How Rebellious, in a Conformist Sort of Way ⇥ bloomberg.com

Elana Scherr, reporting for Car and Driver in June (via Charles Arthur):

Every city has its secrets. Washington, D.C., may have more than most, but I wasn’t there to dig up bodies, corporeal or political. My interest in visiting our nation’s capital was to find out more about a covert society, an organization of carpoolers who use codes and word of mouth to work around D.C.’s notorious traffic jams and exorbitant tolls. Under cherry blossoms light as dreams and in the long shadow of the Washington Monument, I set out in search of slugs.

Mark Duell and Arthur Parashar, Daily Mail (I know; this is going somewhere, so bear with me):

Families visiting Chessington World of Adventures Resort can avoid Sadiq Khan’s hated Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez) by parking nearby for free and getting a bus — as visitors share tips on how to dodge £20 charges.

Commuters in Washington DC are avoiding “notorious traffic jams and exorbitant tolls” by carpooling; people in the U.K. are “dodging” expanded emissions pricing by taking public transportation and walking. Regardless of whether you think high-occupancy lanes and the ULEZ are good ideas, this is the system working as designed. There has got to be a name for this framing of intended behaviour as acts of defiance.

Anyway, Apple is going to introduce phones with the universal USB-C port tomorrow instead of its proprietary Lightning port.

Mark Gurman, Bloomberg:

Why will Apple be so upbeat about a change it didn’t ask for? That’s because the company has an iron-clad rule: When it’s introducing a new product or dealing with the media, it always wants to operate from a position of strength. Apple’s keynote presentation won’t mention the European Union or make reference to the many times over the past few years that it criticized the government’s decision to require USB-C.

Apple — like any company — is going to market its products as good and innovative regardless of circumstance. Its presentation of USB-C will likely be no different, but it will be conspicuous how much this decision matches legislated requirements, even if Apple wants to present it as a decision it made for users’ benefit.