#Broadband for America

[wordswithloveee]

I invite everyone to choose forgiveness rather than division, teamwork over personal ambition.

#united states #usa #united states of america #america #migration #americans #refugees #destiel meme #destiel meme news #us news #news #net neutrality #internet #broadband #fcc #federal communications commission #genshin #genshin impact fanart #genshin fanart #fontaine #genshin art #childe #genshin impact

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Sohn was eminently qualified to serve on the FCC, and there was no mystery as to who she would serve in that role: the American people, especially those who have been abused, forgotten or underserved by Big Telco and Big Cable, from digitally redlined inner-city to rural broadband deserts.

So the monopolists went to work. For sixteen months, they successfully lo the Senate to block her confirmation hearing. Not her confirmation — just the hearing. Over $23 million in telco money flowed into the Senate over this period, and that was just the start.

The ISPs also went to work on the frothing culture warriors of the American right, smearing Sohn as a “groomer” and an “anti-police radical.” They ran a homophobic smear campaign against Sohn, who is gay, and condemned her for her work as a volunteer board member with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, on the grounds that EFF opposes unconstitutional digital police surveillance and campaigned against SESTA/FOSTA, a law that has put sex-workers in grave physical danger while doing nothing to accomplish its nominal goal of preventing sex-trafficking (disclosure: I am a Special Advisor to EFF and am proud to have worked with them for over 21 years).

-Culture War Bullshit Stole Your Broadband: Your internet sucks because telco monopolists kept Gigi Sohn off the FCC

#culture war bullshit #broadband #queerbaiting #gigi sohn #fcc #municipal fiber #sesta/fosta #whorephobia #turkeys voting for christmas #dinos #america fuck yeah

[n0thingiscool]

For thirty-plus years, giant telecom monopolies have worked tirelessly to crush all broadband competition. At the same time, they’ve lobbied state and federal governments so extensively, that the vast majority of politicians are feckless cardboard cutouts with little real interest in market or consumer health. The result has been fairly obvious: Americans pay some of the highest prices in the developed world for sluggish, slow broadband with historically abysmal customer service. Telecom lobbyists love to insist that often-shitty U.S. broadband is the envy of the modern world (it isn’t). They also love to argue that the only reason U.S. broadband isn’t even more awesome is because of “too much government regulation,” unnecessary red tape, and “bureaucracy.”

#monopolies #telecomm #lobbiest #corrupt government #usa #north america #america #news #important #internet #broadband

[nuadox]

Biden-Harris Administration provides $759 Million to bring high-speed internet access to communities across rural America

- By U.S. Department of Agriculture. (USDA) -

WASHINGTON, D.C., Oct. 27, 2022 – U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced that the Department is providing $759 million to bring high-speed internet access (PDF, 204 KB) to people living and working across 24 states, Puerto Rico, Guam and Palau. 

Today’s investments include funding from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which provides a historic $65 billion to expand reliable, affordable, high-speed internet to all communities across the U.S.

“People living in rural towns across the nation need high-speed internet to run their businesses, go to school and connect with their loved ones,” Vilsack said. “USDA partners with small towns, local utilities and cooperatives, and private companies to increase access to high-speed internet so people in rural America have the opportunity to build brighter futures. Under the leadership of President Biden and Vice President Harris, USDA is committed to making sure that people, no matter where they live, have access to high-speed internet. That’s how you grow the economy – not just in rural communities, but across the nation.”

The $759 million in loans and grants comes from the third funding round of the ReConnect Program. As part of today’s announcement, for example:

North Carolina’s AccessOn Networks Inc. is receiving a $17.5 million grant to connect thousands of people, 100 businesses, 76 farms and 22 educational facilities to high-speed internet in Halifax and Warren counties in North Carolina. The company will make high-speed internet service affordable by participating in the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Lifeline and Affordable Connectivity Programs. This project will serve socially vulnerable communities in Halifax and Warren counties and people in the Haliwa-Saponi Tribal Statistical Area.

Tekstar Communications is receiving a $12.6 million grant to deploy a fiber-to-the-premises network to connect thousands of people, 171 farms, 103 businesses and an educational facility to high-speed internet in Douglas, Otter Tail, St. Louis, Stearns and Todd counties in Minnesota. Tekstar will make high-speed internet affordable by providing its “Gig for Life” service, where households that sign up for internet will not have their internet prices raised as long as they stay at the same address and continue service. Tekstar also will participate in the FCC’s Lifeline and Affordable Connectivity Programs.

