#U.S. Cellular

[robpegoraro]

Weekly output: T-Mobile buys much of UScellular, cookie-permissions dialogs, Verizon taps AST SpaceMobile, Android update, IRS keeps Direct File, Affordable Connectivity Program ends

The end of May coinciding with the end of a four-day workweek was a pleasant bonus of Memorial Day’s spot on the calendar this year. Another bonus: I had my last client-paid copy for the month filed by 2:09 p.m. Friday. Patreon readers got one other post, a rant about the woeful UX of a Hilton offer for double points on upcoming hotel stays. That didn’t get published until almost 9 p.m. on…

[ctcnewsca]

Inflation in Canada dips to 2.3% in March 2025! Lower gas prices & travel costs bring relief, but food prices rise.

[1americanconservative]

wearebreitbart

🔴🔴🔴 Three men whom authorities say are illegal aliens were arrested in Purcell, Oklahoma, and charged for cutting apart and stealing copper coaxial lines from a U.S. Cellular antenna site. The McClain County Sheriff’s Office said the men perpetrated the crime just after midnight on Thursday. Officers were called by a company employee who was investigating antenna signal loss and who reported the theft in progress, KOCO-TV reported. Sheriff’s deputies along with members of the Purcell Police Department responded to the scene and say they caught the three men in the commission of the crime. They were quickly confronted and taken into custody. “Approximately 3,600 feet of copper coax lines were cut, the suspects had loaded several hundred feet of the copper coax into a cargo trailer but left a large portion of the copper coax near the tower due to being caught in the act. Climbing gear and cutting tools were located inside the cargo trailer, along with previously cut copper coax cable from another theft,” the sheriff’s office said in a press release posted to Facebook. The three suspects, Juan Martinez, Jerlis Martinez, and Cristian Orellana, have been hit with felony theft charges and have also earned an ICE detainer. Police have also said they are investigation the trio in connection with another recent copper theft in the area.

[wheelsgoroundincircles]

Oldsmobile

April 29'th 2004. The last Oldsmobile rolls off the line. You may be surprised to learn, that for a long time Oldsmobile meant innovation. Here are just a few of the Automotive technologies Olds pioneered in it's 100+ years in business:

1898: Olds Motor Vehicle Company exports the first American car, a steam-powered automobile, to Mumbai, India.

1901: The first speedometer offered on a production car was on an Oldsmobile Curved Dash.

1901: Oldsmobile was the first to procure parts from third-party suppliers.

1901: Olds produces 635 cars, becoming the first high-volume gasoline automobile producer.

1901: Oldsmobile becomes the first manufacturer to publicly promote their vehicles.

1902: The Oldsmobile Curved Dash is the first mass-produced vehicle in America.

1903: Oldsmobile builds the first purpose-built mail truck.

1908: Oldsmobile rebadges the Buick Model B as the Oldsmobile Model 20, possibly creating the first badge-engineered car.

1915: First standard windshield introduced by Oldsmobile.

1926: Oldsmobile is the first to use chrome plating on trim.

1929: Oldsmobile creates the first Monobloc V8 engine in its Viking Sister brand.

1932: Oldsmobile introduces the first automatic choke.

1935: Oldsmobile offers the first all-steel roof on an automobile.

1940: Oldsmobile introduces the Hydra-Matic, the first fully automatic transmission.

1948: Oldsmobile offers one-piece curved windshields, along with Buick and Cadillac.

1949: Oldsmobile introduces the Rocket, the first high-compression OHV V8 engine.

1952: Oldsmobile introduces the "Autronic Eye," the first automatic headlight dimming system.

1953: Oldsmobile switches its lineup to the 12v charging system.

1962: Oldsmobile creates the first production turbocharged car, the F-85 Jetfire.

1962: Oldsmobile also creates the first production car with water injection, the F-85 Jetfire.

1966: The Oldsmobile Toronado is the first mass-produced front-wheel-drive American car.

