I know I’m a sucker, but I really do like shading because it brings some depth to designs.

Last week, a panda cub was born to Mei Xiang at the National Zoo. Given the rarity of panda births, this was pretty big news, especially in the nation’s capital.

Turns out, that brand new panda baby instantly belongs to China. As do all other pandas on the planet. I was a little shocked by this. Every single giant panda in the world belongs to China.

Originally, China gave pandas to others — no strings attached. Starting in the 1950s, the Chinese government used the popularity (and adorableness) of giant pandas to curry favor with other nations, by gifting the creatures to governments around the world. In 1972, for example, China gave two giant pandas to the United States as thanks for President Nixon’s visit to their nation (which itself historically began to normalize the relationship between the two). First Lady Pat Nixon ensured that those two pandas, Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, were housed at the National Zoo. The program was very successful. Other countries — many who had little in the way of relations with China — asked for pandas as well. But in 1984, China stopped giving pandas away. Instead, the Chinese government began loaning them out.

Under the terms of the revised Chinese plan, zoos were offered pandas only for a ten-year period. (There’s some evidence that renewals are possible.) Because all the pandas now in captivity outside of China were born after the 1984 change, “all giant pandas outside China are actually on loan from the country,” as NPR points out. The cost of renting a panda is $1,000,000 per year, to be payable to China’s Wildlife Conservation Association. And, perhaps most strikingly, the lease agreement requires that any cubs born to loaned-out pandas be returned to to China. So if Mei Xiang’s recent addition survives, the baby will likely go back to China at some point early on in its life. The good news, though, is that the baby will be reunited with its brother. Tai Shan, a panda born to Mei Xiang in 2005, was returned to China in 2009.

Pretty interesting and, seemingly, pretty ironclad.

The Guardian asked a series of writers, including Elmore Leonard, Neil Gaiman, and Margaret Atwood, to list their writing Do’s and Don’ts. Hard to pick a favorite, there are just so many that I love, but here’s an example:

Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But “said” is far less intrusive than “grumbled”, “gasped”, “cautioned”, “lied”. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with “she asseverated” and had to stop reading and go to the dictionary.

Though these rules are all listed by novelists, worth reading by anyone who creates prose of any kind.

Man of Steel was a pretty good Superman reboot and Henry Cavill a fine Superman. Last week, we learned that Ben Affleck will play Batman in the sequel. To me, an odd bit of casting, but more than made up for by this genius bit of casting. Think Lex Luthor, then click the link in the headline. Perfect.

Even better, The sequel is called Batman vs. Superman. Wow!

Now if only we didn’t have so long to wait. Batman vs. Superman opens in theaters on July 17, 2015.

There are bundles and there are bundles. And then, well, then there are bundles of bundles.

In this Mighty Deal’s case, however, it feels like we have a bundle that consists of bundles of bundles! Confused yet? Don’t be. Just know that this is one of the biggest bundle deals ever! With literally thousands of high-quality elements for creative designers, this Bundle Storm pretty much has it all!

Stock photos! Vector images! Backgrounds! Patterns! Themes! Gradients! Actions! Icons! Buttons! Infographics! Why, there’s even tools to quickly create your own mascot!

You can also check out the Full Smashing Library Deal.

elementary OS is a free replacement for Windows on the PC and OS X on the Mac. It comes with what you’d expect, like a fast web browser and an app store with thousands of apps. Plus some things you may not expect, like free updates and no known viruses.

I don’t know a lot about it, but it looks like OS X. I’m also not sure where the “thousands of apps” came from.

Back in the good old days, it was easy to pass a used cell phone along to a friend or family member. Then this happened:

In the mid-’90s, wireless companies began to place digital locks on their phones so that consumers couldn’t transfer them to a new carrier. It’s relatively easy to unlock a phone—you can download the necessary code for a few bucks. But as of January 26, under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), you can no longer do this legally. The 1998 law, aimed mostly at curbing digital piracy, also outlawed cellphone unlocking, but the US Copyright Office had always granted an exemption since unlocking phones really has little to do with copyright.

OK, the exemption makes sense, seems like a reasonable solution. But wait.

