Posted by
CmdrTaco
on from the something-to-see dept.
GlenLow writes "It's amazing what some Apple Design Award winners do in the name of science. This one subjected his to a cone beam CT scan and revealed Apple's design sense extends even to a competition trophy. What's with Mr. Jobs and the cubes, cubes, cubes anyway?"
Great story write-up. Just superlative. Let's re-write and make it clear:
"A group of students won the Apple [Computer] Design Award in June for a program called 4Peaks. For winning the award, they received a 'trophy,' which is a metal cube with an Apple logo on top. When you touch the cube, it glows. Curious as to how this works, the students decided to take their 'trophy' cube into a CT scanner and have it scanned to see what was inside. The linked pictures (in the Slashdot writeup) are what the inside of the cube looks like. Neat looking."
I had trouble really knowing what it was about, then i went to the site and it further put me off, just glancing at it I thought it was talking about the G4 Cube. Your re-write helped and the whole thing is still uninteresting anyway... only because I don't have the aforementioned trophy cube in my possesion anyway!
If I were a HR manager at Apple, I seriously would consider offering these guys a job. They obviously know what they're doing... their 'CT scanning' approach just might turn out to be the most creative job application ever.
If I were an HR manager at Apple, I would never EVER consider offering these guys a job. I'd want them exactly where they are, trying to figure out the secret of life, and working with people who are trying to cure cancer.
So hang on... it's powered bu over-the-counter AA batteries as opposed to some proprietary (although very well designed) Apple battery? I don't believe it!
-- How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
Re:Clarity
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1
Really? These guys were relived that the CT scan revealed that the cube was powered by AA batteries, and that should the betteries run out, all they needed to do was unscrew the bottom and replace them.
Why didn't they unscrew the bottom in the first place? The CT scan business seems like a big waste of time and resources.
I too dont understant whats so great about the design of the trophy. Its a metal cube with a glowing apple logo. And the "cool design" is that they use aa batteries, a circuit board, 2 LEDs and some light-guide. WOW.
I guess this guys could witness even greater design greatness if they would put a toaster or a discman in a ct-scanner...
If that is the criteria for something that is cool and speaking from a design standpoint, aesthetically pleasing. Then my Lacie external firewire drive is a virtue of design paradigms as well. It also has 6 sides, grey and a blue light that lights up when in contact with the human finger and it also whispers at me as well.
Yes, but whats so pleasing about the interior? I agree that the cube looks cool (i like shiny heavy things), but i cant really agree to the enthusiasm about the interior design. Its just normal tec. nothing noteworthy. And especially not ct-scan worthy...
Hmm. Not sure why it'd be going slow, the load average isn't even 1 and I'm only pumping out about 3-400kb/s.
Offtopic?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I think the "Borg" in the parent post is in response to the "What's with Mr. Jobs and the Cubes, cubes, cubes", so the above post doesn't really seem any more off-topic than the original post was.
Re:Offtopic?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
"You" must be the parent poster then, Marx_Mrvelous (Slashdot ID #532372) ? Tried kharma-whoring by posting some shitty one-word comment to get a quick "+5 funny" ? Now that'll teach you, dumbass.
Re:Offtopic?
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Don't take it personally Marx_Mrvelous (Slashdot ID #532372), AC is just bitchy because the first post said he was gay...
Actually that's not me:) I don't care about karma, obviously, but you certainly seem to.
Also I never post anonymous... too cowardly.
--
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
What's with Mr. Jobs and the cubes ?
by
C0vardeAn0nim0
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· Score: 3, Interesting
the cube is a primitive 3D geometrical construct. in other other words: it's simple. and for what i know of steve, that's what he wants from his machines: to be as simple as possible for the end user, thus the cube shape.
-- What ? Me, worry ?
