174 Posts under Mango Linked
∞ Outrage as Italian Conservatoire Bans All “Oriental” Students Over CoronaVirus Fears
Maddy Shaw Roberts from Classic FM:
Since the newsletter was sent to Santa Cecilia’s teachers, another music institute in Como has told students returning from China after Chinese New Year to stay at home for 14 days.
This is the right move.
The message (translated from Italian), signed by director Roberto Giuliani, reads: “Dear colleagues, because of the well-known events relating to the Chinese epidemic, the lessons of oriental students (Chinese, Korean, Japanese etc.) are suspended, as well as others who have come from the countries concerned.
This is simply racism.
∞ Cyrus Vance Jr.: They Get Into My Phone All The Time
William D. Cohan writing for Fast Company:
Vance is skeptical that Apple doesn’t have a secret backdoor. “They get into my phone all the time because they upgrade my operating systems and they send me messages,” he says.
Vance is the district attorney of New York county. Never underestimate one’s ability to understand tech.
∞ A Surprise Up Up Down Down Episode
Up Up Down Down is one of my favorite podcasts. It's hosted by Allen Pike and Nigel Brooke. Each episode covers one interesting topic with a guest. Sadly it went hiatus three years ago. But I still appreciate their deep insights in the game dev world today.
Yesterday they released a surprise episode, covering Two Spies, a turn-based spy game made by themselves.
If you haven’t heard Up Up Down Down yet, every single episode is worth listening to even today, or ten, twenty years later.
∞ European Mac Pros Are Assembled in China
Joe Rossignol, writing for MacRumors:
As suspected, it appears the new Mac Pro is only assembled in Texas for orders placed in the United States, Canada, and other countries in the Americas. French blog MacGeneration has confirmed that a new Mac Pro delivered to a customer in France today has fine print indicating it was assembled in China.
∞ Figma's Year in Numbers
tl;dr:
- Most popular non-grey color: #009688
- Most popular font: Montserrat
- Most popular frame: 🖥 1440x1024
- Most collaborated countries: 🇺🇸 and 🇷🇺
∞ The Fabric Covering on Nest Mini is Made From 100 Percent Post-consumer Recycled Plastic Bottles
Like so many of you, we’re committed to helping the planet, so the fabric covering on Nest Mini is made from 100 percent post-consumer recycled plastic bottles (meaning plastic bottles that have already been used and recycled). A single half-liter plastic bottle makes enough fabric to cover more than two Nest Mini devices. The external enclosure is also made from 35 percent post-consumer recycled plastic. Now, all Nest products launching in 2019 are built using varying amounts of recycled plastics.
Now, that is the right approach to sustainability.
∞ McHive – the World’s Smallest McDonald’s
Some of McDonald’s restaurants in Sweden have beehives on their rooftops. The initiative started out locally but is now growing. More franchisees around the country are joining the cause and have also started replacing the grass around their restaurants with flowers and plants that are important for the wellbeing of wild bees. To celebrate the initiative which is part of McDonald’s Swedens sustainability work, we created what could be the world’s smallest McDonald’s – a fully functioning beehive.
I love reading stories like this.
∞ Preview: Inside Apple's Redesigned NYC Flagship Store
Lance Ulanoff, writing for Lifewire:
The 13-year-old store, which sits at the base of Central Park and is instantly recognizable thanks to its iconic 32-foot glass cube with a suspended Apple logo inside of it, has undergone a massive, 2-year-long reinvention project that somehow maintains the core essence of what drew hundreds of people to the store to line up for their first iPhones more than a decade ago.
This is the store where I lined up for three hours to get my first iPad, an iPad 2. I got to visit it again next time I'm in NYC.
∞ Flutter 1.9's Support of macOS Catalina and iOS 13
Chris Sells, PM for the Flutter developer experience, announced on Google Developers Blog:
Supporting macOS Catalina and iOS 13
As Apple prepares to release Catalina, the latest version of macOS, we’ve worked hard to make sure that Flutter is ready for you to upgrade. We’ve updated the end-to-end tooling experience to ensure it works well on Catalina and with Xcode 11. This includes adding support for the new Xcode build system, enabling 64-bit support throughout the toolchain, and simplifying platform dependencies.
With iOS 13 on the way, we’ve also been working to ensure your Flutter apps look great on the latest iPhone release. Flutter 1.9 includes an implementation of the iOS 13 draggable toolbar, with both long-press and drag-from-right, and supports vibration feedback. Work on iOS dark mode is also well underway with a number of pull requests already merged.
Finally, in the latest development builds, you can now turn on experimental support for Bitcode, which is Apple’s platform-independent intermediate representation of a compiled program. Submitting your app as Bitcode allows Apple to optimize your binary in the future without resubmission, and opens the door to Flutter potentially supporting platforms like watchOS and tvOS that require Bitcode for app submission.
I have been seriously looking into Flutter lately. And this is the moment I was sold to it. Timely support of latest macOS and iOS versions are critical for my projects.
∞ The Volkswagen Beetle Says Auf Wiedersehen
RIP Volkswagen Beetle. Does that increase their resell values? Asking for a friend.