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Message-ID: <20200229233922.GA25251@telecom.csail.mit.edu>
Date: Sat, 29 Feb 2020 23:39:22 +0000
From: Moderator <telecomdigestsubmissions@remove-this.telecom-digest.org>
Subject: CenturyLink to Cut 150 Jobs in Minnesota
The affected workers perform installations and repairs.
By Dan Niepow
Internet and phone service provider CenturyLink plans to lay off 150
workers in Minnesota.
The Louisiana-based company is reducing its total headcount by 310
employees based on "continuous assessment of our business needs and
workforce alignment," a spokesman said in an email. The affected
workers perform installations and repairs, and help with
administrative tasks.
http://tcbmag.com/news/articles/2020/february/centurylink-to-cut-150-jobs-in-minnesota
--
Bill Horne
Telecom Digest Moderator
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Message-ID: <f736145c-bc2c-404a-a418-6d7a2bb3444f@googlegroups.com>
Date: 29 Feb 2020 12:25:24 -0800
From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org>
Subject: Re: 911 operators couldn't trace the location of a dying
student's phone. It's a growing issue.
On Saturday, February 29, 2020 at 2:50:49 PM UTC-5, Fred Goldstein wrote:
> ***** Moderator's Note *****
>
> In my darker moments, I wonder if the freedom our constitution
> guarantees to the press has been abused by those whom it was meant to
> protect.
Certainly. Long ago American society recognized there were
tradeoffs between the various freedoms granted by the
Constitution and abuses by those who exploit them.
For instance, society is always balancing our Fourth Amendment
rights against government searches against the greater good
of protection against crime. Not an easy answer.
We have a free press, which is very important to us. But
the press at times has long abused its freedom.
For instance, In the 1950s, a cadre of individuals were convinced
that communists were ruining the country. They banded together
and published, at their own expense, all sorts of material
that attacked politicians and entertainers that ruined their
careers, even their lives. In hindsight, we look at those
publishers as evil people, but at the time--with the Korean
and Cold War raging--people supported them. (Ref "Reds"
by Ted Morgan.)
> It seems to me that our TV network news organization are now
> headlining a generation of blow-dried airheads: men and women whose
> only talent is the ability to look sincere on television.
This has been going on for 100 years. Before TV, some newspapers
were very sensational at the expense of reporting the truth.
Other newspapers were influenced by their advertisers. TV
supplanted print media 50 years ago, but now the classic TV
news shows, local and national, are not being watched. Print
media is dying.
> The TV anchors of old - World War II and Korean war veterans who had
> actually risked their lives in search of truth - have now been
> replaced by actors whose only job is not to tell the whole truth, but
> rather to sell as much soap as they can while generating as little
> controversy as possible.
Even before TV, some radio commentators were pretty bad in
spreading propaganda or false stories just to get ratings.
Even in the days of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite
there were conflicts from the parent corporation. TV
programs are enormously expensive to produce and someone has
to pay for it. With Edward R. Murrow, his exposes angered
corporate sponsors. It was very hard for CBS to support
Murrow under those circumstances, Murrow was costing
CBS serious money.
> I'll make a prediction: if that shoddy and once-over-lightly report is
> ever given serious criticism, the blow-dried airheads who will stand
> in front of the cameras while they read the sincere words someone else
> wrote for them will inevitably say that the phone was made by Huawei.
There are many 1950s articles on technology now available via
google books, such as early computers and dial telephone
conversion. A study of them reveals massive inaccuracies--
reporters had no idea of what they were reporting and either
made stuff up or merely parroted corporate press releases.
Advocates of the Internet claimed it would bring a fresh
unbridled information age to society. In my opinion, things
like social media and narrow cable TV views have done the
opposite.
------------------------------
Message-ID: <csI6G.578156$K87.53046@fx46.iad>
Date: 29 Feb 2020 22:17:43 -0800
From: "Jay Hennigan" <jay@west.net>
Subject: Re: 911 operators couldn't trace the location of a dying
student's phone. It's a growing issue.
On 2/28/20 16:13, Fred Goldstein wrote:
>>
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/02/22/student-died-911-call-location/
>
> None of the posts here picked up on a detail that some press reports
> had. The man was Chinese. His phone was Chinese, with a Chinese SIM
> card, roaming in the US. It was not built to US standards and not part
> of a US carrier. So it did not have the aGPS that US phones usually have.
Uh-oh. Chinese, early February, probably recently arrived in the US as
he still had his Chinese SIM card, and dying of "the flu". Anyone
connecting those dots?
***** Moderator's Note *****
Sound the alarm! Don't shake hands with any Americans: the dread
disease is in their country!
Bill Horne
Moderator
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End of telecom Digest Mon, 02 Mar 2020