The FCC has long run an $8 billion federal subsidy program to help bring phone and broadband services to lower income homes and schools called the Universal Service Fund. The historically bipartisan program has long been funded by a fee on traditional phone lines. But with traditional phone lines dying, there’s been a long, ongoing discussion […]
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Stephen T. Stone with a comment on our post about the push to post the Ten Commandments in school, in reply to a comment asking us not to insult the people asking for this: Yes, we could avoid insulting Christian nationalists who want to […]
Five Years Ago This week in 2019, the EU was pushing back against the US on the topic of strong encryption, while Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court said compelled password production violates the fifth amendment. We learned more about how freely Amazon gave cops access to Ring doorbell recordings, and about how much California was raking in […]
As you likely know by now, we are running a Kickstarter to fund the release of One Billion Users, our new card game about building the biggest and best social media network. Earlier this week, Mike wrote about the game’s roots in Touring and Mille Bornes and explained some of the new mechanics we’ve added, […]
We’re waiting for the lawsuit in Japan between Nintendo, The Pokémon Co., and Pocketpair, the developers of the hit game Palworld to really get going. In the meantime, the public commentary is filling the information void, including commentary from IP experts. The suit revolves around a series of patents the plaintiffs hold that cover a […]
We’ve noted how Trump’s win means that Brendan Carr (R, AT&T) will now be in charge of the nation’s top telecom and media regulator. We’ve also made it very clear his tenure will involve dismantling whatever’s left of FCC broadband consumer protection, killing remaining media consolidation limits, and threatening to pull the broadcast licenses of […]
When Donald Trump announced that he was appointing current FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr to be the next chair of the FCC, it was no surprise. Nor was it a surprise that Trump tried to play up that Carr was a “warrior for free speech.” Commissioner Carr is a warrior for Free Speech, and has fought […]
ICE has never been opposed to mass surveillance. It has used everything it possibly can to locate Trump’s so-called “bad hombres” and subject them to family separation and a detainment infrastructure incapable of handling the former president’s (and now President-elect) masturbatorial fantasies about “border invasions.” ICE buys location info from data brokers to evade warrant […]
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When your rap track diss battle ends in whiny proto-SLAPP suits, I’m going to suggest you’ve officially lost. If you ever want to see this dril tweet as a legal filing (two actually), I think it’s in Drake’s semi-SLAPPy demands for discovery and depositions from Universal Music, Spotify, and iHeartRadio for having the temerity to… […]
After literally decades of rumor and speculation, fading satellite TV companies Dish and DirecTV finally recently announced they had proposed a pointless merger in a last gasp for relevance. Once blocked by regulatory worries about competitive impact, executives at both companies had long dreamed of combining the two companies into one, still broadly unremarkable company. […]
It’s been over a year since we last talked about the trademark dispute between Katy Perry, the American pop star, and Katie Perry, an Australian woman with a fashion line. To bring you up to speed, and I’ll use first names here to keep the confusion at a minimum, Katy sold merchandise for her 2014 […]
I come here not to bury this Wired article, nor to damn it with faint praise. I come to critique it, while realizing the framing and (especially!) the headline may not be the direct responsibility of its author, Paresh Dave. Privacy laws are hit and miss in the United States. Mostly miss. There’s not a […]
Support us on Patreon » Last week, we launched the crowdfunding campaign for One Billion Users, our new card game where players compete to build the biggest and best social media network. As is tradition when we launch a new game, myself and our game design partner Randy Lubin joined Mike on an episode of the […]
Way back in the day (1971, to be precise), the Supreme Court created a cause of action to sue federal officers over rights violations. The original case, Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, involved Webster Bivens and the warrantless search of his Brooklyn home by FBN (Federal Bureau of Narcotics — the precursor to the […]
The Complete ChatGPT Artificial Intelligence OpenAI Training Bundle has 4 beginner-friendly courses to help you become more comfortable with the capabilities of OpenAI and ChatGPT. You’ll learn how to write effective prompts to get the best results, how to create blog posts and sales copy, and how to create your own chatbots. It’s on sale […]
Last week we launched the Kickstarter for our amazing new card game, One Billion Users. It’s a fast, fun card game where players try to build up the biggest and best social media network, while simultaneously trying to undermine the networks the other players are trying to build. In the campaign, we mentioned a couple […]
We’ve noted more than once that the 2021 infrastructure bill is poised to deliver $42.5 billion in broadband subsidies to the states. A lot of that money will be thrown in the lap of incumbents with long histories of empty promises, but a lot of it will be leveraged for genuine, major improvements in broadband […]
There isn’t a ton of new information here to get into, but we might as well close the loop on this episode. Way back during the 2020 Presidential campaign, then-President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign put out an admittedly humorous animated video showing a massive Trump train barreling down the tracks, only to have Joe Biden […]
Making the bold assumption their voting bloc could read, Louisiana legislators passed a law earlier this year that mandates the posting of the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom. Building on the inexplicable support of people who would find Trump’s actions and statements reprehensible if they were carried out by anyone else, legislators are […]
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