Linked List: January 24, 2017

Tuesday, 24 January 2017

The Death Star and the Final Trench Run ★

Todd Vaziri:

At the end of the original film, Rebel ships fly along the Death Star trench in an attempt to blow up the space station. Look at the photo of the Death Star at the top of this post: can you point to the trench that Luke and the Rebels flew down to fire upon the exhaust port that would ultimately destroy the space station?

Nearly everybody points at the equatorial trench of the Death Star. I asked dozens of die-hard fans, including many co-workers at Industrial Light & Magic, and nearly every single person pointed to the equatorial trench. If you asked me, I would also have said the equatorial trench.

You learn something every day.

Web Font News: Apple.com Is Switching From Myriad to San Francisco ★

Apple’s transition from Myriad (Myriad Set, specifically) to San Francisco is nearing completion: this afternoon they switched the web font used for text on apple.com. Poking around with Safari’s web inspector, I see SF Pro Text, SF Pro Display, and something called SF Pro Icons.

Here’s what I wrote back in September, after the iPhone 7 introduction:

Apple is slowly but surely weaning itself off Apple Myriad. Everything this week was set in San Francisco. Apple’s Keynote slides were set in San Francisco, not Myriad, for the first time. The word “iPhone” on the back of the iPhones 7 is set in San Francisco now. This has been a gradual transition, and Myriad still appears some places, most notably as a web font on Apple’s website. It doesn’t work well alongside San Francisco.

When we look back decades from now, I think we’ll see Myriad as Apple’s Jobs-era typeface, and San Francisco as their Cook-era typeface. For this reason, even though I very much like San Francisco, I find it a little melancholy to watch their use of Myriad fade away.

Manton Reece’s Micro.blog Kickstarter Project ★

Manton Reece is writing a book about microblogging, and starting a service called Micro.blog to support it:

Do you remember how the web used to work? How the web was supposed to work?

In the earlier days of the web, we always published to our own web site. If you weren’t happy with your web host, or they went out of business, you could move your files and your domain name, and nothing would break.

Today, most writing instead goes into a small number of centralized social networking sites, where you can’t move your content, advertisements and fake news are everywhere, and if one of these sites fails, your content disappears from the internet. Too many sites have gone away and taken our posts and photos with them.

I want to encourage more independent writing. To do that, we need better tools that embrace microblogs and the advantages of the open web. We need to learn from the success and user experience of social networking, but applied to the full scope of the web.

His Kickstarter project has hit its primary funding goal, but has one week remaining to hit its stretch goals. The big stretch goal is hitting a level where he can hire a community manager to help build a harassment-free community from the get-go. I’m a backer, and strongly encourage you to become one too.

Triumph the Insult Comic Dog Attends Trump’s Inauguration ★

A terrific summary of the historic event.

What Else Is New in the First iOS 10.3 Beta ★

From MacRumors’ rundown of new features:

When installing iOS 10.3, it will update the file system to Apple File System (APFS), so it’s important to make a backup before updating.

That’s a big one. I think like most people, I wasn’t expecting APFS to become the iOS file system until late this year, with iOS 11.

First iOS 10.3 Beta Adds AirPod Support to Find My iPhone ★

Joanna Stern:

The most likely situation requires just the human ear — take it from someone who has repeatedly discovered an AirPod at the bottom of a purse pocket. Apple has added an alarm to help find earbuds in proximity. Tap “Play Sound” in the iOS app and the AirPod will start chirping. In the app, you can specify which AirPod you’d like to sound. Only problem? If the AirPod’s battery runs out, it’ll remain silent.

It will also track the last known location, and if you leave them at home, can use other devices within Bluetooth range to ping them. Good stuff.

Amazon Nabs Streaming’s First Best Picture Oscar Nomination With ‘Manchester by the Sea’ ★

Natalie Jarvey, writing for The Hollywood Reporter:

Amazon has not only scored its first Oscar nominations with Manchester, it has also become the first streaming service to earn a best picture nod.

Manchester received six total nominations, including Kenneth Lonergan for directing and original screenplay, Casey Affleck for lead actor, Lucas Hedges for supporting actor, and Michelle Williams for supporting actress. The Salesman, Iran’s selection in the foreign-language film category — which Amazon is distributing in the United States — also received a nomination, bringing Amazon’s total nominations to seven.

Amazing success story for Amazon. There’s been a lot of talk over the last decade or so that Hollywood was wary of Apple doing to them what the entertainment industry thinks they did to the music industry. In the meantime, Netflix and Amazon are kicking their asses.