Month: January 2013

A reader warns:

Your reader probably shouldn’t “just jailbreak my iPhone and use it as a hotspot.”  As of this past Saturday, such activities are now illegal.

Update from a reader below correcting that claim. Another reader:

If they can do it on high speed rural trains in France and mountainous and tunneled areas of Germany, surely Amtrak has no excuse. Wifi router on board connected to a satellite system and a contract with a wireless provider for the few tunnels they have and – boom – it’s done. Ok, maybe they need to start with a customer base, but that may be a chicken/egg argument.

Another goes into detail:

Continue reading How Do You Solve A Problem Like Amtrak’s WiFi? Ctd

Wayne Curtis gives a lesson:

The step — the Prussians called it Paradeschritt or, later, Stechschritt — apparently took root with guards in the Holy Roman Empire, and then found its way to Prussia around 1730. It persisted until 1940, which was the last year the Nazis taught newly drafted soldiers how to goose step, instead shifting to more practical skills. (It was renamed the “Roman step” when Benito Mussolini brought it to Italy in 1938.)

In truth, it’s not a very sensible way to get around (goose-stepping injuries weren’t uncommon among soldiers), but it was taught to instill discipline among the troops. More so, it served well in ceremonial public displays — to demonstrate a leader could turn men into machines. The step invariably involved boots brought down in unison, smartly and loudly, giving a platoon the invincible sound of a well-lubricated machine.

Alison Motluck worries that fertility doctors may be downplaying the medical risks for donors. She highlights a major fault with their business model: doctors’ conflict of interest, since they have “two patients—the recipient and the donor” whose interests often collide:

In other areas of medicine that use donors, such as bone-marrow transplantation, physicians have taken steps to protect donors by separating their medical care from the care of the recipient. Applied to fertility medicine, this could mean giving the egg donor her own doctor, responsible only to her and keeping only her health in mind. A separate doctor could care for the recipient. Given that the recipient is the paying patient, however, this would be a challenging ideal to uphold in practice.

Egg donors deserve at least the same treatment as other patients—and, arguably, better. After all, they are young and healthy, and they undertake medical treatment for another person’s benefit. They deserve to know the truth about the health risks they face, and, wherever possible, to have those risks reduced.

Danny Hayes believes that the gun control debate after Newtown has persisted (contrary to his expectations) because the media has covered the shooting “in a fundamentally different way than they have others”:

As I wrote in the days after Sandy Hook, coverage of gun control typically spikes following a mass shooting. But it pretty quickly recedes. … Just two weeks after the shooting, gun control looked like it was headed to the dustbin of history again. In particular, the fiscal-cliff debate (and the attendant congressional f-bombs) sucked almost out of the oxygen out of the Washington media air. In the week surrounding the New Year, “fiscal cliff” appeared in the news four times as often as “gun control.” But coverage shortly moved on to a third phase. Whereas gun control had evaporated from the news within about a month of the earlier shootings, in the case of Newtown, it surged back in mid-January.

He also points to the importance of “gun control” in the media’s coverage:

Even before the 27 victims had been laid to rest, gun control was a far more prominent part of the Newtown narrative than it had been in previous incidents. And in contrast to the Virginia Tech, Aurora and Giffords shootings, it has come to dominate the media narrative. The week that Obama issued the executive actions, more than 60 percent of stories that mentioned Newtown also included a reference to gun control.

(Chart: The number of news stories including the phrase “gun control” in the wake of various shootings.)

Hunter Oatman-Stanford investigates the slow evolution of the change-fed parking meter:

Today, parking covers more of urban America than any other single-use space, yet the vast majority of meters are outdated, coin-only devices, charging a flat-rate during operating hours across all zones. “From the user’s point of view, most American parking meters remain identical to the original 1935 model,” writes [Donald Shoup]. “You put coins in the meter to buy a specific amount of time, and you risk getting a ticket if you don’t return before your time expires. The main change in 70 years is that few meters now take nickels. In real terms, however, the price of most curb parking hasn’t increased; adjusted for inflation, 5 cents in 1935 was worth 65 cents in 2004, less than the price of parking for an hour at many meters in 2004.”

He praises the model in San Francisco, where rates can be adjusted depending on vehicle occupancy and turnover:

Since the project’s debut, meter rates have been adjusted every six weeks to reach an optimal hourly charge that will keep between most meters occupied with a few always open for new vehicles. Recently, the San Francisco Examiner found the project to be an overall success, with parking rates and fines actually decreasing across the city even as spaces become more available.

Gregory Ferenstein sets the scene:

Apparently, the government of Antigua is permitted to suspend up to $21 million in copyright annually, because the U.S. defied a World Trade Organization ruling that permitted it to host online gambling. “A few years ago 5% of all Antiguans worked at gambling related companies. However, when the U.S. prevented the island from accessing their market the industry collapsed,” explains TorrentFreak. In revenge for snubbing the WTO, Antigua plans to “capitalize” on the right to offer copyrighted materials, which means there might be some fee associated with the service.

Brendan Sasso is less sure:

[Lawyer for the International Intellectual Property Alliance Michael] Schlesinger argued that the WTO ruling does not free Antigua from its other international obligations to respect intellectual property rights. “Countries have international obligations aside and apart from their WTO obligations,” Schlesinger said, arguing that Antigua is prohibited by the World Intellectual Property Organization form setting up a piracy website.

Today on the Dish, Andrew piled on David Mamet for his veil of ignorance regarding guns, crime and Hobbes. He took the temperature of America’s economy with Bartlett and Collender, sized up Obama’s (mostly) conservative foreign-policy credentials and noticed a Dish shout-out da Italia. Meanwhile, Andrew asked for some transparency from the anti-Hagel crowd, remained diligent in holding Aaron Swartz’s prosecutor accountable, and chuckled at Kinsley’s quips from his new perch at TNR.

In political coverage, we rounded up commentary on the GOP’s immigration strategy, Drum counted the moments left to get it done, and Ezra Klein broke down the politics of the notorious sequester. While Pete Wehner garnered an Yglesias Award nod for his repudiation of Gingrichism, we witnessed the American workday drive down family time. Elsewhere, we continued dissecting poetry in the age of Obama, highlighted a heart-wrenching passage of Aaron Swartz’s tortured writings, and toured the dilapidated streets of Kabul.

In miscellanea, readers revisited the ethics of charging for obituaries, the discontents of Amtrak Wifi, as well as the merits of online dating. Tim Maly explored stealth chic as Heather Horn revealed the age-old jealousy of artistic prodigies. Robert Krulwich measured our lifelines, Brad Leithauser sung the praises of memorizing verse, and David Carr resurrected Kenny in his report on Matt and Trey. While Emily Anthes opposed circumcision of pooches’ tails, Jeb Boniakowski hankered for a more cosmopolitan Big Mac.

We turned on, tuned in, and dropped out with the Beav during the MHB, glanced at a crisp, clear morning in Boston, Massachusetts for the VFYW, and met a Westminster hopeful in the Face of the Day.

–B.J.