Amtrak to finally launch free WiFi for regional trains on October 1st?

By Lydia Leavitt posted Sep 23rd 2011 4:13AM Rumor 'round the Twitterverse has it that Amtrak may finally be implementing free WiFi on October 1st -- finally seeing the bet laid down by various plane and bus companies over the past couple years. The casual conversation between conductor and passenger yielded the information that the system is finally ready to extend beyond Acela, apparently "ready to roll and it's just a matter of 'flipping the on switch.'" This comes as great news for commuters who spend their mornings and evenings stuck on slow, old, often curious smelling Regional trains. Unfortunately, other than the tweet, there's no word (official or otherwise) whether net surfage will be possible beginning next month. Regardless, looks like the "I didn't have internet access" excuse is still valid for a little while longer for all you nine to fivers.

Update: To be clear: Amtrak Acela trains by and large already have WiFi, as do some regional trains in the Northwest. This latest addition would be for Northeast Regional trains.

[Thanks, @melanierenzulli]

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Arianna finally free to speak mind in TechCrunch-AOL imbroglio

The TechCrunch/AOL saga's been an easy way to attract readers of late, but I never wanted to get into it because I had no questions. It's always been obvious that Mike Arrington was an active investor who used his site to that end, even to the point of publicly attacking entrepreneurs who he doesn't like. It's always been obvious that writers there are excellent and hard-working journalists, whatever Arrington's own gameplan. And it's obvious that his critics are correct about the ethical problems it generates--even if many of them are, if not similarly conflicted, themselves rivals on the PR-fed tech beat and therefore full of sour grapes.

But just when it was all going away, Arianna Huffington finally has some thoughts, presented in the form of an attack on the WSJ's coverage of the affair, which she thought was shoddy and gossipy. In her view, she got rid of Arrington to enforce journalistic ethics: "It's Not About the Personalities, It's About the Principle."

This has nothing to do with personalities, either Mike Arrington's or mine. In fact, until he decided to launch his new fund, TechCrunch lived very happily, without the slightest clash, within the Huffington Post Media Group. ..

Given that this defense of principle appears the same day Forbes reported that Huffington Post is hiring children to work for it free of charge, I finally have a question! I have posed it in the form of a rare Pet Shop Boys B-side (above).

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Finally, an extinct species you can feel good about

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

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PONPONPON finally available as MP3 purchase on Amazon

[video link]

I am pleased to announce that "PONPONPON", the totally insane and deliciously obnoxious J-pop song Mark posted about last month, is finally available for purchase as an MP3 download on Amazon. Until now the song has been unavailable for almost any sort of MP3 download in the US, presumably because it's originally from Japan. Now I can easily calculate the total time I've jammed out to it through my last.fm scrobbles. Hooray!

PONPONPON by Kyarypamyupamyu on Amazon

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