Linked List: March 1, 2024

Friday, 1 March 2024

So many fond remembrances of Richard Lewis are coming out — he really was “the menschiest of mensches” — but this highlight reel from his appearances on Letterman’s show, especially the early ones from the 1980s, hits home for me. He was a great comedian and an absolutely perfect talk show guest. He was seemingly always on Late Night back then, and every time he was, as a viewer, it was like, “Richard Lewis again? Can’t wait!”

Also:

Lewis’s first appearance on Late Night in 1982. Hard to overstate how forward-thinking this entire segment was.
Lewis killing on Johnny Carson’s The Tonight Show in 1990.
Keith Olbermann’s remembrance.
Lewis making Bob Costas laugh so hard NBC almost shelved the episode. Here’s the whole first appearance on Costas’s (vastly underrated) late late night show in 1989.

Weather Up 3.0 ★

One more link from the latest episode of The Talk Show: Weather Up 3.0. If you’re a longtime reader you know I’m a nut for iPhone weather apps. There are so many great ones for iOS, starting with Apple’s own. I just love how much creativity and originality there is in presentation, emphasis, and information design.

Weather Up 3 stakes out two unique positions. The app itself presents a map-first design. No other weather app (that I’m aware of) goes map-first presentation-wise (which, as David Barnard explained on my podcast, is expensive).

But even more interesting is that Weather Up 3 is really widget-first — the app interface is secondary to the widget interface, which, for weather, I think is the right priority — and the widget design is:

Information-dense
Attractive
Original

Just a phenomenally good weather app, that you should definitely try.

‘Great Developers Steal Ideas, Not Products’ ★

David Barnard, in a post from 2011 on the oft-cited (and oft-misattributed) adage about good artists copying and great artists stealing:

In dancing around the moral and semantic differences between borrowing and stealing, I’ve been missing the greater point. Elliot used the word steal, not for its immoral connotation, but to suggest ownership. To steal something is to take possession of it.

When you steal an idea and have the time and good taste to make it your own, it grows into something different, hopefully something greater. But as you borrow more and more from other products, there’s less and less of you in the result. Less to be proud of, less to own.

Barnard quotes the actual origin of the adage, from T.S. Eliot, and that alone is worth a bookmark. In Eliot’s formulation, it’s not copying vs. stealing, but imitating vs. stealing. That subtle distinction is clarifying. People who are creative and ethical generally see the clear distinction between remixing and ripping off. I add generally there because some people are truly offended when the ideas behind their own creations are remixed — stolen — by others.

To name one notable example, I’d argue that Android, as a whole, is a remix of the iPhone. But there are specific Android handsets — starting with some early Samsung Galaxy models — that are rip-offs of iPhone hardware designs. Steve Jobs, however, felt otherwise.

(And which is not to say Google hasn’t often been a shameless imitator/copycat.)

The Talk Show: ‘The Essence of Stealing’ ★

Special guest David Barnard joins the show. Topics include the App Store — past, present, and post-DMA future — and the excellent new update to his app Weather Up.