Answer: When it is missing the point.
Spoiler: This ends up being about the iPad.
Year: 2010
Genachowski Hits The Legal Reset Button — “Title II Lite”
Genachowski has announced his proposed response to the Comcast case. This is precisely the result Comcast and the other carriers feared since the DC Circuit panel signaled at oral argument they would slam the FCC. In my latest “5 Minutes With Harold Feld,” I give a short (at least, as short as I can) explanation of what this “Third Way” (also referred to as “Title II Lite”) means and what happens next from a process perspective. Some additional analysis, laughing at Wall St. analysts, and reference to a Dilbert from 1992 below . . .
Public Knowledge IP3 Awards Nominations Open
Every year, my employer Public Knowledge gives the IP3 Awards to recognize individuals or organizations that have tremendous contributions to balance in Intellectual Property, Information Policy, and Internet Protocols (hence “IP3”). To nominate someone, click on this link. You can see past winner here to see what sort of achievement we’ve honored (and who you think we’ve missed).
Stay tuned . . . .
Attention Cape-Cod area Red Sox radio fans/grammar police
I listen to a lot of Red Sox games on the radio. I like the game-calling by Joe Costiglione well enough. Joe is boring, but competent. His sidekick Dave O’Brien drives me a bit nuts, as he’s pompous & tends to talk in broadcasterese more than English. I can abide the cliches even if I don’t like them, (“twin killing” for double play; “became strikeout victim” for “struck out”, etc) but the mangled grammar is really irksome. O’Brien’s inability to master the conditional sentence, especially the “third conditional” is particularly annoying. Instead of saying, for example, “if Ortiz had hit the ball he would not have struck out and the Red Sox might not have lost the game,” O’Brien ponderously intones “Ortiz hits that ball, he doesn’t strike out and the Sox are still playing.” With O’Brien at the mic, there’s only present tense. You might think that a professional broadcaster would have familiarity with the nuances of our language. Not O’Brien. He talks like somebody who never went to school. It irritates the hell out of me.
McDowell and Baker Want To Preempt States on Broadband Reporting? Fat Chance Under Title I.
Sometime back, I coined the term “Cassandrafreude.” A compound of “Cassandra” and “schadenfreude,” it means “the bitter pleasure derived from seeing someone else suffer in the way you predicted even though you are getting screwed yourself.”
I am experiencing a healthy dose of Cassandrefreude watching FCC Commissioners McDowell and Baker push the FCC to preempt state data collection of broadband deployment (statements here and here). The matter came up when the FCC issued a Declaratory Ruling findng that nothing in federal statutes or previous FCC orders stops states from collecting their own information about broadband deployment. The ruling expresses no opinion about whether state PUCs have existing authority (given that broadband is a Title I “information service”) or whether or not it would be a good idea for states to collect their own data. But even this specter that someone somewhere might do something carriers don’t like prompted Republicans McDowell and Baker to push for the FCC to preempt state authority to collect information. After all, as we all know, broadband providers are timid creatures and likely to be scared off by the least thing that could conceivably raise their cost of doing business — as the broadband providers themselves constantly remind us.
I’ll zip past the usually irony of Republicans who supposedly venerate federalism and demand record evidence before the FCC contemplates action to protect consumers sounding the alarm bell that unless the FCC rushes to preempt state governments, it will mean the end of broadband investment as we know it. Lets get right to the juicy part that fills me with such unbridled Cassandrafreude.
Under what authority, exactly, would the FCC preempt state collection of broadband data?
Status report on Wetmachine crossover
Longtime readers of Wetmachine are aware that we’ve moved to a new blogging platform. This has been a pretty ambitious undertaking and we’ve hit a few snags. Among other things, it’s not possible, yet, to buy or read my books from the site, and our adverts are not working (not that you miss them, but we miss the little bit of revenue they bring). There are some aesthetic tweaks to the layout & rss feeds we’re working on, and a few other things.
Please bear with us. The migration is being handled by Wetmachine’s unsung & unpaid hero Gary Gray, and he’s got a lot on his plate (including small things like the proverbial day job). We’ll address the remaining issues as expeditiously as possible.
Meanwhile we certainly would appreciate any feedback on the new design, and bug reports are always welcome. You can leave them in the comments or use the “contact” form.
I Testify Tomorrow On Set-Top Boxes
Ever wonder whatever happened to “cable ready” televisions, so that now you have to rent a set-top box from your cable or satellite (or other “MVPD” for those who remember the term from last time)? Wonder why getting your TiVo or XBox or Roku box hooked up to your “CableCard” (whatever that is) is such a pain?
