The era of badly-automated homogenized engagement slop is upon us. I desperately want to believe there's a renaissance for authenticity on the other end.

I've always been fascinated by America's obsession with artifice.

Our "top engineers" can't engineer. Our journalists can't tell the truth. Our wealthiest innovators can't innovate. Our leaders can't lead. Our most "insightful" and popular podcasters have heads full of cottage cheese and pebbles.

The walls of our chain restaurants are plastered with fake Americana, our kitchens are full of French bistro prints from Target so we can pretend we're well traveled, and when authoritarianism came knocking, American exceptionalism proved as hollow as a Dollar Store fake chocolate Easter bunny.

Donald Trump, and his tacky gold spray painted bullshit, is perfectly representative of a culture being devoured by its obsession with artifice. Trump exposes how many Americans can't tell the difference between authenticity and the laziest bullshit imaginable, and I find that equal parts fascinating and terrifying.

April 17, 2026 (AP) – A federal judge has blocked a $6.2 billion merger of local television giants Nexstar Media Group and rival Tegna until an antitrust lawsuit is resolved.

U.S. District Court Chief Judge Troy L. Nunley in Sacramento, California, made the ruling late Friday afternoon, finding that eight attorneys general and DirecTV were likely to prevail in their legal bid to stop the merger. The attorneys general, all Democrats, and DirecTV contend the merger will lead to higher prices for consumers, stifle local journalism and that the deal runs afoul of federal laws designed to protect against monopolies.

The following are topics I found to be interesting but which didn't justify an entire blog:

Update on the Telecom Act? Congressman Brett Guthrie (KY-02), Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and Congressman Richard Hudson (NC-09), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, announced a hearing titled The Telecommunications Act of 1996: 30 Years Later. The stated purpose of the hearing is to examine the lessons learned from an examination of the Act. The hearing announcement suggests that Congress will see “how Congress can build on those lessons to modernize our laws to promote innovation, strengthen competition, and drive investment in modern communications networks.”

It’s obvious to anybody who follows telecom regulations that a lot of the changes made in the Act were quickly obsolete when broadband products became the predominant products of the telecom industry. Every reform effort has to start somewhere, and maybe this is the first step towards real discussions on updating telecom regulation. But in an industry dominated by regulatory capture from carriers, it seems highly unlikely that Congress has the appetite to take a fresh look at regulating the large carriers.

Will Starlink Bail on BEAD? 

On Tuesday, Amazon announced it would be acquiring Globalstar, a company that manufactures and operates low-Earth-orbit satellites with the spectrums needed to communicate with devices on the ground. Amazon also says it is partnering with Apple, which has relied on Globalstar to provide off-grid emergency communication features on devices like its iPhone and Apple Watch.

The $11.57 billion deal is Amazon’s latest effort to take on Elon Musk’s Starlink. It comes at a time when satellite internet is becoming critical to the spread of AI tech, but it also adds to concerns about what happens when our orbit fills up with junk.

Here’s what to know about the Amazon deal.

In a letter obtained by WIRED, the Energy Information Administration tells two senators that it plans to develop a mandatory assessment of data centers' energy use.

On March 11, I finished a deep analysis of Nebius Group (NBIS). The thesis: NVIDIA’s $2 billion investment was not a capital story — it was a structural validation that most investors were misreading.

I didn’t publish it in time.

The stock was at $112 that day. It’s at $162 today — a 44% move in 35 days. The all-time high, set earlier today, is $166.

I’m not writing this to complain about timing. I’m writing it because the story has changed again — and this time the magnitude of the change is large enough that the original thesis needs to be rebuilt from scratch, not updated with footnotes.

WASHINGTON, April 16, 2026 – A longtime telecom journalist asked federal regulators Wednesday to look into whether Verizon was violating an agreement with contractors. On Thursday morning Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr suggested he was concerned.

“If Verizon is not living up to their commitments, then that would be a problem,” Carr posted on X in response to Wireless Estimator editor Craig Lekutis’s story.

In exchange for FCC approval of its $20 billion acquisition of Frontier, Verizon reached a deal with NATE, which represents telecom contractors, to institute a more transparent procurement process and account for inflation in its pricing, among other things.

It’s almost impossible in these times to find a specific policy issue on which Democrats and Republicans agree, but there is one: opposition to data centers in their backyards.

This bipartisan concurrence, I hasten to add, is found chiefly in areas where data centers have already been built and begun to operate. Proximity, it appears, breeds contempt.

A Washington Post/Schar School poll released yesterday shows that the share of Virginians saying they’d be “comfortable” if a new data center were built in their community has plummeted to half the level it was at just three years ago.

Krieger's departure and any forthcoming design tools will be another data point for investors who fear the SaaSpocalypse — that the largest AI labs will come to dominate software businesses, a thesis that has rocked public markets at times this year.

Town officials in South Bristol, NY, are launching a new public forum series aimed at tackling some of the community’s most pressing challenges, starting with broadband access.