In Colorado, the Eastern Slope Rural Telephone Association is receiving an $18.7 million grant to deploy a fiber-to-the-premises network connecting thousands of people, 898 farms, 110 businesses and 17 educational facilities to high-speed internet in Adams, Arapahoe, Cheyenne, Crowley, Elbert, Kiowa, Kit Carson, Lincoln and Washington counties. The company will make high-speed internet affordable by participating in the FCC’s Affordable Connectivity Program.

USDA is making 49 awards in Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, Wyoming, Puerto Rico, Guam and Palau. This list includes awards to the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, and the utility authorities for the Navajo Nation and the Tohono O’odham Nation. Many of the awards will help rural people and businesses on Tribal lands.

In 2022, the Department has announced $1.6 billion from the third round of ReConnect funding.

Background: ReConnect Program

To be eligible for ReConnect Program funding, an applicant must serve an area that does not have access to service at speeds of 100 megabits per second (Mbps) (download) and 20 Mbps (upload). The applicant must also commit to building facilities capable of providing high-speed internet service with speeds of 100 Mbps (download and upload) to every location in its proposed service area.

To learn more about investment resources for rural areas, visit www.rd.usda.gov or contact the nearest USDA Rural Development state office.

Background: Bipartisan Infrastructure Law

President Biden forged consensus and compromise between Democrats, Republicans and Independents to demonstrate our democracy can deliver big wins for the American people. After decades of talk on rebuilding America’s crumbling infrastructure, President Biden delivered the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law – a historic investment in America that will change people’s lives for the better and get America moving again.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides $65 billion to ensure every American has access to affordable, reliable high-speed internet through a historic investment in broadband infrastructure deployment. The legislation also lowers costs for internet service and helps close the digital divide, so that more Americans can take full advantage of the opportunities provided by internet access.

USDA Rural Development provides loans and grants to help expand economic opportunities, create jobs and improve the quality of life for millions of Americans in rural areas. This assistance supports infrastructure improvements; business development; housing; community facilities such as schools, public safety and health care; and high-speed internet access in rural, tribal and high-poverty areas. For more information, visit www.rd.usda.gov.

USDA touches the lives of all Americans each day in so many positive ways. In the Biden-Harris Administration, USDA is transforming America’s food system with a greater focus on more resilient local and regional food production, fairer markets for all producers, ensuring access to safe, healthy and nutritious food in all communities, building new markets and streams of income for farmers and producers using climate-smart food and forestry practices, making historic investments in infrastructure and clean-energy capabilities in rural America, and committing to equity across the Department by removing systemic barriers and building a workforce more representative of America. To learn more, visit www.usda.gov.

To subscribe to USDA Rural Development updates, visit the GovDelivery subscriber page.

#

USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer, and lender.

--

Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture. (USDA)

Read Also

Canadian government unveils affordable high-speed Internet program

#internet #government #US government #usa #rural america #broadband #telecom #isp

[seat-safety-switch]

For a couple years, I worked in a video store in a small town. In many ways, this was the culmination of a childhood dream: routine, unchallenging labour. If you were a particularly annoying labour analyst, all I actually ever “did” was ring up rentals, restock returns in the morning, and clean the windows. Customer service has its own way of filling the space left by the actual work, though.

People who have worked retail are a sort of elite corps. For one thing, you’re never rude to another retail employee for the entire rest of your life. You’ve been in the trenches, too, and even if you somehow managed to escape, you’d still have had that shared trauma to know how bad that shift could get for that shelf-stocker at Maybe’s Drugs off I-40.

I have all the usual complaints, but there’s something else, too. My unique problem is this: I had this one customer who came in every Monday morning, asking for the same movie. We never had that movie, which is the crux of our conflict. He – and I can’t remember his name anymore, even if the electroshock therapy had been effective – never took “no” for an answer, and would come back the next week. He’d ask for the same thing, by title. No other details: no barcode, no publisher, no actors. Not even a description of the plot (he hadn’t seen it yet, obviously.) Now, this was before broadband internet was widely available, so I’d have to dial up after hours to America Online, and see if the movie had been added to their database. It never did, except one night I saw some folks talking about it in a video store chat room.

Their customers, too, were asking for this film. Insistently. After talking about it that night, we decided that we would form a bit of a trade union group. If any of us heard anything on this mysterious VHS, we would share the knowledge with the rest of the group. That retail-worker camaraderie at work again, you see. Nothing ever came of it, but I did end up becoming good friends with a manager at a Hobart’s Movies in Ames, Iowa, and we were even roommates for awhile before he got a new job at Seaworld. I moved on, too, making my slow, but inevitably in retrospect, drift towards the coast. Still, the whole thing bothered me. For years afterward, I would turn on my computer every Monday night, long after I had left the job, and search for any clue as to the existence of this film.

