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Velchronus

34 karma · joined August 18, 2016

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Velchronus··on Self-driving trucks begin mail delivery test for U.S. Postal Service
The first source has a history section that details the Senate and House votes. There is no record of the votes because it was passed by unanimous consent in the Senate and without challenge in the House.

The NALC actually deleted their page in support of the legislation but luckily it's archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20130805121847/https://www.nalc....

> Thanks to NALC and a coalition of other unions (the Rural Letter Carriers and the Mail Handlers), management associations, vendors and mailers, Congress rejected almost all the negative recommendations of President Bush’s blue-ribbon Commission on the Postal Service. Instead it crafted a balanced compromise that emphasized pragmatism over ideology.

> Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) were instrumental in negotiating the final details with Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), the bill’s chief sponsor in the Senate. In an e-Activist message sent on December 9, NALC President Bill Young thanked Waxman and Carper for advocating NALC’s interests in the legislation. He also thanked Sens. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and Daniel Akaka (D-HI), and Reps. Tom Davis (R-VA), Danny Davis (D-IL) and John McHugh (R-NY) for their roles over the years.

Velchronus··on Self-driving trucks begin mail delivery test for U.S. Postal Service
This is a meme with no basis in reality.

> Because republicans have spent decades trying to kill it. Before the post office was forced to pay pensions fund up front by republicans [1] it was self sustainable.

The PAEA was passed unanimously in both chambers of Congress and with the support of two of the employee unions. source: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/109/hr6407

The pre-funding period ended in 2017 -- Current retirees are paid from this fund. Since the USPS missed the majority of its payments to the PRHB, the fund is currently running deficits and will be depleted by 2030. source: https://www.gao.gov/assets/700/694188.pdf

That means that even if it was "Pay As You Go", it would not be self sustainable.

Velchronus··on Self-driving trucks begin mail delivery test for U.S. Postal Service
He’s correct. If they had made the payments they were suppose to, the health benefits account would have been fully funded by 2017. Because they didn’t, it is only half funded and is running deficits.
Velchronus··on Self-driving trucks begin mail delivery test for U.S. Postal Service
The USPS has missed most of they payments, not making a full one since 2010. The health benefits fund (the 50% one) was the only one that needed to be funded and much of that funding came from transfers from the other, overfunded, pension accounts.

Anyway, the point is moot, since the prefunding period is over and the payments are now on the permanent schedule. Because the Post Office couldn’t fully find the account, the fund is now running deficits and will be depleted in a decade.

Velchronus··on German Data Privacy Commissioner Says Article 13 Inevitably Leads to Filters
The author of the piece take a guess:

> But if a company is too small to afford licenses, it's also too small to build filters. Google's Content ID for YouTube cost a reported €100 million to build and run, and it only does a fraction of the blocking required under Article 13. That means that they'll have to buy filter services from someone else. The most likely filter vendors are the US Big Tech companies like Google and Facebook, who will have to build and run filters anyway, and could recoup their costs by renting access to these filters to smaller competitors.

Velchronus··on Did New York Lose Anything with Amazon’s Rejection? It’s Complicated
The 500M was for fixing up the eroding waterfront where they were building the campus. The alternative was allowing the damage to continue or fix it at a higher price themselves.
Velchronus··on T-Mobile’s fixed 5G to cover 250M+ with 300 Mbps+, competing with home ISPs
Caps are essentially necessary in mobile wireless as a means of resource management; but, in the low density areas where fixed wireless 5g is a good option, there may be no need for caps in the first place.
Velchronus··on GOP net neutrality bill would allow paid fast lanes and preempt state laws
No, you're right. The FCC's Net Neutrality rules excluded private offerings such as MPLS circuits.
Velchronus··on FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see
To give you my own anecdote, both my grandparents lived under fascism and both happily voted for Trump. It was the first time my grandfather voted in 40 years. I'd never seen him so excited to go to the voting booth before.
Velchronus··on Members of Congress rake FCC over the coals in official net neutrality comment
You can't have QoS in a pure version of net neutrality.

That's why the FCC's implementation makes exceptions for traffic management and deals only with business practice related net neutrality violations.

Of course, not all business practice related net neutrality violations are bad for the consumer, so the FCC makes lots of exceptions for those as well (see: zero rating).

Velchronus··on Russia Hysteria Infects WashPost: False Story About Hacking U.S. Electric Grid
I disagree on WSJ. They do a good job of keeping the opinion confined to the editorial section... for the most part.
Velchronus··on Reddit’s CEO edited comments that criticized him
Pizzagate is a conspiracy theory that spawned from the Podesta email leaks that cover a pedophile ring that involves several government officials.

There's a decent amount of circumstantial evidence for it, but I personally still think a bit of a stretch.