I don’t need a new USB-C charger, but daaaaang that orange one is calling to me.
Category: General Tech
The Gateway Astro⇢
I have never come across this wild all-in-one from 1999 before, but … wow.
ThinkPad at 30⇢
Tim Bajarin, writing at Forbes:
In 1988, the father of the ThinkPad, Arimasa Naitoh, a Lenovo Fellow located in Japan, received a call about the need to spearhead a new portable computing venture in IBM’s research center in Yokohama, Japan. At the time, he was based in White Plains, NY but moved back to Japan to develop what has become the iconic ThinkPad line of portable computers.
I got to watch the development of the ThinkPad from the beginning. Mr Naitoh’s leadership, assisted by David Hill, who was instrumental in creating the unique ThinkPad design, made IBM at that time one of the most important portable computer companies in the market.
Building the First ARM Chip⇢
Jeremy Reimer has kicked off a new series on Ars Technica about the history of ARM. If this initial entry is anything to go by, it’s going to be a great read.
WALL-E Joining the Criterion Collection⇢
Tasha Robinson at Polygon with some good news about my favorite Pixar movie:
The home-video company Criterion announced Thursday that Pixar Animation Studios’ feature WALL-E will join the Criterion Collection in November, as the first Disney or Pixar movie to receive a Criterion release. The Criterion edition will be released Nov. 22, with pre-orders opening Oct. 18.
Criterion, a curation company that preserves, restores, and releases movies of particular cultural impact and importance from around the world, has almost no animated movies in its roster. WALL-E will join Watership Down, the French sci-fi film Fantastic Planet, and Wes Anderson’s stop-motion movie Fantastic Mr. Fox in the company’s limited animation lineup. In addition to being the company’s first Disney or Pixar film, WALL-E is the only CG animated film currently in the company’s library.
Why Pebble Failed⇢
Eric Migicovsky, a co-founder of the now-defunct smartwatch company, writing about why his company failed:
I struggled over and over to define a strong long term vision for what Pebble as a company would accomplish. In some ways we were spoiled…when our Kickstarter in 2012 was super successful, we never had to go through the exhausting process of iterating on sales techniques to acquire customers. We had crystal clear marching orders in 2012: build exactly what we had promised our backers and make it as high quality as possible. That’s what we did in 2012–2014…we just built great smartwatches that we ourselves (young hackers) wanted to use. After Pebble Steel in 2014, we came up for air and found ourselves in a more competitive space. As discussed above, we attempted to expand into a new market, and failed.
Siracusa Declares Independence⇢
And so, on March 25, 2022, I left my “normal” job. I am now officially self-employed.
Hearing John share the news on Reconcilable Differences and ATP was amazing. I couldn’t be happier for John.
The Prince Disk⇢
My New Keyboard
Myke Hurley has been big into mechanical keyboards for over a year now, and we finally got together to build me my first custom keyboard. I have to say, I love how it turned out:
I started with the new Keychon Q1 in Navy Blue. To that, I added a full set of NovelKeys_ Silk Red switches. I was worried about how much force the keys would take to press, but these linear switches may be too light. I just have to brush a key for it to register, so I may end up swapping in something more robust.1
The 512 Pixels Holiday Gift Guide for People Like Me
It’s that time of year again, so if you have people in your life like me, here are some gift ideas that may prove helpful:
- Macintosh “Hello” Enamel Pin: $8 on Etsy
- Think Different license plate frame: $19.95 on the Missing Byte
- 2020 WWDC Reversible Emoji Medium Jacket: $87.47 on eBay
- Recapped Macintosh SE/30: $550 on eBay
- Ford F-150 Lightning (in the Lariat trim) with the extended-range battery and twin-panel moonroof, painted in Carbonized Gray: Price and date TBD
HYPER Announces new Notebook Dock⇢
HYPER has unveiled a new USB-C dock for the MacBook Pro that adds a whopping 15 ports to the device. Juli Clover at MacRumors has the details:
There are three HDMI ports and three DisplayPorts, all of which support 4K displays at up to 60Hz, along with a Gigabit Ethernet port, a 100W USB-C PD port for charging purposes. two USB-C ports that support 10Gb/s transfer speeds, a USB-A port that supports 10Gb/s transfer speeds, two additional 5Gb/s USB-A ports, and an SD/micro SD card slot that supports transfer speeds of 104MB/s.
Waymo’s Self-Driving Cars Are Just Super Into This Street⇢
City traffic can get pretty congested, but hardly anyone would expect an endless stream of self-driving cars flocking to one quiet residential street. Except, that’s what’s happening to one dead-end street in San Francisco, according to a local KPIX report.
Amazing.