Linked List: January 8, 2016

Friday, 8 January 2016

Dozens of Bottles of Pappy Van Winkle to Be Destroyed 

The AP reports:

More than two dozen bottles of Pappy Van Winkle stolen from a central Kentucky distillery will be destroyed. Investigators said the bottles were stolen from Buffalo Trace Distillery, in Frankfort, as part of a theft ring in 2013.

Police later recovered the bourbon. The Franklin County sheriff said he had hoped the bourbon would be auctioned off for charity, but the Van Winkle family is worried the bourbon could have been tampered with or contaminated. He said the family wants the 28 bottles to be destroyed as a precaution.

It just so happens that a subsidiary of The Daring Fireball Company specializes in bourbon destruction. Satisfaction guaranteed.

Apple in 2015: The Six Colors Report Card 

Jason Snell:

2015 is in the books. As this is a site with Apple as a primary focus, I thought it might be worthwhile to ask a bunch of my colleagues who pay attention to Apple and related markets to take a moment and reflect on Apple’s performance in the past year.

A few months back, designer Khoi Vinh provided the seed of an idea: “an annual Apple report card, as graded by Mac journalists,” his email read.

So in December I emailed a group of writers, editors, podcasters, and developers, and asked them to take a brief survey. They were prompted with 11 different Apple-related subjects, and asked to rate them on a scale from 1 to 5, as well as optionally provide text commentary on their vote. I received 24 replies, with the average results as shown below.

The scores and commentary feel right to me (and not just because I was one of the participants). This is Jason Snell at his best — culling a pile of input into a tightly-edited cohesive narrative.

HBO Greenlights ‘Deadwood’ Reunion Movie 

Michael Ausiello, reporting for TVLine

Reports of a Deadwood comeback have not been greatly exaggerated. Quite the opposite, in fact.

HBO programming president Michael Lombardo confirmed to TVLine that he personally gave series creator David Milch the green light to resurrect the acclaimed yet painfully short-lived Western.

“David has our commitment that we are going to do it,” says Lombardo. “He pitched what he thought generally the storyline would be — and knowing David, that could change. But it’s going to happen.”

Oh, hell yes.

Hacked Toy Company VTech: Let Us Monitor Your House 

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, reporting for Motherboard:

Last year, an anonymous hacker broke into the systems of VTech, a company that makes internet-connected toys, tablets and baby monitors. The hacker was able to access the personal data of more than 6 million kids, as well as more than 4 million parents, including tens of thousand of pictures taken with the company’s Kid Connect app, which encourages children and parents to take selfies and chat online.

Less than two months later, VTech is now launching a whole suite of new internet-connected devices designed to monitor your house — and the company is promising that this time, it won’t leave the personal data of its customers exposed to hackers.

Good luck with that.

‘The Web vs. The Force’ 

Great video from Scott Galloway/L2 on the state of the retail industry:

Looking back at the winners and losers of the holiday shopping season, the biggest winner was Amazon. Capturing 51 cents of every additional dollar Americans spent online this year and accounting for over half of e-commerce growth, the Seattle behemoth appears to be unstoppable.

An unlikely winner? Malls — at least high-end ones, which are flourishing. The top-rated malls of 2015 all had upscale department stores, luxury brand stores and high-tech electronics stores.

I love this show. It’s like the inverse of old-school broadcast TV: dense with information, packed into just a few minutes. Regular TV is sparse with information, spread out over 30 minutes or an hour.