1969: First use of chromed ABS plastic exterior trim on the 1969 Oldsmobile Toronado.

1969: First electric grid window defogger on an American car, the 1969 Oldsmobile Toronado.

1971: The Oldsmobile Toronado is one of the first cars to feature a high-mounted brake light.

1974: The Toronado is the first American car to offer a driver-side airbag.

1977: The Toronado is the first American car with a microprocessor to run engine controls.

1982: First use of high-impact molded plastic body components on the 1982 Oldsmobile Omega.

1986: Oldsmobile introduces the Delco VIC touchscreen interface on the Toronado, shared with Buick Riviera.

1988: The first production heads-up display system is introduced on the 1988 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme Indy Pace Car.

1988: Oldsmobile breaks a world speed record with the Oldsmobile Aerotech at 267 mph, driven by A.J. Foyt.

1990: Oldsmobile updates the color touchscreen interface with a built-in cellular phone on the 1990 Toronado Trofeo.

1995: Oldsmobile introduces Guidestar, the first onboard navigation system on a U.S. production car.

1997: Oldsmobile becomes the first American car company to turn 100 years old.

2001: The redesigned 2002 Oldsmobile Bravada becomes the first truck to pace the Indianapolis 500.

[vague-humanoid]

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — A crisis unfolded in western North Carolina as officials rushed to get more water, food and other supplies to flood-stricken areas without power and cellular service Monday, three days after Hurricane Helene ripped across the U.S. Southeast. The death toll from the storm reached the triple digits.

At least 107 people in six states were killed. A North Carolina county that includes the mountain city of Asheville reported 30 people killed. Georgia’s death count was raised Monday from 17 to 25.

North Carolina’s governor, Roy Cooper, predicted the toll would rise as rescuers and other emergency workers reached areas isolated by collapsed roads, failing infrastructure and widespread flooding.

Supplies were being airlifted to the region around the isolated city of Asheville. Buncombe County Manager Avril Pinder pledged that she would have food and water to the city by Monday.

[greendayauthority]

U.S. Cellular Arena | Milwaukee, WI | 9 November 2004

[pandemic-info]

What Is Long COVID? Understanding the Pandemic’s Mysterious Fallout > News > Yale Medicine

Originally published: April 15, 2024. Updated: June 4, 2024

Just weeks after the first cases of COVID-19 hit U.S. shores, an op-ed appeared in The New York Times titled “We Need to Talk About What Coronavirus Recoveries Look Like: They're a lot more complicated than most people realize.”

...

Unlike most diseases, Long COVID was first described not by doctors, but by the patients themselves. Even the term “Long COVID” was coined by a patient. Dr. Elisa Perego, an honorary research fellow at University College in London, came up with the hashtag #LongCOVID when tweeting about her own experience with the post-COVID syndrome. The term went viral and suddenly social media, and then the media itself, was full of these stories.

Complaints like "I can't seem to concentrate anymore" or "I'm constantly fatigued throughout the day" became increasingly common, seemingly appearing out of nowhere. With nothing abnormal turning up from their many thorough lab tests, patients and their physicians were left feeling helpless and frustrated.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has defined Long COVID as the "continuation or development of new symptoms three months after the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection, with these symptoms lasting for at least two months with no other explanation." This deliberately broad definition reflects the complex nature of this syndrome. We now understand that these symptoms are wide-ranging, including heart palpitations, cough, nausea, fatigue, cognitive impairment (commonly referred to as "brain fog"), and more. Also, many who experience Long COVID following an acute infection face an elevated risk of such medical complications as blood clots and (type 2) diabetes.

In April 2024, an estimated 5.3% of all adults in the United States reported having Long COVID, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Data from the CDC suggest that Long COVID disproportionately affects women, and individuals between the ages of 40 and 59 have the highest reported rates of developing this post-acute infection syndrome.

...

