We Interrupt This Post for Free Engraving

Greetings from the Future [Stinque, 4/3/2010]
19 Comments

I got my name on mine.

Also. Have we seen this? This American Life has pulled the episode with Mike Daisey that sparked the big controversy over working conditions since he pulled most of it from out of his ass.

I never did believe a new iPhone could ship with pictures on it. How is that even possible?

@Benedick: Meanwhile, the play on which the TAL show was based will be returning to Woolly Mammoth Theatre in D.C. this summer. It never should have left the stage, it seems.

@mellbell: I bet they cancel. It’s on now at the Public. Closes tomorrow.

The trouble is who knows what’s true? I thought his piece in the Times right after Jobs’s death was incredibly ill-timed and self-serving.

@Benedick: I posted something yesterday, but nobody bit.

TAL posted the “Retraction” episode last night. It’s a fun listen, especially for the dead air Ira leaves in when he shames Daisey.

But before you get too relieved, Ira also interviews the NYT reporter who co-wrote their series on Apple manufacturing. Daisey overplayed his hand, but all is not well.

@nojo: I correspond w/an executive producer at NPR who reminded me that Daisey’s original creation was a stage production. QED.

@blogenfreude: That’s not necessarily a problem — The Jungle was a novel, after all. But Daisey stepped in it by insisting that he was reporting an eyewitness account, and not drawing from different sources, some more reliable than others.

@JNOVw00tah: The StinquePad Classic isn’t going anywhere — I still need it to keep my website design honest. Also, y’know, it’s a first-day iPad, a Geek Museum Piece.

Meanwhile, in the PC world, this is playing out AGAIN:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Lenovo-Tablet-Windows-8-Launch-Date-IdeaPad-Yoga,15040.html

The whole “let’s put the same OS everywhere” thing is bizarre – it *almost* made sense back when the Tablet PC ball got rolling back in 2001(!), but it’s amazing that despite literally a decade of pathetic sales it’s still hanging around.

For instance, the model above looks pretty sexy – until you realize it’s got the keyboard and trackpad hanging out on the BACK.

@al2o3cr: I don’t have a link handy, but somebody posted a “My Dad Tries Windows 8” video last week, and it was as awkward as you’d expect. Reason? The Hidden Hotspots, of course. That, plus the whole Metro/Classic thing.

I’m done with MS-DOS and its bloated progeny. My kids have been right for years about Macs.

@Dodgerblue: There was a point when Wired ran its “Pray for Apple” cover that I seriously considered finding something else to do if Macs went away.

Do we think it’s possible for an iPhone to be shipped with photos on it?

@nojo: I know there’s a lot of stuff still unanswered and this mess will, I think, make it harder to find out the truth.

@blogenfreude: something similar happened to David Hare when in his agit-prop phase. He adapted a perfectly dreadful book entitled Fanshen about the cultural revolution which I happened to see in London. Clearly the story was nonsense but it had been treated like the tablets coming down Mount Arrafat. He is, of course, a fine writer, and got passed it. Liberal guilt and moral outrage can make us believe anything, it seems.

@Benedick: The Repubs are good at telling stories that their drooling followers want to hear, screw the facts. E.g. gas prices are high because of Obama.

@Benedick: Let’s go to the source

markm49uk
macrumors regular
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Kingston Upon Hull, UK

Aug 20, 2008, 11:43 AM

Hi,

Not sure if this is or is not the ‘norm’ but I just received my brand new iPhone here in the UK and once it had been activated on iTunes I found that the home screen (the screen you can personalise with a photo) already had a photo set against it !!!!

It would appear that someone on the production line was having a bit of fun – has anyone else found this ?

These are the photo’s:

I don’t know how that ultimately played out, but looking at his MacRumors profile and what I’m guessing is his Twitter account, dude seems legit. He’s not an Apple-basher — quite the opposite — and he didn’t apparently seek to publicize his find. He just posted it on a geek message board, and things took off from there.

So: Yes.

At least in August 2008.

@Benedick: Clearly the story was nonsense but it had been treated like the tablets coming down Mount Arrafat.

Time out for a clarification. The story is that Moses brought the tablets down from Mount Sinai. Another story is that Noah’s ark grounded on Mount Ararat. The PLO was led by a guy named Yasser Arafat from 1969 through 2004. Have you possibly confused some names?

@Dave H: A modest joke. No need to stomp it as if it’s a roach. I was ashamed enough as I typed it. Full disclosure: I confused Arrarat with Sinai. I am so going to go to hell.

@nojo: Thanks. It seems like quite the coincidence that such an iPhone ends up in Mike Dailey’s hands thereby ‘motivating’ his quest. If he’d read about it somewhere then appropriated the detail to become the message in a bottle I can accept it. I will now go and listen to The Retraction on TAL and hope there isn’t too much in the way of annoying background music. At times it make one long for Harry Shearer.

@Benedick: I looked at Daisey’s script — he offers it free online for other performers — and he doesn’t seem to mention the photo-laden iPhone as a motivating factor. He has said in interviews that seeing the photos online inspired him to learn more about the woman pictured. But maybe my PDF word search missed the reference.

I look forward to hearing your reaction to the new episode — especially the parts where Daisey waxes on about The Truth of The Stage.

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