Having your small town grow to absolutely depend on Starlink rather than a repairable, replaceable cable sounds... kinda bad. If you look in Starlink's yearbook, you'll see that they were voted "Most Likely to Trigger Kessler Syndrome"

I'm sure small town Red State America will have no problem with their fiber rollout being cancelled, only to be replaced by Starlink. After all, Starlink is an ideologically compatible internet for Red States. Blazingly fast... once you get past all the laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatency.

It's nice to see Elon blow up $5 billion dollars worth of wasteful government subsidies to SpaceX!

Saab, the manufacturer of the Swedish Gripen fighter, is pushing the government to send the Gripen fighters to Ukraine "sooner rather than later", with the goal of having training being offered on the fighter soon, possibly to include a fast track for Ukraine to obtain the more advanced Gripen E version of the fighter plane. Although Sweden has not sent any Gripen fighters to Ukraine as yet, last year they sent a defense package to Ukraine which included spare parts for the JAS 39 Gripen worth $214 million. These would allow for Sweden to donate Gripen C & D versions of the fighter to Ukraine. The other day, Saab & ICEYE signed a memorandum of understanding, where Saab would integrate ICEYE's real time satellite data into their combat systems. In practical terms, this could lead to Ukraine eventually having Gripen fighters with software & hardware features capable of "seeing" locations and identified targets in real time, as they approach, even in total darkness. Ultimately, Ukraine is going to have multiple defense "infrastructures" existing in their air force at once, so, in one sense, this is a competition between infrastructures, each trying to expand when possible, and prove their worth and unique capabilities. Ukraine, by aligning its real time satellite recon data with ICEYE, could also find that it aligns it with the Gripen.

You nailed it. If there's a futures market for it, that means volatility. Part of it will be intrinsic to the resource itself. The other part will be due to active manipulation for financial gain. I think some will win and some will lose. Unfortunately, it will not be in equal measure.

ANTICIPATED: Handheld computers and wireless data.
EXPECTED: An almost 100% sure thing we'd get there.
UNEXPECTED: That same technology that was supposed to be our tool to free us and make us better is used by default to track us, monetize us, maintain and resell portofolios on us.
DISAPPOINTED: The success of the cell phone and tablet effectively kills other pieces of dedicated or unique hardware implementations (MP3 player, a physical chess set that you can play against another friend anywhere in the world, etc).
ALSO DISAPPOINTED: How freely the common person would cash in their privacy for free services.

HOPED FOR: That "everyone" would finally be online and that you could do real things (and significant things) online.
EXPECTED: More individuals connecting with even more individuals.
UNEXPECTED: Reaching the tipping point where you're expected to be online or you can't access some desired information. (My offline parents complain about this quite regularly.)

SKEPTICAL: My dad telling me (circa 1980) that computer graphics would be good enough one day to make cartoons just as good as I see on TV. Even further in the future, maybe even something that might look like real life!
UNEXPECTED: Just how far we've surpassed even that dream of believable computer graphics in standard definition and in real time.

PROMISED: Useful and interactive household robots.
DISAPPOINTED: Roomba and a few small toys.

PROMISED: Television will keep getting better and better.
EXPECTED: High quality and lower cost hardware.
DISAPPOINTED: Everyday "broadcast quality" video quality has improved, but not as much as I'd thought.

For "Offline Trajectories" 20180352383-A1,

It should cite "System and method for providing quality of service mapping" US8620339B2 while talks about doing that very thing (but with a different spin to it).

https://patents.google.com/pat...

I'm not saying it invalidates the patent (I'm not a patent examiner) but it should at least be cited as a related patent.

You raise some interesting issues, but in the end, what does this proposed change in FCC policy look and smell like? Is this really about how the FCC can best meet the connectivity needs of rural customers? Or something else?

If this was honestly first and foremost about meeting the needs of rural customers, hey, we'd all welcome this! But it looks like the FCC is tinkering (yet again) with the definition of broadband, and this time it seems they're using it with the intention of steering funds.

How? They can define the bandwidth requirements just high enough to be unfavorable to regional competitors who have been building out networks. Yet they don't go too high. They still keep the definition low enough as not to burden those new competitors who have a well-known plan to roll out high speed fixed-wireless technology.

5G promises to be an awesome new technology, and I personally can't wait to see it! But I'd like to see it compete with the wired competitors on more level ground. Not through political lobbying. Not by carving out competition with an arbitrary definition of 5G that artificially tilts the distribution of funds.

It is another story of regulatory capture at the FCC. The FCC was supposed to favor Americans and put limits on corporations. Now the FCC is favoring the corporation they're supposed to regulate and the Americans are just contrived into a justification for doing so.

It is sad and unfortunate for America.

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.

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.

Not that I read many blogs, but my memory of him is that he was worst than most bloggers. Heck, Slashdot itself was (is) basically a blog. The other contributors back then were far, far better.

Katz always seemed to be some guy from the outside of a subculture who tried to be seen as an expert in it by declaring strongly held opinions. Bad enough, but the opinions were usually ingratiating, patronizing, and/or wrong.

Even Michael Sims wasn't as bad!

Don't I know it.