Enlarge / Moolenaar in 2007. (credit: Sebastian Bergmann via Creative Commons )

Computing as we know it today was built in no small part by individuals who have written open source software—often for little to no personal financial gain—as well as by developers who use those tools. Few tools like that are as legendary and impactful as the Vim open source code editor, the first version of which was written and released by Dutch engineer Bram Moolenaar in 1991.

According to a note published by his family to Google Groups this week, Moolenaar passed away on August 3 at the age of 62. The post did not share his cause of death, stating only that he had been suffering from a medical condition for a few weeks. They wrote :

It is with a heavy heart that we have to inform you that Bram Moolenaar passed away on 3 August 2023.
Bram was suffering from a medical condition that progressed quickly over the last few weeks.

Bram dedicated a large part of his life to VIM and he was very proud of the VIM community that you are all part of.

The note goes on to say that they are arranging a Dutch-language funeral service in the Netherlands for Moolenaar, but that a date has not yet been set.

Enlarge / Now he's a law! "I'm Just a Bill" is one of the most popular and best-known animated shorts featured in Schoolhouse Rock! (credit: Kari Rene Hall/Getty Images)

Ars readers of a certain age grew up in the 1970s and 1980s watching Saturday morning cartoons and singing along to Schoolhouse Rock! , a series of whimsical animated shorts setting the multiplication tables, grammar, American history, and science to music. We were saddened to learn that George Newall, the last surviving member of the original team that produced this hugely influential series, has died at 88. The cause of death was cardiopulmonary arrest, according to The New York Times. The series turns 50 (!) next year.

Newall was a creative director at McCaffrey and McCall advertising agency in the early 1970s. One day, agency President David McCall bemoaned the fact that his young sons couldn't multiply, yet somehow they remembered all the lyrics to hit songs by the Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix. He asked Newall if it was possible to set the multiplication tables to music. Newall happened to know a musician named Ben Tucker who played bass at a venue Newall frequented and mentioned the challenge to him. Tucker said his friend Bob Dorough could "put anything to music"—in fact, he'd once written a song about the mattress tag admonishing new owners not to remove it under penalty of law.

Two weeks later, Dorough presented Newall with " Three is a Magic Number ," the song featured in the pilot episode of Schoolhouse Rock! Everyone at the agency loved the tune, including art director and cartoonist Tom Yohe, who made a few doodles to accompany the song. That one song—meant to be part of an educational record album—turned into a series of short three-minute videos. (Today we'd just put them on YouTube, and you can indeed find most of the classic fan favorites there.) They pitched the series to ABC's director of children's programming, Michael Eisner (future Disney chairman and CEO). Warner Bros. animator Chuck Jones was also in the meeting and was so impressed he advised Eisner to buy the series in the room.

Nichelle Nichols made TV history with her portrayal of Nyota Uhura in Star Trek: the Original Series . (credit: CBS)

Actress Nichelle Nichols—who made history with her portrayal of Nyota Uhura on Star Trek: The Original Series —died Saturday, July 30, at the age of 89. Her son Kyle Johnson announced Nichols' passing on her official Instagram account, saying his mother had died of natural causes. Deadline Hollywood confirmed her passing with Gilbert Bell, her talent manager and business partner of 15 years. Nichols suffered a mild stroke in 2015 and was diagnosed with dementia in 2018. She rarely appeared in public after that.

(Last year we wrote about Woman in Motion , a new documentary about Nichols and her recruitment work for NASA, directed by Todd Thompson (streaming on Paramount+). Much of the following is adapted from that text.)

Nichols started her career as a dancer and singer. She had wanted to become the first Black ballerina, and by age 14 landed her first gig at the Sherman Hotel in Chicago. She subsequently toured the US, Canada, and Europe with Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton before settling in Los Angeles in 1960 to pursue acting.