Turns out the white iPhone design dates back even earlier.
Here’s a frame of the 1987 film RoboCop, approximately 30 minutes in to the film.
It’s described as a handheld mapping device. While it may not look much like an iPhone at first glance, notice the dimensions and how it’s held with a portrait orientation.
But there’s more to it than that. Much more:
In the above frame, approximately 1:08 into the film, we see Dick Jones (played by Ronny Cox) holding a different version of the RoboCop tracking device.
Immediately after, we see a POV shot of this second model:
Notice anything iPhone-like about this?
No, not the crappy iOS 6 maps. I meant the rectangular portrait shape and rounded corners.
Thankfully, Apple’s patent on physical shapes was invalidated, ensuring the future of Omni Consumer Product’s line of cyborg police officers won’t involve patent infringement.
Until now, the process for solving technical problems involved Googling around for advice on forum posts and help pages.
The advice is always the same, isn’t it?
Follow an obscure sequence of commands.
Now try again.
If there’s comments on the page, at least a dozen will have conflicting reports about the outcome of these steps.
If it doesn’t work, go back to Google and look around some more.
Of course the tech geeks could be messing with you. By following the advice your TV won’t turn off and your wedding photos are permanently deleted. Who knows.
Fortunately there’s now a better way to solve basic technical problems; devices that STFU when you smack them. Microsoft has invented the first phone you can physically abuse when you need it to just shut up for a minute so you can think for once, goddamn it.
I’d suspect that if this feature seems intuitive, you shouldn’t have kids. But then again people have been smacking their TVs for decades so the gesture is already in our collective consciousness. And who wouldn’t want a TV that stops breaking when you hit it?
Besides, not all emotionally responsive technology needs to involve violence. How about a flashlight that turns up the brightness when you’re shaking in terror? Or cars that soothe anxious drivers with relaxing music to prevent road rage? Or a bathroom scale that subtracts some weight if the user is crying?
There’s all kinds of ways our gadgets could be made fixable that don’t involve following the advice of strangers online. Get with it, tech companies.
And let me know when you have a computer that works better when I start cursing under my breath and slamming on the keyboard. I’ll be first in line to buy it.
If you follow tech news at all, you know that Apple is replacing their large iPod connector with a new smaller connector for the iPhone 5 called “Lightning.”
Most folks who follow Apple would assume that the name Lightning is a reference to Apple’s new Mac connector port called “Thunderbolt.” But is it?
The above screenshot is from the 1999 film Fight Club, which depicts the Apple logo in a store window next to the word “Lightning.” Coincidence? Sure, it probably is. But still, it’s odd to see the connection in a thirteen year old film.
To me, truck nuts always seemed both unnecessarily vulgar and not vulgar enough — it’s a vile gesture to give your vehicle balls, and yet testicles without a penis is clearly an anatomical abnormality.
So I was delighted to see a local’s take on the “truck nuts” fad that dispenses with the vulgar aspect altogether, replacing it with clever wordplay. Alternately, one could argue that hex nuts are more anatomically correct on a metal vehicle. Either way.
As my co-worker (who pointed these nuts out to me) said: “Truck nuts; you’re doing it right.”
Oh these heavenly late-summer days, when the ATX tree’s tender blossoms mature into beautiful power fruit. Children climb the branches, looking for the ripest one they can find for their gaming PCs.
On a lucky day in early September, a lucky child could even find a 750 watt ATX power supply. But alas, many fruits, such as the one pictured above, will not even have SATA power connectors. Such is the way of mother nature.
Oh and speaking of Star Trek: TNG, here’s something you might not have noticed from Season 6 episode “The Chase” when it first aired in 1993. I want to stress that the following image is not photoshopped or altered in any way:
Through a modern lens it’s hard not to look back and see anything but a white iPhone 4/4S model in Data’s hand. The rounded corners, the size, the color, the metal edges, and the way he’s using the device all seem indicative of an iPhone.
I hope he has a good Data plan!
…sorry, couldn’t help myself.
Of course it wasn’t really an iPhone, and we only see a few shots of the device, always partially obscured by the hands of actor Brent Spiner. But if we’re willing to look at the episode with the benefit of hindsight it leads to some intriguing questions:
Could this count as “prior art” in the Apple vs. Samsung case?
Did Apple’s designers get inspiration from this episode, consciously or subconsciously?
Is cell phone service better in the mid 2300’s?
We could also ponder which alien races use which mobile operating systems (the Vulcans clearly run Android and the Klingons must run some frustrating shit like Symbian) but let’s not go there. I don’t want to start an intergalactic flame war.
UPDATE: It also appears they have iPads. Here’s Picard with one, with a speech bubble for illustrative purposes.
Q
Good morning, darling.
Picard jerks back in shock. Q smiles as Picard grabs
his uniform and begins to dress.
Q
A little jumpy this morning, are
we? Feeling guilty perhaps?
PICARD
I don't have anything to feel
guilty about, Q.
Q
No?
(mocking)
"We were friends, Q. Nothing
more."
PICARD
You're the one who gave me the
opportunity to change things...
