Linked List: May 28, 2021

Friday, 28 May 2021

Hop Sing Laundromat May Require Proof of COVID Vaccination ★

Speaking of mononymous folks, my friend Lê, owner of Philly’s famed Hop Sing Laundromat cocktail bar, is leaning toward requiring proof of vaccination when they reopen this summer. Victor Fiorillo, reporting for Philadelphia Magazine:

According to Lê, he polled his staff and regulars to ask them if they thought he should require proof of vaccination, the same way he requires government-issued identification and dress-code compliance, and the answer was a unanimous yes.

While proof of vaccination and, hell, the COVID vaccine itself have somehow turned into political theater, Lê insists this isn’t about politics for him.

“We can’t emphasize enough that it is not a political statement of any kind,” he told us. “However, our staff is mentally prepared to be cursed at … on a good day and [endure] racist or homophobic comments on an OK day from those individuals with a sense of entitlement. But if you look on the bright side of things, if these people would say stupid stuff like that at the gate, then there’s no reason they should be drinking in the first place, so the staff look at it as a silver lining.”

I, of course, voted yes.

Markdown Improvements to Apple’s Developer Forums ★

The mononymous Quinn outlines his favorite new improvements to Apple’s Developer Forums, most of which are Markdown-related. I will admit that I find this satisfying. Here’s one:

The Markdown parser now supports out-of-line links. For example, you can ‘spell’ the previous link as:
link to the [Wikipedia > Service set (802.11 network)][refSs81n] page

[refSs81n]: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_set_(802.11_network)>
Personally I prefer this style because I find that the long links get in my way while crafting my text.

I know inline links — [like this](http://example.com/) — are overwhelmingly more popular with Markdown users, but I personally much prefer the reference style for exactly the reason Quinn does. The inline style is easier, and I’d never argue against laziness as a virtue, but the reference style is just so much more readable.