Re:What's with Mr. Jobs and the cubes ?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1, Funny
Re:What's with Mr. Jobs and the cubes ?
by
Stinking+Pig
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· Score: 3, Funny
wake me up when there's a Klein bottle mac: http://www.kleinbottle.com/
-- "Nothing was broken, and it's been fixed." -- Jon Carroll
Re:What's with Mr. Jobs and the cubes ?
by
BeerCat
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· Score: 1
Now that would be a case mod worth having!
While many seem to be yet another variation on "neon lights in clear case", a klein bottle would solve all the problems - dust can't get "in" to something that has no "in" (or is it that the "in" is also on the outside?)
My brain is starting to hurt...
-- "She's furniture with a pulse"
Re:What's with Mr. Jobs and the cubes ?
by
Aldurn
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· Score: 1
So, does that mean that we can expect Teapot-Shaped Macs in the future?
-- char sig[120] = "\0"
Re:What's with Mr. Jobs and the cubes ?
by
burns210
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· Score: 1
Not with the anti-gravity hover plates that come stock with the quad-processor model!
Forgive me, I couldn't resist.
Re:What's with Mr. Jobs and the cubes ?
by
rxmd
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· Score: 2, Funny
wake me up when there's a Klein bottle mac
Intel inside!?
-- As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
Re:What's with Mr. Jobs and the cubes ?
by
Walt+Dismal
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· Score: 2, Informative
The infamous Apple G4.5, in the shape of a football, was pulled off the market after numerous high school jocks mistook it for a sports object and put the hard drive through the goalpost. Sadly, the data did not survive.
Re:What's with Mr. Jobs and the cubes ?
by
Mad+Leper
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· Score: 1
or... Intel outside ??
Re:What's with Mr. Jobs and the cubes ?
by
drauh
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· Score: 1
Obviously Eh Steve Jobs is jealous of the Slashdot Borg icon that Bill gets. He wants to be Eh Steve of Borg* too, and hence has a subconcious cube fetish.
* Note that all of his borg cubes would have incredibly slick industrial plastic colors instead of that ugly guts-showing Bill O-the-Borg look.
-- AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Notice that The Cheat uses a Mac to create is wondrous animations.
For those unfortunate souls who were unaware of "Eh Steve," you should spend the rest of this day watching every H*R cartoon on that site.
Great, now when the Borg invade they'll know, from reading slashdot, that the first thing they need is an image redesign. And what'll they do? Assimilate Steve Jobs*!
You've doomed us all!
* "Steve Jobs" includes all of the unmentioned graphic designers at his beck and call**
** No cynicism intended***
*** Really
-- Adam
Maybe Slashdot was wrong about the Borg
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
...since it isn't Bill Gates who's fascinated by cubes.
Site getting slashdotted
by
balster+neb
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· Score: 4, Informative
Reminds me a bit of the Shakers
by
FearUncertaintyDoubt
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· Score: 5, Interesting
He had a remark in the article about how the design beauty extends to even the inner parts of the cube which are not seen. That reminds me of the Shakers, who would labor to make even the unseen parts of their furniture or other crafts as well-constructed as the visible ones.
Another example it makes me think of is when I was watching the documentaries on the extended LOTR discs. The level of detail they would go to for things that were only on-screen for a moment, or in the background, was incredible. They could have skimped on any one thing and it would have not been noticeable. But taken together, they give the film a feel of authenticity.
I guess the thing that runs through all of these is that quality is about what's inside as well as what's outside. Too bad most software projects don't follow that rule.
Re:Reminds me a bit of the Shakers
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
The level of detail they would go to for things that were only on-screen for a moment, or in the background, was incredible.
Reminds me of one of my favorite MST3k's. Marduke the under muscled Conan clone completes his primitive extruded aluminim and animal skin hang glider and goes flying over the countryside where cars can be seen driving on the roads beneath him. This of course came after a pillaged villager was seen sporting dark shades shorly before being clubbed to death.
Damn, that was a fun show...
Re:Reminds me a bit of the Shakers
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
LOTR . . . But taken together, they give the film a feel of authenticity.