Once, on a day off, I called a librarian, who got pissy at me for even asking about it, and demanded to know who had put me up to calling her as a prank. I hung up in a panic, but she called back for hours. Obviously, she was also undergoing the same situation, and I felt shame at having brought a momentary pain to another proud Retail-American.

Now, video rental stores are a thing of the past. Even in small towns, they have been reduced to just a fond memory and an abandoned corner of a strip mall. Maybe my customer’s quest doesn’t matter anymore. The aggregation of the world’s knowledge into one hissing, unseen beast at the centre of our collective technological hallucination is complete. If they don’t have it, pick a different one. All I know is that, one day, someone will find a copy of this movie, and I’ll be able to go back to that town and shove it in the ground where the video store once stood. On that day, I can finally rest, freed from the slavedriver that is Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol.

[shirkers2018dirsanditan]

conservative propaganda (and moderates’ propaganda) will argue that white progressives live in a privileged echo chamber and that’s why they support things like defunding the police and abortion on demand and immigration and other progressive policy. but the most liberal demographics in america have more education, less religion, and live in large and diverse communities. they’re largely white and middle class, so they have the privilege of movement and access to information. they grew up in communities where they had access to all kinds of information (both public libraries and the internet, primarily) and went to well-funded public schools.

in contrast, the most conservative demographics in america have less education, more religion, and live in remote and small, largely homogenous communities. despite the growth of the internet, rural communities still lag behind in access. one study found at least 18% of rural students do not have broadband or cellular data access. libraries in rural communities often struggle to stay open, and distance can affect the ability of community members to visit regularly. rural schools have been decimated by the school choice movement, which pull funding from public education. the result is that many working class white people, in particular, live in an information vacuum, and as a result, have been vulnerable to a right-wing echo chamber that has specifically increased racial resentment among this demographic.

privileged white demographics are farther to the left than democratic voters of color, too - the percentage of black voters that identify as liberal only increased to 27% from 19% in 1984, over that same time, it increased from 30% to 69% for white voters and from 18% to 41% for hispanics. like white working class voters, black people specifically are generally less educated and more religious and have less access to information. hispanics are among the least educated, but also less religious, but also have less access to information. while most black and hispanic people live in urban and suburban communities, a notable percentage still live in rural communities (7.8% and 8.6% respectively). it is also important to note that many low-income and immigrant asian american and pacific islander communities and many rural native american communities lack sufficient access to information as well.

higher education, public libraries, and public education are all currently under attack for a reason. the old adage that knowledge is power IS true. educational and information access has democratized over the past 70 years. conservatives want to take us back because they can see the writing on the wall. they want to deny the liberating (and liberalizing) power of information and education to the masses. it’s also why you see men increasingly argue online that a college degree is worthless. without education and access to information, the gap is filled by propagandists, charlatans, and religious traditionalism. we must fight back. period

#the anti college movement is also so we abandon trying to improve access to higher education #right at the same time the supreme court gutted affirmative action #it’s not a coincidence

[mariacallous]

Political insiders like U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips have been expressing doubts about Joe Biden for years. Yet Biden just keeps winning. Voters have elected him to national office three times in four elections. Those voters also gave him the biggest midterm win for a Democratic president in 60 years. Biden has earned those votes by delivering the strongest domestic leadership since LBJ, and the strongest international leadership since JFK. He is the best candidate we have in 2024, and the only thing holding him back is the doubters in his own party.

The very fact that Biden was able to beat Donald Trump and be sworn into office in a peaceful transfer of power met an important test. Peaceful, you ask? Certainly former President Trump's actions, and those of his mob, were not peaceful. But Biden sailed through all of the calamity with apparent calm, acting as though there was never any question that the Constitution and the rule of law would prevail. He was always confident in us.

The immediate task of the new president was grappling with a nation divided over COVID and the need to provide economic support to families struggling through the pandemic. The American Rescue Plan put billions of dollars into the hands of working-class Americans. The economy boomed, driven by demand from workers and families spending money on necessities. Child poverty dropped by 40%, and American families have seen wages rise at levels not seen since the 1960s. Today, the strength of the American economy is pulling the rest of the world forward, despite the global struggle with inflation.

