Tag Archives: mobile

It’s Time to Return to Market-Based Antitrust Law

by NormandDoolette Posted on January 7, 2016

Mother Jones

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Tim Lee makes an interesting argument today. He notes that cell phone plans have gotten a lot better lately:

Next time you go shopping for a new cellphone plan, you’re likely to find that the options are a lot better than they were a couple of years ago. Prices are lower. You don’t have to sign up for one of those annoying two-year contracts. You’ll probably get unlimited phone calls and text messages as a standard feature — and a lot more data than before.

Why has this happened? Because for the past couple of years T-Mobile has been competing ferociously with cheaper, more consumer-friendly plans, and the rest of the industry has had to keep up. But what prompted T-Mobile to become the UnCarrier in the first place?

Back in 2011, AT&T was on the verge of gobbling up T-Mobile, which would have turned the industry’s Big Four into the Big Three and eliminated the industry’s most unpredictable company….But then the Obama administration intervened to block the merger. With a merger off the table, T-Mobile decided to become a thorn in the side of its larger rivals, cutting prices and offering more attractive service plans. The result, says Mark Cooper, a researcher at the Consumer Federation of America, has been an “outbreak of competition” that’s resulted in tens of billions of dollars in consumer savings.

After the AT&T deal fell through, T-Mobile needed a new strategy….So T-Mobile and its new CEO, John Legere, started changing a lot of things. In 2013, the company dropped the much-hated two-year contracts that had become an industry standard. It introduced a new price structure that offered unlimited phone calls and text messages as a standard feature….In 2014, T-Mobile added more goodies, including more generous data caps and unlimited international texting. It boosted its data caps once again in 2015.

Antitrust law in America has been off track for decades, and it’s time to get back on. The government shouldn’t worry about trying to gauge price levels or consumer welfare or benefits to consumers. That’s like trying to centrally control the economy: we don’t know enough to do it well even if we want to. Instead, the feds should concentrate on one simple thing: making sure there’s real competition in every industry. Then let the market figure things out. There are exceptions here and there to this rule, but not many.

Competition is good. Corporations may not like it, and they’ll fight tooth and nail for their rents. But it’s good for everyone else.

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It’s Time to Return to Market-Based Antitrust Law

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New Paper Suggests More Smog = More Crime

by FloySiebenhaar0 Posted on December 21, 2015

Mother Jones

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A reader draws my attention to some “@kdrum bait” by Chris Mooney in the Washington Post today. Mooney writes about a new study that investigates violent crime upwind and downwind of interstate highways in Chicago. The study’s conclusion: higher rates of tailpipe pollution (measured via carbon monoxide levels) lead to higher violent crime rates:

Moving from the median CO day to the 90th percentile (0.5 ppb increase) is associated with nearly 5% more violent crime. The analogous effect on property crime is statistically insignificant and small. This discrepancy across crime types may suggest that the primary mechanism is physiological; that is, the pollution might make people more irritable and impulsive, thus leading to more violent crime. As a point of comparison, the 5% increase in violent crime from a high-CO day is comparable to the estimated effect of moving from the 25-30°C (77-86°F) maximum temperature bin to the 30-35°C (86-95°F) bin (7% increase in violent crime). That is, the increase in violent crime when moving from a typical CO day to a high-CO day is comparable to the increase associated with moving from a warm day to a hot day.

….We estimate that the downwind side of interstates experience 2.2 percent more violent crimes than when the wind is blowing in the opposite direction. Although we estimate that the effect of pollution on crime is modest in magnitude, our conservative back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that the cost of mobile pollution-induced crime in the United States is on the order of $100-200 million annually.

Of course, this isn’t really Kevin bait. Needless to say, I would expect higher crime rates downwind of urban highways because of lead emissions. However, this is an effect over the very long term. If you were born in a high-emission area during the era between 1950-1980 or so, you’re likely to suffer from lead poisoning that leads to a greater propensity for crime when you grow up. This explains the long-term rise and fall of violent crime over the past five or six decades.

However, this paper literally looks at violent crime rates from day to day. The authors conclude that, just as crime goes up during hot weather, it also goes up when pollution levels are higher. If this is true, it suggests that exposure to tailpipe pollutants has some kind of immediate, transient effect.

Why? The authors suggest several mechanisms. Pollution may have a direct effect on brain chemistry. Or it may simply be unpleasant and annoying, which can trigger aggressive behavior. Or it may have an effect on how many people are outdoors, which might indirectly affect the crime rate in some way. Since this is a brand new finding, it’s hard to say. Obviously it needs to be confirmed, and more research is needed before we understand the causal mechanism.

