John Buck
@hellojohnbuck.bsky.social
95 followers 45 following 120 posts
Dad. Editor. Author.
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hellojohnbuck.bsky.social
In crises like this, you can play politics, point fingers and resist reality, or you can choose safety. Australians chose the latter. We don’t regret it.-> we took the same approach with guns.
Reposted by John Buck
Reposted by John Buck
goldengateblond.bsky.social
we lost a queen 👑
kojamf.bsky.social
Dr. Jane Goodall filmed an interview with Netflix in March 2025 that she understood would only be released after her death.
Reposted by John Buck
allinwithchris.bsky.social
WATCH: "They are underwater across the board, and they know it. And that is causing them to double down in public. But it is backfiring. That is why—whether it's a shutdown, whether it's all of this—they want us to blink first. And we have too much to save," says AOC.
hellojohnbuck.bsky.social
Beat perfect edit by Andy Jurgensen
hellojohnbuck.bsky.social
This feels like @gruber.foo take on Days of Thunder aka Days of Silence. #apple #cupertino
hellojohnbuck.bsky.social
Apple engineer Steve Milne recalls.

Which chord to use for the Mac II boot chime. A major chord (tonic, major 3rd, fifth) has a positive, perhaps corny sound. A minor chord (tonic, minor 3rd, fifth) sounds sad. We settled on a power chord (tonic, fifth) - the most neutral.

books.by/john-buck
Inventing the Future, John Buck
hellojohnbuck.bsky.social
Bob McNinch recalls.

Jobs said, 'If there's anything I can do for you, come to my office'. I did 'To make more sales in Europe we need a localized Lisa keyboard with characters like Å and Ö. "Don't worry. We're going to fix it in software". And walked away.

books.by/john-buck #apple #jobs #design
hellojohnbuck.bsky.social
Tom Erickson notes:

This was before Apple turned into a vampire ecosystem where everything tries to suck money out of people. We were on a mission. Whatever you could do to make something attractive, engaging, and understandable for people. And nothing else.

books.by/john-buck #apple #HIG #design
Inventing the Future
hellojohnbuck.bsky.social
Jim Reekes recalls:
I had a music background, and was put in Apple tech support to fix sound problems. Developers contacted us with very technical programming questions. If we couldn't answer, we'd go to the actual engineers working on the OS to find the answers.

books.by/john-buck #apple
Inventing the Future
Reposted by John Buck
alex4d.com
Watching the first episode of #AlienEarth inspired me to make a free Final Cut Pro title template that emulates the MU-TH-UR chat user interface, and also on-screen titles.

alex4d.com/final_cut_pl...

It’s about time I got back into making free tools for Final Cut users!
Alex4D Interface 2038 | Alex4D
A free Final Cut Pro for Mac title that emulates text seen in Alien (1979) and in Alien: Earth (2025). […]
alex4d.com
hellojohnbuck.bsky.social
this is fantastic. thank you. thank you.
hellojohnbuck.bsky.social
i’d rather they could spell Off rather than Of
kottke.org
Will you watch a tire rolling down a massive sand dune for three minutes? Yeah, I didn’t think I would either, but here I am telling you that you probably will. It’s definitely a metaphor for something! [kottke.org]
Roll On, You Crazy Tire!
The team at Tuk South visited one of the tallest sand dunes in Chile and did the obvious: threw a tire down it and followed it with a drone to see how long it would roll. The answer: almost three minutes. Take a break
kottke.org
hellojohnbuck.bsky.social
"Apple is in danger of looking like a laggard, not a leader. It must prove that it can introduce new technology, get it to market in a reasonable timeframe, and at a reasonable price.
It has to continue to attract good work from third-party developers. We'll be waiting."

InfoWorld, Oct 1990
hellojohnbuck.bsky.social
Jeremy Jones recalls:

"What Steve Hain and I had written in a basement, was now good enough for former Xerox PARC scientists, Larry Tesler and Alan Kay, as well as Newton's Steve Capps and Steve Sakoman to tell John Sculley to buy Coral Software and create Dylan."

books.by/john-buck #apple #dylan
hellojohnbuck.bsky.social
Vicki Brown recalls Project Oreo:

Our building was off campus and there wasn't any of the Tech-Bro culture. This was Apple, and this was Unix. And between the two of those, if you knew what you were doing, you were a member of the team, and that's all that mattered.

books.by/john-buck #apple #unix
hellojohnbuck.bsky.social
Rod Perkins recalls ATG in '87

"We laid out what users would want from ‘Spider’, adding live audio capability gave rise to voice calls between Macs, like what we have now with Teams and FaceTime, and we saw the need to leave a Voice Message if the respondent was busy or away."

books.by/john-buck
Inventing the Future John Buck
hellojohnbuck.bsky.social
Chris Crawford, pioneer game designer:

"With the benefit of hindsight it's easy to see the Apple II's success but that wasn't clear in 79. Computer junkies bought the less expensive TRS-80 and PET. The II's color display advantage was shattered by the Atari 800's debut"

books.by/john-buck
Inventing the Future John Buck
hellojohnbuck.bsky.social
SuperMac’s Steve Edelman recalls Apple in 87:

That Steve (Jobs) was in exile and not able to resist or even kill an expandable platform was crucial. It allowed the development of products allowing functionality over costs, coming from individuals, inside the company and outside.

books.by/john-buck
Inventing the Future John Buck
hellojohnbuck.bsky.social
Should chyron read ‘assassination’ rather than shooting? @msnbc.com @nicollewallace.bsky.social #deadlinewhitehouse
hellojohnbuck.bsky.social
Rumor is Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig have a new book in the works. “Sharpest Bulb aka Trump 2” 😵‍💫 @carolleonnig.bsky.social
hellojohnbuck.bsky.social
If the Mac was to get millions of colors, it meant someone had to turn Atkinson's QuickDraw into Color QuickDraw. @geprgec.bsky.social recalls: "Steve Jobs told me I must consult Bill Atkinson on any changes I had planned for QuickDraw. Steve held Bill in extremely high regard."

Vale Bill Atkinson
hellojohnbuck.bsky.social
HyperCard was ahead of its time.
“I grew up in a box-centric culture at Apple. If I'd grown up in a network-centric culture, like Sun, HyperCard might have been the first Web browser. I thought everyone being connected was a pipe dream. Boy was I wrong."

Vale Bill Atkinson
@karaswisher.bsky.social
hellojohnbuck.bsky.social
Australian? Austrian? close enough, not. ffs Times @karaswisher.bsky.social @nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Clint Eastwood accused an Australian publication of running a fake interview with him. The quotes, though real, were pulled from several past interviews — not a single conversation.
Did that Clint Eastwood Interview Happen? Yes, Kind of.
Eastwood, 95, accused a small Austrian publication of running a “phony” Q. and A. with him. It turns out the quotes were aggregated from previous interviews.
trib.al