Linked List: April 9, 2020

Thursday, 9 April 2020

One More Stellar Front Page Data Visualization From The New York Times ★

Another shocking design for a shocking graphic.

Mort Drucker, Master of the ‘Mad’ Caricature, Dies at 91 ★

J. Hoberman, The New York Times:

From the early 1960s on, nearly every issue of Mad included a movie parody, and before Mr. Drucker retired he had illustrated 238, more than half of them. The last one, “The Chronic-Ills of Yawnia: Prince Thespian,” appeared in 2008.

Mr. Drucker compared his method to creating a movie storyboard: “I become the ‘camera,’” he once said, “and look for angles, lighting, close-ups, wide angles, long shots — just as a director does to tell the story in the most visually interesting way he can.”

I simply adored Drucker’s parodies in Mad. I could never decide what was better — when Mad poked holes in a good movie, or when they skewered a bad one.

Loved this bit:

But not everyone was so pleased. According to Mr. Hendrix, Mad’s 1981 parody of “The Empire Strikes Back,” “The Empire Strikes Out,” prompted the Lucasfilm legal department to send a cease-and-desist letter demanding that the issue be recalled. “Mad replied by sending a copy of another letter they had received the previous month — from George Lucas, offering to buy the original artwork for the ‘Empire’ parody and comparing Mort Drucker to Leonardo da Vinci.”

9to5Mac: Early iOS 14 Build Contains ‘Clips’ Feature for Interactive App Views Without Having the App Installed ★

Filipe Espósito, 9to5Mac:

As 9to5Mac has analyzed this new API, we can say that it allows developers to offer interactive and dynamic content from their apps even if you haven’t installed them. The Clips API is directly related to the QR Code reader in the build we have access to, so the user can scan a code linked to an app and then interact with it directly from a card that will appear on the screen.

Let’s say you get a QR Code with a link to a video from YouTube but you don’t have the official app installed on your iPhone. With iOS 14 and the Clips API, you’ll be able to scan that code and the video will be reproduced on a floating card that shows a native user interface instead of a web page.

Three thoughts:

Some interesting security and parental control implications to this, if true. Also, what about the case where — like me — you don’t have Google’s YouTube app installed because you want all YouTube links to open in Safari?
I’m truly fascinated by this iOS 14 build that 9to5Mac has its hands on. It’s obvious why they can’t talk about it now, but I hope someday we hear the backstory on this.
Keep in mind that it was Filipe Espósito’s byline on the 9to5Mac report that stated as fact that the new 2020 iPad Pros have a U1 ultra-wideband chip, which by all appearances is wrong.