512 Pixels

While the new Kindle’s $289 price point is still a little mind boggling, apparently Amazon is selling them faster than they can be made. (Whether that’s on purpose or not is anyone’s guess.) I went to go order one today and noticed that it’s out of stock until early June. I guess I can move that review back a bit in OmniFocus.

Looking to upgrade from System 6 to System 7? Be sure to check out this support page that outlines how your documents will fair:

You can move documents between a Macintosh running System 6 and a Macintosh running System 7 without any problems. In most cases, your documents will not change their appearance. For example, if your document uses Times font in size 12, your document won’t change.

An exception occurs when you have TrueType fonts installed and you have documents using numerous odd type sizes.

Impressive, Alex Jason. Most impressive.

Marco Arment has a new app:

Quitter automatically hides or quits distracting apps after periods of inactivity. I’ve found it tremendously helpful to my work efficiency to hide Slack and quit Tweetbot after 10 minutes.

It’s free and works as advertised. I dig it.

On the road to OS X, Apple released numerous updates to Mac OS. To help developers keep up, the company published the Mac OS Anthology. Here’s the introduction to the third version, available in February 2000:

Mac OS Anthology is a collection of Mac OS or System Software releases in up to 32 languages, spanning from Mac OS 7.0 to 9.0. This collection has been gathered for Apple Developer Connection members to conveniently provide Mac OS releases in multiple languages, with the goal of assisting you in extending your product’s reach into international markets and environments.

The gem of a video maybe be cringeworthy today, but Apple’s past is littered with a bunch of other not-so-awesome video projects. Here are a few of my “favorites” from the 1980s and 90s:

In the dark days of the 1990s, Apple had a license program allowing other companies to build and sell Mac OS-running computers. This is an internal Apple video that made the rounds in 1994 about the program.

I have no words.

via @ohples Update: Here are some more awkward Apple videos from the 80s and 90s.

I’m excited to be writing a series on the various cars I’ve driven over the years for a website named Curbside Classic. Up first: my 1993 Honda Prelude.

Fancy.

Andrew Liszewski at Gizmodo has linked to an amazing Lego Ideas project:

Number 5, a.k.a. Johnny Five, is the hero of the Short Circuit movies. Number 5 was one of five prototype robots, but after being struck by lightning gained a sense of awareness and free will. The multitude of his expressive abilities, combined with a youthful demeanor and thirst for knowledge (need more input!), made him an instant favorite with audiences in the 80’s.

This small model attempts to replicate the sense of wonder that the robot often displayed. It stands around 7" tall and is very flexible. Arms, torso, head, and even ’eyebrows’ can be posed however desired. Also featured are a retracting shoulder-mount and freely moving treads.

TAKE MY MONEY.

Loren Grush:

SpaceX plans to send its Dragon spacecraft to Mars as early as 2018, the company announced today — marking a major first step toward CEO Elon Musk’s goal of sending humans to the Red Planet. The company didn’t say how many spacecraft it will send, but hinted it would conduct a series of these Dragon missions and that it would release more details soon. In a tweet, the company indicated that the capsules would fly on SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket, a bigger version of its Falcon 9; the rocket will launch the capsules to the planet to test out how to land heavy payloads on Mars. If successful, the endeavor would make SpaceX the first private spaceflight company to land a vehicle on another planet.

Holy moly.

My family and I are getting some much-needed time away starting tomorrow. For about a week, we’ll be in a different part of the country, and I’ll be offline and not working for the first time in three years. It feels weird and vaguely irresponsible to take time off as a self-employed person, but it’ll be good for all of us.

See you on the other side, Internet.