I and a panel of other witnesses will explain all this to the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet tomorrow (Thursday, April 29) at 10m a.m. at a hearing on Competitive Availability of Navigation Devices. “Navigation Devices” is the fancy name for set-top boxes that can do things other than switch channels. Almost 15 years ago, Congress directed the FCC as part of the 1996 Telecommunications Act to make rules that would promote competition for “navigation devices” that would make it possible for us consumers to have our choice of fun things to attach to the cable system cheaply and easily. (Law codified at 47 U.S.C. 549)
We at PK pushed for the FCC to take up this issue as part of the National Broadband Plan as part of the general issue of broadband and the next generation of online video competition. To its credit, the FCC admitted that the existing rules have not worked out (as anyone who has tried to find a “cable ready” anything or tried to hook up something that is supposed to be “compatible” with your subscription video service knows). They have kicked off a new proceeding based on our Petition last December to create a “universal gateway” device that would work the way the a phone jack works: plug in the connector and the device connects to the network (more details in this post by PK colleague John Bergmayer.)
I’ll be talking about our proposal and why I think it would not only save people tons of money on monthly rental fees for cable boxes, but would have serious impact on online video, gaming, and content creation generally. Witnesses from various industry sectors will be there to explain what they like and don’t like about the status quo and our proposal. If you are the sort of policy junkie that enjoys watching this (or wonder what I look like hunched over a table reading testimony), you can follow the fun on the Subcommittee homepage via the link they will post in the bottom right-hand corner box.
Stay tuned . . . .
Media Bureau Sides Against Over The Top Video In Round 1 Of Sky Angel Case.
Last Wednesday, those trying to use broadband to compete with cable video offerings (aka “over-the-top” video providers) lost the first round in a small but important case: Sky Angel v. Discovery Channel. Happily, it’s only the first round. But the preliminary ruling by the FCC’s Media Bureau (“MB”) highlights why either Congress or the full Commission needs to focus on the question of whether the rules that protect cable competition (or, as we in the field say, “multichannel video programming distributors” or “MVPDs” — which includes everything from traditional cable to FIOS to satellite) will also protect competition for online providers.
Zed
I, journeyman, await the judgment of the guild. Am I master or fool?
The dogs prowl the perimeter. I pour a glass of rye. I check my watch again: how many hours removed is the west coast? If I’m sitting in a stationary building on Thursday in spring during a waxing moon, am I two hours ahead or three? Are we saving the daylight now, or were we doing it last winter? What is the relative velocity of California?
Rye again.
* * *
My skill is zed.
Our guild has no formal body, only a loose association of masters. There is no crest or seal or fundraising jamboree. If I pass my journeymanship I will gain no additional letters after my name. There is no recognition but trust.
But that’s worth something. Because zed is hot, my friend, very very hot. Zed is putting gas in my car, and oatmeal in my children. Zed pays the tax man. Zed helps me get ahead.
Why hasn’t my thigh rung? It’s almost nine.
They can put a man on Pandora but they can’t call me back on time.
I mean, shit.
The human genome sequence’s 10th anniversary collided with the invalidation of a major DNA patent
The US patent office has made it very clear that purified DNA is not the same, in their view, as the DNA in each of our cells. Myriad Genetics used this ruling to put a choke hold on medical tests for BRCA1, which was first identified not as a gene, but as a region of Chromosome 7 associated with susceptibility to breast and ovarian cancer (review, 1993). The gene was later cloned, a patent issued, and the patent rights ended up licensed from, near as I can tell without going into it deeply, the University of Utah to Myriad Genetics. Knowing whether a patient has BRCA1 has strong implications in deciding the right course of patient care for breast cancer, both in treatment of the disease and in screening. It’s one small example of the potential for personalized medicine, and it was in the hands of one company.
-
But while the uproar has swayed much of the public to Johansson's defense at a time when #genAI is increasingly under scrutiny, this may not quite be an open-and-shut case should she decide to sue . Read the breakdown from @M_F_Rose in her latest article:
The release of @OpenAI's new digital assistant "Sky" stirred controversy after actress Scarlett Johansson alleged that the company had infringed on her rights by using a soundalike voice of hers after she'd declined to voice it herself.
Just saw @MargotSusca fantastic interview with @adamconover about the death of local news at the hands of hedge funds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N21YfWy0-bA A theme I have written about *a lot*. Like this blog post from 2018: https://wetmachine.com/tales-of-the-sausage-factory/we-need-to-fix-the-news-media-not-just-social-media-part-i/ This has been a long time in the making.
