For decades, academics have been trying to warn anybody who’d listen that the death of your local newspaper and the steady consolidation of local TV broadcasters has created either “news deserts,” or local news reporting that’s mostly just low-calorie puffery and simulacrum. Despite claims that the “internet would fix this,” fixing local news just wasn’t […]
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Stephen T. Stone responding to the allegation that we have been inconsistent about whether or not Twitter blue checks have value: The value of the blue check under Old Twitter was “verification”—i.e., “this person is who they say they are”. Was the system perfect? […]
Five Years Ago This week in 2018, we announced one of our most exciting and unusual projects: a Kickstarter to fund the production and release of a training card game developed by the CIA and uncovered via FOIA. We were blown away by the response when we hit our goal in 40 hours, and we’re […]
Phew. We’ve written a bunch about Stephen Thaler’s quixotic and dangerous quest to allow AI created works and inventions to receive copyrights and patents. It’s repeatedly failed to convince people, especially US judges, that Congress intended anyone other than human beings as the creators and inventors to receive such monopolies. Thankfully, Thaler’s loss streak continues. […]
Law enforcement loves cheap drug tests. First, they’re cheap, around $2/per. Second, they can turn a whole host of legal substances into probable cause for searches and arrests. Field drugs tests have converted everything from a deceased child’s ashes to bird poop (on a car hood, no less) into illicit substances justifying the removal of […]
We’ve noted for decades how telecom monopolies convinced corrupt state legislatures to pass counterproductive bans on creative community broadband networks. The bills are protectionist crap that are ghost written by telecom giants like AT&T and Comcast, and designed to protect their regional broadband monopolies from grass roots competitive disruption on a town by town level. […]
Today is six months since Elon took over Twitter and began this bizarre speedrun of the content moderation learning curve in which he seems to repeatedly… not learn a damn thing. Over and over again he makes ridiculous choices that have made the entire platform less welcoming for speech, more willing to obey government demands, […]
Grope. Grope. Grope grope grope. Grope. Andddddddd… some humiliating of people with rare medical conditions just because. That’s just how the Transportation Security Administration (est. one-month-post-9/11 2001) operates. Americans are forced to subject themselves to groping, humiliation, unjustified questioning/searches, seizures of explosive breast milk, etc. just because the federal government thought the only way to […]
Surprise Mom with a farmer’s choice bouquet: 24 exquisite long-stem roses or 12-14 daylillies handpicked by farmers for their vibrant colors and beauty. For $44.99, you’ll get these dozens delivered anywhere in the continental US. Whether you’re near or far, these roses are the perfect way to let her know that she is loved and […]
Almost exactly a year ago, we pointed out that Ron DeSantis deliberately trying to punish Disney for making some mild criticism of an (obviously unconstitutional) bill that he was endorsing was, itself, a 1st Amendment problem. And that was true even if the underlying idea to get rid of Disney’s control over the land in […]
Between COVID relief and the recently passed infrastructure bill, there’s an historic influx of more than $60 billion being thrown at this country’s substandard broadband networks. And, as you might expect, there’s a lot of heavy lobbying and maneuvering by various parties to obtain that money, and/or ensure that it’s actually utilized for the greater […]
We’ve been following the entire saga of Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard for some time now. The whole thing has been decidedly messy, for various reasons. For starters, there are three main regulatory bodies that most of us have been waiting to hear from: the UK’s CMA, the USA’s FTC, and the EU. And […]
As you may have noticed, headlines are full of the wonders of chatbots and generative AI these days. Although often presented as huge breakthroughs, in many ways they build on machine learning techniques that have been around for years. These older systems have been deployed in real-life situations for some time, which means they provide […]
I’ve been criticizing the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) approach to internet regulations, because they’re doing this “wink, wink, nudge, nudge” bit in which they insist that the DSA is not regulating speech, but then they admit that the point of the DSA is to see less “bad” speech on the internet. But, whether we […]
A few years ago AT&T, a company that tried to cheap out on upgrading its broadband lines to fiber, effectively stopped selling DSL. While that’s understandable given the dated copper-based tech, the problem is that thanks to concentrated telecom monopolization, many of these customers were left without any replacement options due to a lack of […]
Bring the luxuriously soft touch of cashmere to your wardrobe with a Lavisha Cashmere Shawl. Made of warm and elegant cashmere wool, this shawl will feel superbly comfortable draped over your shoulders. Its soft fringe enhances any outfit, and with an impressive six feet of length, you can bundle up and stay warm no matter […]
Senator Brian Schatz is one of the more thoughtful Senators we have, and he and his staff have actually spent time talking to lots of experts in trying to craft bills regarding the internet. Unfortunately, it still seems like he still falls under the seductive sway of this or that moral panic, so when the […]
There’s an historic $50 billion in broadband subsidies currently heading to the states courtesy of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). There are plenty of potential hiccups on stuff like mapping that could screw things up, but, any way you slice it, this money should still have […]
Wizards of the Coast (WotC), the company behind both Dungeons & Dragons and Magic The Gathering has been on our pages recently and not for good reasons. Most recently, the company kicked up a completely unnecessary shitstorm for itself by changing the OGL license under which it released D&D Fifth Edition in such a way […]
Last fall, we wrote about Rupert Murdoch’s son, Lachlan (who seems to have won out over brother James in the Succession-style fight to lead his father’s nonsense peddling media outfit) lost his shit over an opinion piece in the Australian independent media organization Crikey and sued them for defamation in Australia. At the time, we […]
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