It is easy already to forget the size and scope of the Biden infrastructure bill, which will modernize American communities and our economy for a generation and more. Roads, bridges, transit, the electrical grid, water infrastructure, broadband — the whole platform for growth in the nation will be built out and create millions of American jobs.

Perhaps most significantly, Biden's so-called Inflation Reduction Act will transform our energy economy and enable America to meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals. This will put us in the driver's seat for pushing other nations to meet their goals. There is no larger threat to our nation and the global economy than rising global temperatures, increased severe weather and the loss of a precious ecological and cultural heritage. The pandemic was a light breeze compared to the impending storm of global climate destruction, and the Inflation Reduction Act was a strategic move to allow us to lead in stopping it.

The Inflation Reduction Act could also be called the Chinese Divestment Act. Not only does the energy policy address our need to transition to renewable energy, but it creates enormous incentives for companies to invest in technology and manufacturing in North America. No other president in our lifetime would offer an American working family $7,000 to buy an electric car made in America. The Inflation Reduction Act is exactly the industrial policy this country has needed for so long.

Just a few years ago, Chinese economic power coupled with Russian weapons of war appeared to be a genuine threat to the American-led international order. Autocrats were rising while traditional Western democratic institutions were in disarray. Some people were comparing America to Weimar Germany and seeing similarities to the weakness of democratic nations in the face of fascism.

Russia's illegal and inhumane invasion of Ukraine came at exactly the wrong time — for Russia and China. Putin threw down an enormous challenge in front of the American-led alliance. We advanced as one against him. Biden worked with Europe to accept major economic pain as a price of confronting Russian aggression. The Biden response to Russian aggression simultaneously revived the democracies' power in the world and reminded us that autocracies are always fundamentally weak.

In just three years, Joe Biden's leadership has revived democracy, defeated a pandemic, raised millions of Americans out of poverty, revitalized American infrastructure, addressed global warming and weakened authoritarian nations. He also keeps winning elections and confounding all his critics. Congressman Phillips: What more do you want?

Ryan Winkler, of Golden Valley, is the former DFL majority leader of the Minnesota House.

[iww-gnv]

Communications Workers of America (CWA) members with Frontier Communications in West Virginia and Ashburn, Virginia said in a Sunday press release they will extend their current contract through August 19th. The contract for about 1,400 CWA-represented employees was set to expire at midnight Saturday and members had voted to strike without gaining a fair settlement.     The union said major bargaining issues include job security provisions that keep jobs local and limit the use of subcontractors in expanding broadband in West Virginia.  Chad Leggett, President of CWA Local 2009 released a statement: “We want a contract that delivers quality jobs so that we can deliver quality service to our customers. That means using experienced, local technicians to bring broadband to our communities instead of subcontractors who often do not have adequate training. It means offering affordable healthcare so that we can take care of our families. “I am hoping that we do not have to go on strike at all. We are still at the bargaining table, and Frontier executives have a choice to do the right thing for their employees and all West Virginians. They can agree to a fair contract so that we can all stay focused on providing quality service to our customers and building fiber connections to as many homes and businesses as possible. We’re here to work hard, but we will stand together if necessary, just like we did in 2018. “We believe that public dollars should be used to fund high-quality networks and to create family-supporting jobs in our communities – that means using a well-trained, union workforce. We’re invested in this company and our communities, and we’re eager to get to work.“

#news #cwa #communications workers of america

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

December 30, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

DEC 31, 2023

One day short of his first 100 days in the White House, on April 28, 2021, President Joe Biden spoke to a joint session of Congress, where he outlined an ambitious vision for the nation. In a time of rising autocrats who believed democracy was failing, he asked, could the United States demonstrate that democracy is still vital?

“Can our democracy deliver on its promise that all of us, created equal in the image of God, have a chance to lead lives of dignity, respect, and possibility? Can our democracy deliver…to the most pressing needs of our people? Can our democracy overcome the lies, anger, hate, and fears that have pulled us apart?”

America’s adversaries were betting that the U.S. was so full of anger and division that it could not. “But they are wrong,” Biden said. “You know it; I know it. But we have to prove them wrong.”

“We have to prove democracy still works—that our government still works and we can deliver for our people.”

In that speech, Biden outlined a plan to begin investing in the nation again as well as to rebuild the country’s neglected infrastructure. “Throughout our history,” he noted, “public investment and infrastructure has literally transformed America—our attitudes, as well as our opportunities.” 

