Comments on: The Apple Social Psychology Experiment

By: jsmusgrave

jsmusgrave — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 13:57:34 +0000

I thought this was an interesting conversation, though it was taken a bit to the extreme in that you guys even denied that there are screws on the outside of the iphone. Apple did change to pentalobe screws on the iphone 4 and uses them on the air. This is defense in depth sort of strategy. It doesn’t keep someone out who bothers to go to sears or to ifixit, but the average person isn’t going to bother buying a specialty screwdriver.
The more interesting thing, for me is how this ties in to how the modern blog driven media ecosystem is inherently good at amplifying stories without any veracity. I recommend Ryan Holiday’s book on the subject. It’s a bit self-serving, but it does illustrate that this sort of story insertion is done for profit and that the amplification effect seen here can happen spontaneously.

http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/159184553X

By: meiguizi

meiguizi — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 22:00:09 +0000

I didn’t read this through when I saw the headline and read through the first couple paragraphs, as watercooler chat earlier in the day has let me in on the story. So when I heard further discussion of this item on the SGU, I wanted to offer some information on the screw itself. I work at a university with a pretty extensive installed technology base to coordinate things between the other international campuses, and to allow faculty the widest realistic support for instructional technology.

The ‘asymmetric screw’ idea has nothing to do with the screwing being only one way. It is simply a variation of a common security screw, albeit taken to a semi-believable, yet ridiculous extreme. A couple other examples of currently employed security screws can be found here: http://www.wayfair.com/Peerless-Security-Fasteners-ACC502-PE0231.html?refid=GX15983732100-PE0231&gclid=CK2D_I6U8rECFYLb4AodhhQAGA

The idea, in universities, is to prevent theft for vandalism by requiring a special bit to remove a monitor or projector, or any other equipment. Most people would not have a bit able to remove the screws, and hopefully the expensive classroom technology will stay put. On devices, similarly complicated screws are routinely employed to keep people from modifying or tampering with their devices.

Hope that make sense.

By: daedalus2u

daedalus2u — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 22:15:33 +0000

I had the same response as Rikki. The top was simply not suitable to be the top of a screw. I briefly thought of ways to try and make it so (rare earth magnets) but dismissed that as implausible. I also remembered the earlier time where Apple did replace original screws with screws that took a non-standard driver. I was, so what? I don’t use any Apple products any way.

By: tmac57

tmac57 — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 17:58:11 +0000

petrossa- Shouldn’t that be an un-unscrewable screw?
Apple is famous for being inscrutable.

By: superdave

superdave — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 16:28:07 +0000

Apple has used rare and hard to find screws before, which gave this story an air of plausibility.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2376069,00.asp

By: eean

eean — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 08:48:06 +0000

I’m not sure how this turned into an “asymmetrical screw.”
The ‘original’ email mentions that it is asymmetric.
http://i.imgur.com/fkyQS.jpg

what’s amazing is that the reddit thread wasn’t actually that popular. But I guess the apple subreddit has a lot of relevant journalists reading it.

The Internet just means the whole cycle goes faster. The comments from Hitchens are quite important here.

By: petrossa

petrossa — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 06:40:53 +0000

The unscrewable screw has been with us since a while now

http://www.gerritse.nl/~images/products/gerritse/642-477/1052553.jpg

You can only screw it in, never out due to the sloping slot.

By: SARA

SARA — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 23:06:11 +0000

It was my general skepticism about forwarded emails that led me to the skeptics movement. Stuff like this that goes viral and everyone believes. I’m the girl who looked it up and then emailed back the real information. One day while researching an email I came across a skeptics blog – Bad Astronomy.
The rest is history.

I wonder if the person who added the entirely made up story actually believed that story or knew they were just making up stuff. I think it’s a gradual shift where no one is deliberately trying misrepresent.

People make a lot of inferences and assumptions when things are vague. The first person to change the story might say something like “Sounds like Apple is trying to screw us again.” Next person takes that information and adds in – “I Bet they are trying to lock us out.”
Then someone gets it and just assumes all of that into fact instead of acknowledged assumption and a story is born. And voila.

By: Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 22:53:10 +0000

I read this on a tech site, and immediately dismissed it as bogus for two reasons:

1. Threads are not represented that way in CAD software. If at all, they are represented as a texture, never polygons. That is because you will have hundreds of screws in a moderately sized project. Rendering them all would be utter nonsense. The screw was therefore created in an artistic 3D modeler. And while were there, that is not how threads look.

2. The top is unsuited the the task of transmitting torque. The flanks of the driver would be getting wider outside. That is the opposite of what you want for an even distribution of pressure on the flanks. If you look closely, you can see the flanks thinning towards the rim of a Phillips screw driver for that very reason.

By: Calli Arcale

Calli Arcale — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 19:47:49 +0000

I agree that the asymmetric screw myth wasn’t claiming it somehow couldn’t be removed but simply that you’d need a proprietary screwdriver to operate it, and that because it was asymmetric would foil a lot of attempts to use other drivers. This isn’t that unreasonable a guess, since most everyone has seen screws that are designed to be difficult to remove without the proper tools — just pay attention the next time you’re in a high school bathroom. Some public restrooms do this too; it depends on how much they trust the people who will be using the restrooms. Special screws are used which cannot be unscrewed with a quarter or a normal screwdriver. They’re asymmetrical, although the two sides do match. A simple flat screwdriver can only screw them *in*; instead of a round top with a slit for the driver, the halves of the head are beveled so that a flat screwdriver can only engage when turning clockwise. Go the other way, and it just slides off the screw. This is done to prevent certain forms of youthful mischief, such as removing all the doors on the stalls, or loosening them so that an unsuspecting mark can be exposed at a critical moment by someone simply slamming the adjacent door.