But interesting nonetheless.

From:  

New Paper Suggests More Smog = More Crime

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UNESCO Report Shows the Face of Science is Changing

by ShellaDixon1205 Posted on November 17, 2015

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I Was There When an Undercover Cop Pulled a Gun on Unarmed Protesters in Oakland. Here’s How It Happened.

by ceramide-capsules1 Posted on December 13, 2014

Mother Jones

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Over the past 24 hours, photos showing a plainclothes police officer pulling a gun on unarmed protesters in Oakland have gone viral. Tens of thousands of people, and news outlets like Gawker, Buzzfeed, The Guardian, and NBC have shared them, often including outraged comments. But there have been few accounts of what exactly happened, and how the incident came to pass.

I was one of the few reporters with the protesters at that point, around 11:30 p.m., and what I saw may add some useful context.

The protest was the latest in a series that have filled the streets of Berkeley and Oakland in the past couple of weeks in response to the lack of indictments for the officers who had killed Mike Brown and Eric Garner. (I covered most of them via Twitter.) Marchers generally remained peaceful. Sometimes they overtook highways and blocked intersections. Parents pushed strollers, students kept stride with older marchers, and people from all across the Bay Area joined in. But there was also infighting among the crowds, and breakaway factions looted stores, smashed windows, and burned trash cans. Police officers responded with tear gas, flash-bang grenades, and fired non-lethal bullets*, and their actions were often met with outrage.

Protesters run after police set off flashbang grenades in Oakland, Calif. Gabrielle Canon

Wednesday night seemed as if it was going to end differently. Organizers with hoarse voices rallied the crowd of some 150 with updates on the movement that they said was building across the country. They presented a petition listing demands, including for Darren Wilson to be indicted and protesters who’d been arrested to be released without charges. Starting at the Berkeley campus, the group marched peacefully toward Oakland as a rainstorm approached.

A little girl rides along on her stroller, chanting in a march last week. Gabrielle Canon

About 10:30 p.m., a small group from within the march broke windows at a T-Mobile store and smashed Bank Of America ATMs. Protesters blocked photographers documenting the violence, pushing us and putting their hands in front of lenses.

Marching floods into the streets in Berkeley, CA early on Wednesday night Gabrielle Canon

Shortly after this, police presence increased. Squad cars and white vans full of officers followed the march slowly as announcements rang out over a police intercom informing protesters that police were there for their protection and that their right to demonstrate was being respected. They also warned that any vandalism or violence would lead to citation or arrest.

According to reporter David DeBolt, writing for Inside Bay Area, officials say it was then that two undercover officers joined the march, both wearing dark handkerchiefs and hoods that covered their faces. I had not seen them earlier, and they did not appear in any of the photos I took.

A marcher does a different take on “Hands up don’t shoot” Gabrielle Canon

Suddenly, behind me, someone started to yell. A protester had discovered the undercover cops and shouted an alarm. Others began to join in, calling them pigs and telling them to go home. The two men passed me in silence, at a hurried pace. Suddenly, a scuffle erupted as one protester attempted to pull off one of the officer’s hoods. The officer tackled someone involved, and was quickly surrounded by a small crowd and kicked from several directions while on the ground. (That officer, who was African American, is who you see in the ground in the photo above.) The other officer stepped in front of his partner and brandished a baton. When the crowd did not back up he drew his gun, pointing at protesters and photographers. Moments later, police flooded the area, scattering marchers and blocking others, as the undercover officers arrested the man who had been tackled in the skirmish.

Protester in Oakland, CA Gabrielle Canon

DeBolt reports the undercover officers were later identified as members of California Highway Patrol, assigned to follow the march on foot. They had been following in a vehicle providing information to stop protesters from blocking highways. Officials said in a press conference that the agency is investigating the incident, but believes the officers did what was necessary to protect themselves. They said that undercover cops had been deployed in prior protests and would be again, and that Twitter accounts had also been used to gather information.

The incident and photo have sparked anger and questions about police tactics in crowd control. Protesters are expected to resume marching over the weekend throughout the Bay Area and I will send out updates on Twitter as events unfold.

Correction: An earlier version of this article erroneously stated the location from which nonlethal bullets were fired. The language has been changed to fix the error.

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I Was There When an Undercover Cop Pulled a Gun on Unarmed Protesters in Oakland. Here’s How It Happened.