In the first two years of his administration, when Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress, lawmakers set out to do what Biden asked. They passed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan to help restart the nation’s economy after the pandemic-induced crash; the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (better known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law) to repair roads, bridges, and waterlines, extend broadband, and build infrastructure for electric vehicles; the roughly $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act to promote scientific research and manufacturing of semiconductors; and the Inflation Reduction Act, which sought to curb inflation by lowering prescription drug prices, promoting domestic renewable energy production, and investing in measures to combat climate change.

This was a dramatic shift from the previous 40 years of U.S. policy, when lawmakers maintained that slashing the government would stimulate economic growth, and pundits widely predicted that the Democrats’ policies would create a recession. 

But in 2023, with the results of the investment in the United States falling into place, it is clear that those policies justified Biden’s faith in them. The U.S. economy is stronger than that of any other country in the Group of Seven (G7)—a political and economic forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, along with the European Union—with higher growth and faster drops in inflation than any other G7 country over the past three years. 

Heather Long of the Washington Post said yesterday there was only one word for the U.S. economy in 2023, and that word is “miracle.” 

Rather than cooling over the course of the year, growth accelerated to an astonishing 4.9% annualized rate in the third quarter of the year while inflation cooled from 6.4% to 3.1% and the economy added more than 2.5 million jobs. The S&P 500, which is a stock market index of 500 of the largest companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges, ended this year up 24%. The Nasdaq composite index, which focuses on technology stocks, gained more than 40%. Noah Berlatsky, writing for Public Notice yesterday, pointed out that new businesses are starting up at a near-record pace, and that holiday sales this year were up 3.1%. 

Unemployment has remained below 4% for 22 months in a row for the first time since the late 1960s. That low unemployment has enabled labor to make significant gains, with unionized workers in the automobile industry, UPS, Hollywood, railroads, and service industries winning higher wages and other benefits. Real wages have risen faster than inflation, especially for those at the bottom of the economy, whose wages have risen by 4.5% after inflation between 2020 and 2023. 

Meanwhile, perhaps as a reflection of better economic conditions in the wake of the pandemic, the nation has had a record drop in homicides and other categories of violent crime. The only crime that has risen in 2023 is vehicle theft.  

While Biden has focused on making the economy deliver for ordinary Americans, Vice President Kamala Harris has emphasized protecting the right of all Americans to be treated equally before the law. 

In April 2023, when the Republican-dominated Tennessee legislature expelled two young Black legislators, Justin Jones and Justin J. Pearson, for participating in a call for gun safety legislation after a mass shooting at a school in Nashville, Harris traveled to Nashville’s historically Black Fisk University to support them and their cause. 

In the wake of the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Supreme Court decision overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognized the constitutional right to abortion, Harris became the administration’s most vocal advocate for abortion rights. “How dare they?” she demanded. “How dare they tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her own body?... How dare they try to stop her from determining her own future? How dare they try to deny women their rights and their freedoms?” She brought together civil rights leaders and reproductive rights advocates to work together to defend Americans’ civil and human rights. 

In fall 2023, Harris traveled around the nation’s colleges to urge students to unite behind issues that disproportionately affect younger Americans: “reproductive freedom, common sense gun safety laws, climate action, voting rights, LGBTQ+ equality, and teaching America’s full history.” 

“Opening doors of opportunity, guaranteeing some more fairness and justice—that’s the essence of America,” Biden said when he spoke to Congress in April 2021. “That’s democracy in action.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Letters from An American #Heather Cox Richardson #Biden Administration #Biden's accomplishments #Election 2024 #Mike Luckovich

[dirtroadtooutofhere]

Chapter 1 - "Rumors of Canada" Raymond

I was leaning down, focused on the engine of our beat-up station wagon, when a loud crack! sound caused me to jump back, hitting my head against the popped hood. Messaging the back of my head, I turned to see my best friend Max running down the steps into the garage, flailing a wrinkled piece of paper in front of her.

“Raymond! Raymond! You are NOT going to believe this.”

“I sure hope not to, if it’s worth kicking the door in over.”

She didn’t bother to ask if I was okay. Instead, she hurriedly flattened the piece of parchment over the engine block, grinning with even more wild enthusiasm than usual. It was an old interstate map, covered in her rabid handwriting. A handful of colored lines traced from Key West (where we are) all the way up to the US-Canadian border. Tapping her finger where all the lines ended, she declared: “We’re going to Canada!”

My eyes darted around her face in confusion. She’d clearly lost it, and I figured I’d communicate this clearly and concisely to her. “Max. It is in my humble professional opinion, that all your marbles, every last one of your marbles, have gone to Canada, and left you behind.”

