Apple's new 'spaceship' HQ brings the pane for unobservant workers Apple's $5bn Norman Foster-designed "spaceship" HQ isn't finished yet, but it's already taking out puny humans. Three calls reporting 911 medical emergencies were made about building-battered employees. The San Francisco Chronicle put in a FoI request to Santa Clara County and obtained the chilling details. One employee was …
Well, they could be simply treating the building like a modern UI/UX. Remember many modern UI conventions are to have totally flat interfaces with no real indication of what is a clickable icon/link etc. - the designers assume (and expect) users will simply click/touch everywhere until something happens - I think they call it "exploring" or "discovery", because having clearly defined buttons and menus that were readily understandable was so yesterday....
I was really confused one day to see a sign on a new glass fronting saying "GLASS AWAITING MANIFESTATION". Was elvis coming back? Is this some new, presently immaterial glass?
No, they were waiting for a professional to come by with some masking tape to do some frosting stripes. Very disappointing.
People did try sticking post it notes and so on - they were removed by the management for 'detracting from the building design'. So much like their products appearance is more important than function.
I'm glad I dont work there - I'd be unconscious before first coffee break.
I think I understand why Apple started their wellness program for employees. Maybe they could have a doctor stand in front of the glass to warn people about to walk into it.
I nearly did type that! I was thinking of Mr Burns in the Simpsons talking about his boweling at the time.
I stayed in a hotel in Italy on a school trip when I was about 13. The hotel had lovely glass doors overlooking the coastal views. There were very clear manifestations (great word, by the way) on the glass, but they were still walked into semi regularly, including by some in our group.
Told my parents about it when I got home, and my dad, to his astonishment, realised it was the exact hotel where he had run, full speed, into the exact glass door when on a family holiday as a child, probably in the late 50s.
Different manifestations, same defenestration.
I do hope these glass walls aren't going to cause problems for the notorious secrecy of Apple.
I worked somewhere once where the internal walls were mostly glass and they did indeed have "manifestations" on them. However this glass caused problems at a meeting I went to with an external firm in one of our meeting rooms. The bloke turned up and when we reached the meeting room he protested that what he was going to show us was top secret. It was their new proprietary flagship product and it was certainly not something he was happy to show in a glass walled room. There was one not so nice meeting room free where the only window was a small one in the door but the aircon didn't work properly. He agreed to this one and we sat there getting warmer by the minute as his laptop firstly needed power because the battery was dead. Then he couldn't connect to the wifi which was eventually sorted out. The allotted duration of the meeting passed and we were seeming no closer to seeing his presentation. So I made my excuses saying I had to leave for another meeting and got up and left. I don't remember what the product or even the firm was but I can still see the look of disgust on his face when he saw a glass walled room.
it was certainly not something he was happy to show in a glass walled room
For $5 billion no doubt Apple has the super expensive type of glass with liquid crystals embedded that can darken to opaque at the touch of a button for meeting rooms and executive offices where sensitive things will be exhibited, and piezoelectric vibrators on the external glass to shield from laser audio spying by drones outside the properly line.
"In backward countries like UKland the nanny-state requires that glass which can be walked into includes 'manifestations'"
The UK also seems to be the only place in the world where one of a pair of double doors is always locked, whether that be a building entrance or just internal doors. Why bother putting double doors in if you're not going to use them? And just to cap it off, not all doors have an indication that it's push or pull only so when you push and nothing happens, you pull, only to find still nothing happens. It's madness I tells ya, madness!
And just to cap it off, not all doors have an indication that it's push or pull only so when you push and nothing happens, you pull, only to find still nothing happens. It's madness I tells ya, madness!
A moment later, another guy slided open it. see icon ->
"And just to cap it off, not all doors have an indication that it's push or pull only so when you push and nothing happens, you pull, only to find still nothing happens. It's madness I tells ya, madness!"
Reminds me of an ancient ditty from my high school days. "The sign says push to slow the speed, of those that pull before they read." Though perhaps it was the other way around, high school was a very long time ago.
Each to their own - my partner prefers cranberry sauce (I indulge in neither bu she does get me to do the 'prep'). We have two killer cats who bring in 6-7 of the birds a year (the noise of one of them trying to drag the carcass through the cat flap is worrying). Remarkable there is very little damage to the bird, I assume (no post mortem) that they have strangled the animal - in the same way some other large cats do by compressing the neck.
Finding a dead seagull (Best kind) on the ground was mildly amusing on arrival at work one day at Somerset County Council, what was more amusing was it's greasy impression of the S.H.E.I.L.D. logo on the glass pane that it flew into.
It's probably still there even after 10 years - The imprint on the glass, not the dead bird which took facilities a few days to get around to removing it.
https://seeklogo.com/images/S/s-h-i-e-l-d-logo-F89847BD30-seeklogo.com.png
>Is this very expensive glass that is super-smooth and very transparent and always very clean?
No just new glass.
Give it a few years and the glass will warp.
Asdie: in the 1980's there was a new glass-faced building on the Euston road in London, much loved by photographers because of the mirror-like reflections across multiple panes of glass, I was passing a few years back and now the glass has warped the reflections don't impress.
The casualty toll is set to increase once the building achieves sentience
Think Pet Sematary .. big building no doubt built upon an ancient burial ground with the corpse of Steve Jobs in the middle. The next stage is for blood to be spilled and channelled to the grave.
"The casualty toll is set to increase once the building achieves sentience, and targets employees who have under-performed in their review."
I wonder if the building will achieve sentience before Apple Manglement? Perhaps the building can target the bean counter(s) that decided against increasing the Software Q&A budget first?
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