Month: January 2018

Enlarge / FCC Chairman Ajit Pai with his oversized coffee mug in November 2017. (credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg)

The Federal Communications Commission today released the final version of its net neutrality repeal order, three weeks after the December 14 vote to deregulate the broadband industry and eliminate the rules.

You can read the entire order here, though it is similar to the draft that has been available since November.

Small edits aren't uncommon after FCC votes, and they don't require a second vote. The edits generally respond to concerns raised by commissioners, as we wrote earlier this week.

Enlarge / Each year's ozone hole is a little bit different. (credit: NASA)

The Montreal Protocol, which went into effect in 1989, is a rare instance of a global agreement to solve a global problem: the release of vast quantities of ozone-destroying chemicals into the atmosphere. In the decades since, however, changes in ozone have been small and variable, making it hard to tell whether the protocol is making any difference.

But evidence has been building that the ozone layer is recovering, and a new paper claims to have directly measured the ozone hole gradually filling back in.

CFCs and ozone

During the 1970s and '80s, evidence had been building that a class of industrial chemicals, the chloro-flurocarbons (CFCs), were damaging the ozone layer, a region of the stratosphere rich in this reactive form of oxygen. Ozone is able to absorb UV light that would otherwise reach the Earth's surface, where it's capable of damaging DNA. But the levels of ozone had been dropping, and this ultimately resulted in a nearly ozone-free "hole" above the Antarctic.

Enlarge / We edited the front of the latest Game of Thrones HBO calendar to reflect today's final-season announcement. (credit: HBO/Aurich Lawson)

Last month, HBO offered a sneak peek at series, specials, and films to expect from the cable network in 2018. But its new-year teaser reel had one obvious omission: any declaration about the future of Game of Thrones, other than a brief shot of a few series characters. It turns out that fans were right to raise their eyebrows at this reel.

HBO issued a Thursday announcement to confirm that Game of Thrones' eighth—and final—season will debut in "2019." The network didn't hint at either a month or release window. Instead, it confirmed that the season will contain six episodes and offered a list of writers and directors on board, including longtime TV series contributors David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. Otherwise, the announcement contained nothing in the way of plot or character hints, let alone a trailer. The show's official Twitter feed simply told fans, "Send a raven."

The result: GoT will have its first full year off the airwaves since its 2011 debut. HBO hasn't yet announced firmer plans about an oft-rumored GoT prequel series—and, geez, there are five series possibly in the works—so it's unclear whether fans will have to wait similar amounts of time for any other TV series to kick off. Meanwhile, George R.R. Martin remains coy about whether his long-awaited book follow-up, The Winds of Winter, could arrive before HBO's final season starts.

(credit: Comcast)

Comcast reportedly fired about 500 salespeople shortly before Christmas, despite claiming that the company would create thousands of new jobs in exchange for a big tax cut.

Comcast apparently tried to keep the firings secret while it lobbied for the tax cut that was eventually passed into law by the Republican-controlled Congress and signed by President Trump in late December. The Philadelphia Inquirer revealed the Comcast firings this week in an article based on information from an anonymous former employee, Comcast documents, and other sources in the company.

The former employee who talked to the Inquirer "could not be identified because of a nondisclosure agreement as part of a severance package," the article said. The Inquirer headline notes that Comcast was able to implement the firings "quietly," avoiding any press coverage until this week.

(credit: Comcast)

Comcast reportedly fired about 500 salespeople shortly before Christmas, despite claiming that the company would create thousands of new jobs in exchange for a big tax cut.

Comcast apparently tried to keep the firings secret while it lobbied for the tax cut that was eventually passed into law by the Republican-controlled Congress and signed by President Trump in late December. The Philadelphia Inquirer revealed the Comcast firings this week in an article based on information from an anonymous former employee, Comcast documents, and other sources in the company.

The former employee who talked to the Inquirer "could not be identified because of a nondisclosure agreement as part of a severance package," the article said. The Inquirer headline notes that Comcast was able to implement the firings "quietly," avoiding any press coverage until this week.