Posted on 10/10/2006 2:52:04 PM PDT by absalom01
Apple's "Mecca Project" Provokes Muslim Reaction
On October 10, 2006, an Islamic website posted a message alerting Muslims to what it claims is a new insult to Islam. According to the message, the cube-shaped building which is being constructed in New York City, on Fifth Avenue between 58th and 59th Streets in midtown Manhattan, is clearly meant to provoke Muslims. The fact that the building resembles the Ka'ba (see picture below), is called "Apple Mecca," is intended to be open 24 hours a day like the Ka'ba, and moreover, contains bars selling alcoholic beverages, constitutes a blatant insult to Islam. The message urges Muslims to spread this alert, in hope that "Muslims will be able to stop the project."
Not sure...but I betcha if you look hard enough you can claim that it's because Steve Jobs sold his soul to the devil for success. Therefore, he is paying homage to his master via the logo.
(LOL)
Approximately zero. There's also "My Blue Heaven," an oldie but goodie and, as a Christian, I've never fallen into a murderous rage on hearing it. Lots of phrases in our language refer to heaven or paradise in one way or another: "little piece of heaven," "God's country," "seems like paradise," etc, and you don't hear of Christians going on a murderous and destructive rampage when these phrases are used.
Because if it didn't have a bite taken out of it, it wouldn't be immediately recognizable as an apple. It'd just look like a silhouette of a butt.
A better analogy would be if it had been called "Apple Vatican" or "Apple Canterbury" or "Apple Jerusalem." The word "mecca" (with a lowercase 'm') is pretty well ensconced in English as a term for someplace people make pilgrimages.
It was a natural for the site holiest (after Cupertino, I guess) to the Cult of Mac. As far as I know, Apple never used that as a code name for the store; that was the contribution of the blogosphere.
Most companies would have just used canvas or plywood, but that's not Apple. They're famous for attention to design details, rivaled only by Sony for that. Given the fact that they're still getting grief over the construction drape a year later, I bet they wish they'd chosen white.
Sosumi.
As I understand it, the Beatles music company, Apple Records (or whatever it was) allowed the computer company to use the name on the condition they never got into the music business in any way.
Apple Corps (pronounced like "core" ... get it?) is the Beatles' company. In the '70s, they sued Apple Computer over the name, ultimately settling on the condition that Apple not go into the music business. The precise definition of "music business" was a little vague, which will become important in a couple of paragraphs.
The lawyers reared their ugly torts again in the late '80s, when Apple started building good sound capabilities into Macs and they started to become a favorite MIDI platform for musicians at home and in the studio. Protools, the favorite digital studio suite, is still mostly Mac-based.
After another round of legal wrangling, both sides again settled, and the language was something along the lines that Apple couldn't sell music in any tangible medium (CDs, LPs, tapes) but could be involved in rendering music in digital form.
Then comes the iPod, and iTunes, and the iTunes store. When the iTunes store launched, Apple had agreements with most of the major record labels, but there was a glaring omission -- no Beatles. Nothing from possibly the single most influential rock band ever. That's because the Apple Corps lawyers were feeling frisky again.
They sued, arguing that Apple Computer was stepping on Apple Corps' trademark by selling music under the Apple name. A British court agreed with Apple Corps -- which wouldn't have stopped Apple Computer from selling anything, but would have required them to remove the Apple name and logo. I didn't think that was too huge, because by that time iPod and iTunes were established names of their own, with or without partially eaten fruit on the case.
I dimly recall news of some sort of settlement, but Beatles tracks are still notably absent from the iTunes store.
Then they developed that alert sound. I guess lawyers were pretty nervous about it...so they named it so sue me.
I would go with defiant rather than nervous. Apple Corps' whole business model is based on a fixed amount of intellectual property. There will be no new Beatles songs, so all they can do is remix, relicense and repackage a fixed amount of product. And with the passage of time, the bloom will fade from that rose -- I'd rather have the publishing rights to Stephen King than Charles Dickens.
Apple Computer, on the other hand, is still in the business of making new stuff. They're growing and inventing markets, while Apple Corps is hanging on to a sinking and shrinking one. And the other twist, which Apple Corps doesn't seem to get, is that if they make it difficult or impossible to download Beatles tracks legally, and pay for them, folks will just go to the P2P networks, and they'll get nothing.
I don't have a dog in the fight either way. I'd already bought most of the Beatles albums on CD before the MP3 phenomenon, and I've ripped them to my hard drive and loaded them on my iPod. If a friend of mine wants to listen to "Blackbird" and can't buy it from the iTunes store, I'll send it along for nothing.
Come in and have an iPod with Vodka... PING!
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
Come in and have an iPod with Vodka... PING!
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
In the case of Apple v. Apple... Apple lost.
In greater detail, Apple Corps (The Beatles) sued Apple Computer (the iPod) for a Trade Mark Agreement violation... Apple Corps (the Beatles) lost on all counts.
[sigh]
I guess I'd better forget about marketing my Verses of the Koran Toilet Tissue then...
Ah. I suppose I was unclear. When I wrote "some sort of settlement," what I meant was "completely spanked on appeal." Clearly, I need to work on my typing.
I did. Thing is, you really don't realize how much flex is built into really tall skyscrapers. They sway in the wind. Most of the time, you wouldn't notice that even if you were looking for it -- but in the WTC, if you were in the observation deck on the south tower, the north tower was close enough that you could see it getting closer and farther every few seconds.
I'm not prone to motion sickness. I've never been airsick, carsick or seasick. But that made me feel a little ill-at-ease.
(Now, there's a blatant insult of Islam. Also a true one.)
I guess I'd better forget about marketing my Verses of the Koran Toilet Tissue then...
----
oh, come on, someone has to do it! (I'll order several cartons, excellent for Christmas gifts...for people who have everything and are difficult to please...)
It's a plot.
Apple Records is suing Apple over the iPod.
And the alert is called Sosumi. I don't use it though since I like the Submarine sound better. Sosumi is just one piano chord. :)
That's hilarious. You are a master at Photoshop!
mark
Am I wrong, or do 1/2 the buildings in the city resemble that? Some may be taller, some may be made out of brick, but there are plenty buildings close to that size and shape.
It really doesn't matter what we say or do, the are going to find an excuse to say we have offended them, and get pissed off!
"Why don't all these easily-offended Muslims just go back where they came from, where there aren't any buildings, stores, bars, coffee shops, technology, or anything else modern to "offend" them."
you left out planes, bombs, cell phones and other Western technology whose use they've adopted
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