Too bad the film(s) didn't have any feel of authenticity. They completely raped the content of the books, thanks to the massive cut-offs of the background history, the shortcuts taken in the story line, the characters that looked like B-rate rock stars instead of the solemn heroes in the books.
Don't get me wrong. The films were *great* in themselves, especially the scenery and the huge battles -- but "authentic" is about the most wrong way to describe them. Have you read the books?:-)
Re:Reminds me a bit of the Shakers
by
Shky
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Can you begin to imagine how terribly crappy a direct translation from book-to-screen would be? I've read the books a few times, and they're great. I've watched the movies more times than I can count too. I love them both in their own mediums.
thanks to the massive cut-offs of the background history
I'm a huge fan of the books, but I would have walked out if they'd kept in all the little bits of history that were in the books. On-screen that stuff can get way too boring way too fast.
the shortcuts taken in the story line
Remember that not everyone has read the books, so most people wouldn't even care if Frodo was supposed to have the ring for a long time before he left the Shire. And most of the people who have read the books just don't care that they worked around that, because in the long run, it doesn't matter. Also, in the interest of keeping the movies under 10 hours, they can't show every little bit of exposition that's in the books. It's just not practical.
the characters that looked like B-rate rock stars
I don't even understand what you're talking about here. Ian McKellen doesn't strike me as a man that's gonna throw up the devil horns and then break into a guitar solo, but I guess that's just me.
but "authentic" is about the most wrong way to describe them
Authentic is exactly how they should be described, because that's a very authentic LOTR movie. Again, a direct book-to-screen translation would suck, like, hardcore.
-- CC Licensed Serialized Story and Podcast: Ingenioustries
Yes, I have read the books a number of times, and I think "authentic" is just fine, because it has nothing to do with the faithfulness to the books. There were a lot of things I didn't like about the choices in translating the books to film, but the movies looked really made you believe this world existed. There was a weight and depth of reality to them. Compare this to any number of TV fantasy shows which look very artificial (MAD TV's "Prehistoric Glamazon Huntress A.D." does a great job of spoofing them). I use the word authentic to describe this very quality, and I don't see any need to involve whether it followed the book at all in that description. That is a separate subject, essentially, on an independent axis. They could have been extremely faithful to the book, but with costumes, art and scenery that looked fake.
It's Cubes because if it was 1 x 4 x 9 slabs...
by
vkg
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· Score: 4, Funny
everybody would know that Jobs was here from Another Dimension to accelerate human evolution.
I wonder how long before Steve gets shipped to India with all the other jobs...
because it's HIP to be SQUARE!
by
m33p
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· Score: 3, Funny
doncha know!
Re:because it's HIP to be SQUARE!
by
bedouin
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· Score: 2, Funny
In '87, Huey released this..."Fore," their most accomplished album. I think their undisputed masterpiece is "Hip To Be Square." The song's so catchy, most people probably don't listen to the lyrics. But they should, because it's not just about the pleasures of conformity and the importance of trends. It's also a personal statement about the band itself.
Re:because it's HIP to be SQUARE!
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daemon_mf
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· Score: 1
You just keep telling yourself that, Huey...
"What's with Mr. Jobs and the cubes, cubes, cubes
by
dTaylorSingletary
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· Score: 1
stereotypes
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 4, Funny
I just have to point out that I've met plenty of perfectly straight women that use Macs.
Why not rechargeable batteries?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
That'd been even more greater feat of engineering. Ground the bottom plate, give over 6 Volts to the shell, and the electronics take care of the rest.
That way you wouldn't even need to open the shell for a battery change, and the trophy seemed big enough to accommodate the extra components.
Apple is a true innovator
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 3, Insightful
And I've never said otherwise. They mix outstanding engineering with common, everyday bailing wire and duct tape.
Highly functional. Well engineered.