Inderjit Singh, MBChB, a YSM assistant professor specializing in pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine, and director of the Pulmonary Vascular Program, is actively engaged in clinical trials aimed at uncovering the fundamental underpinnings of Long COVID.

...

Through this work, a significant revelation emerged. They observed that patients grappling with Long COVID and facing exercise difficulties were unable to efficiently extract oxygen from their bloodstream during physical exertion. This discovery identifies a specific cause underlying the biological underpinnings of Long COVID.

... Dr. Singh, along with other researchers, is focused on the identification of blood-based markers to assess the severity of Long COVID. For example, a research group, led by Akiko Iwasaki, PhD, Sterling Professor of Immunobiology and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, and director of the Center for Infection & Immunity at YSM, most recently created a new method to classify Long COVID severity with circulating immune markers.

Further investigations conducted by Dr. Singh's team identified distinctive protein signatures in the blood of Long COVID patients, which correlated with the degree of Long COVID severity. Researchers identified two major and distinct blood profiles among the patients. Some of them exhibited blood profiles indicating that excessive inflammation played a prominent role in their condition, while others displayed profiles indicative of impaired metabolism.

...

Researchers currently believe that the impairment of a spectrum of key bodily functions may contribute to these diverse symptoms. These potential mechanisms include compromised immune system function, damage to blood vessels, and direct harm to the brain and nervous system. Importantly, it's likely that most patients experience symptoms arising from multiple underlying causes, which complicates both the diagnosis and treatment of Long COVID.

...

The last word from Lisa Sanders, MD:

I’m the internist who sees patients at Yale New Haven Health’s Multidisciplinary Long COVID Care Center. In our clinic, patients are examined by a variety of specialists to determine the best next steps for these complex patients. Sometimes that entails more testing. Often patients have had extensive testing even before they arrive, and far too often—when all the tests are normal—both doctors and patients worry that their symptoms are “all in their head.”

One of our first tasks is to reassure patients that many parts of Long COVID don’t show up on tests. We don’t know enough about the cause of many of these symptoms to create a test for them. The problem is not with the patient with the symptoms, but of the science surrounding them. If any good can be said to come out of this pandemic, it will be a better understanding of Long COVID and many of the other post-acute infection syndromes that have existed as long as the infections themselves.

[wat3rm370n]

Radios are a good thing to have. Devices that require cell service are cell phones and are not the same as radios.

I keep seeing commercials for "rapid radios" where they are trying to pitch these "walkie talkie" type devices as radios that can reach across the country. This is misleading nonsense. They are a real product, and they will allow communication across long distances, under the right circumstances, but these are not radios, and the advertising is misleading.

They're essentially cell phones because they require cell towers and LTE service to be working and within range. Back in the early days of cell phones, I knew people with cell phones that provided a type of walkie-talkie service you could use between paired phones on the same plan. I'm sure there are people still using this on cell phones. But it's merely similar to how you use a walkie talkie, the signal itself is sent via the cell phone service.

So that means these devices are not like radios that can work when cell towers are non-functional or not in range. They are NOT independent of a mobile phone network.

Some ads claim there are "no monthly fees" which makes it sound like they're radios that are independently operating like an amateur radio or walkie talkie, where you need no subscription or plan. That's tricky though because they do have an annual fee for service - through their cellular carrier! They will not work without this service.

FRS radio, used via walkie talkies, will work independently of any subscription. You don't need a license to broadcast (talk over it), and if you buy a reputable legal set, even something cheap, they are fixed so that you can't access or transmit in a way that you wouldn't be allowed. Many of us played with these as kids, and some of the children's toy types work just fine, but there are better quality ones that will have a better audio signal and maybe a slightly bigger but still short range. CB radio is similar but the equipment is different and operates at different frequencies.

