Article note: Nice step. Now we just need it so _whole geographic areas_ don't have effective monopolies, and the definition of "broadband" isn't so watered down as to be meaningless.
The Federal Communications Commission has voted to ban the exclusive revenue-sharing deals between landlords and Internet service providers that prevent broadband competition in apartment buildings and other multi-tenant environments. The new ban and other rule changes were adopted in a 4-0 vote announced yesterday.
Although the FCC "has long banned Internet service providers from entering into sweetheart deals with landlords that guarantee they are the only provider in the building," evidence submitted to the commission "made it clear that our existing rules are not doing enough and that we can do more to pry open the door for providers who want to offer competitive service in apartment buildings," FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in her statement on the vote. The broadband industry has sidestepped rules that already exist with "a complex web of agreements between incumbent service providers and landlords that keep out competitors and undermine choice," she said.
With the new rules, "we ban exclusive revenue sharing agreements, where the provider agrees with the building that only it and no other provider can give the building owner a cut of the revenue from the building. We also ban graduated revenue sharing agreements, which increase the percentage of revenue that the broadband provider directs to the landlord as the number of tenants served by the provider go up," Rosenworcel said. Rosenworcel had circulated the proposal to commissioners in late January.
Article note: I've long been an advocate of walking and/or exercising as the best thing for getting one's mind (back) in order... but I'm not sure if I could physically do their sample exercise, that's intense.
Article note: Huh. Interesting. I don't generally love consolidation, but neither of them are single players in their market.
If it leads to "rental VMs that behave like computers transparently fronted by a CDN" products, that could be a really nice offering for small-to-medium customers.
Article note: Man, this thing is getting traction in the media.
It _is_ far and away one of the most polished and practical machines of it's sort if seen, but lots of people are building little custom machines in odd form-factors. Most of that activity is under the "cyberdeck" name.
If someone is using a handheld PC these days, it's almost certainly a smartphone. But a Raspberry Pi has a way of bringing out an enthusiast's retro side. Add in some old console parts and a true mechanical keyboard, and you've got a DIY PC that can fit in the palm of your hand.
Called the Penkesu and shared via GitHub by a user known as Penk Chen, the project is described as "a homebrew retro-style handheld PC." It uses a 7.9-inch touchscreen with a 400 x 1,280 resolution and a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W. Other electronic parts include a 3.7 V Li-Po battery and Adafruit PowerBoost 1000C for power.
Chen 3D-printed the PC's chassis and shared the corresponding STL files and STEP file. The maker also used replacement hinges for the Game Boy Advance SP to allow the PC to fold shut.
A bill that prohibits requiring masks at Kentucky public schools, colleges and child care centers advanced Tuesday in the General Assembly. House Bill 51, introduced by State Rep. Lynn Bechler, … Click to Continue »
Article note: I really, really hate the use of Discord or Slack for project management/ community help.
It's everything bad about IRC, everything bad about in-house forums, none of the good parts of either, _and_ adds some new problems: Not publicly indexed. Not practically searchable. Inside some third party's proprietary silo. Somehow simultaneously super noisy _and_ super spread out. Accessible through a client that consumes more RAM than a reasonable operating system (or a browser tab in a modern heavyweight browser that does the same).
Two US senators have asked the Central Intelligence Agency to release the details of a secret bulk data collection program that has apparently ensnared Americans.
Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) wrote the director of national intelligence and the CIA (PDF), asking them to declassify a review of a CIA program known as “Deep Dive II,” the details of which were redacted from their letter. The letter was written in April 2021 but was classified until yesterday.
The secret CIA program is operated under the authority of Executive Order 12333, which former President Ronald Reagan issued in 1981. It has been used to justify bulk data collection of people in the US, including phone calls, SMS messages, and, until recently, email metadata. That practice was limited by a 2015 reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA, which banned the bulk collection of phone and SMS metadata by the FBI.
Civilized life has altogether grown too tame, and, if it is to be stable, it must provide a harmless outlets for the impulses which our remote ancestors satisfied in hunting.