“I’m serious, Raymond! I heard that it’s completely safe. They’ve fortified the country, restarted civilization, and kept it completely zombie-free!”

The few other survivors down here are – how do I put this lightly – whack jobs. Not in the stupid or insane way, no, just the gullible and desperate way. Maybe the Floridian heat and boredom of the apocalypse got to them. Maybe it’s finally getting to Max, if she’d believe such a fantastical rumor. The doubt dripping from my face must have been pretty obvious, enough to make her turn around and head for the broadband radio we found a couple months ago. Switching it to AM, she quickly tuned down to 15 Mega-hertz, then crawled through the individual frequencies, searching for a specific signal.

“You’re not gonna find anything, you know. I’ve tried it a thousand times.”

“Shh!”

I let slip a faint sigh. When my friend sets her mind on something, she can be impossible to deal with. She has a hard time gauging when her determination has slipped into plain stubbornness. After a few minutes, she lifted her hand from the knob, and silently waved me over. I knelt down next to her and put my ear next to the speaker, just to humor her.

Part of me hoped that I’d be wrong. That I’d hear something about a safe-zone established by our far-north neighbors. All we got was static.

Max waited expectantly. I gave it a couple more minutes, but I was starting to grow tired of the futility, and was about to leave when she turned the radio back off. Her eyebrows pinched down a little, but she didn’t look nearly as dejected as I expected her to.

“Okay, well! So the radio isn’t picking anything up. We’re across the entirely of America, I think it’s fair to assume any transmissions from up there wouldn’t quite reach. But we still gotta try! Do you wanna stay on this boiling little island for the rest of your life? Scavenging increasingly sparse resources and constantly worrying about stray zombies?”

Patience and pragmatism are something I pride myself in. I’m not the type to make irrational or impulsive travel plans through the hordes that cover the mainland. The apocalypse, however, is very easy to get sick of. After a year and a half of barely scraping by, even a long-shot possibility of escaping the undead starts to sound pretty good. Hell, if any country could hold back the zombie apocalypse, it’d be one with low population density, and already used to relative isolation and extreme circumstances. I hesitate, but decide it’s still not a good idea.

Before I can tell her no, though, she says something stupid about being a ‘dream team’. Her athletics and zombie-killing proficiency, my mechanical knowledge and wits. Our combined experience dominating the Florida Keys. That we really do have a shot at making it, if I ‘stopped being such a fucking pussy’.

“I’m perfectly fine being a coward, if it means I’m a living one, Max!”

“Are you really a living coward? Or are you just a surviving coward?”

It’s maybe one of the dumbest things I’ve heard her say, but I still choked on a good response.

She smirked, and I immediately lost the argument.

#zombies #death road to canada #writing #chapter 1

[ghostoftheyear]

The BFF and I are reminiscing about the early days of computers and the internet, and I have to share a few observations.

My first "computer" was a TI-99/4a, made by Texas Instruments (the calculator people). This was in 1983. It was similar to an Atari or Commodore-64 in that it could play games, but it could also be added on to with various hardware. My parents got hardcore into this. Aside from learning about programming, we also had a 300 baud acoustic modem - the kind you literally put the phone receiver on - and I was able to access local bulletin boards and talk to strangers from far away! V e r y s l o w l y. We later got more peripherals like a graphics card and a big old dot-matrix printer. I remember writing school papers on it.

The first computer that belonged to me was an Apple Mac LC that I got for college. It was super expensive and I still have the base somewhere, but the monitor is long gone. I went online with that thing with an external modem... I think the first one I got was a 14.4k. Yes, I did the whole AOL thing.

Internet services were preceded by these sort of walled-garden services like AOL (America Online), Compuserve, and Prodigy. I remember getting into RP forums on Prodigy (specifically for Pern and the Dragon Prince series), running up a huge bill, and getting it canceled. You could chat on these and participate in other activities like games (I remember winning a copy of one of Terry Brooks' novels on Prodigy, but there were no websites or anything like that.

For some time, when the first Internet service providers (ISPs) came into being, I worked at one, answering phones and doing some very basic tech support (literally "have you tried turning it off and on again"). I did billing as well, which was when I first learned that people just... didn't think they had to pay their bills. Three months of non-payment and their service would get cut off and they'd call in, livid. It was an experience. We also played lots of interoffice matches of DOOM and Quake, so it balanced out. I used to use my office computer to download sound clips from movies and parts of songs.

I only used Usenet a little, but it was a thriving community full of various posters and groups. My favorite group was probably alt.barney.die.die.die.

