up an answer and presented it as a likely fact.

One more for my growing “Don’t relying on AI to get it right” file.

Another AI hallucination

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Gemini, Google’s AI assistant, provided another direct example of an answer to a question that was flat-out wrong.

It came on Sunday, while I was writing a post about a confidentiality rule adopted by the Maui County Board of Ethics, which is similar to two state laws that were found to be unconstitutional more than 30 years ago.

I was the plaintiff in a lawsuit that successfully challenged a provision of the state’s campaign spending law in 1991-1992. The decision by Judge Alan Kay of the Federal District Court for the District of Hawaii cited an earlier Hawaii case, John Roe v. Akamine, et al. (Civil No. 91-00252 DAE).

This lawsuit challenged a law prohibiting anyone from disclosing any information about a complaint about a public employee or official with the State Ethics Commission, including the person who filed the complaint.

The challenge to this provision of the state ethics law was quickly successful. The state agreed the law was unconstitutional, and it was struck down by Judge David Ezra.

But I was unable to find much more information about the Akamine case. Documents from the case are not available via the federal courts’ PACER document system, and routine searches didn’t turn up anything more.

So I asked Gemini for any information it could find on the Akamine case. To aid in its search, I pointed to the citation in the court decision.

Its answer went wildly awry.

It was apparently a situation, as described by others, in which the inability to find relevant information prompted Gemini to wrongly “make up” an answer meant to satisfy my original inquiry.

Here, Gemini began with an clearly erroneous premise–that Roe v. Akamine was a challenge to the campaign spending law, and it went downhill from there.

Another Gemini hallucination

A 1991 federal lawsuit in Hawaii, identified as John Roe v. Akamine, et al., Civil No. 91-00252 DAE, took aim at the confidentiality clause within the state’s campaign finance laws. While details of the case remain largely in legal archives, it played a pivotal role as a precursor to a subsequent, more widely publicized case that successfully overturned the secrecy provision on First Amendment grounds.

The “John Roe” lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii, challenged the constitutionality of Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS) § 11-216(d). This statute mandated that all proceedings related to a complaint filed with the Campaign Spending Commission—including the complaint itself, investigations, and hearings—remain confidential until a finding of probable cause.

Presiding over the case was U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra. His order in the John Roe matter became a significant precedent cited in the 1993 case Lind v. Grimmer. In that later case, journalist Ian Lind successfully argued that the confidentiality provision was an unconstitutional prior restraint on free speech. The court in Lind v. Grimmer referenced Judge Ezra’s prior order in John Roe v. Akamine to support its decision to strike down the statute.

The use of the pseudonym “John Roe” suggests the plaintiff wished to remain anonymous, a common practice in cases where individuals fear reprisal for challenging a government entity or law. The defendants, “Akamine, et al.,” were likely officials associated with the Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission or another state agency responsible for enforcing the campaign finance laws at the time. Despite searches for individuals with the surname Akamine in relevant government positions in 1991, a definitive identification of the named defendant has not been publicly established.

While the full complaint, court filings, and the complete text of Judge Ezra’s order in John Roe v. Akamine are not readily available in public online legal databases, its legal significance is clear. The case was an early and influential challenge to the secrecy surrounding campaign finance complaints in Hawaii, setting the stage for the eventual invalidation of the confidentiality law and greater transparency in the state’s election oversight.

Also see:

“I Asked Google’s AI Who It Was. It Lied,” iLind.net, July 4, 2025