The wireless industry didn’t like that—it argued that because carriers often subsidize the cost of phones, it’s not fair to let customers take their device to a competitor. The Copyright Office has apparently embraced that argument: This year, for the first time, it denied the usual requests by organizations and individuals to extend the exemption.

Read the article. This is an environmental disaster waiting to happen.

When I first read about stack ranking, I thought it was one of the stupidest fucking things I’d ever heard of. It actively dissuades talented people to work alongside one another, and, in fact, encourages people to surround themselves with the most mediocre idiots they can. Hopefully this one of many things the next Microsoft CEO will change when he or she cleans house.

The Stillwater brewery teamed up with Dan and David Thiesen, co-owners of the fair’s Ball Park Café, to create the beer. It will have a warm tan color, like the exterior of a mini donut, and a sweet, malty taste. As an added touch, it will be served in a glass with cinnamon and sugar on the rim.

This just might be crazy enough to be good!

A brilliant collection of anecdotes from past and present “Saturday Night Live” cast members on auditioning for the show.

Chevy Chase:

We had our cast and were back at [Studio] 8H, and there was a little room nearby with a long desk which could act as a stage. Lorne asked everybody to go up there and do something. At the end he said, “Chevy, get up there and do something.” So I made up some strange story about Gerald Ford. It was pretty clear that I was a funny guy. I was taller than everybody, and very handsome.

Heh. Lots of wonderful stuff here.

According to AllCast developer Koushik Dutta, the most recent Chromecast firmware update not only breaks the functionality third-party apps were using to stream local media and other stuff that doesn’t have built-in Chromecast support but breaks it on purpose.

It’s like they don’t want people to buy it.

Uber is a car service with a kick-ass iOS app. Launch the app and a map appears showing all the “black cars” in your area, with the time until the closest one can get to your location. Tap a button, the car is instantly dispatched. When the driver gets close, they’ll call and/or text you to let you know the car is near. You rank the drivers (1-5 stars) and they rank you, too. Terrific experience, just a bit more expensive than a cab, but much more convenient and incredibly reliable.

The fact that they are raising so much money is a sign of both the maturation of this space, and of its competitive nature.

The size of our devices are stuck at something of a bottleneck. We can’t exactly make them smaller because they’re so reliant on large, easily visible displays. So, the industry makes do, and makes the devices thinner, which reduces overall size without compromising display size. One object standing in the way of even thinner laptops is the hinge, and Apple might have found a way to remove that from the design equation.

Yesterday, a new patent application was published that describes “flexible segments” that interlock to form a rigid material. The material used isn’t some kind of top-secret new wonder metal only found deep within Apple’s subterranean volcano lair, but rather a process that can take rigid material — such as plastic or metal — and can cut it in such a way to create the flexible segments. The flexible segmented hinge could bend at various degrees, but that depends on the segments being cut in different patterns.

Intriguing.

Good.

Many thanks to F-Sim Space Shuttle for sponsoring The Loop’s RSS feed this week. F-Sim Space Shuttle is a fun and highly realistic flight simulator for iOS. Your goal is to land one of the most amazing aircrafts ever built: the Space Shuttle Orbiter. Flight dynamics and the head-up display are simulated in great detail and accuracy. During descent the orbiter is an extremely heavy, unpowered glider, so there’s only one chance to get it right. Air speeds two times faster and glide slopes seven times steeper than a typical airliner approach make for a unique challenge.

Landing a space shuttle is not easy, but there are several landing aids and tutorials that will help you make your first safe landing. Every landing is rated, and more experienced pilots can try a perfect landing or add more challenges (night approaches, crosswind landings, system failures, and much more). A landing analysis screen shows how you performed and how you can improve future landings. You’ll also get a score that can be uploaded to Game Center. You can watch breathtaking replays of your flight from different camera angles and even record your replays to the camera roll in full HD.

Legendary singer Linda Ronstadt, 67, told AARP today that she “can’t sing a note” because she suffers from Parkinson’s disease. Diagnosed eight months ago, Ronstadt began to show symptoms as long as eight years ago. But she ascribed her inability to sing to a tick bite (“my health has never recovered since then”), and believed the shaking in her hands resulted from shoulder surgery.