Q
So what happens next?
Picard thinks for a beat.
PICARD
I don't know. But I do know that
things will be different.
Q looks at him for a beat.
Q
I'm sure.
What’s important to understand here is the context of the scene. It’s implied that Picard just had sex with Marta, a female friend he’d fallen out of touch with years ago.
Or did they really have sex? It’s not clear any of what’s happening here is entirely real.
The backstory is that Picard died, and while on the operating table he wakes up in an all-white room. Who should be standing there but Q, an annoying man who has god-like powers but spends his time tormenting people.
Q gives Picard a choice: stay here and you’ll probably die, or I’ll take you back in time so that you can change the past to avoid death.
Picard’s choice is obvious, despite the fact that he doesn’t believe anything Q has to say; after finding Q standing over him in the afterlife, Picard quips that Q can’t be here because “The universe is not that badly designed.”
In spite of his initial misgivings Picard relives his past and makes new choices to allegedly prevent his death. One of those choices is having a relationship with Marta.
But is Picard’s initial instinct correct? Is Q messing with him?
[1] Q insists to Picard that what we’re seeing is the actual past, instead of a construct […] [2] [T]he easiest being that nothing that happens here is really “real” at all, that all of it is created by Q to teach Picard to accept that the man he was is responsible for the man he is, [3] or else it’s just Picard having a death-bed hallucination.
Handlen finds the second option most likely. While the setup is reminiscent of the Dickens classic “A Christmas Carol,” throwing Q into the mix complicates the scenario. I agree with Handlen’s reasoning — rather than pure Dickens-style fantasy, this seems to be all Q’s doing. It’s entirely in character for Q to mess with Picard’s mind by creating meaningless choices like this, and the episode seems to bear this theory out.
So if Picard had a sexual encounter in Q’s recreation of the past then who did Picard have sex with? Marta couldn’t have been there, so did he have sex with some kind of recreation of her? Or did Picard essentially have sex with Q?
Now look, I’m not saying Picard is gay. And as far as I can tell Q is asexual (though he gets off on tormenting people.) But that doesn’t mean Q can’t summon sex partners from his own mind. Presumably Q would have to animate the people he creates in some way. In the context of Q replacing his facsimile of Marta with himself when Picard woke up, Q’s dialog (as above) seems intentionally flirtatious. The question is then of whether Q was the one behind Marta’s mask or whether it was Picard’s vision of her that brought her to life.
If we go with the theory that Picard fell into Q’s trap, then what does that say about Q’s actions? Did Q rape Picard physically (rather than mentally) this time? Or by finally buying into Q’s world, did Picard effectively submit to Q’s advances?
As with any fiction the story’s questions are ultimately up to the audience. A show like TNG gives the audience plenty of questions, but few seem so directly targeted at those writing slash fiction.
On Sunday, the entire city heard the warning system (“air raid” siren”) that’s normally tested on Tuesdays at noon. Apparently this was due to human error.
Which is fine, really. People make mistakes.
What is NOT fine was what they did next: nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Instead of using the AlertSF system to notify people that the alarm was a mistake, they sat on their asses and fielded calls from (rightfully) confused residents, who were in fact told specifically NOT to call — we’ll get to that in a moment.
It doesn’t help that the voice message played after the alarm is muddled and incomprehensible. If it was audible we would have heard the “This is just a test” message to let us know everything was cool. But we didn’t.
The city’s official page for the outdoor warning system helpfully explains what to do in this situation.
If you hear the siren at a time other than its regular test on Tuesday at noon:
Stop what you are doing.
Stay calm.
Listen for possible voice announcements.
Turn on the radio or television, (such as KCBS 740AM, KQED 88.5 FM) for important information provided by the City.
Avoid using the telephone. Do not call 9-1-1, unless you have a life-threatening emergency.
In other words, listen to a voice you can’t hear or turn on a radio or TV in a town where everybody has Hulu Plus and iPods. Hmm, yeah about that. The last bullet point is particularly troubling since apparently the city got quite a few calls, meaning many folks didn’t follow these rules and/or were not aware of them.
Here’s my advice to the city in the future:
Stop using the alarm to indicate things that aren’t related to emergencies. Haven’t you ever heard of the boy who cried wolf?
When the alarm is set off by mistake, immediately post a message to AlertSF letting us know it was a mistake.
Turn the voice message on the alarm off, since an alarm followed by a muffled message is more confusing that just an alarm.
Come up with a more realistic set of guidelines for what to do when the alarm goes off that don’t involve antiquated technology like radio. Then take the time to publicize this list so people don’t flood the phone lines with questions.
Train the employees responsible for the alarm so they know how to use it.
Seem reasonable? If the city can’t be trusted to use the alarm in a sensible way, we need to scrap it.
I noticed this sad handwritten letter stuck to the side of a building on Clarion Alley the other day. It reads:
My friend died last night. He was stabbed twice in the heart. He was dead before the abulence (sic) arrived. His name was Sol. He had an interview for admission to an art school today. he was talented. he was nice. He was selfless. he was tortured. He was loved. He loved. He had many friends. He is missed.
