Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/08/08/great-explainer-on-how-glass-t.html
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“Principle Designer” - a trumpian job title if there ever was one
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How does it work? On a DRM market model, apparently…
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not DRM exactly, since you can use non-proprietary balls
now, if they had proprietary balls on a proprietary surface…
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Let’s just call it very easily circumvented DRM…
Very pretty. I suppose you could get colored glass, or at least colored Vitric?
Do you want it green? And opaque? 
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No, transparent. Really.
I don’t understand. What’s wrong with that job title?
After decades when the only way to achieve recognition and pay raises in most companies was to become a manager (despite many talented people being completely unsuited to leadership), companies are finally embracing titles that reflect the contribution of talented, non-leadership individuals. “Principal” [something] (designer, engineer, scientist, etc.) represents an evolution of the corporate structure that promotes the value of individual contributors (while at the same time saving thousands of people from working under incompetent managers who were great individual contributors).
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The words principle and principal are pronounced in the same way but they do not have the same meaning. Principle is normally used as a noun meaning ‘a fundamental basis of a system of thought or belief’, as in: ‘one of the basic principles of democracy.’
Principal, on the other hand, is normally an adjective meaning ‘main or most important’, as in: ‘one of the country’s principal cities.’
Principal can also be a noun, where it is used to refer to the most senior or most important person in an organization or other group, such as ‘the deputy principal’. It may also refer to a sum of money lent or invested, on which interest is paid, such as in ‘the principal on the loan’.
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/usage/principal-or-principle
… and comedy ensued.
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Ooh, yes please! 
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Got it. So “trumpian” was in reference to mis-spelling. Thanks for the clarification.
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That depends, can it also come textured?
I find it somewhat interesting how such pool tables work. But what I struggle with is why they exist. I guess I don’t understand what problem this may have solved with prior pool technologies.
Actually you can’t use your own balls. From their website:
Only balls supplied by Elite Innovations can be used on the Vitrik surface – though others will not affect the physical properties of the surface, other balls may leave significant, highly visible, burn marks.
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I think kaibeezytentroy’s point is that you can use other balls, if you don’t mind the burn marks.
but… you c-a-a-a-n - as long as you are OK with the scratches and whatnot - whereas I totally can-not play my iTunes “purchases” on my Zune or whatever at all
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ah - what you said - damn tiny phone, I didn’t even see your comment
Not enough fancy wank up in here.
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not to the misspelling per se but specifically to the idea of “principles” having been “designed”, rather than, as one hopes, arising unmanipulated from ultra-pure organic unicorn bellies
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