Charlie Kirk: Hero of ‘Civil Discourse’ or Fount of Division?
Ryan Quinn
Mon, 09/29/2025 – 03:00 AM
Pointing to the slain activist’s inflammatory statements about minority groups, some are pushing back—at their own peril—against the right’s framing of him as an emblem of quality discourse.
Key points:
Education is undergoing a profound digital transformation. From immersive AR/VR learning in science labs to hybrid classrooms, real-time collaboration platforms, and remote learning at scale, how students learn and educators teach is changing rapidly. These modern, data-intensive applications require far more than basic connectivity. They demand high bandwidth, ultra-low latency, and rock-solid reliability across every corner of the campus.
In other words, the minimum requirement today is maximal connectivity. And this is where Optical LAN (OLAN) becomes a game changer.
The challenge with traditional LANs
Most schools and universities still rely on traditional copper-based local area networks (LANs). But these aging systems are increasingly unable to meet the demands of today’s digital education environments. Copper cabling comes with inherent speed and distance limitations, requiring rip-and-replace upgrades every 5 to 7 years to keep up with evolving needs.
To increase network capacity, institutions must replace in-wall cables, switches, and other infrastructure–an expensive, time-consuming and highly disruptive process. Traditional LANs also come with large physical footprints, high maintenance requirements, and significant energy consumption, all of which add to their total cost of ownership (TCO).
In a world that’s demanding smarter, faster, and greener networks, it’s clear that copper no longer makes the grade.
Built for the campus of the future
Optical LAN is a purpose-built solution for both in-campus and in-building connectivity, leveraging the superior performance of fiber optic infrastructure. It addresses the limitations of copper LANs head-on and offers significant improvements in scalability, energy efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
Here’s why it’s such a compelling option for education networks:
1. Massive capacity and seamless scalability
Fiber offers virtually unlimited bandwidth. Today’s OLAN systems can easily support speeds of 10G and 25G, with future-readiness for 50G and even 100G. And unlike copper networks, education IT managers and operators don’t need to replace the cabling to upgrade; they simply add new wavelengths (light signals) to increase speed or capacity. This means educational institutions can scale up without disruptive overhauls.
Better yet, fiber allows for differentiated quality of service on a single line. For example, a school can use a 1G wavelength to connect classrooms and dormitories, while allocating 10G bandwidth to high-performance labs. This flexibility is ideal for delivering customized connectivity across complex campus environments.
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2. Extended reach across the entire campus
One of the standout features of OLAN is its extended reach. Fiber can deliver high-speed connections over distances up to 20–30 km without needing signal boosters or additional switches. This makes it perfect for large campuses where buildings like lecture halls, research centers, dorms, and libraries are spread out over wide areas. In contrast, copper LANs typically max out at a few dozen meters, requiring more switches, patch panels and costly infrastructure.
With OLAN, a single centralized network can serve the entire campus, reducing complexity and improving performance.
3. Energy efficiency and sustainability
Sustainability is top-of-mind for many educational institutions, and OLAN is a clear winner here. Fiber technology is up to 8 times more energy-efficient than other wired or wireless options. It requires fewer active components, generates less heat and significantly reduces the need for cooling.
Studies show that OLAN uses up to 40 percent less power than traditional LAN systems. This translates into lower electricity bills and a reduced carbon footprint–important factors for schools pursuing green building certifications.
In fact, a BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) assessment conducted by ENCON found that deploying OLAN improved BREEAM scores by 7.7 percent, particularly in categories like management, energy, health and materials. For perspective, adding solar panels typically improves BREEAM scores by 5-8 percent.
4. Simpler, smarter architecture
Optical LAN significantly simplifies the network design. Instead of multiple layers of LAN switches and complex cabling, OLAN relies on a single centralized switch and slim, passive optical network terminals (ONTs). A single fiber cable can serve up to 128 endpoints, using a fraction of the physical space required by copper bundles.
This lean architecture means:
The result? A network that’s easier to manage, more reliable, and built to grow with an education institution’s needs.
