The current standards for the Connect America were kept low so that they could show a map full of territory that is covered with 'high speed broadband Internet access'. The FCC wanted to look good.

Now that we're on the cusp of 5G, the FCC wants to change the rules of the Connect America (Slush) Fund to turn it into a giveaway for 5G wireless providers (such as his former corporate employer).

They need the number to be high enough to knock out many of the existing landline offerings (often local or regional companies), but at the same time low enough not to significantly obligate those 5G providers to offer significantly more than they want to.

It is a delightful balancing act of minimal levels and timing that is used to shift the reward from wired landline providers to wireless providers. I'm sure his sponsors couldn't have asked for anything more.

There might be a more selfish reason for this. If they're looking for rich alumni who can feed money back into the program some years down the road, they'll want to funnel as many of them as they can into private equity, venture capital and hedge funds after graduation.

> The most recent Fire TV released this fall canâ(TM)t yet run the Silk browser...

I'm wondering what unfortunate twist of software turned the word "cannot" into "canâ(TM)t"? It seems like an implausible replacement.

Iâ(TM)d love for you to make that argument for Windows Mobile. Thatâ(TM)d be pretty funny.

the NSA (in their role of protecting the nation's data infrastructure, not their role of spying on everyone -- two very different organizations within the NSA)

Or so the NSA would have you believe...

I had this guy who thought my ancient [first initial][lastname] email address was his own. He was using it for various things, including signing up for his new credit card. Apparently, his credit card company did not valid an email address before it started sending reward statements, which included a partial card number. The credit card company did NOT provide an unsubscribe feature (unless I logged into the other customer's account which, of course, was not possible). Actually, there was no mechanism for me NOT to get his reward statements!

After escalating to the credit card company's executive customer service (the customer service of last resort when you write to the company's CEO) , they evidently got ahold of the guy to inform him that this email address is bad, and to get his real one.

My recent problems with someone else trying to use my email address have since stopped.

You say "caring", I say "having integrity". But hey, you've got the only correct value system, right?