Drone Video Shows Empty Apple Park Campus

[MacRumors]

With most of Apple's corporate employees working from home at the current time, the Apple Park campus in Cupertino is nearly abandoned.

Drone footage shot recently by drone pilot Duncan Sinfield looks similar to drone videos shot before Apple Park opened, with no visible people on the campus and parking lots abandoned.

Apple employees worldwide have been working at home since March 8, though there are likely still employees on the Apple Park campus who have essential roles at the company.

Apple employees with non-essential roles are required to stay at home under Santa Clara County's shelter-in-place order.

Article Link: Drone Video Shows Empty Apple Park Campus

 

[Eorlas]

that landscaping company is boutta make a heaping when the doors open again

 

[gsmornot]

They should install huge clock hands with the 12 at the north side of the circle.

 

[OriginalMacRat]

Fly the drone over the Tesla factory in comparison.

Too many companies are calling themselves "essential" and risking their staff in spreading the virus.

 

[Westside guy]

The eeriest part of that video is at the end - the building fires its thrusters, lifts up and flies off into the sunset.

 

[jerryk]

Most of the Valley is that way. Google, Intel, and Apple buildings in Sunnyvale and Mountain View are empty. Commutes that typically take 90 minutes are done in 25 minutes. Coffee shops, donut places, etc closed. Maybe 1 car at 4 lane stop light that would usually have 50 or 60 cars.

On the plus side, you see people walking all over in residential areas. Everyone complying with the 6 foot distance rule. And stores are getting restocked. Except for TP and bottled water. I cannot figure why people by TP and bottled water.

 

[iRutherford]

That rainbow thing really stands out. In a bad way.

 

[CarlJ]

And stores are getting restocked. Except for TP and bottled water. I cannot figure why people by TP and bottled water.

Ugh, I wish people would just buy a water filter of some sort rather than endless bottles of bottled water. So wasteful.

 

[OriginalMacRat]

Coffee shops, donut places, etc closed.

Not accurate... While big chain stores are closed, all the little privately owned coffee shops are open and are begging for any customers they can get to avoid bankruptcy.

Also surprising is that all construction sites are still in operation. Every person I know working in construction has to show up for work and is in close contact with others on their crew.

While the local governments are making a big show about staying home and how their customer facing offices are closed, the workers are still expected to show up to the office if they want to get paid.

 

[citysnaps]

Not accurate... While big chain stores are closed, all the little privately owned coffee shops are open and are begging for any customers they can get to avoid bankruptcy.

Accurate in the SF Bay Area. And should be in all of California. The only exception, at the moment, is offering take out/to-go service from the front door. Some do, some don't. You're not allowed to seat people for service. An excellent policy.

I suspect that will be further tightened in the next week or two.

 

[konqerror]

Ugh, I wish people would just buy a water filter of some sort rather than endless bottles of bottled water. So wasteful.

In most parts of California, or the US for that matter, there is no water to filter if the water system were to break down.

And if the issue was viral contamination of water, nearly all portable/emergency filters will not have an effect since viruses are so small.

 

[Mr. Dee]

Some of the trees aren’t adapting well it seems.

 

[OriginalMacRat]

Accurate in the SF Bay Area. And should be in all of California. The only exception, at the moment, is offering take out/to-go service from the front door. Some do, some don't. You're not allowed to seat people for service. An excellent policy.

I suspect that will be further tightened in the next week or two.

What I stated was about the SF Bay Area.

Even other small shops like nail salons are open.

 

[citysnaps]

What I stated was about the SF Bay Area.

Even other small shops like nail salons are open.

Well, that's not my experience living here and walking up and down various downtowns along the Peninsula. And, starting today, San Jose Police are issuing criminal citations to businesses defying the Governor's executive order.

 

[Erehy Dobon]

Some of the trees aren’t adapting well it seems.

I don't see a noticeable problem. Spring is four days old and many trees are still waking up. And not just at 1 Apple Way, pretty much everywhere around the South Bay.

One can't tell bud break from this distance but this past week's rather cool temperatures has probably squeezed the brakes on the fruit tree orchard bloom. There was almost no rain in February.

