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Medium:

This fall’s release of the new Anki Overdrive set feels a bit like the moment when James Bond’s quartermaster Q rolls out a go-go-gadget Aston Martin DB5 and says, with smug understatement, “I’ve added one or two rather special accessories…” The upgraded set, with reconfigurable tracks, might not look so different from the previous Anki Drive, or, for that matter, the Christmas present Elvis unwrapped in 1965. Inside the box, it’s still a set of little toy cars.

The innovation isn’t immediately obvious. Though the bluetooth relays that control the cars and the sophisticated infrared sensors that keep them on track are ingenious, the real action isn’t under the cars’ hoods, either: The genius is in the code. Like Tesla and Google’s self-driving car, Anki’s real leap forward is its software.

I was an early adopter of the original Anki Overdrive and really enjoyed it but ultimately returned it. But I still think it’s a very cool race car set if you have kids who are into them.

Go to Settings > General > Software Update to download the update. Apple says there are improvements to News app, Mail Drop for Mail and improvements to Apple Music.

It’s hard not to improve Apple Music considering how much of a piece of shit it is.

Apple released a new update for Apple Watch this morning. Go to the Watch app on your iPhone > General > Software Update to download and install the update.

Marketcircle has been developing Mac apps since 1999 that help small businesses do big things. Newly released is Daylite 6 with Cloud – manage your contacts, projects, to-dos, and schedule all in one app. Get the best of both worlds, a native app with the convenience of the cloud. Try it now on your Mac, iPhone & iPad, for yourself or with your team and take advantage of these great new features.

Dropbox:

We’re committed to making the transitions from these products as painless as possible. We’ve posted more information on the Carousel blog and the Mailbox blog, and we’ll be communicating details directly to users of both apps in the coming days. Mailbox will be shut down on February 26th, 2016, and Carousel will be shut down on March 31st, 2016.

To our Carousel and Mailbox users, thank you for embracing these products—and we’re sorry. It’s not easy to say goodbye to products we all love. But ultimately, we think this increased focus will help us create even better experiences for you in the months and years to come.

I never used either product in part because of this. I’ve been around long enough to see dozens, if not hundreds, of services come and go. I rarely rely on new services (but I often test them out) simply because, to paraphrase Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, “Products come and go so quickly around here.” I may be too old and jaded but I think my time is too valuable to constantly be flitting from one new service to another, only to have the owner shut it down, sometimes with very little advance notice.

Calgary Sun:

Jordy Stallard brought down the bears.

Calgary Hitmen fans had to be patient, holding their bears until the 2:41 mark of the second period when Stallard triggered the avalanche of stuffed animals at the 21st annual Petro-Canada Teddy Bear Toss on Sunday afternoon at the Saddledome.

I think I write about this story every year. I do it because it seems like fun event for a good cause and the video is always wonderful.

Star Wars is a virus.

io9:

For one year, Mork and Mindy was arguably the most successful science fiction TV show ever made. The comedy about an alien and his human best friend turned Robin Williams into a global sensation. How did this miracle happen, and why didn’t it last? To find out, I talked to the people who made the show.

I don’t think I can name another TV show from my youth that was more of a must-see than Mork and Mindy. To this kid, the show was funny and different and Robin Williams was a force of nature, even within the confines of a situation comedy. Plus, I had a huge crush on Pam Dawber.

This week, the boys cover reading, writing, and Don Henley.

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Links:

• The Hold Steady – “Stuck Between Stations” – YouTube
• The Hold Steady – Boys and Girls in America
• The Hold Steady – Almost Killed Me (2004)
• The Hold Steady – “Most People Are DJs”
• The Hold Steady – “Your Little Hoodrat Friend” – YouTube
• The Hold Steady – Most People are DJs – YouTube
• They Might Be Giants – How Can I Sing Like a Girl – YouTube
• King Crimson – Three of a Perfect Pair -live-(1984) – YouTube
• Alive II – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Articles by Philip Michaels | Macworld
• Philip Michaels | Twitter
• The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time: Hunter S. Thompson: 9780743250450: Amazon.com: Books
• Amazon.com: On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction (9780060891541): William Zinsser: Books
• On Writing: 10th Anniversary Edition: A Memoir of the Craft: Stephen King: 9781439156810: Amazon.com: Books
• Refurbished and Clearance iPod, iPad & Mac Products – Apple
• this is how you remind me of someday – YouTube
• The Last Resort (Eagles song) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• 20 Feet From Stardom
• History of the Eagles – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thanks to Igloo Software for sponsoring The Loop this week.

What if you could get 5% of your day back? What would you do?

