Linked List: April 11, 2019

Thursday, 11 April 2019

Monotype has released the first new version of Helvetica since Helvetica Neue 35 years ago:

Helvetica Now is a new chapter in the story of perhaps the best-known typeface of all time. Available in three optical sizes — Micro, Text, and Display — every character in Helvetica Now has been redrawn and refit; with a variety of useful alternates added. It has everything we love about Helvetica and everything we need for typography today. This is not a revival. This is not a restoration.

This is a statement.

It’s good, I think. A lot of what they’ve done for the alternative glyphs — like the straight-legged ‘R’ and rounded-dotted ‘i’ and ‘j’ — remind me more than a little of Apple’s San Francisco. I’m not saying Monotype drew inspiration from San Francisco — only that I think both type families are skating to where the puck is going for modern sans serifs. All of Helvetica Now still feels like Helvetica to me, which is exactly as it should be.

$299 for the entire family of 48 fonts, and through May 24, it’s available for just $149. An insta-buy for yours truly.

Old Hoss Radbourn: 59 or 60 Wins? ★

Alex Bonilla, writing at the Sports Reference Blog:

Keen-eyed Baseball-Reference users have written us asking about an update made to the statistics of Hall of Fame pitcher Old Hoss Radbourn. In the past, we had displayed Radbourn with 59 wins in his 1884 season with Providence. However, in a recent update, Radbourn has been bumped up to 60 wins.

Before we delve into what the correct number is, let’s zoom out a bit, first.

Radbourn — whom all baseball fans should follow — reacting to the news:

Pleased to become the only hurler to win games in the 19th and 21st centuries.

‘Apple and the Craftsmen’ ★

Martin Feld, writing at Lounge Ruminator:

It is the fourth point above — star power — that brings me to the second reason that Apple chose to host the event:

because it could.

Apple not only wanted to show how its work with various creatives and firms fits into the current culture of tech, it wanted to show that it is a cultural institution in its own right. I believe that this is what many tech writers and commentators missed during this event, with their typical focus on Apple as a product company. Apple is broader and more multifaceted now than it ever has been before and it has enormous brand power.

I think he’s onto something with this point.

How to Tip ★

Alan Sytsma, writing for Grub Steet:

For 14 months, this CNBC story on tipping has been lying dormant, just waiting for the Internet Outrage Machine to find it. This week, it was found, and yet another tipping debate — if that’s what you want to call it — exploded. The whole thing was exactly as dumb as you’d expect. Tipping is very easy, but for anyone who still doesn’t get it, Grub Street has assembled this helpful FAQ.

Do I have to tip?
Yes.

It’s so complicated.
It’s not. When you eat and drink at a restaurant or bar or café or whatever, where servers accept tips, you will leave a tip, and that tip will be 20 percent of the total bill, including tax and whatever you’ve spent on alcohol.

This is how I’ve tipped my whole life: 20 percent on the final bill, tax included. That’s it. For outstanding service, or if you receive complimentary dishes or drinks, you tip on top of that. Don’t give me any Mr. Pink shit — this is how the system works, and if you tip less than 20 percent on your final bill you’re stiffing your server.

If I have it with me, I tip in cash.

This whole thing is U.S.-centric, of course, but let me add that while I understand how strange U.S. tipping culture must seem to someone from another country, it’s not complicated, and in my experience, typical service in U.S. restaurants is far better than in other countries. Fundamentally I think the basic idea works, insofar as it incentivizes superior service.

Butt-Head Astronomer ★

Speaking of early 90’s Apple code names, it’s always fun to revisit the story of Carl Sagan and the Power Mac 7100.

WALT – Crude 1993 Apple Prototype of a Mac-Based Desktop Phone ★

Sonny Dickson has a video of a strange 1993 Apple prototype in action:

Manufactured largely from PowerBook 100 parts, all framed with a specialized version of Mac OS Classic that is customized with WALT bootup text and specific WALT related language. […]

The way I’ve come to think about the W.A.L.T. is as a classic Mac blended with a Newton and a desk phone — it features a full array of the typical interface ports of its time, featuring SCSI, VGA out, and external audio. What’s even more interesting is that it ran HyperCard instead of Apple’s better known Finder interface.

In spirit it’s certainly more Newton-like than Mac-like, but technologically it’s clearly just a PowerBook 100 running a customized version of System 6 and the software is all just HyperCard.

Assuming the 1993 date for this prototype is correct, it’s a sign of Apple’s early 90’s dysfunction that this turd was produced and shown in public, given that the actual Newton shipped in 1993. It feels like something someone in the Mac division ordered up to show that the Newton shouldn’t even be made because the Mac could do everything the Newton could do. But it obviously couldn’t. Everything is painfully slow on this WALT prototype, and stylus input is a joke — the stylus is just directing the Mac’s mouse pointer around the screen, slowly. (System 7 shipped in 1991, so it’s also telling that this prototype purportedly from 1993 was running System 6 — System 6 was a bit closer to the metal and thus faster.) The whole UI seems crude compared to the Newton’s elegance.

Still — fascinating that something like this can still boot and run. And I presume from the Orlando-area map on the startup screen that the name “WALT” was homage to Walt Disney, and that “Wizzy Active Lifestyle Telephone” was just a (terrible) backronym.