I wrote yesterday on the terrifying escalation of antisemitism in Canada, citing events just over past week. Now there is more: last night a firebomb attempt at a Vancouver synagogue. Daily antisemitic incidents is who we are now.
https://www.jewishvancouver.com/important-community-updates-may-20-2024
https://x.com/mgeist/status/1796233336203194446
Load More
Genachowski Hits The Legal Reset Button — “Title II Lite”
Genachowski has announced his proposed response to the Comcast case. This is precisely the result Comcast and the other carriers feared since the DC Circuit panel signaled at oral argument they would slam the FCC. In my latest “5 Minutes With Harold Feld,” I give a short (at least, as short as I can) explanation of what this “Third Way” (also referred to as “Title II Lite”) means and what happens next from a process perspective. Some additional analysis, laughing at Wall St. analysts, and reference to a Dilbert from 1992 below . . .
Public Knowledge IP3 Awards Nominations Open
Every year, my employer Public Knowledge gives the IP3 Awards to recognize individuals or organizations that have tremendous contributions to balance in Intellectual Property, Information Policy, and Internet Protocols (hence “IP3”). To nominate someone, click on this link. You can see past winner here to see what sort of achievement we’ve honored (and who you think we’ve missed).
Stay tuned . . . .
Attention Cape-Cod area Red Sox radio fans/grammar police
I listen to a lot of Red Sox games on the radio. I like the game-calling by Joe Costiglione well enough. Joe is boring, but competent. His sidekick Dave O’Brien drives me a bit nuts, as he’s pompous & tends to talk in broadcasterese more than English. I can abide the cliches even if I don’t like them, (“twin killing” for double play; “became strikeout victim” for “struck out”, etc) but the mangled grammar is really irksome. O’Brien’s inability to master the conditional sentence, especially the “third conditional” is particularly annoying. Instead of saying, for example, “if Ortiz had hit the ball he would not have struck out and the Red Sox might not have lost the game,” O’Brien ponderously intones “Ortiz hits that ball, he doesn’t strike out and the Sox are still playing.” With O’Brien at the mic, there’s only present tense. You might think that a professional broadcaster would have familiarity with the nuances of our language. Not O’Brien. He talks like somebody who never went to school. It irritates the hell out of me.
McDowell and Baker Want To Preempt States on Broadband Reporting? Fat Chance Under Title I.
Sometime back, I coined the term “Cassandrafreude.” A compound of “Cassandra” and “schadenfreude,” it means “the bitter pleasure derived from seeing someone else suffer in the way you predicted even though you are getting screwed yourself.”
I am experiencing a healthy dose of Cassandrefreude watching FCC Commissioners McDowell and Baker push the FCC to preempt state data collection of broadband deployment (statements here and here). The matter came up when the FCC issued a Declaratory Ruling findng that nothing in federal statutes or previous FCC orders stops states from collecting their own information about broadband deployment. The ruling expresses no opinion about whether state PUCs have existing authority (given that broadband is a Title I “information service”) or whether or not it would be a good idea for states to collect their own data. But even this specter that someone somewhere might do something carriers don’t like prompted Republicans McDowell and Baker to push for the FCC to preempt state authority to collect information. After all, as we all know, broadband providers are timid creatures and likely to be scared off by the least thing that could conceivably raise their cost of doing business — as the broadband providers themselves constantly remind us.
I’ll zip past the usually irony of Republicans who supposedly venerate federalism and demand record evidence before the FCC contemplates action to protect consumers sounding the alarm bell that unless the FCC rushes to preempt state governments, it will mean the end of broadband investment as we know it. Lets get right to the juicy part that fills me with such unbridled Cassandrafreude.
Under what authority, exactly, would the FCC preempt state collection of broadband data?
Status report on Wetmachine crossover
Longtime readers of Wetmachine are aware that we’ve moved to a new blogging platform. This has been a pretty ambitious undertaking and we’ve hit a few snags. Among other things, it’s not possible, yet, to buy or read my books from the site, and our adverts are not working (not that you miss them, but we miss the little bit of revenue they bring). There are some aesthetic tweaks to the layout & rss feeds we’re working on, and a few other things.
Please bear with us. The migration is being handled by Wetmachine’s unsung & unpaid hero Gary Gray, and he’s got a lot on his plate (including small things like the proverbial day job). We’ll address the remaining issues as expeditiously as possible.
Meanwhile we certainly would appreciate any feedback on the new design, and bug reports are always welcome. You can leave them in the comments or use the “contact” form.
I Testify Tomorrow On Set-Top Boxes
Ever wonder whatever happened to “cable ready” televisions, so that now you have to rent a set-top box from your cable or satellite (or other “MVPD” for those who remember the term from last time)? Wonder why getting your TiVo or XBox or Roku box hooked up to your “CableCard” (whatever that is) is such a pain?