Parkinson’s is a devastating disease for anyone to suffer from, and it’s certainly afflicted other celebrities – Michael J. Fox and Muhammad Ali come to mind immediately. Regardless, it’s a huge tragedy for the music world to lose such a beautiful voice.

(Via Gawker)

The United States offered to ease the terms of a proposed civil injunction against Apple Inc for conspiring to raise e-book prices, but the company said the revised proposal is still designed to “inflict punishment” and must be rejected.

Sounds to me like Apple is in this for the long haul.

Samsung might have a 10-figure advertising budget, but it still managed to create an ad with such bad acting (and horribly sexist undertones) that it was pulled shortly after being spotted–and relentlessly mocked–by Reddit members Thursday.

It’s just painful to watch.

Ben Bajarin:

By owning all the key components from designing the system-on-chip, to the hardware and software security layers, the operating system, the hardware itself, and the underlying cloud framework, Apple is uniquely positioned to create a security solution unlike many others.

A new advertising campaign allows companies to pay CNET to repost positive reviews on their homepage. Guess who took advantage of that program? You guessed it, Samsung.

You can read it for yourself.

That’s the best news Microsoft has had in years.

This is a fascinating proof of concept.

Making the storage and access of data more convenient, artist Anthony Antonellis implanted an RFID chip into his hand that can store data which can be wirelessly accessed by a smartphone.

The chip is the size of a grain of sand and only holds about 1K of data, but it does work. Antonellis can use his smartphone to store data on the chip and retrieve the data as needed. The technology requires him to actually touch the implant with his phone, as the antennae’s reach is about 1 cm.

From Eadweard Muybridge and George Méliès to James Cameron and Phil Tippett, the history of movie effects is basically the greatest bedtime story never told. Except it’s a yarn so full of dragons, dinosaurs and mimetic polyalloy killing machines sent back from the future that you’d never get any sleep after hearing it. As Life Of Pi and Avatar amply demonstrate, there are many chapters still to be written and innovations still to be forged, but whether in-camera, matte, prosthetic, CG, or just lovingly modelled by a man with a passion for Plasticine, effects have brought magic to the movies since the silent era. In a unique celebration of the art, Empire asked the people who make them happen to pick their favorites.

Each one of these really brings a new appreciation to the effort involved and the incredible effect achieved. The closeup of Davey Jones from Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man’s Chest, for example, really gives a sense of how breathtakingly realistic the effect is. Love this.

Will Apple build a TV set? Will they become a content distributor? The answer is complicated. This article does a good job laying out all the parameters.

One alternative being considered is that Apple could essentially become a cable company itself. Under that scenario, sources say, Apple would launch what is formally known as a virtual multichannel video programming distributor. MVPD is the catch-all term for pay TV services, whether delivered over cable lines, satellites, or otherwise. A virtual MVPD would offer such content entirely over the internet. Intel, Google, and Sony are known to be preparing virtual MVPDs of their own.

Just as happened in the music space, companies like Apple act as a disruption to an existing business model. In this case, the disruption to the TV space has been going on for a long time. A new studio system is evolving and, in many cases, succeeding. Netflix broke through with “House of Cards”, creating and distributing content completely outside the traditional mechanisms.

However Apple’s television service is formally regarded, it will still be seen as disrupting the TV industry. In its talks with content companies, say sources, Apple notes that it has nearly 600 million iTunes accounts and is good at getting people to pay for content. It made similar claims when it negotiated with companies in music and publishing, and it has indelibly changed those industries.

This is going to get interesting.

Peter Kafka:

Kennedy also dismissed concerns about Apple’s impending iTunes Radio launch, which will directly compete with his service. This one would be easier to take at face value if Pandora’s PR machinery wasn’t working so hard to downplay Apple’s entry.

But, for the record, Kennedy repeated the lines he has always used to describe competition in the past. “We’ve now been around for eight years. We’ve seen competitors large and small enter the market and, in some cases, exit the market,” he said. “I’ve never seen an analysis that identifies an effect from any competitor … we don’t see the picture changing.”

Yet Pandora is removing the 40 hour listening limit for mobile users two weeks before Apple introduces iTunes Radio. Pandora may not have seen any effect from previous competitors, but they’ve never faced Apple before.

BlackBerry, Nokia and Microsoft never thought they’d see any effect from Apple either. You see where that got them.