Two-judge panel from D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds FCC net neutrality regulations against a telecom corporation challenge, meaning that you, and not some big corporation, will get to dictate where you go on the internet for the foreseeable future. Telecoms will appeal to the full D.C. Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary; good to know that one of the D.C. Circuit judges approving of the FCC's net neutrality efforts was the none-too-liberal Sri Srinivasan, almost unanimously-approved by the Senate to the D.C. Court and briefly mooted as Antonin Scalia's replacement on the Supreme Court.
Emma Grey Ellis at Wired tells us about floor tiles that could actually generate electricity. You step on one, then it depresses a centimeter or less, then a flywheel inside it spins, and if that doesn't sound impressive, contemplate how many floors there could be, and how many steps people take. It won't overtake solar or wind, but every little bit helps. (And, in case you were wondering, the tiles are apparently almost supernaturally durable. I can't tell you how well they take spills, though, and that'd be important to consumers, too.)
Former House Speaker/aspiring Trump running mate Newt Gingrich says we'll probably have to bring back a sort of House Un-American Activities Committee to deal with ISIS and its American sympathizers. Only a man this proud of his lurnin' would be bold enough to propose reviving a committee that's long been a laughingstock in history classes all across America -- and then explode his own argument by reminding us that the HUAC started as a way to fight Nazis, as if we all don't know how the story ended. But please, Mr. Gingrich, keep trying to lend intellectual heft to Donald Trump. You two are so cute together.
Presumptive Republican Presidential nominee/big baby Donald Trump cuts off the Washington Post's press credentials. But, really, how does this hurt the Post? Mr. Trump constantly ventilates whatever's on his mind on Twitter; all this does is cut the Post out of the useless inside-baseball stuff we're already drowning in anyway. Certainly, it doesn't stop the Post from doing actual journalism, which consists, at the very least, of checking the candidate's all-too-frequently-bat-guano-crazy statements against verifiable facts.
Finally, Tesla CEO Elon Musk says it's a near-certainty that we're not really flesh-and-blood beings but part of some advanced civilization's video game. Of course, the existentialists already faced down this problem: when some discovery or tragedy strips life of its received meaning, what's a person to do? Answer: reject nihilism and violence and insist not merely upon doing good works, but upon their meaning and utility no matter the circumstances, and it doesn't matter if that makes our advanced civilization video jockey overlords smile or not.
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