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  • Neil Genzlinger reporting for The New York Times:

    Syd Mead, a designer whose wide-ranging work included envisioning vehicles of the future as well as helping to shape the look of environments in movies like “Blade Runner,” “Tron” and “Aliens,” died on Monday at his home in Pasadena, Calif. He was 86.

    His spouse, Roger Servick, said the cause was lymphoma.

    Mr. Mead started out in the car business, designing for Ford. By 1970 he had founded his own firm, Syd Mead Inc., and had a wide range of clients, working on architectural interiors and exteriors, restaurants, catalogs and more.

    I never knew he began his career at Ford. That’s pretty rad, and it shows. His depictions (or visions?) of vehicles and transport are honest and divine.

    Aliens and Blade Runner’s sterile living environments, dank off-world Weyland-Yutani industrial complexes, and the jagged colonial spacescapes gripped my young imagination like a face-hugger. I doubt any of Ridley Scott’s motion pictures would be the same without Mead’s futuristic conceptual input. I mean look at this stuff:

    Syd Mead is a very well respected conceptual designer and artist, whose work has influenced multiple generations of sci-fi creators and artists for decades. Tendrils of his work can be found alive and well in the far-away worlds in Hollywood. Obviously his most notable breakout was Blade Runner. Just look anywhere beyond off-world. Moon, Guardians of the Galaxy, the Star Wars franchise, Interstellar and even Pixar films such as WALL·E are a few notable areas where Hollywood really latched onto Mead’s futuristic visions: floating colonies, shiny white airlocks, moody AI, light-cycles, damp neon-lit cities, levitating transports and of course Cyber Trucks.

    Godspeed Syd. You’ll be missed.

  • After selling more than $2B of his shares, Travis Kalanick has severed his final ties to Uber. The New York Times reports:

    Travis Kalanick, the founder and former chief executive of Uber, has stepped down from the company’s board of directors, severing his last tie with the company. 

    Mr. Kalanick, 43, started the Uber in 2009 with co-founder Garrett Camp, and grew it from a small start-up to a behemoth that defined the ride hailing industry. The company went public in May, and has since struggled on the public market. The board forced Mr. Kalanick to resign as chief executive in 2017 after a series of sexual harassment and privacy incidents.

    Talk about selling out. Kalanick’s reign of burning a seemingly endless supply of cash may have finally come to an end, but Uber continues to hemorrhage cash. Travis has been riding the IPO pony to cash out slowly (which, I should add, many others were not so lucky). A majority of his shares have been locked-up since the IPO, which is why he didn’t sell them en masse. There’s no ambiguity about this $2B conclusion, he’s done with Uber.

  • The New York Times reports:

    The company has been mired in the worst crisis in its 103-year history since the crashes of two 737 Max jets killed 346 people. The plane has been grounded since March, and Boeing has faced cascading delays as it tries to return the Max to the air. 

    The company said David Calhoun, the chairman, would replace Mr. Muilenburg on Jan. 13. Until then, Boeing’s chief financial officer, Greg Smith, will serve as interim chief executive, the company said.

    Firing Muilenburg won’t mend the damaged reputation nor will it fix the highly problematic MCAS system that plagues the 737 Max aircraft, but it will catalyze Boeing to switch gears. Never mind the fact, Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft test over the weekend was an orbital failure.

    Previously, the ramifications of Boeings accumulated failures had begun as a slow moving tidal wave affecting airline operators such as Southwest being forced to leave Newark. Now, as the plane’s future remains unclear, aerospace supply chains have begun to feel the pressure as well. Boeing, just a week ago — halted the production of the Boeing 737 Max airplane. As many as 8,000 suppliers and third-party vendors will be affected by the halted production.

    Not good.

  • I love interactive stories like these. This story, was written by Antonio de Luca and Sasha Portis at the New York Times. It begins here:

    In 1979, responding to complaints from riders that the subway map was difficult to use, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority hired the Manhattan design firm Michael Hertz and Associates to create a new map.

    That map. The problematic Massimo Vignelli (RIP) subway map designed in 1972, and it was cool-looking but wow, was it unusable:

    No wonder Vignelli’s map only lived 7 years. It’s pretty difficult to find these lying around anymore, but you can find them for sale on eBay. You used to be able to even find them at old subway stations, still plastered up on waypoints or platform corkboards.

    Portis and de Luca did an outstanding job on this interactive Times story. If you enjoy trains or even New York history, you’ll love this story. Read it here.

  • If you know me personally, you know how much I love The Times. It’s a wonderful newspaper I fell in love with in college. I’ve consistently held a subscription in one form or another since then. It has prestige, integrity and a wide breadth of reporting. From real estate musings, to the incredible science pieces. It’s the standard candle, few papers can emulate. It has growth rings and battle-scars like the great Redwoods in California:

    Update: speaking of frontpages of the New York Times, they really missed the opportunity on a proper headline to capture the racist-filled mass murdering that took place over the weekend. A total of 31 were left dead:

    Really really bad.

  • Probably one of the most uplifting, succinct, emotionally touching and truly thoughtful piece of video journalism I’ve seen in 2019. Bob Ross has touched just about everyone on planet Earth. Nearly three decades after his untimely death in 1995, everyone seems to want to know — where are all the Bob Ross paintings now?

  • From Brian Steinberg at Variety:

    Editorial staffers are expected to stay with the company, says the person familiar with the situation. Most were already working for other parts of ESPN’s digital-media operations. A “handful” of employees responsible for print production could be affected, but a determination on possible layoffs has yet to be reached this person said. ESPN intends to continue publishing big magazine-type features with high-end photography online.

    The magazine’s demise serves as another reminder of how the rise of digital media has affected once-stalwart print properties. When ESPN launched its magazine in the late 1990s, it was seen as a move to counter the influence of Sports Illustrated, the powerhouse publication from Time Inc. These days, Sports Illustrated is part of Meredith Corp., and has been on the sales block for months.

    That’s really unfortunate to hear. However, I suppose the silver lining here is that Disney is migrating (most of) their staffers to their digital department. I mean, if the New York Times can post a profit on the digital subscription model, ESPN Magazine can do it too.