GMRS radios also have a limited range but are more powerful than FRS. You can have a base station and hook up antennas, but there are also handheld GMRS that work like walkie talkies too, and can communicate with radios on the FRS channels, and also more GMRS frequencies. You need a license to broadcast on GMRS, but it's relatively cheap and you only need one license per household to cover a whole family using different radios. There are rules by the FCC for example using your assigned call sign at 15 minute intervals or at the end of any conversation. There are also rules about using repeaters that allow people to broadcast or hear radio from greater distances. (I hear people 40 miles away on GMRS, using a repeater.)

Some GMRS radios come with a built-in weather radio and even FM radio too. Some can be programmed (on the device or connected to a computer app) to listen in on various frequencies such as emergency service channels like the fire department, just like "police scanners". These too if sold from a reputable source, and compliant with rules, will not allow you to accidentally broadcast on some officially designated channel or a HAM channel and get into trouble. HAM radio licensing no longer requires you pass a morse code test but it does still have tests on radio operations and equipment, and unless you pass these tests and get licensed you can't operate HAM.

CB, FRS, GMRS, and HAM are not cell phones and they are not private. Though texting is an option, encryption is not allowed by the U.S. FCC for these amateur radio bands.

Then there's also LoRa radio which is being used by people now for short-range low-power texting communication that doesn't require cell service. This is an unlicensed frequency that's used for a number of things. There is an open source tech called Meshtastic that's popular.

All of these things are totally different thing than these "radios" being marketed supposedly for "preppers" who want a way to communicate long distance or in a disaster. If you want to communicate when cell phone service is interrupted or not available nearby, these "long distance walkie talkies" are not the solution.

If you want to be able to communicate long distance without cell service, a satellite phone can do that, because they use satellites in orbit. But these also obviously require a service, because they work by satellites that are in orbit being operated by some company. And the service is pretty expensive.

Read up a little on how radios work, and then get the actual radios, from a reputable source, and get the right license if need be, and follow the rules.

And honestly I don't recommend impulse buying anything you see in an ad without looking into it further.

[darkmaga-returns]

Story at-a-glance

The U.S. spends over $4.5 trillion annually on health care, yet chronic disease rates continue to rise; heart disease, cancer and diabetes remain the leading preventable causes of death

Nearly 47% of U.S. adults have high blood pressure, while heart disease kills one person every 34 seconds. This accounts for approximately 700,000 deaths annually in America

Cancer rates continue to climb, with over 2 million new cases reported in 2024. Research links cancer to poor metabolic health and lifestyle factors

Diabetes affects 38.4 million Americans while obesity impacts 41.9% of all adults. Both conditions disrupt your metabolism and contribute to numerous health complications that cost billions annually

The modern health crisis in the U.S. is a direct consequence of a system designed to manage and mask symptoms rather than promote health. To reverse this trend, our focus must shift to optimizing cellular health

[us-cj]

MEASLES

Measles Vaccine Virus Is Product of Gain-of-Function & Can Shed Onto Unvaccinated. U.S. military biodefense experts confirm in a May 2016 publication in The Journal of Infectious Diseases that the live virus inside the measles (MMR) vaccine is engineered using “a technique that could be considered, by current definitions, GOF research.”

GOF (gain-of-function) experiments can cause viruses to become more infectious. The wild-type measles virus (Montefiore 89 strain) purportedly found in nature mostly uses a receptor called CD150 to gain entry to and infect immune cells.

However, the vaccine strain (Edmonston strain) is manipulated in the laboratory to acquire the ability to bind another receptor called CD46, which is more abundant in the body and expressed on most human nucleated cells.

This means the measles virus injected into the MMR-vaccinated has the potential to enter many more cells compared to the wild-type virus, due to its acquired ability to use an additional cellular receptor.

The vaccine virus also sheds.

An August 2024 study in the peer-reviewed Journal of Clinical Virology ( https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1386653224000581 ) confirms the measles vaccine virus sheds in recently vaccinated children for 29 days, meaning the vaccinated can spread the virus to the unvaccinated for about a month.

A 1995 CDC study found that 83% of vaccinated children had measles virus shed in their urine.

