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Democrats see government differently than Republicans.

I would be even more specific and say that Lina Khan sees government differently than most Republicans and Democrats.

I agree, though I think it is worth giving some credit to the people who chose her & appointed her. They didn't have to do that. It was one of the more impressive moves by the previous admin, and won them a lot of points from me.

Well yes, I agree. But GP was saying "government" writ large behaves XYZ.

Which absolutely does not imply a monolith of people all working in perfect lock step.

It seems like you're looking to fight on the internet - would you consider a different activity instead?


> It's absurd if you believe the point of government is to be by, for, and of the people. > If you see government as a way to enhance the ability of the owner class to enrich themselves, it makes perfect sense.

No I actually think it's important for people to square views like "government is a way to enrich the owner class" with actual reality, such as the fact that the government when administered by a different party did the exact opposite.


And it was an antitrust action that unlocked a lot of that value. The consent decree required Bell Labs to license its patents (e.g. transistors) for reasonable royalties. The same consent decree also forbid AT&T from entering new industries like computing. So after they built UNIX, they sold the source code 'as-is' to universities for $200 ($20k for businesses).

You could also say, though, that this is what caused AT&T to be what it is today - disliked by their customers.

Ask anyone who was alive back then and they will tell you stories of how legendarily awful AT&T was to deal with. My father has told me several. The antitrust action made things better for regular people by allowing them to do things like buy their own handsets or haggle over price.

What telecom today will actually haggle

They won't haggle with consumers, but for large business customers the prices and other terms are absolutely negotiable.

All of them, in regions where they don't have a vertical monopoly. You can negotiate away installation fees and monthly package pricing on DSL, TV, internet phone... also sometimes get a no-contract deal instead of locking in for 24/28 mths with the dreaded ETF which is a large part of Comcast's profitability.

As the other person said, you must be young.

They are disliked now as much as they were disliked then. Except back then they charged you a hell of a lot for long distance.


One funny aspect is that Javice had an employment contract with JPM that stated JPM would pay for legal defense related to her official duties. Her lawyer argued that means JPM has to pay for her civil and criminal defense lawyers, and the court agreed!


They have figured it out, the client is paying for it.


This is actually the most sensible response


Good news! Bluesky does default to chronological, but also provides other options.


Then I'd suggest their tagline of "Democracy dies in darkness" is pretty self-important and misleading.


Walk should rebrand as ‘Darkness’


> local weather manipulation

What do you mean by this?


I don't know what this particular post means, but I've seen a disturbing amount of online crazy talk about the government being able to directly control the weather.


There are some capabilities of controlling the weather, like cloud seeding, but not nearly to the extent that people are claiming.


I was nore in the fine granular weather simulation and then find a tipping point and apply local excess heat on the butterfly wing via laser by airplane camp.


Well, some high-ranking officials have pondered nuking hurricanes in the past, though fortunately saner voices prevailed.


There's some videos on the AT&T Tech Channel on YouTube that show inside the CO, like this one for the "Speedy cutover service": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saRir95iIWk


TIL the origin of the term "cutover" for IT migrations. Fascinating!


I really do hope y'all excuse my ignorance, but ...

... what part of the "switchover" process is this? That is to say ...

... I get that you have to cut to switch over but ... what would come next? Does the new system get spliced in? Is it already wired - pending just the cut? (Thus the speed with which it is done) ...


the new system is already spliced in, but is electrically isolated.

the old system can't be isolated like that so they have to physically cut the wires to it before they electrically connect the new system, which is the switch throw at the end of the cutover.


Makes sense. Thanks!


Compliance was important because the product (RealPage's AIRM nee YieldStar) works by holding prices higher for longer than the average manager would. The RealPage pricing software is eye-watering expensive and can only be justified if it results in significantly higher revenue.


I worked for a public REIT that started using YieldStar when I worked there. Once they changed to YieldStar, all pricing came out of YieldStar. Rental quotes for prospects were only generated from YieldStar. Any deviation from the YS price had to be approved by the regional VP and they were not common.

They did this because RP was able to demonstrate that accepting a bit more vacancy in the very near term meant higher rents (thus higher renewals) which more than paid for the additional vacancy.


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