Linked List: January 6, 2017

Friday, 6 January 2017

Apple’s Annual SEC Filing Reveals Missed Revenue and Profit Targets ★

Tripp Mickle, reporting for the WSJ:

On Friday, Apple said in a regulatory filing that annual sales of $215.6 billion were 3.7% below target, and its operating income of $60 billion came up 0.5% short for the fiscal year ended Sept. 24.

Mr. Cook’s total 2016 compensation dropped to $8.75 million for the year, down 15% from $10.3 million in the year earlier. The decline was tied to his cash bonus, which hinged on exceeding revenue and profit targets set by the board. His base salary rose 50% to $3 million.

Mr. Cook’s total compensation doesn’t reflect the mega-stock grant he received in 2011 when he took over as CEO, an award valued at the time at about $376 million.

Bullet vs. Glass ★

I’d never heard of a Prince Rupert’s Drop before. Fascinating materials science.

LG Is Abandoning Its Modular Smartphone Idea ★

Chaim Gartenberg, writing for The Verge:

LG’s modular phone accessory strategy that served as the primary differentiator for last year’s G5 smartphone appears to be no more. The Wall Street Journal reports that the South Korean company is pivoting away from the plug-in “Friends” modules for the upcoming G6 device after lackluster sales for the G5.

Per The Wall Street Journal, an LG spokesperson commented that consumers aren’t interested in modular phones.

No shit.

Prototype Interface for an iPod-Based Apple Phone ★

Interesting stuff, but I don’t think the idea here was to ship a device with a virtual click wheel occupying half of a touchscreen. I think this is more like an emulator, and if Apple had gone this route, the display on the actual device would have been small — only the white rectangular area at the top.

Dan Nainan, the 55-Year-Old ‘Millennial’ ‘Comedian’ ★

Bizarre story from Ben Collins, writing for The Daily Beast:

Nainan was 36 in 2012 in The Wall Street Journal, but 31 in The New York Times in the same year. In 2006, he remembered when he got the bug to do comedy: In 1998, while he was working as a senior engineer at Intel. As a 17-year-old.

Then, there it is on paper: a Maryland traffic court case from last year. “Failure to display registration card upon demand by police officer.” Daniel Nainan of New York City. Date of birth: May 1961. […]

A Virginia speeding ticket in the database Lexis-Nexis says Nainan was pulled over for speeding in 1987. The ticket is so old that it’s not retrievable anywhere but on archived public-records searches. Fairfax County General District Court only retains records for resolved traffic cases for 10 years, according to both a FCGDC spokesperson and Virginia law.

Millennial Dan Nainan would’ve had to have been a 6-year-old with a speeding ticket.

So what, he’s lying about his age, right? Where his schtick angers me is that he’s claimed for years to have witnessed the World Trade Center towers collapse on 9/11, firsthand, and that that’s what prompted him to become a comedian.

The thing about pathological liars is that they don’t care about their web of lies adding up or making sense as a complete story. It’s simply about manufactured drama.

Vermont’s Maple Syrup Logo ★

My first thought when I saw this was that it had to be fake, but apparently it’s real.

Intel’s Compute Card Is a PC That Can Fit in Your Wallet ★

Would be cool to see Apple do something like this as a Mac Nano. You know, in the alternate universe where Apple seems to have any interest at all in desktop Macs.