Neil deGrasse Tyson talks with Brian Tong about his new series Cosmos: Possible Worlds and settles the world’s greatest debates! iPhone or Android? Kirk or Picard? Millennium Falcon or Enterprise? BB-8 or R2-D2?

A few things about Neil deGrasse Tyson you probably didn’t know before.

For now. Things change. A lot. And they’re hard to predict. – MKBHD

A very interesting video by Marques Brownlee (MKBHD), about why the Pixel 2 HD is no longer his daily Android phone, and also some opinions on how hardware can degrade over time.

I’m working on an app at work where I’m regularly implementing new sections/views. And I’ve become really fond of the “native” design look.
It’s something I’ve tried to do with TextCase and Slate, but it’s now spreading to my actual job.

I think it’s down to two facts:

• I like Apples design for apps.
• I don’t think users should have to “learn” a user interface.

There’s also a whole bunch of benefits you get from using native controls, such as accessibility support, and standard designs for certain contexts. An example of that is a system alert, where you specify if an action is a “cancel”, “destructive”, or “default”, and then the formatting is applied.

I’m not doing this as a way to make the apps feel more generic though, as I’m making use of accent colours, and in some cases, fonts, to make sure the “branding” still comes through.

Greg Kumparak, writing for Tech Crunch:

HipChat, the workplace chat app that held the throne before Slack was Slack, is being discontinued. Also being discontinued is Atlassian’s own would-be HipChat replacement, Stride.

I’m so happy about this. I use HipChat at work, because the company is invested in all of the Atlassian ecosystem. I’d much rather use Slack.

John Voorhees, the developer, podcast, and editor, has done an interview over at iPure. I must say it’s very fascinating, and there’s a sneak peak of something I’m sure a lot of people have been looking forward to.

How to get from apps development to writing for one of the best-known blogs about Apple? How works international team located over several continents? Who could replace Tim Cook? Our second interview with foreign speaker – John Voorhees, editor of MacStories.net and a passionate podcaster.

Matt Birchler at his finest, turning a subject such as buying a hammer into a thought provoking piece about making judgements upon people’s tech purchases:

You’re certainly not going to shop around from store to store for the best hammer deal. You’re not going to watch YouTube videos demoing an array of hammers, and you’re not going to read reviews for the top 5 hammers this season. You’re certainly not going to check to see if Craftsman is going to release a new hammer in the next few months that will be better than what’s on the shelves now.

Nope, you’re not going to do any of that, you’re going to go to the store, pick one that seems fine (they all seem fine, don’t they?), make sure it’s one of the cheaper ones available, and get on with your life.

I’ve just come across a rather helpful tip on Reddit, and it’s a simple key combination to toggle hidden files and folders in Finder.

It’s just:

CMD + SHIFT + .

It also works in the Open/Save dialog windows.

Via u/CompiledSanity on Reddit.

Well, that isn’t something I thought I’d ever see.

Watch on YouTube.

🕷🖥

Eric Schwarz, writing about the perspective that outsiders can have on the difficulty of skilled roles:

There seems to be a notion from those that are not technologically-inclined that anyone who works with technology can easily do anything, be it a desktop support technician, network engineer, database administrator, programmer, designer, etc. I’ve always taken it as a bit of a compliment that my skill set is valued and that I am seen as a resource, but increasingly the expectation of more impossible demands from outside parties has been coming across my desk.

I have definitely experienced this, and I’m sure people in a wide range of professions experience something similar.

For the upcoming release of World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth, Blizzard has released 4 short adverts, which seem very Apple-like.

If you’re not a World of Warcraft player, the only background knowledge you need is that at the heart of the game, there are two factions (Alliance and Horde) which you’re character has allegiance with. This expansion returns the game to the roots of the fight between the two factions.

Bus

Elevator

Kid’s Choice

Rainy Day