Each Friday we compile a list of interesting links and articles our editors find from across the web. Here’s what’s catching our eye this week.
The FCC has spoken. They will propose regulating broadband like a utility:
As part of its 2015 Broadband Progress Report, the Federal Communications Commission has voted to change the definition of broadband by raising the minimum download speeds needed from 4Mbps to 25Mbps, and the minimum upload speed from 1Mbps to 3Mbps, which effectively triples the number of US households without broadband access. Currently, 6.3 percent of US households don’t have access to broadband under the previous 4Mpbs/1Mbps threshold, while another 13.1 percent don’t have access to broadband under the new 25Mbps downstream threshold.
TOJ contributor D.L. Mayfield reviews On Immunity: An Inoculation by Eula Biss:
Reading On Immunity: An Inoculation, I am unprepared to be plunged back into the high drama of first motherhood: the sleepless nights, the endless internet articles sent by earnest and well-meaning friends, the googling of symptoms, that sensation of closing the laptop with a deep unease in my stomach. I suddenly remember my daughter, six months old, happily splashing in her baby bathtub as I hovered over her. I remember vague recollections of an article where Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo had been linked to chemicals which might cause cancer. I remember absorbing the information, adding it to the litany of cautions and chastisements that had begun the moment I had learned I was pregnant. Watching my daughter gleefully slap and smash the bubbles, I felt a deep despair settle over me, staring at that tell-tale yellow bottle. Of course we, and everyone else we knew, used Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo. It was the cheapest one available. We were living in low-income housing, surrounded by families hovering near the poverty line. I watched my daughter play in her bath, both frightened and paralyzed by all that I knew. I chose to comfort myself with the blackest of thoughts. Well, if my daughter gets cancer, at least she will get cancer with all of the other poor children. I told this to my husband, wild with futility. He gently suggested that perhaps I needed to take a break from reading articles on the internet.
Anniversary sets of the boardgame Monopoly are being sold in France with real money:
Toymaker Hasbro is celebrating the 80th anniversary of Monopoly’s introduction in France by replacing the fake money in 80 sets with real cash. The sets will be distributed among 30,000 specially branded editions of the game, with only one of these replacing every note on the board with real money (a total windfall of €20,580 or $23,348). Ten additional sets will contain €300 ($340) in twenties, fifties, and a single €100 bill while 69 other sets will offer €150 ($170) in tens and twenties. “We wanted to do something unique,” brand manager Florence Gaillard told the AFP. “When we asked our French customers, they told us they wanted to find real money in their Monopoly boxes.”
Kanye West will perform twice at the Grammys:
Kanye West has joined the party for Sunday’s Grammy Awards telecast, and the always outspoken rapper will be featured twice on the CBS broadcast, in a solo performance and together in one of the event’s signature cross-generational collaborations, this one a teaming with Paul McCartney and singer Rihanna.
The Seattle Seahawks probably should have not thrown that pass:
On Sunday, the Seattle Seahawks made a grievously bad playcall, and Malcolm Butler won the Super Bowl for the Patriots, and millions of football-watching Americans reeled in reflexive disbelief at the sheer boneheadedness on display. On Monday, just as reflexively, the smart-guy corner of the internet rushed to explain that well, actually, that decision wasn’t as dumb as you think it is. They were wrong. It was dumb.
There are some controversies over the release of Harper Lee’s sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird:
Two and a half months after the death of Harper Lee’s sister (and lawyer) and 55 years since the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird, HarperCollins has announced the summer release of Go Set a Watchman, the elusive author’s second novel.
A company fine may come out of the taxpayers’ pockets:
When a Montana judge ordered Hyundai to pay $73 million in punitive damages last year to the families of two teenagers killed in a car crash, she found that the South Korean automaker had “recklessly” ignored scores of warnings over more than a decade about the steering defect blamed for the accident.
Chris Ziegler at The Verge explains every line from the new Furious 7 trailer:
If you don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of Fast & Furious locked away in your brain — or, heaven forbid, you haven’t seen any movies in the series — there may have been moments in yesterday’s Super Bowl trailer for Furious 7 that didn’t make a lot of sense. That’s okay: as America’s self-declared foremost authority on the franchise, I got you. I’m here to lay out exactly what happened, line by line.
Apparently one in four Americans believe God decides the outcome of the Super Bowl:
If their team doesn’t win the Super Bowl, some sports fans won’t blame deflated footballs — they’ll blame God. A recent survey of a random sample of 1,012 Americans, conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute, suggests that one in four Americans believe that “God plays a role in determining which team wins a sporting event.” Seventy-one percent of Americans, however, disagree with them.
Jimmy Fallon reunited the cast of Saved by the Bell:
But… where was Rod Belding???
Last night, Jimmy Fallon realized the dreams of every ’90s teenager who sat around on Saturday mornings and had nothing better to do than watch Saved By the Bell. Recreating the iconic high school hallway set, recruiting Mark-Paul Gosselaar (Zach), Mario Lopez (Slater), Elizabeth Berkley (Jessie), Tiffani Thiessen (Kelly), and Dennis Haskins (Mr. Belding), and penning an all new sappy script, Fallon resurrected the yuk-yuk sitcom to provide the Internet with an always-needed nostalgia shot. Except he forgot one thing: Rod Belding.