The stark contrast between the clean fruit trees rows and the lush insectary rows indicates that there is very active weed control. The latter's growth has likely been spurned by this month's more plentiful rain. There's nothing wrong with the soil.

This area used to be nothing but fruit orchards anyhow a century ago. They'll be fine.

The local redwood trees and other conifers seem to have no problem dumping large clouds of yellow pollen on my car's windshield and my town's sidewalks (or pretty much any outdoor horizontal surface).

 

[B4U]

So, it is pretty much like any large corporations that has a large campus in states, where there are orders telling its residents to stay home.

 

[Naaaaak]

That plastic crap in the middle ruins the aesthetic of the entire campus. Looks like crap I'd see at the Googleplex.

–

Apple spent $5 billion for an open-office layout corona incubator.

 

[CarlJ]

In most parts of California, or the US for that matter, there is no water to filter if the water system were to break down.

And if the issue was viral contamination of water, nearly all portable/emergency filters will not have an effect since viruses are so small.

But we're not looking at the water system breaking down. If that's a concern now, why wasn't it equally a concern six months ago. Why not have water hoarding back then? Similarly, we're not looking at scenarios with viral contamination of the water supply. Why throw crazy what-if scenarios on top of the actual problems we need to deal with?

The issue at hand isn't "the world is coming to an end", it's "everyone needs to go home and hang out _only_ in their own homes for a while - not just if you feel like it or it's convenient. We've got a lot of people who are acting like we're living in post apocalyptic Mad Max times, trying to gather a ten year supply of bottled water and toilet paper and canned food "from before the bombs went off", and that's not helping.

Florida had beaches full of people playing "Spring Break", as if the rules didn't apply to them, up until just recently. That finally all(?) got shut down, and now those idiots are going home, so they can kill grandma with the virus they picked up at the beach. We need to reboot the world, and we need everyone's cooperation regardless of whether or not it's convenient, and we need people to stop running what-if scenarios from post-apocalpytic movies through their heads, because their resulting actions are hurting other people.

 

[konqerror]

But we're not looking at the water system breaking down. If that's a concern now, why wasn't it equally a concern six months ago. Why not have water hoarding back then?

Because people were unprepared and now they're realizing they need to be prepared. The risk of an earthquake is significant and unchanged by COVID, so now is just as good of a time to buy water.

If you think shutting down for a month due to COVID is bad, it's estimated that businesses will be down for 4-6 months in the event of a major Southern California earthquake due to damage to the aqueduct system.

Improving the Resilience of Southern California Water Supply Aqueduct Systems to Regional Earthquake Threats

Southern California is home to over 19 million residents who rely on three independently owned and operated aqueduct systems that provide on average 50 ...

www.nae.edu

 

[manu chao]

But we're not looking at the water system breaking down. If that's a concern now, why wasn't it equally a concern six months ago. Why not have water hoarding back then? Similarly, we're not looking at scenarios with viral contamination of the water supply. Why throw crazy what-if scenarios on top of the actual problems we need to deal with?

At least subconsciously (some) people are preparing for the breakdown of civilization (which would include the water supply along with electricity). There is a reason apocalypse movies are so popular, somehow the human psyche easily goes there. It's useful to some degree to coral people to take drastic measures but it can also overreact in the form of hoarding.

 

[jayducharme]

It's ironic that the Apple campus was built specifically to encourage interaction and chance meetings, and under the current situation that's a big problem.

 

[jerryk]

At least subconsciously (some) people are preparing for the breakdown of civilization (which would include the water supply along with electricity). There is a reason apocalypse movies are so popular, somehow the human psyche easily goes there. It's useful to some degree to coral people to take drastic measures but it can also overreact in the form of hoarding.

A more likely problem in the Bay Area is that PG&E will cut power. We can for expect this for the next decade or so as they try to get their infrastructure updated.

This is the reason I am going with solar and storage batteries at my home. We have enough batteries for 4-5 days of home usage in an outage, and the solar is large enough to recharge the batteries on 4 hours on a sunny day. Suppose I could add a UV water purifier and get water from the spring up the hill.