With a genetically modified vaccine virus capable of shedding for nearly a month and entering a broader range of human cells than the wild-type strain, the question becomes harder to ignore: Is the vaccine itself playing a role in the surge?

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

NASA and Italian Space Agency test future lunar navigation technology

As the Artemis campaign leads humanity to the moon and eventually Mars, NASA is refining its state-of-the-art navigation and positioning technologies to guide a new era of lunar exploration.

A technology demonstration helping pave the way for these developments is the Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE) payload, a joint effort between NASA and the Italian Space Agency to demonstrate the viability of using existing GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) signals for positioning, navigation, and timing on the moon.

During its voyage on an upcoming delivery to the moon as part of NASA's CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative, LuGRE would demonstrate acquiring and tracking signals from both the U.S. GPS and European Union Galileo GNSS constellations during transit to the moon, during lunar orbit, and finally for up to two weeks on the lunar surface itself.

The LuGRE payload is one of the first demonstrations of GNSS signal reception and navigation on and around the lunar surface, an important milestone for how lunar missions will access navigation and positioning technology.

If successful, LuGRE would demonstrate that spacecraft can use signals from existing GNSS satellites at lunar distances, reducing their reliance on ground-based stations on the Earth for lunar navigation.

Today, GNSS constellations support essential services like navigation, banking, power grid synchronization, cellular networks, and telecommunications. Near-Earth space missions use these signals in flight to determine critical operational information like location, velocity, and time.

NASA and the Italian Space Agency want to expand the boundaries of GNSS use cases. In 2019, the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission broke the world record for farthest GPS signal acquisition 116,300 miles from the Earth's surface—nearly half of the 238,900 miles between Earth and the moon. Now, LuGRE could double that distance.

"GPS makes our lives safer and more viable here on Earth," said Kevin Coggins, NASA deputy associate administrator and SCaN (Space Communications and Navigation) Program manager at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "As we seek to extend humanity beyond our home planet, LuGRE should confirm that this extraordinary technology can do the same for us on the moon."

Reliable space communication and navigation systems play a vital role in all NASA missions, providing crucial connections from space to Earth for crewed and uncrewed missions alike. Using a blend of government and commercial assets, NASA's Near Space and Deep Space Networks support science, technology demonstrations, and human spaceflight missions across the solar system.

"This mission is more than a technological milestone," said Joel Parker, policy lead for positioning, navigation, and timing at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

"We want to enable more and better missions to the moon for the benefit of everyone, and we want to do it together with our international partners."

The data-gathering LuGRE payload combines NASA-led systems engineering and mission management with receiver software and hardware developed by the Italian Space Agency and their industry partner Qascom—the first Italian-built hardware to operate on the lunar surface.

Any data LuGRE collects is intended to open the door for use of GNSS to all lunar missions, not just those by NASA or the Italian Space Agency. Approximately six months after LuGRE completes its operations, the agencies will release its mission data to broaden public and commercial access to lunar GNSS research.

"A project like LuGRE isn't about NASA alone," said NASA Goddard navigation and mission design engineer Lauren Konitzer. "It's something we're doing for the benefit of humanity. We're working to prove that lunar GNSS can work, and we're sharing our discoveries with the world."

The LuGRE payload is one of 10 science experiments launching to the lunar surface on this delivery through NASA's CLPS initiative.

Through CLPS, NASA works with American companies to provide delivery and quantity contracts for commercial deliveries to further lunar exploration and the development of a sustainable lunar economy. As of 2024, the agency has 14 private partners on contract for current and future CLPS missions.

Demonstrations like LuGRE could lay the groundwork for GNSS-based navigation systems on the lunar surface. Bridging these existing systems with emerging lunar-specific navigation solutions has the potential to define how all spacecraft navigate lunar terrain in the Artemis era.

The payload is a collaborative effort between NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and the Italian Space Agency.

