Events

CityLab's Allan Richarz reports on the techniques Japan uses to get 13 billion passengers through its rail system each year: Ridership of that volume requires a deft blend of engineering, planning, and psychology. Beneath the bustle, unobtrusive features are designed to unconsciously manipulate passenger behavior, via light, sound, and other means. Japan’s boundless creativity in this realm reflects the deep consideration given to public transportation in the country. Standing at either end of a...

What happens when an id-driven man-child with no curiosity who loathes nuance and knowledge tries to negotiate a complex geopolitical deal with the most secretive regime in the world? One of them gets punked, bigly: The North Koreans appear to have waited until Trump announced a date and a venue to shift gears and make clear that giving up their nuclear weapons was definitely not on the agenda. In the lead-up President Trump was veritably giddy. In late April Trump praised Kim as “very honorable” for...

TPM's Zachary Roth thinks the latest developments in the Justice Department portend the end of its independence: DOJ essentially taking orders from the president on this represents a level of political interference in the U.S. justice system that may go further even than anything else we’ve seen under Trump. It’s true that DOJ’s announcement back in March that it would probe the FISA issue came after weeks of agitation by Trump and his allies own Congress. But even that sequence of events felt less...

Ballast Point, a former craft brewery that sold out to Constellation Brands for $1 billion in 2015, hasn't given the buyers everything they had hoped for: Ballast Point has plummeted back to earth after its meteoric rise, though, a sales decline that reflects early missteps after the merger and the slowing growth of craft beer in general, according to industry experts and Constellation executives. The San Diego-based brewer of Sculpin IPA faces numerous challenges in its quest to grow as national craft...

Writing in this month's Atlantic (a magazine by and for the very people he writes about), Matthew Stewart says the 9.9%, not the 0.1%, are the real story in American inequality: Let’s talk first about money—even if money is only one part of what makes the new aristocrats special. There is a familiar story about rising inequality in the United States, and its stock characters are well known. The villains are the fossil-fueled plutocrat, the Wall Street fat cat, the callow tech bro, and the rest of the...

Lawyer Paul Rosensweig and national security analyst Megan Reiss think John Bolton getting rid of the "cyber czar" position is "a magnificent idea:" Bolton is completely correct that there is no need for any coordinationbetween the various federal agencies on this issue. Cybersecurity is not a cross-cutting problem that affects all sorts of equities. We have no concerns that eliminating this position will result in conflicting mission imperatives. We have every confidence that the National Security...

This article in The Atlantic was total Daily Parker bait: On Monday, scientists announced the discovery of an entirely new resource that has the potential to remake some of those centuries-old arguments over Roman politics and history. A team of archaeologists, historians, and climate scientists have constructed a history of Rome’s lead pollution, which allows them to approximate Mediterranean economic activity from 1,100 BCE to 800 CE. They found it hiding thousands of miles from the Roman Forum: deep...

North Korea may have pwned President Trump, for some pretty predictable reasons: Most U.S. presidents would see North Korea’s threats as a test and would therefore neither budge from the U.S. negotiating stance nor allow our foe to dictate who advises the president. Whether Trump will crumble (as he did in offering China an olive branch on ZTE) remains to be seen. This should nevertheless serve as a warning for U.S. officials, and Trump specifically, to cut the happy talk and maintain a high degree of...

Citylab has an excerpt of Stephen Griffith's and Penny Woolcock's new book exploring the parallel worlds in London: Penny: I’m halfway between Upper Street with its snooty estate agents, boutique shops and dozens of expensive bars and restaurants and the Caledonian Road—the Cally—still shabby but sprinkled with the telltale signs of gentrification. Apart from remnants of the white working class and Asian market traders on Chapel Market, it’s uniformly posh and very safe. Or is it? Look carefully and you...

A little Tuesday morning randomness for you: Millions of people who voted for President Trump have discovered that his policies are horrible for them. As only one example, MSNBC looks at the devastation immigration changes have caused to the crab industry in Hoopers Island, Md. Microsoft's Raymond Chen explains why the technology for compressing Windows folders hasn't changed since 2000. An artist has put up a Divvy-style "Chicago Gun Share Program" exhibit in Daley Plaza. (I'll try to get a photo this...