I only have a problem with the cost of it. Sure, when you buy a MAC, you're supporting all of their other remarkable ventures. But at the end of the day, I'm a gamer and I want to play games. More games are ported to MAC, rather than ported from MAC.
Apple has been, and continues to be, an excellent engineering company. I would rather take half of Microsoft's cash, and hand it right over to Apple.
But I'm sure as hell not giving up my Opterons...
Re:Apple is a true innovator
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1, Informative
Okay, I understand the gaming thing.
But a couple of things:
It's "Mac" - ease off the capslock key...
And if you can take half of Microsoft's cash, remember to keep enough to buy a nice Mac before giving it to anybody. Preferably... me.
And if you're using multiple Opterons for... gaming... then maybe you can afford to have less of a problem with the cost of a Mac.
Re:Apple is a true innovator
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BeerCat
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· Score: 1
Re:CT Scanning is science, not diddling images..
by
JVert
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· Score: 1
morons, any ATHF refference diffuses any tension. Just so you know, if you dont get modded back up its because they are afraid of the meta moderators who can't see the sig.
The funny thing is that the touch switches in the first link in your google search aren't at all similar to the way the Apple Cube switch works.
-- Hurricane Ivan: A 17th century prison collapsed. All of the inmates escaped.
Problem on electrical function.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1, Interesting
If the cube worked as described, then sneakers or a plastic table would defeat the circuit " loop closed by the earth."
Far more likely is that it uses a capacitive oscillator that looks for a change in frequency. The touch of a conductive material ( hand ) serves to increase the capacitance and thus usually drop the frequency relative to a control frequency. Note that voltage and current are both very low for this application; probably a few mV and nA or uA not things that a cheep meeter would be able to detect.
On the other hand, if it does not require touch but just a close proximity movement, then it may be radar based.
Any thoughts; I can't get to the info/pics necessary to do anything beyond theorizing
Re:Problem on electrical function.
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Ok, just got the pics to load.
So, while there is a wire to the base plate, it looks like the screws go though the plastic to the main body; are the screws isulated, top or bottom? If not, then it should have been easier to just have a pad on the circuit board around a mounting screw?
#1
I don't know how to feel.
by
teamhasnoi
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· Score: 5, Funny
Should I be disgusted that some geeks were scared to take something apart because "they might break it", or should I be filled with pride that they used a multi-million dollar piece of equipment rather than a screwdriver to look at the internals?
I don't know. I guess I'll ask the guys who are giving my car a colonoscopy to look at the sparkplugs.
Re:I don't know how to feel.
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I think it should the latter. Why do you have to take things apart if you can use very hi-tech, state of the art equiptment to do the job? It gets the job done, plus there is no risk scratching the cube with a screwdriver. Bring a true geek doesn't exempt you from vanity, you know?:)
Re:CT Scanning is science, not diddling images..
by
Karma+Farmer
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· Score: 3, Funny
If you want to make a horrible movie of your shitty band and send a DVD to grandma, you know which platform to use. Obviously if you need to do REAL work, you pick up the other one.
Hey! Some of us poor saps are forced to use a PC for "real work" too, as much as we wish our jobs let us use a Mac.
Not all PCs are owned by mindless Kazaa who click on every attachment they recieve, fill the drives with spyware, share fake naked photos of britney spears, and spam our grandmothers with trojan infested email.
What's with Mr. Jobs and the cubes ?-Pyramid.
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
An Apple "pyramid" wouldn't roll off the desk.
All the sick people out there...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Vivek Mehra and Mark Orr , two of the co-founders of Cobalt Networks were ex-Apple , and the cube thing re-appeared with the Cobalt Qube in the late 90s:
If you don't know what you're doing...
by
jeko
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· Score: 4, Insightful
... go learn what you're doing before you irrevocably break something. Especially on something that's non-disposable.
Not just plunging in and trying to crack the thing open isn't cowardice on their part. It's wisdom. And using a non-invasive tool to get the job done is the sign of a working brain.