I and a panel of other witnesses will explain all this to the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet tomorrow (Thursday, April 29) at 10m a.m. at a hearing on Competitive Availability of Navigation Devices. “Navigation Devices” is the fancy name for set-top boxes that can do things other than switch channels. Almost 15 years ago, Congress directed the FCC as part of the 1996 Telecommunications Act to make rules that would promote competition for “navigation devices” that would make it possible for us consumers to have our choice of fun things to attach to the cable system cheaply and easily. (Law codified at 47 U.S.C. 549)
We at PK pushed for the FCC to take up this issue as part of the National Broadband Plan as part of the general issue of broadband and the next generation of online video competition. To its credit, the FCC admitted that the existing rules have not worked out (as anyone who has tried to find a “cable ready” anything or tried to hook up something that is supposed to be “compatible” with your subscription video service knows). They have kicked off a new proceeding based on our Petition last December to create a “universal gateway” device that would work the way the a phone jack works: plug in the connector and the device connects to the network (more details in this post by PK colleague John Bergmayer.)
I’ll be talking about our proposal and why I think it would not only save people tons of money on monthly rental fees for cable boxes, but would have serious impact on online video, gaming, and content creation generally. Witnesses from various industry sectors will be there to explain what they like and don’t like about the status quo and our proposal. If you are the sort of policy junkie that enjoys watching this (or wonder what I look like hunched over a table reading testimony), you can follow the fun on the Subcommittee homepage via the link they will post in the bottom right-hand corner box.
Stay tuned . . . .
Media Bureau Sides Against Over The Top Video In Round 1 Of Sky Angel Case.
Last Wednesday, those trying to use broadband to compete with cable video offerings (aka “over-the-top” video providers) lost the first round in a small but important case: Sky Angel v. Discovery Channel. Happily, it’s only the first round. But the preliminary ruling by the FCC’s Media Bureau (“MB”) highlights why either Congress or the full Commission needs to focus on the question of whether the rules that protect cable competition (or, as we in the field say, “multichannel video programming distributors” or “MVPDs” — which includes everything from traditional cable to FIOS to satellite) will also protect competition for online providers.
Zed
I, journeyman, await the judgment of the guild. Am I master or fool?
The dogs prowl the perimeter. I pour a glass of rye. I check my watch again: how many hours removed is the west coast? If I’m sitting in a stationary building on Thursday in spring during a waxing moon, am I two hours ahead or three? Are we saving the daylight now, or were we doing it last winter? What is the relative velocity of California?
Rye again.
* * *
My skill is zed.
Our guild has no formal body, only a loose association of masters. There is no crest or seal or fundraising jamboree. If I pass my journeymanship I will gain no additional letters after my name. There is no recognition but trust.
But that’s worth something. Because zed is hot, my friend, very very hot. Zed is putting gas in my car, and oatmeal in my children. Zed pays the tax man. Zed helps me get ahead.
Why hasn’t my thigh rung? It’s almost nine.
They can put a man on Pandora but they can’t call me back on time.
I mean, shit.
The human genome sequence’s 10th anniversary collided with the invalidation of a major DNA patent
The US patent office has made it very clear that purified DNA is not the same, in their view, as the DNA in each of our cells. Myriad Genetics used this ruling to put a choke hold on medical tests for BRCA1, which was first identified not as a gene, but as a region of Chromosome 7 associated with susceptibility to breast and ovarian cancer (review, 1993). The gene was later cloned, a patent issued, and the patent rights ended up licensed from, near as I can tell without going into it deeply, the University of Utah to Myriad Genetics. Knowing whether a patient has BRCA1 has strong implications in deciding the right course of patient care for breast cancer, both in treatment of the disease and in screening. It’s one small example of the potential for personalized medicine, and it was in the hands of one company.
-
- Load More
But while the uproar has swayed much of the public to Johansson's defense at a time when #genAI is increasingly under scrutiny, this may not quite be an open-and-shut case should she decide to sue . Read the breakdown from @M_F_Rose in her latest article:
The release of @OpenAI's new digital assistant "Sky" stirred controversy after actress Scarlett Johansson alleged that the company had infringed on her rights by using a soundalike voice of hers after she'd declined to voice it herself.
Just saw @MargotSusca fantastic interview with @adamconover about the death of local news at the hands of hedge funds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N21YfWy0-bA A theme I have written about *a lot*. Like this blog post from 2018: https://wetmachine.com/tales-of-the-sausage-factory/we-need-to-fix-the-news-media-not-just-social-media-part-i/ This has been a long time in the making.
I wrote yesterday on the terrifying escalation of antisemitism in Canada, citing events just over past week. Now there is more: last night a firebomb attempt at a Vancouver synagogue. Daily antisemitic incidents is who we are now.
https://www.jewishvancouver.com/important-community-updates-may-20-2024
https://x.com/mgeist/status/1796233336203194446
