Laocoön

I know that I am reading WAY to much into this but here are the rules:

"For a space that is 'populated': Each cell with one or no neighbors dies, as if by loneliness. Each cell with four or more neighbors dies, as if by overpopulation. Each cell with two or three neighbors survives.

For a space that is 'empty' or 'unpopulated' Each cell with three neighbors becomes populated." [1]

The classic glider is the hacker icon:

   OXO
   OOX
   XXX

Apple's icon:

   OXOOX
   OOXOO
   XXXOO

or

"Hacker"

   OXO
   OOX
   XXX

plus

"Death"

   OX
   OO
   OO

But, if we look at the rules and this icon, it is saying, "Hacker + Death", as if they are saying death to the hacker. They are using the first rule of fight club, "Each cell with one or no neighbors dies, as if by loneliness" with the added populated space. As if they are pushing out hackers if by loneliness and through that loneliness they will die.

EDIT: Or they are trying to be like Gandalf and say, "You Shall Not Pass!"

To me this is sad, because the roots of apple were in the hacker culture when Woz build the blue box. I would love to get Woz's take on this...

[1] http://www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/

This symbol is not ominous; the glider doesn't die. It moves through four states, arriving at this steady state:

     XX
    X X
     X

I'm surprised that the author wrote such a lengthy article without making sure that the premise is true. I think he misread the engraving and transposed the stray dot to the left, like so:

     X X
      X
    XXX

That symbol does die.

For those not familiar with Laocoon, he was a hero from greek and roman stories, most famously written about in Virgil's Aeneid. He recognized the Trojan Horse as a ruse (and is the source of the saying that has come down to us as "Beware the Greeks bearing gifts") but was not believed and was further punished by the gods who sent two serpents that dragged him and his twin sons into the sea. A statue depicting the event is one of the most famous sculptures of antiquity.

Most comments are interpreting this as a 'death to hackers' message, but it seems more likely to me that it's a memorial to Steve Jobs.

I would think that apple employees designing something like this view themselves as a part of hacker culture.

The picture in the article is cropped. In the original iFixit teardown you see that the pattern is right next to a laser-engraved data matrix code [1].

The indentations probably encode some quality-control type metadata from the CNC milling machine (like the version of the plan used to mill the part). iFixit just happend to get a glider in theirs.

[1] http://guide-images.ifixit.net/igi/GGjmUQwXwlrFJAUy.huge

Next week Devin Coldewey discusses the numerology of Steve Jobs and traces Apples' hidden roots to Aleister Crowley and Thelema.

It's hard to tell if the author's explanation is reasonable, because he doesn't explain what part the code was found on, who found it, what other markings might be on that or other parts, etc. I wonder why he doesn't tell us any of these things? Seems like basic journalism.

Perhaps it's a "stop sign" for hackers—"go no further". The extra cell effectively stops the glider, since it ends up in a steady state.

Pareidolia. It could also be a binary code where the rows (or columns) represent 1, 2 and 4, giving values of 15304 or 45601 depending on what way up you read.

I always use the Glider (Hacker's Emblem) as my wallpaper (from this Deviantart artist), it makes a great minimalist dark background: http://mientefuego.deviantart.com/art/Carbon-Glider-12926852...

Minimal representation (using 2 Braille Unicode characters) is: ⠠⠵

But Apple's version contains a single cell in the top right that will interact with the Glider and will mutate and become a static structure 4 iterations later. I tested in this html5 Conway's Game of Life online simulator: http://www.quesucede.com/public/gameoflife/game.html

The glider is also the universal hacker emblem. http://www.catb.org/hacker-emblem/

It seems to me that if it is anything it is a memorial to Steve Jobs. His glider was stopped.

In case anyone was wondering, Laocoon is pronounced Lay-Awk-Oh-Wan.

After a couple of seconds in the iPad, in this case just after the annoying do I want to download the app had popped up after i started reading, techcrunch articles just go fuzzy and unreadable. The comments don't. I am guessing it is a webfonts issue. Maybe it is to force you to use the app. I havent been able to read a techcrunch article in months though.

Maybe they're celebrating how successful they've become. The dot eventually turns the glider into a boat, as if to cheer "I'm on a boat"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Game_of_life_boat.svg