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This weekend's reading: Harley Quinn's heroic legacy, Mother Jones investigating the cruelest show on Earth, and a seventeen thousand word profile of Jonathan Ive, the designer behind Apple.
THE NEW YORKER
Jonathan Ive and the future of Apple
The New Yorker received unprecedented access to the designer behind Apple's world-altering products for this mammoth profile. When we say mammoth we mean it's seventeen thousand words long. While Jonathan Ive is a man who normally likes to stay behind the scenes, journalists are also rarely allowed in the small Apple design studio, so this one has more than one angle to dig into.
Re/Code
Ten years of Google Maps, from Slashdot to Ground Truth
Google Maps is so ingrained in our daily lives that it's easy to forget there once was a time when it didn't exist. Re/Code gets the full story on how a small startup was acquired by a giant corporation and destroyed MapQuest forever.
Vulture
The hidden story of Harley Quinn and how she became the superhero world’s most successful woman
The Vulture gives an extensive look at how the fictional Batman villain Harley Quinn became the most popular female comic book character in the world.
Mother Jones
The cruelest show on Earth
Mother Jones spent an entire year investigating the treatment of elephants by Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey's Circus. What they found might make you reconsider that innocent night out with the kids you had planned.
The New York Times
‘Out of my mouth comes unimpeachable manly truth’ What I learned from watching a week of Russian TV
Critically acclaimed author Gary Shteyngart locked himself in a hotel with three giant monitors playing Russian TV for a full week. He emerges bleary-eyed, with a portrait of Russian media that he believes will one day "seem as ridiculous as a Soviet documentary on grain procurement."