Offer a line of sight neighbor $1000 to install a business line at their house and use a PTP WISP style repeater to get across the road. Equipment that can give you 400+ Mbps over a mile are pretty cheap, like under $300 for the kit. Ordering business line is the trick that works long term, because it is against policy to share a neighbor's internet (although it is often done). Be sure that your address is the billing address and the neighbor's address is the service address. The cable company will put a splitter on their existing line and give you a modem. You'll need power, a place to store the modem and a spot to install the antenna on their house or a tree - which is why you offer $1000. For under $1500 plus the monthly cost of the business line, you have internet.

Love my Pixel 3XL. Google tried to get me to install Android 12 late last year but then announced there would be no more updates for 12. Yeah, we all know how wonderful the first few updates of a new version can be. Why would anyone want 12.0 without the promise for any updates? Now, I'm being nagged to update because it has been over 100 days but no. I'll stick with Android 11 until a Pixel 7 comes out and seems worth it. The Pixel 6 seems underwhelming.

LinkedIn can also be used as an industry Rolodex, even when not looking for a job. The list of people I have worked (or linked) with is an ever growing network and long ago lost track of. I use LinkedIn to remember people and solicit partnerships for product development. I also like to read articles that people in my network curate and in general, know what they are up to. These are the cross-industry colleagues that I have much in common with. LinkedIn is just one tool in the quiver that sometimes comes in handy.

My high school science teacher told the class about this scenario in the late 1960's, so I'm getting a kick out of watching it happen 50 years later. He included a theory that once the Gulf stream is disrupted, the artic area would freeze up again within 30 years and the Gulf stream would start up again. I never believed something like that could happen in just 30 years, but it is worth considering what is next after the initial impact.

For the last 15 years, I worked from home and wouldn't have it any other way. It didn't matter where my bosses were, so was able to work for people in Singapore, UK, Australia, California and Georgia, USA. My team was all over the globe. The company could hire the best people for the job, not only those near an office. The team members had weekly teleconferences to stay in touch, used email and chat a lot and occasionally met in person. The meeting part is important. Just seeing your peers once and having a chance to share a meal or a drink with them, is sufficient to work better with them between visits. When I visit a customer in their cubicled office, I get a shudder, thankful for what I discarded years ago. Working from home is a great gig if you can find one that works for you. .

There is asymmetry in the understanding of technology between many small businesses and its customers. Every business looking for customers should have a Google business listing and the SEO scammers are screwing it up. Any business can get the Google listing (the box with a map, pictures, hours, web site, etc) free by themselves, but many don't have the time or knowledge to do it. Google authorizes a group of trusted business verifiers to help and many are volunteers. When going into a small business to honestly help, these folks often encounter mistrust of intentions, due to the scammers having soiled the path.

That is "There is no good reason for anyone to NOT have the option of internet"

There is no good reason for everyone to have the option for at least residential class internet service in the US. In unserved areas, the property assessment and tax should be reduced, and document the deficiency for buyers doing research. If it takes public funds to reach 100%, so be it, but keep track of where it is missing and get it done in the next year or so.

So glad Apple isn't playing ball here. It sucks to get all excited about new apps or media only to find I can't have it because I haven't paid my Apple tax. Boo on the government on trying to make Apple the single technology partner.

Wish I had had access to Plato. So much came from it, including the genesis of Lotus Notes. Computer education was just starting in the late 60's. My 1968 high school physics class had a student teacher from a local college that taught us FORTRAN, on a RCA mainframe. We used punch cards the first year and then in 1969, a paper-tape teletype was installed. Kids will be kids. We quickly learned to save ASCII art on paper-tape and sent a foot long rendition of the finger to the operator's console. This was also before the days of using ***** to hide passwords, so a fish into the garbage can yielded the teacher's password and eventually the system admin's. A few grades were changed with no consequences, but when we tried the admin "shutdown" command before dismounting the drives - and it took a week to reboot the system - that was the end of my early computer training.

The hype will die down after the US election on November 4th. Till then, the political BS machines are spinning anything that gets people's attention into points against the other side.

The main problem with corporate social software today is that the business dynamics are different than public social apps. With Facebook or Google+, you are a user, not a customer, and advertising is the business model. With corporations, you buy, not build the software and typically it is bloatware, trying to meet the needs of a selection committee with vague goals. So, if you can find anything good, it will be expensive (SAP, Microsoft, Oracle, etc).

Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) had a vibrant social network from the mid-80's to the mid 90's, based on a rewrite of the CDC Plato software. It eventually evolved into Lotus Notes and bloated into crapware. In it's day at DEC, over 400 "notes files" were active, half business related - and non-business topics to encourage use by everyone. Below the management level, the company ran on "VAXnotes". Management hated it, because it wasn't the way they were comfortable working and disrupted their authority. Did this kill the company? Perhaps. It sharpened the disconnect between management and the workers.

Today, combine bloatware social tools that basically suck when compared to public sites, with corporate rules that discourage non-business use, combined with the spyware culture that social tool reporting provide - and we see failures due to non-use. Once those that grew up with social tools grow into management positions, the popularity of corporate social tools will likely grow. Use of social business tools "CAN" be a powerful tool if the corporate culture embraces it. It "WILL" make companies more competitive if the culture can act in a more coordinated way. Just, not yet.

The comment "build out broadband infrastructure, including cellular data networks in those areas." seems like a waste of money. Metered bandwidth is good for mobile applications but a home needs unlimited data volumes. While today, 30 gig a month is fine for most and 100 gig /month should suffice for the next few years, the concept of caps will be a bucket of cold water on continued innovation. Wireless is not in itself a bad technology for the rural build-out, but it is unlikely that Verizon and AT&T will change their ways. Cellular wireless is lifeline quality only for the home.

DNT was dead the moment a vendor, and not the user, made the decision to set the flag on by default. Why should any content provider respect the wishes of a browser company, with regards to tracking?

If neutrality is a lost cause, I hope at least for a baseline on neutral performance, say the high-end of what we can get today. This would drive investment towards gigabit+ speeds and new applications that come with it, what ever they may be. This would be a good time for a disruptive technology to come along and give the mega carriers some competition, but sadly, I don't think it will. The placement of a lobbyist into the FCC decision chair is disappointing.