MyAppleMenu - Sat, Dec 19, 2015

Sat, Dec 19, 2015The Political-Crap Edition

Apple CEO Calls Overseas Tax Rap "Political Crap", by CBS

Cook was agitated when reminded by Rose that many in Congress believe Apple is engaged in a scheme to pay little or no taxes on $74 billion in overseas revenue. "That is total political crap. There is no truth behind it. Apple pays every tax dollar we owe," he says. "We pay more taxes in this country than anyone," he tells Rose.

Tim Cook Calls Notion Of Apple Avoiding US Taxes 'Political Crap', by Reuters

Rebecca Lester, assistant professor of accounting at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, thought Cook’s colorful language might reflect frustration about the lack of movement on tax reform in Washington.

Stuff

OneDrive For iPhone And iPad Adds Offline File Support And Spotlight Search For iOS 9, by John Callaham, iMore

"You can now keep files offline to read them anytime, even when you aren't connected to the Internet."

New App Is A 21st-Century Walkie-Talkie, by Jonah Bromwich, New York Times

The app, built mainly by a group of former Spotify employees in New York, is a voice-messaging tool. You hold down a big circular button, record a message and send it to a contact, also demarcated by a friendly circle. That’s it. [...] And yet the app is a pleasure to use, with an intuitive design and an eye-pleasing color scheme. I have big, clumsy fingers and don’t particularly like to text. With Roger, I can easily press a button, record a quick message and shoot it off to my girlfriend, who is based in Boston, when I don’t have time to call.

Musicality For OS X Adds Support For More Music Services, by MacTech

The app lets you take control of over a dozen popular music websites including Pandora Radio, Google Play Music, Spotify, and more.

Opening .Zip Files On An iPhone, by J. D. Biersdorfer, New York Times

Develop

Naturally Final Classes In Swift, by Erica Sadun

Contempt Culture, by Aurynn Shaw, The Particular Finest

I repeated this pattern for a really long time, and as I learned new languages and patterns I’d repeat the same behaviour in those new environments. I was almost certainly not that fun to be around, a microcosm of the broader unpleasantness in tech.

At least, until I got called on it.

Notes

Yesterday’s Technologies, Today’s Problems, by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, Computerworld

So, while I like the idea of “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it,” a lot, when it comes to business technology it’s just plain foolish. Keep your old systems to play with, but don’t, please don’t, keep them in production. You’ll regret it if you do.

The Long, Incredibly Tortuous, And Fascinating Process Of Creating A Chinese Font, by Nikhil Sonnad, Quartz

An experienced designer, working alone, can in under six months create a new font that covers dozens of Western languages. For a single Chinese font it takes a team of several designers at least two years.

Bottom of the Page

I’m a little behind in my Star Wars, but I really hope Luke and Leia end up together.

— Mary Beth Hefferton (@damselesque) December 18, 2015

~

In related news, watching Star Wars: A New Hope on the Disney Channel here in Singapore is not a good experience. I'm not sure whose country has this stupid regulation, but the "PG" rating sign stays on the screen throughout the entire movie.

~

Thanks for reading.