You already have enough work to do today and shouldn’t have to waste time looking for the things you need to do your job.

Igloo makes it easy to find what you need, when you need it. And it’s not just for locating your traditional intranet stuff like HR policies and expense forms. It also helps you find experts, talk about problems and share content with your team. So stop digging through your inbox for that file from 3 months back and give yourself the tools you need to do your best work.

Try it yourself or send your IT guy to investigate Igloo, an intranet you’ll actually like.

I’d set the tree on fire to cook this up.

The first-ever character-branded PANTONE Color inspired by Illumination Entertainment’s Minions.

Cool.

Tony Zhou:

Before Edgar Wright and Wes Anderson, before Chuck Jones and Jackie Chan, there was Buster Keaton, one of the founding fathers of visual comedy. And nearly 100 years after he first appeared onscreen, we’re still learning from him. Today, i’d like to talk about the artistry (and the thinking) behind his gags.

I discovered Keaton as a kid and loved his comedy. But it wasn’t until adulthood I realized just what level of genius I was watching. His stunts are, to this day, still incredible and many of them are unrepeatable. As an aside, if you’re a film buff, Tony Zhou’s “Every Frame a Painting” Youtube page has some great videos dissecting why we love what we love about movies.

The Hollywood Reporter:

Attendees at any of Chappelle’s 13 sold-out Thalia Hall performances will be greeted by staffers handing out gray smartphone sleeves, available in three sizes. They are then instructed to place their phones inside the sleeves and fasten them, at which point they are welcome to carry them inside the venue.

As soon as they enter the “no-phone zone,” however, the pouches will have locked shut, preventing anyone from firing off so much as a winking emoji. Need to make a call or send an email? No problem. Simply leave the designated zone (and head, say, to the lobby bar), and, as you move past several strategically placed stations, the pouches can now magically be unlocked.

This is an interesting use of technology to defeat technology. In a broad sense, I’m all for it and can see this being extended to many other events. I was at a concert a few months ago and could barely see the artist because of all the smartphone screens being held up, recording the music. It’s incredibly annoying. I get the idea that attendees want to “capture the moment” but people have taken it way beyond that impulse.

Wired:

It’s essentially a CliffsNotes version of popular music in 2015, the bare essentials of the year boiled down into one five-minute track–with a frenetic video that cuts around to feature the lead vocal track at any given moment. It’s not quite a heart-racing banger, but anchored chiefly by the bass line for The Weeknd’s “I Can’t Feel My Face,” it’s an addicting track worthy of DJ Earworm’s name.

For me, the most amazing part is the editing. I can’t imagine the amount of work that went into creating this video.

Apple, too, now seems to be re-energized in thinking of the iPad as a work platform. The improvements that they’ve brought to bear this year alone, including split screen multi-tasking, more robust support for hardware keyboards and, maybe most significantly, Apple Pencil, have markedly improved the device’s viability as a design tool.

Great article from Khoi Vinh. While he focuses on design, you could substitute that word for almost any other work you want to do on the iPad. We’re getting so close. iPad Pro made a huge jump, but there’s still a little way to go.

I don’t know why, but I just love this kind of thing.

Two of my favorites.

Chief Executive Marissa Mayer’s attempts to revive the traditional business have born little fruit, and almost all of Yahoo’s market capitalization of about $34 billion is ascribed to its stakes in Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Holding Group Ltd. and Yahoo Japan Corp.

I remember when Yahoo was a star. Now investors raise the share price on talk of the company selling it’s core business.

Apple will host special events at local Apple Stores for The Hour of Code. Great stuff.

Macworld:

One of the cool things about the new fourth-generation Apple TV is that it supports HDMI-CEC, so that you can control your TV or your speaker system using the remote control that came in the box along with it, automatically switching everything to the right input, controlling volume, and turning everything off at once when you’re done.

But like the fourth-gen Apple TV, the second- and third-gen models (so, basically, every “black puck” Apple TV) have another, often overlooked trick up their utterly non-existent sleeves: they can be controlled from any other remote control. (Caveat: it needs to be a remote that issues its commands over infrared, not RF, but since that accounts for the overwhelming majority of remotes, we’re pretty confident saying “any.”)

Doing this won’t mean your TV automatically switches to the correct input, say, and of course it wouldn’t allow you to use Siri on the new Apple TV, since the third-party remote you’ll be using wouldn’t have a mic or Siri support. But what it does mean is that you can either deliberately or accidentally loose the little white or silver remote that you had been using with your Apple TV and just use the big remote that came with your TV.