[mediamixs]

Top 10 Cosmic Horror Movies

Annihilation: A meteorite strikes the coast of America, creating a mysterious field called "The Shimmer" that expands from the crash site. The film follows Lena, a cellular biologist and former U.S. Army soldier, and her team as they enter the Shimmer to discover why only one person has ever returned.

Color Out of Space: A family living on a remote New England farmstead is struck by a meteorite that emits a mystifying color, affecting their minds and altering their perception of the world around them. The film is considered the best adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s story, noted for its hallucinogenic visuals.

Absentia:A woman and her sister find a mysterious tunnel and link it to a series of disappearances, including her husband's.

In the Mouth of Madness: Insurance investigator John Trent investigates a missing horror author and is plagued by nightmares as he reads the writer's work and travels to a supernatural town in New Hampshire.

Pandorum :Two astronauts awaken from hyper-sleep in total darkness on a ship with no memory of their pasts. As they explore their mission, they discover they are not alone. The film combines horror and science fiction, creating a paranoid and unnerving atmosphere.

Splinter: A young couple's vacation is disrupted when they are carjacked by two small-time thieves. The group unites to fight for their lives when they encounter an alien parasite at a gas station that causes splinters to pierce the infected being's skin.

Black Mountain Side : A group of archeologists in the Arctic discover an ancient structure. Critics have called the movie a "beautifully shot, creepy love letter to John Carpenter's The Thing".

The Ritual: Five men from England hike through the Swedish wilderness after their friend's death and are hunted by an imposing entity after spending a stormy night in a creepy shack. As they try to escape the forest, they find a remote cult that worships the beast, drawing inspiration from the work of H. P. Lovecraft.

9.Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories: This is an anthology anime series that covers many horror scenarios. Some seasons are better than others, but each tale is only 10–15 minutes long

10.The Haunted Palace: This Vincent Price film is a Lovecraftian Horror gem that seems to be overlooked, likely due to its age.

[beardedmrbean]

Article link

A Texas man is facing child porn charges after investigators say he used artificial intelligence to undress a teenage girl.

Authorities arrested Roman Shoffner, 30, on June 28 on a charge of possession of child pornography, Montgomery County Precinct 3 Constable Ryan Gable said in a July 1 news release.

The arrest comes weeks after an investigation was launched on May 15, the constable said, though it’s unclear what tipped authorities off to Shoffner’s alleged activities.

“Shoffner used an artificial intelligence program on his cellular phone to alter a picture of a 17-year-old female by removing her clothing,” according to the constable’s office. In the image, the teen’s face was unchanged, but she was rendered naked “from the neck down.”

Detectives took Shoffner’s phone and had it analyzed, the constable said. Based on evidence gathered, detectives believe Shoffner created the image “with intentions of possessing Child Pornography,” and he was arrested.

The arrest was the first of its kind in Montgomery County and was made possible due to an amendment made to Texas law in 2023, Lt. Ken Washington told KRIV

“The modifications in the law that happened in 2023 stated that you can’t have a modified image — one that depicts child porn,” Washington said. “This one is the first time we’ve filed this charge.”

Montgomery County is a roughly 40-mile drive north from Houston.

While altering images is nothing new, the rise of AI has made it easier and faster to create convincing fakes. Lawmakers are aware of how the technology can be abused, and U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) recently unveiled a bipartisan bill — dubbed the TAKE IT DOWN Act — largely in response to increasing deepfakes and similar digitally-generated content.

The bill would, in part, put greater accountability on social media companies and websites, where these images often circulate and are seen by a wide audience.

“In recent years, we’ve witnessed a stunning increase in exploitative sexual material online, largely due to bad actors taking advantage of newer technologies like generative artificial intelligence. Many women and girls are forever harmed by these crimes, having to live with being victimized again and again,” Cruz said. “By … putting the responsibility on websites to have in place procedures to remove these images, our bill will protect and empower all victims of this heinous crime.”