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Housekeeping Notes

by SteviePillinger Posted on April 19, 2014

Mother Jones

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These are real housekeeping notes. That is, notes about stuff around my house. First topic: LED light bulbs.

I’ve purchased several LED floods that are can-mounted in my ceiling. They’re great. The quality of the light is good; they turn on instantly; they don’t flicker; and they use hardly any electricity. There’s only one problem: they seem to last less than a year. The LEDs themselves last for decades, of course, but the circuitry that drives the bulb doesn’t. As near as I can tell, there’s eventually enough heat buildup in the can to burn out the chip that controls the whole thing, and when the chip burns out, no more bulb.

I’m just guessing here, but this has now happened three times out of five bulbs I’ve purchased, and in all three cases the case of the bulb was hot to the touch when I unscrewed it from the base. So here’s my question: Does anyone know for sure what’s going on here? Is my guess that a chip is burning out probably correct? Am I just buying cheap bulbs? Can anyone recommend a can-mounted flood that’s reliable and will actually last for the 25 years that manufacturers so cheerfully promise?

Second: a cell phone update. In last weekend’s thread, the Google Nexus 5 got a lot of love, but so did the Motorola Moto X. I had actually made up my mind on the Nexus 5, but the T-Mobile store only sold it in a 16GB version, so I decided to go home and buy one online. But then I started dithering because of all the nice things people had said about the Moto X. Eventually, after far more dithering than makes sense for someone who doesn’t use a cell phone much, I decided the slightly smaller Moto X was the better choice. So: thanks, folks! I don’t think this would have come across my radar otherwise.

Excerpt from:

Housekeeping Notes

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It’s Finally Time For a New Phone

by WaldoFeliz Posted on April 13, 2014

Mother Jones

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So I went out today to my local T-Mobile store to check out the new HTC One, and as far as I’m concerned they ruined it. It’s now a gigantic slab, thanks to the 5-inch screen mania that’s mowed down everything in its path over the past year. They should have kept the old size, even if it meant the screen might be a mere 4.8 or 4.9 inches.

So it’s now off my radar, and I’m pretty much thinking I’ll go ahead and get a Google Nexus 5 instead. Ironically, it also has a 5-inch screen, but it’s nonetheless about the same size as the old HTC One. It’s nowhere near as good looking, but it seems to be pretty functional and pretty reasonably priced. Anyone have any reason to warn me away from it?

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It’s Finally Time For a New Phone

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Climate activists to protest at Obama group’s climate events

by Judith Kimbers Posted on May 22, 2013

Climate activists to protest at Obama group’s climate events

By John Upton

The White House

Barack Obama’s advocacy group, Organizing for Action, has been calling out Republican climate skeptics in Congress, but climate activists are not impressed. They’re planning to crash OFA events and push the group to fight the Keystone XL pipeline.

350.org and CREDO Action, the political arm of the company CREDO Mobile, are leading the charge. OFA is bracing for it. From BuzzFeed:

OFA circulated a set of talking points to its members for use in dealing with unruly activists. The document, obtained by BuzzFeed, includes information on the science behind climate change and the president’s environmental positions, and ends with a section titled “Keystone Talking Points.” …

The talking points come with a warning: “Volunteers from Credo Action or other organizations may attend your planning session and want to demand that we work on the Keystone XL pipeline.” …

“We understand that there are groups and individuals who would like to work to influence the President and the State Department on a variety of environmental decisions, but OFA’s plan is to do great organizing on building clean energy locally, turning up the heat on Congress and helping individuals and communities switch to clean energy,” the document reads. “They are more than welcome to work with those groups, but we encourage all volunteers to be part of our work and the mission of changing the conversation on climate!”

OFA asks its members to point to the State Department review process when asked about the pipeline.

Organizing for America defended itself to The Washington Post:

In an e-mail, OFA spokeswoman Katie Hogan noted the group already mobilized its members to both engage lawmakers on global warming and press for confirmation of Environmental Protection Agency administrator-designate Gina McCarthy.

“It has been made clear since our first day as an organization that we support the President’s plans from comprehensive immigration reform, to reducing gun violence to climate change, including the completion of the State Department [Keystone XL] review,” Hogan wrote. “Just last week OFA held almost 100 action planning sessions on climate change in communities across the country to talk about the action that can be taken right now to call out members of Congress for denying that climate change is a man-made problem.”

Um, Hogan, pointing out that you’re pointing out that Republicans aren’t taking climate change seriously is kinda missing the point.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who

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Climate activists to protest at Obama group’s climate events

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