Really useful tip for those of us who want to use a single universal remote to control all of our TV-connected bits and bobs.

ZDNet:

In the survey, almost 20 percent of respondents reported a breakdown in the first 3 years of use, most of them seriously affecting system use.

Apple, as in year’s past, has the most reliable notebooks by far – a 10 percent breakdown rate in the first 3 years – with Samsung and Gateway distant seconds at 16 percent, and the rest of the industry – including Acer, Lenovo, Toshiba, HP, Dell and Asus, at 18-19 percent.

Windows machines used more than 20 hours a week – average for Windows systems – have a higher break rate. Apple users report using their machines an average of 23 hours a week, 15 percent more. More hours, fewer breakdowns, what’s not to like?

The results of the Consumer Reports survey are predictable. While Macbooks aren’t perfect, they do tend to be significantly more reliable than their Windows counterparts. Good ammunition for those of you having the “Should I buy a Mac or a PC?” discussion with friends and relatives this holiday season.

This year’s list includes over 120 covers by 60 designers, and there is little doubt in my mind that this really is a golden time for book design.

[Via Coudal]

We’ve added a bunch of amazing new features to help improve your productivity, and made it possible to use Daylite with our Cloud service! Now you have the option to use Daylite Cloud, giving you all the benefits of a native Mac app, with the convenience of the Cloud. Or you can use Daylite 6 as a “Self-Serve” customer and manage Daylite Server on one of your own computers. You decide which option is best for you. Either way, you can still take advantage of all the new features in Daylite 6.

Marketcircle makes some great products.

Petapixel:

There are a number of websites and apps out there that help you track sunset and sunrise times so that you can plan your shoots around specific golden hour lighting. SunsetWx is a new website that takes things to the next level: it can forecast the quality of the upcoming sunset in your area (in the United States).

Created by three Pennsylvania-based meteorologists, the sunrise and sunset models take into account things like humidity, pressure changes, and clouds at various levels in the atmosphere. Wispy, high-altitude clouds are indications of a “high quality” sunset/sunrise, while low and thick clouds lower the score.

Photographers will tell you that not all sunsets are created equal. This site might be a way to increase your chances of getting that great sunset shot.

Jim and Merlin talk about who the iPad Pro is for, their favorite cover songs, and the best apps for making music. Also, Jim gives an out-of-character recommendation.

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Links:

• British Steel (album) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Reinventing iOS Automation: Editorial Review – MacStories
• Workflow Review: Integrated Automation for iOS 8 – MacStories
• Connected #66: I’m Holding a Billboard – Relay FM
• Jasmine Thompson – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Another Bundle of Tantrums | Jasmine Thompson
• Echo & the Bunnymen “The Killing Moon”
• Echo and the Bunnymen – “Ocean Rain”
• R.E.M. – “Bandwagon”
• R.E.M. – “Femme Fatale”
• The Smiths – “Jeane”
• The Smiths – “William It Was Really Nothing”
• The Beatles – “Rain”
• Profiler | The Kemper Profiler
• Positive Grid
• IK Multimedia | AmpliTube 4 Deluxe
• Found My Place – Blog – Song: “Just Fine”

Microsoft:

To celebrate the holidays, Microsoft employees, who were selected from across the country, gathered together, meeting each other for the first time, at the new Microsoft 5th Ave Store to spread some holiday wishes. Joined by a local NYC children’s youth choir, they share a message of peace and harmony with their neighbor down the street.

I hope we’re not too cynical and jaded that we can’t just sit back, watch this video and accept its message this holiday season.

TidBITS:

Randy Spydell asked, in essence, why the File menu has a Duplicate command instead of the traditional Save As command. Implicit in his question was “and is there any way to bring back Save As?”

The answer to that second question is yes, and I’ll explain how in a moment.

This is one of those wonderful little “hacks” that you either don’t care about or you’re sitting there right now, going through Adam’s steps to put Save As back where it rightfully belongs.

Sketch:

We’ve been considering our options for some time. Over the last year, as we’ve made great progress with Sketch, the customer experience on the Mac App Store hasn’t evolved like its iOS counterpart. We want to continue to be a responsive, approachable, and easily-reached company, and selling Sketch directly allows us to give you a better experience.

There are a number of reasons for Sketch leaving the Mac App Store—many of which in isolation wouldn’t cause us huge concern. However as with all gripes, when compounded they make it hard to justify staying.

Not the first and certainly not the last developer to make this decision. As detailed in this blog post, the Mac App Store simply doesn’t work for some developers. Personally, I avoid using it whenever possible.

Look who has the biggest vocal range. Wow!