While working at the above ISP, I had to make a website so that I knew some HTML, since they actually wanted people to help customers with that. (I should add there were only like five employees there; the guy who started it up basically was using investment money from his dad. I also remember he tried to make me learn how to mess with circuit boards. I still don't know why he wanted to teach me, but no, I did not retain one single thing from that.) Anyway, I learned basic HTML, and I still have a website today that still uses exceedingly basic HTML.

Can you imagine calling Comcast today and going "yes, I'm struggling with this bit of javascript here, I expect you to help me."

No, because even if you pay them four times what you paid my ISP back then (I think it was around $30 a month for a dedicated DNS), they would tell you to look up a tutorial on youtube.

I don't remember when we switched to 24/7 connections and cable internet and broadband and everything, but I can tell you that I remember getting online, checking my email, going on IRC for a little bit, looking at websites, maybe doing some RP on a MUSH, and then logging off and shutting it down at the end of the night. We didn't expect everyone to be THERE all the time.

Although while I was still with the ISP, I used to get on PernMUSH NC first thing in the morning and sit there all day so my name would be at the bottom of the user list. Because that was a powerful status to have.

My ex and I would trade off computer time. We didn't even play games that needed to be connected to the Internet. We did other things. Can you imagine?

I downloaded So Much Shit from Napster. So. Much. (A lot of it was mislabeled garbage, too. You wouldn't believe how many crappy "parody" songs got attributed to Weird Al.) Didn't use Limewire nearly as much because it was so riddled with viruses. Damn you, Lars Ulrich.

Those days were wild. You could find the worst shit online, but also some of the best. People used Tripod and Geocities and mailing lists and Usenet, just every kind of thing to connect to each other. I had a site just for my fanfic, and I hosted friends on it and even designed their sites. Before AO3, before Livejournal, we were making it work any way we could. I still remember the Outside the Lines mailing list for comic fandom and how people would post full fics on there. And others would complain that not enough Dark Horse comics were getting fics. Some things never do change.

We also regularly got secondary phone lines so that we could use the modem and not be interrupted by phone calls, or have people scream that they'd been trying to call us for hours. Everything had to be connected by wires. If you wanted to game with your friends, you took your PC (and monitor and anything else you needed) over to their house, plugged in and had a LAN party.

Or if you just wanted to browse the Internet without your own PC, you'd go to an Internet cafe and rent one for a couple hours. Sit there, have your coffee and go online.

Everything is different these days. Everyone is connected, online, all the time, and you're practically not allowed to be disconnected. You must be available at all times. As nice as it is to get all our information quickly, I do kind of miss when the Internet wasn't so omnipresent. I could do without what social media has done to us, too. And I really miss MUDs and MUSHes. Text based games where you could RP or just wander around killing mobs.

Anyway, it's been an interesting experience growing up through all of this. I never would have imagined having a phone with all my music and the Internet on it, but they're just ubiquitous now. Strange to think of not having it everywhere I go, and WiFi for everything.

#computers #the internet #the old times #i'm sure there's a lot i haven't included

[cogitoergofun]

Comcast is not happy about new federal rules that will require it to provide broadband customers with labels displaying exact prices and other information about Internet service plans.

In a filing last week, Comcast told the Federal Communications Commission that it is "working diligently to put in place the systems and processes necessary to create, maintain, and display the labels as required." But according to Comcast, "two aspects of the Commission's Order impose significant administrative burdens and unnecessary complexity in complying with the broadband label requirements."

[...]

"The label hasn't even reached consumers yet, but Comcast is already trying to create loopholes. This request would allow the big ISPs to continue hiding the true cost of service and frustrating customers with poor service. Congress created the label to end these practices, not maintain them, and Comcast offers no compelling reason for the FCC to violate Congress' intent," Joshua Stager, policy director at media advocacy group Free Press, told Ars. Stager previously advocated for the broadband labels when he was deputy director of New America's Open Technology Institute.

The FCC rules require ISPs to display the labels at the point of sale. The labels must disclose broadband prices, introductory rates, data allowances, Internet speeds, and include links to information about an ISP's network management practices and privacy policies.

[...]

Comcast and other ISPs have annoyed customers for many years by advertising low prices and then charging much bigger monthly bills by tacking on a variety of fees. While some of these fees are related to government-issued requirements and others are not, poorly trained customer service reps have been known to falsely tell customers that fees created by Comcast are mandated by the government.