5. Unmatched cost efficiency
While fiber was once seen as expensive, the economics have shifted. The Association for Passive Optical LAN (APOLAN) found that POL saved 40 percent of the cost for a four-story building in 2022. Even more, Optical LAN now delivers up to 50 percent lower TCO over a 5-year period compared to traditional LAN systems, according to multiple industry studies.
Cost savings are achieved through:
In essence, OLAN delivers more value for less money, which is a compelling equation for budget-conscious education institutions.
The future is fiber
With the rise of Wi-Fi 7 and ever-increasing demands on network infrastructure, even wireless connectivity depends on robust wired backhaul. Optical LAN ensures that Wi-Fi access points have the bandwidth they need to deliver high-speed, uninterrupted service.
And as educational institutions continue to adopt smart building technologies, video surveillance, IoT devices, and remote learning platforms, only fiber can keep up with the pace of change.
Optical LAN empowers educational institutions to build networks that are faster, greener, simpler, and future-proof. With growing expectations from students, faculty, and administrators, now is the perfect time to leave legacy limitations behind and invest in a fiber-powered future.
After all, why keep replacing copper every few years when operators can build it right once?
Kashana Cauley’s second novel, The Payback (out July 15, 2025), might read like a brilliantly absurd heist movie—but its critique of debt peonage, surveillance capitalism, and broken educational promises is dead serious. With its hilarious yet harrowing depiction of three underemployed retail workers taking on the student loan-industrial complex, The Payback arrives not just as a much-anticipated literary event, but as a cultural reckoning.
The protagonist, Jada Williams, is relentlessly hounded by the “Debt Police”—a dystopian twist that, while fictional, feels terrifyingly close to home for America’s 44 million student debtors. But instead of accepting a life of financial bondage, Jada and her mall coworkers hatch a plan to erase their student debt and strike back against the system that sold them a future in exchange for permanent servitude.
This wild caper—praised by Publishers Weekly, Bustle, The Boston Globe, and others for its intelligence and audacity—may be fiction, but it echoes the real-life story of one bold man who did exactly what Jada dreams of doing.
In the mid-2000s, a Chilean man known only by his pseudonym, Papas Fritas (French Fries), pulled off one of the most radical and symbolic acts of debt resistance in modern history. A former art student at Chile’s prestigious Universidad del Mar—a private for-profit institution later shut down for corruption and fraud—Papas Fritas discovered that the university had falsified financial documents to secure millions in profits while leaving students in mountains of debt.
His response? He infiltrated the school’s administrative offices, extracted records documenting approximately $500 million in student loans, and burned them. Literally. With no backup copies.
He then turned the ashes into an art installation called “La Morada del Diablo” (The Devil’s Dwelling), displayed it publicly, and became an instant folk hero. For many Chileans, who had taken to the streets in the early 2010s protesting an exploitative and privatized higher education system, Papas Fritas was more than a trickster—he was a vigilante philosopher, an artist of revolt.
His act raised questions that still haunt us: What is the moral value of debt acquired through deception? Should the victims of predatory institutions be forced to pay for their own exploitation?
In The Payback, Cauley’s characters don’t just want debt relief—they want retribution. And like Papas Fritas, they understand that justice in an unjust system may require transgression, even sabotage. Cauley, a former Daily Show writer and incisive New York Times columnist, doesn’t shy away from this. Her prose is electric with rage, joy, absurdity, and clarity.
She also knows exactly what she’s doing. Jada’s plan to eliminate debt isn’t merely about numbers—it’s about dignity, possibility, and reclaiming a future that was sold for interest. Cauley’s fiction, like Papas Fritas’s fire, is not just a spectacle—it’s a warning, and a dare.
In an America where student debt totals over $1.7 trillion, where debt servicers act like bounty hunters, and where the promise of higher education has become a trapdoor, The Payback delivers catharsis—and inspiration.
Hollywood, take note: this story demands a screen adaptation. But more importantly, policymakers, debt collectors, and university administrators should take heed. The people are reading. And they’re getting ideas.
Preorder The Payback
Signed editions are available through Black-owned LA bookstores Reparations Club, Malik Books, and Octavia’s Bookshelf. National preorder links are now live. Read it before the Debt Police knock on your door.
Because as both Cauley and Papas Fritas remind us: sometimes, the only moral debt is the one you refuse to pay.