The first event, titled “How Can South Bristol Expand Broadband Access?”, is scheduled for Monday, April 20 at 7 p.m. at South Bristol Town Hall on West Gannett Hill Road. The session is free and open to the public.

Three big updates from the Ookla Research team this week: 1️⃣ U.S.

1️⃣ U.S. Mobile Performance: Xfinity and Spectrum Mobile are outpacing the industry average, thanks to savvy Wi-Fi offloading strategies. Too see how cable's speeds are climbing, see this article.

House Speaker Johnson’s late-night attempt to ‘scare up’ an extension of the government’s spying authority falls short in Congress.

Like a thief in the night, pro-surveillance members of Congress in the House of Representatives tried to force a vote on a powerful surveillance authority at midnight.

Early Friday morning, the House rejected Speaker Mike Johnson’s attempts to call a vote to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (or “FISA”) for 18 months without any critical reforms to protect Americans’ privacy. 

This victory over Speaker Johnson’s, President Trump’s, and Stephen Miller’s schemes came after House Republicans offered a smokescreen compromise that would have renewed Section 702 of FISA for five years while still allowing “backdoor” searches of the data of people in the United States who are caught up in a 702 database that’s supposed to be about collecting foreign intelligence. The fake reforms offered overnight, and voted down after 1 a.m. in a marathon House session, would have made it even easier for the government to use 702 data to prosecute Americans without getting a real warrant. 

The Speaker attempted to use the cover of night to take away people’s constitutionally protected rights and enhance the president’s ability to further weaponize the government against his perceived “enemies.” These actions ran counter to democratic principles.

Rest of World News: Finland is slowly making a name for itself as an innovator, albeit a low-key one, regarding wireless electricity transmission, which aims to transmit power via the airwaves without having to use cables, sockets, or connectors.

AI is making it easier to design chips and optimize software for different silicon. Some startups envision a revolution in chipmaking.

STANFORD, Calif., April 16, 2026 — Artificial intelligence is arriving in American courtrooms before the rules governing it, as state judges experiment with AI tools to manage overwhelming dockets and lawyers face consequences for submitting fabricated citations.

The pressure on American courts was the backdrop Thursday at Stanford Law School's Codex conference, where panelists described judges managing more than 100 cases some mornings and three-quarters of litigants appearing without a lawyer.

Over 60 percent of federal judges have used AI at least once.

WIRED tracked down some of the most prominent figures of last year’s DOGE invasion. Here's where they are now—in government and beyond.

Fourteen months ago, WIRED introduced the world to a cadre of young, inexperienced technologists who were working with Elon Musk’s newly formed, so-called Department of Government Efficiency. These workers, many of them between the ages of 19 and 24, were given the keys to the US government. They were also quickly the subject of controversy, as they laid waste to government agencies with little rhyme or reason. When Musk departed DOGE, many of the people who constituted DOGE’s early strike force dispersed.

But as the dust has settled, it’s clear that DOGE’s efforts have caused lasting damage in both large and small ways—from the more than 300,000 federal workers fired to the destruction of the US Agency for International Development to even just increased wait times for assistance on the Social Security Agency’s phone lines.

Yet its members have been given positions of increased responsibility, both inside the government and out, despite the fact that DOGE’s own members described the organization as “chaotic” and the group failed to achieve many of its goals.

Musk’s DOGE may no longer exist as it did a year ago,

Broadband infrastructure will determine whether the U.S. leads the AI revolution.

Artificial intelligence may define the next era of global innovation — but its success depends on something foundational.

In a new op-ed in National Review, NCTA President & CEO Cory Gardner writes that America’s ability to lead in AI will ultimately depend on the infrastructure, policies, and innovation ecosystem that support it.

Drawing a parallel to earlier technological change, Gardner notes that just as farmers in the 1930s resisted moving from horse-powered machinery to tractors, “AI is today’s tractor. But unlike the 1930s, when leadership in the technological revolution was determined by who built the flashiest and best-marketed models, winning the AI revolution will be determined by who builds and protects the infrastructure that makes AI possible in the first place.”

Let’s put aside the argument of whether LEO/satellite should “count” as covering a BSL with service in BEAD. BEAD’s goal was and is "universal coverage.” It’s defined as available coverage for each and every BSL in the US. Each and every location in our country should be able to connect to robust internet speeds (100/20), affordably. 

But… without actual consumer uptake, we are only presenting the appearance of universal coverage. Its adoption, not availability, that bridges the rural digital divide. BSLs covered by LEO/satellite are a long way from being connected. I’m reminded by carrier claims back in the day that they “covered” a home or business... but coverage only existed with a multi-thousand-dollar investment from the location that needed to be connected. Coverage isn’t connection. Uptake and adoption are connection. 

Why does Public Media Network still exist with social media? The answer has nothing to do with reach, and everything to do with who owns the infrastructure.