pdbreske

This was less a "short film" and more of a demo reel for a college student who wants to show his skills with only a phone. And it was difficult to watch on a 27" iMac with the massive black bars on the left and right sides of the monitor.

Remember when content was just starting to deliver in 16:9 aspect ratio and we all had to put up with "letterboxed" videos until we could all afford widescreen TVs? Well, now we're going in the opposite direction and we'll get to absorb 9:16 content on 16:9 monitors until we are all forced to "upgrade" the hardware to screens that will swivel between horizontal and vertical modes. 

This is utterly ridiculous when you consider that virtually every real-life setting is horizontally biased. Human beings are able to interact with their world pretty much only in two directions, so offering a video clip that eliminates everything to the left and right of the subject also removes nearly every other clue I could use to tell me what's going on and where it's happening. Shooting an entire movie like this one isn't a director being brave and forging new directions in filmmaking; it's only someone seeing if they can make a compelling film while overcoming the very real limitations of a vertical aspect ratio. He was able to make a film, yes, but whether it was actually enjoyable is another story. 

While flashy and well executed, the biggest takeaway for me was the lack of spontaneity. Seeing these people up close, as opposed to seeing them on a stage, means we get to read their eyes and emotions (or lack thereof) much closer, plus we can clearly see them reading from a teleprompter. When they are presenting on a stage, the prompters are down in front, not next to the camera, so their occasional glances down seem more natural than watching their eyes scanning every written word. 

Also, watching this event really drove home the reality of the pandemic. Instead of being new and fresh, it just made me sad to know that the coronavirus has changed (maybe forever) the way we interact as a group. Instead of taking my mind off the pandemic, it focused my attention on the way we do things as a result of it. 

Personally, I think electric cars are awesome. But I cannot even come close to being able to afford one. So I drive a 20-year-old Jeep that averages about 11MPG. 16MPG on a really good highway drive. I'm doing my part to burn up all the oil on this planet so we can move on to the next power source, because expecting people to stop using oil when there is oil available is a fool's errand. 

tht said:
If there was only a nation that had a big enough economy to enact carbon tariffs on imports, which would compel some nations to change their behavior, and be able to convince other countries to do the same!

The Paris Agreement is voluntary. Toothless. It’s more symbolic than anything. There still needs to be a strong group of nations that can form an economic block and develop incentives for decarbonization. We are still quite far away from this. Nice to have nations agree to do things, but it will be better if we were unified with coordinate efforts.

If only all the progressive, mega-billion-dollar companies that import all those goods would conduct carbon audits of their suppliers instead of waiting for government to do every damned thing, then maybe something would get done. Why does there have to be a law to force even small companies to comply with a treaty they don't care about when the companies who say they care deeply are perfectly able to take care of this on their own?

The only reason Apple wants government to enact laws and restrictions to carbon output is because Apple can easily afford to comply with those rules. Smaller competitors cannot, and Apple knows that those smaller companies will fold before complying. This is how businesses are run in this country when you have lobbyists who persuade government officials to enact laws that adversely affect all competition. If Tim Cook truly wants to do the right thing, he already has the power to do that thing. And he has the power to force dozens if not hundreds of companies around the world to do that thing, too. Asking the government to do it is, at best, lip service and at worst, anti-competitive. 

"... •Tap on the Apple ID listed
•Click Apple ID
•Face ID verifies it's you"

Do you realize that not everyone uses a Face ID-equipped phone yet? I've noticed this on several stories here. I'm left to assume that this will work with Touch ID, or does Sign In With Apple really not allow a Touch ID sign-in?

Also, as others have pointed out, this site doesn't support the feature that this story evangelizes. WTF?