-- He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
You forgot one "cubes" link
by
Guy+Harris
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· Score: 1
Or maybe that's two "cubes" links - one for the OS X Setup Assistant (if you can find a link for that), which, at least on machines with enough graphics horsepower, uses a rotating cube effect, and Keynote, where a rotating cube is at least one of the transition effects you can use.
Re:You forgot one "cubes" link
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splateagle
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· Score: 1
a 6th cube (appropriately enough) can be found in iPhoto 4 - that same cube effect is one of the slideshow transitions:)
Re:You forgot one "cubes" link
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Nermal6693
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· Score: 1
I would have just taken the screws out of the bottom to look inside. Why go to all the trouble to scan it. It's not like it was wired to explode or anything.
I will admit the the pictures are pretty cool looking.
Slashdot Mirror
Borg!
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
Part of the hardware used to do this was a... hang on... Pentium 4 2.4Ghz PC Workstation. Lol
Maybe that guy did the scan that saved Job's life. Thats probally how he really won.
My UID is prime is yours?
Jobs likes Calandans.
Great story write-up. Just superlative. Let's re-write and make it clear:
"A group of students won the Apple [Computer] Design Award in June for a program called 4Peaks. For winning the award, they received a 'trophy,' which is a metal cube with an Apple logo on top. When you touch the cube, it glows. Curious as to how this works, the students decided to take their 'trophy' cube into a CT scanner and have it scanned to see what was inside. The linked pictures (in the Slashdot writeup) are what the inside of the cube looks like. Neat looking."
Whew...that wasn't so hard, was it?
The site seems to be a bit under the weather, so I've mirrored the content and put it here:. com/goodies/cubism/
http://mirror.reading.is-a-geek.com/www.mekentosj
I think the "Borg" in the parent post is in response to the "What's with Mr. Jobs and the Cubes, cubes, cubes", so the above post doesn't really seem any more off-topic than the original post was.
the cube is a primitive 3D geometrical construct. in other other words: it's simple. and for what i know of steve, that's what he wants from his machines: to be as simple as possible for the end user, thus the cube shape.
What ? Me, worry ?
It's been reverse engineered! Here come the lawsuit! :)
Obviously Eh Steve Jobs is jealous of the Slashdot Borg icon that Bill gets. He wants to be Eh Steve of Borg* too, and hence has a subconcious cube fetish.
* Note that all of his borg cubes would have incredibly slick industrial plastic colors instead of that ugly guts-showing Bill O-the-Borg look.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
...since it isn't Bill Gates who's fascinated by cubes.
Here's the mirrordot mirror:a 90885a6bb255d38/index.html
http://www.mirrordot.org/stories/1175a21b287ffa85
Another example it makes me think of is when I was watching the documentaries on the extended LOTR discs. The level of detail they would go to for things that were only on-screen for a moment, or in the background, was incredible. They could have skimped on any one thing and it would have not been noticeable. But taken together, they give the film a feel of authenticity.
I guess the thing that runs through all of these is that quality is about what's inside as well as what's outside. Too bad most software projects don't follow that rule.
everybody would know that Jobs was here from Another Dimension to accelerate human evolution.
Duh!
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
The above mirror is going slow as aswell.
So use mirrordot or coral's mirror
http://www.mekentosj.com.nyud.net:8090/goodies/cub ism/index.html
AC cause I'm no whore.
I wonder how long before Steve gets shipped to India with all the other jobs...
doncha know!
Ever read From Satori to Silicon Valley?
It's the acid. Left an imprint in his brain.
d. Taylor Singletary,
reality technician techra.el
"What's with Mr. Jobs and the cubes, cubes, cubes anyway?"
He's just jealous of Ballmer's "Developers, Developers, Developers"?
I just have to point out that I've met plenty of perfectly straight women that use Macs.
