512 Pixels

My all-time favorite movie turns 30 years old this weekend, and Vox’s Todd VanDerWerff’s takes a look at what makes it so special:

Back to the Future works because, in the end, its stakes are so very small. Beneath all the jokes and the moments where a mother unknowingly flirts with her son and the time travel and the action-packed countdown sequences, all that remains is a theme so universal that we keep returning to it in story after story after story: can you ever understand your parents? And perhaps even harder: can they ever understand you?

Remember the original iPod shuffle? Turns out, it could get stuck in weird modes, but Apple had a tool to help users in this situation:

The iPod shuffle Reset Utility restores the original iPod shuffle. The restore process completely erases all music and data on iPod shuffle and reinstalls software version 1.1.5. This utility is made available for customers using Mac OS 10.2.8.

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This morning, I joined the press and other NASASocial members to view the launch of SpaceX’s CRS–7 mission. The launch itself was stunning. We were about 4 miles away, right across the water from the pad.

My video (Forgive the shaky cam; I shot this with one hand with my iPhone as I was taking still photos from a tripod.) doesn’t do the experience of the thing justice.

A couple of minutes away from launch, a silent anticipation fell across the crowd. The voice marched on, marking off the seconds, and then it started.

Because sound travels slower than light, we felt and heard it a moment after we saw the steam and flame. It all felt much slower than I had guessed it would. Once the sound came, it was stunning. The power of thing was impressive, even miles away.

The rocket continued to climb, and was just about out of sight when it broke up. When the “anomaly” was announced, the excitement that had built up was instantly snuffed out. Many of us instantly thought of the programs lost, but were also relieved the flight was uncrewed.

That said, today is a reminder that space — even commercial travel — is hard. Up until today, SpaceX’s track record has been perfect, but even the best-engineered systems in the world aren’t immune to failure.

In the coming weeks, I’m sure SpaceX will have more to announce about what happened this morning, and NASA will have news on how to re-supply the astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Until then, it’s a rough today for space nerds.

Outside of the building where the space shuttle Atlantis is on display at Kennedy Space Center, this quote greets visitors:

I’m spending the rest of the week in Florida as part of the NASA Social program, covering Sunday’s SpaceX CRS–7 launch.

I applied a few weeks ago, while in San Francisco at WWDC, and was excited to learn I had been accepted. I drove down yesterday, and spent the day at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center, where I saw Atlantis and lots of other bits of NASA history. The actual program kicks off in the morning.

I’ve always felt a connection to the space program. While I was born on a tragic day in space history, ¹ I am in no way unique in my interest in all things NASA.

As I was walking around the various exhibits I visited today, I couldn’t help but notice how excited many people were about what we were seeing. There were kids standing on their tiptoes, trying to stretch to be tall enough to see into the visor of the vintage space suits. There were old men who clearly remembered the news coverage being played back for education purposes. People were taking photos, asking questions and genuinely learning.

I wasn’t alone in my nerdiness, and that was a nice feeling.

The glories of the universe are breathtaking on their own, but when coupled with the grit and grind required to climb on top of a live rocket to go explore them, the whole business becomes truly inspiring and heroic.

That’s the crux of it. The space program takes the best qualities found in humankind and couples them with the best technology we can build. That’s exciting, and with a return to the Moon and a manned journey to Mars on the horizon, I no longer have to be jealous of the generation that watched those early astronauts answer the call Carl Sagan identified.

Version 6.2.9 would end up being the final build of AppleWorks, the company’s long-running suite of office applications. Here’s what was included in the update:

This update to AppleWorks 6.0 and later supports mice with scroll wheels and improves the performance and reliability of AppleWorks’ presentation and spreadsheet environments. AppleWorks 6.2.9 also offers improved printing and resolves issues using web based templates and clip-art on networks using proxy servers.

Like countless long-time Mac users, I have fond memories of writing in AppleWorks, and to this day, wish I could still run it from time to time.

Christina Warren:

Hulu recreated nearly every aspect of the Season 8-era Seinfeld apartment with great attention to detail.

Except for one thing. They gave Jerry an old PC.

After Carrie Bradshaw, Jerry Seinfeld might be the most visible Mac user in 1990s television. Over the course of Seinfeld’s 9 seasons, Jerry’s apartment frequently showed off various models of the Macintosh. Everything from the Mac SE/30 to a PowerBook Duo with Duo Dock, to the 20th Anniversary Macintosh were featured on the show.

In addition to the compact Mac shown in Christina’s post, I too remember Jerry having a 20th Anniversary Macintosh as well as a PowerBook Duo. image via PC Mag

Well, someone has way too much time on their hands, but this is cool:

That seemed fast.

If you record or edit in Logic, you may have noticed the fun quirk of the application in which the project time has an hour added to it by default:

This has always annoyed me while working on podcasts, as I don’t need the options and power that time synchronization offers. Thankfully, it’s easy to tell Logic to remove the leading hour by navigating in the menubar to File → Project Settings → Synchronization.

There, you can change the highlighted field from 01:00:00:00.00 to 00:00:00:00.00.

And boom:

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This morning, Apple quietly removed the original iPad mini from its online store, as noted by 9to5Mac:

Apple’s discontinuation of the iPad mini leaves the remaining iPads as a completely 64-bit family, all using either A7 and A8X processors rather than the iPad mini’s aging A5. It also means that all remaining iPads have Retina displays and unified Wi-Fi + Cellular models.

While the A5 is still around in a couple of very sad devices, I know a lot of developers are glad to see Apple finally moving forward. iOS 9 will run on a lot of older devices, but I do think it may be the last iOS release to hold that line.

The original iPad mini was perhaps the first example of Tim Cook’s approach to products. It was the iPad 2 — in a smaller, cheaper form — and it sold like crazy.

I’m currently using an iPad Air 2, but I loved my original iPad mini. Sure, it didn’t have enough RAM or even a Retina display, but it made iPad apps far more mobile, and it marked the first time I wasn’t embarrassed or annoyed to use an iPad someplace public like a coffeeshop or park.

All that aside, Apple let this device linger too long. It’s the downside of Cook’s operations brain that brought us the device in the first place. Now I just hope the device will get a nicer update than last year.