The FCC rules will force ISPs to accurately describe fees in labels given to customers, but Comcast said it wants the FCC to rescind a requirement related to "fees that ISPs may, but are not obligated to, pass through to customers." These include state Universal Service fees and other local fees.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How do you convince conservatives to vote against decent internet at a decent price? The same way you convince conservatives to do anything:

You tell them it’s woke.

Under Trump, we had FCC commissioners who falsely claimed that municipal broadband would censor conservative voices. This isn’t merely untrue, it’s radioactively wrong: in fact, the only ISPs in America that aren’t allowed to block content on the basis of its viewpoint are the publicly owned ones, thanks to our good old pal, the First Amendment.

Low-information culture-warriors have carried water for cable and telco monopolists for years, even as their situation degraded. 100 million Americans live in places where every ISP has violated Net Neutrality, and rural Americans now overwhelmingly live in deadzones where the normal duopoly of cable/DSL has been replaced by a cable-only monopoly.

In the face of this rapid deterioration, telecoms monopolists have had to invent new ways to gin up fury and hold improvement at bay.

Which brings me to Gigi Sohn.

-Culture War Bullshit Stole Your Broadband: Your internet sucks because telco monopolists kept Gigi Sohn off the FCC

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[sins-of-the-sea]

How did you learn about roleplaying? How did you get started roleplaying yourself? 

Mun-Directed Questions About Roleplaying

LMAO, it was like, what, 2002? I was in middle school, and broadband and America Online was still in usage. A friend of mine in school introduced me to public chatrooms on AOL and showed how a handful of them are actually for RP! That is where I got my start on the vocabulary, terms, etiquette, and so forth.

It was a wild, wild west then, with no moderation whatsoever, so you'll never know if you'll get an experienced writer, or a kid who can barely type more than 3 words, or a creep.

But MAN, those days. If you think the Tumblr RP community is toxic, you haven't seen RhyDin. But it was those experiences that have slapped me the wisdom on how to practice internet safety. I wish this generation of internet users practice the same level of scrutiny when it comes to interacting with strangers online, especially for roleplay.

The RP scene definitely has changed in 22 years, but all that's really changed are the venues, colloquialisms, and attitudes towards certain archetypes and narratives. But self-entitled jerks, fe.tish miners, creeps, doxxers, harassment campaigners, ship wars, fandom discourse, and Mary Sues of all archetypes, they've always been around, and will be. I am thankful the RP community across online spaces are growing, and not just in size. I've made so many friends I still cherish to this day, even when they've moved on.

#[OOC] #[Memes]

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[lifewithchronicpain]

A lot of people have been rightfully critical of the Biden administration not following through on campaign promises. While Democrats have control of the Senate and House, the razor thin majority in the Senate meant one senator could derail the whole thing, which played out this past year with Manchin tanking the Build Back Better Bill.

However recently there have been a lot of legislative wins and good things getting passed that I wanted to just go over some of them so people can judge for themselves whether the Biden administration has met some of their promises.

First of all, last year the Infrastructure Bill was passed with 2 trillion for failing infrastructure and a focus on expanding broadband internet access.

When it comes to this year, here is what has happened.

First gun legislation in 30 years that helps strengthen restrictions like closing the "boyfriend loophole"

The Chips Act which creates jobs in America and help address the chip shortage affecting cars and computers.

The Pact Act which addresses the toxic exposure of veterans from burn pits in the middle east and agent orange in Vietnam.

The Inflation Reduction Act, which admittedly is bit of an oversell of the inflation aspect but has lots of good stuff. It's the biggest commitment to climate change in history and proposes to reduce carbon emissions by 40% in ten years.

Other good stuff includes reducing healthcare costs with prescriptions and backing up Obamacare. It's also paid for by taxing cooperations.

Not legislative, but Biden has now just issued an executive order forgiving $10-$20k in student loan debt. If you make under $125K single or $250k married you get $10k. If you have a Pell Grant you may qualify for up to $20k.

Source

It cannot be understated how important this is, because our Congress is in gridlock due to extreme partisan infighting. In fact we've probably gotten used to not getting things done. Many of those things I listed are by no means perfect or enough and are the product of compromise. Still, a lot of good has happened in this past year in terms of legislation that will make things better.

To top it all off, Democrats are committed to protecting abortion rights. I don't expect everyone to suddenly love Biden or not continue to have legitimate criticism. I'm still upset they have not protected voting rights and yet I just want people to consider voting for Democrats this November. If we increase the Senate majority and hold the house, we can do so much more.

#biden administration #democrats #politics #congress #midterm elections #legislation