That'd been even more greater feat of engineering. Ground the bottom plate, give over 6 Volts to the shell, and the electronics take care of the rest.
That way you wouldn't even need to open the shell for a battery change, and the trophy seemed big enough to accommodate the extra components.
And I've never said otherwise. They mix outstanding engineering with common, everyday bailing wire and duct tape.
Highly functional. Well engineered.
I only have a problem with the cost of it. Sure, when you buy a MAC, you're supporting all of their other remarkable ventures. But at the end of the day, I'm a gamer and I want to play games. More games are ported to MAC, rather than ported from MAC.
Apple has been, and continues to be, an excellent engineering company. I would rather take half of Microsoft's cash, and hand it right over to Apple.
But I'm sure as hell not giving up my Opterons...
why the hell do this makes me thing of borg cubes?
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
morons, any ATHF refference diffuses any tension. Just so you know, if you dont get modded back up its because they are afraid of the meta moderators who can't see the sig.
... for a simple answer: Some sort of touch switch, maybe?
If the cube worked as described, then sneakers or a plastic table would defeat the circuit " loop closed by the earth ."
Far more likely is that it uses a capacitive oscillator that looks for a change in frequency. The touch of a conductive material ( hand ) serves to increase the capacitance and thus usually drop the frequency relative to a control frequency. Note that voltage and current are both very low for this application; probably a few mV and nA or uA not things that a cheep meeter would be able to detect.
On the other hand, if it does not require touch but just a close proximity movement, then it may be radar based.
Any thoughts; I can't get to the info/pics necessary to do anything beyond theorizing
I don't know. I guess I'll ask the guys who are giving my car a colonoscopy to look at the sparkplugs.
If you want to make a horrible movie of your shitty band and send a DVD to grandma, you know which platform to use. Obviously if you need to do REAL work, you pick up the other one.
Hey! Some of us poor saps are forced to use a PC for "real work" too, as much as we wish our jobs let us use a Mac.
Not all PCs are owned by mindless Kazaa who click on every attachment they recieve, fill the drives with spyware, share fake naked photos of britney spears, and spam our grandmothers with trojan infested email.
An Apple "pyramid" wouldn't roll off the desk.
Selfish fucking sicophants.
His obsession for cubes is obviously inappropriate. Everyone knows that geeks prefer flat things.
So the victim of this slashdotting has replaced his page with links to a mirror at is-a-geek.com and the Coral Cache.
Guess what's in the Coral Cache now?
You have violated Robot's Rules of Order and will be asked to leave the future immediately.
Was it just me or was anybody else creeped out by the way this guy sounded like he was about to blow his load over the inner beauty of this cube?
but does it moo when you turn it upside down?
It's now in iMacs and the new displays. Looks like Steve basically took what they did in NeXT and moved it into Apple, piece by piece.
Vivek Mehra and Mark Orr , two of the co-founders of Cobalt Networks were ex-Apple , and the cube thing re-appeared with the Cobalt Qube in the late 90s:
Cobalt Qube and Cobalt history
Not just plunging in and trying to crack the thing open isn't cowardice on their part. It's wisdom. And using a non-invasive tool to get the job done is the sign of a working brain.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
So is projection.
"OH SHIT, THERE'S A HORSE IN THE HOSPITAL!"
Or maybe that's two "cubes" links - one for the OS X Setup Assistant (if you can find a link for that), which, at least on machines with enough graphics horsepower, uses a rotating cube effect, and Keynote, where a rotating cube is at least one of the transition effects you can use.
Ever heard of the Pixar Image Computer
http://www.specktech.com/PixarZoom.html
I would have just taken the screws out of the bottom to look inside. Why go to all the trouble to scan it. It's not like it was wired to explode or anything. I will admit the the pictures are pretty cool looking.
||| technological transcendentalist |||
Steve is all about the Time Cube!http://www.timecube.com/
There are a couple of different techniques there.
You mean those pictures of Britney aren't real? Damn...