[RKDinOKC]

Apple has internal names for projects. They claim it is so employees can discuss the projects without anyone knowing exactly what they were talking about. One computer motherboard was called the Carl Sagan during development. He heard about it and asked them to stop using his name. They started calling it The Stupid Astronomer instead. Carl of course heard about that and took Apple to court over it. Before the judge threw the case out Apple was put on court record as calling Carl Sagan a Stupid Astronomer 16 times.

Visited a friend working at Apple in Cupertino. The main offices are a square of four buildings with a foyer between them and a large open quad area in the middle of all the buildings. At one end of the quad is the company cafeteria with outdoor cafe and at the other is an outdoor amphitheater. You have to go thru security to be able to get into the quad area. Every Friday starting at 4pm there is party in the Quad that has free food and drinks (including alcoholic), and typically a live band or some other sort of entertainment to start off the weekend.

My friend said the party was where the people from all the different projects got together in a social environment and discussed what each other was doing. Almost everyone in the company came to the Friday parties. He said several major innovations came from people not working on a specific project but got involved thru the social discussion. Some even changed jobs because of it. He said that was the kind of thing the used the code names for.

While visiting, dropped my friend off at a board meeting. He had a presentation to give. Came back an hour later and the meeting wasn't out yet so I wandered into the main foyer. It was four stories tall and had a snack/coffee bar with a few tables some plants and a fountain. I got a soda and sat down to wait for my friend. After about 10 minutes a security guy came over and asked who I was and what I was doing there. Seems I had by chance went thru the security doors right behind someone before it closed. The doors are unlocked by a chip on employee badges. Security had been watching me because I didn't continue to follow the person I had come thru the doors with.

What was really interesting was when I told the security guy who I was visiting and I was waiting for him to get out of the meeting. He not only knew my friend, but said he knew of me, where I was from, and my hacker nickname, but he didn't know I was visiting. He gave me the nickel tour ending when he got a call that the board meeting was out. Got to go thru some office areas that normally wouldn't have been able to because of the board meeting. Got to see Steve Jobs office. When I told my friend about it, he said he didn't really know the security guy other than meeting him at the Friday parties, but was happy that I was taken care of.