I didn't even know who Steve Jobs was till he died and somebody told me. An iMessiah? What tosh. You mean we should immortalize giant heads of corporations for technologies that both improve and destroy lives? I just don't get it.
I didn't even know who Steve Jobs was till he died and somebody told me. An iMessiah? What tosh. You mean we should immortalize giant heads of corporations for technologies that both improve and destroy lives? I just don't get it.
Before sunlight can shine through a window, the blinds must be raised - American Proverb
Well, exploitation is sort of just the way the world has always worked, and without it we'd still be swinging in trees to escape scary things (yes, I'm aware that it would be a wonderful place if there were no leaders and followers, no wars, no bullies, no weapons - but people will always find something to complain about).
Do you like coffee and tea? Chocolate? There's three of the main vitamins whose industry depends on kidnapped child slave labour - and if you don't like it, stop buying.
We're all guilty in the sense that we all benefit from the trade, but you have to think how much worse their lives could be - at least as slaves they're probably being fed, and in Africa they could easily be roped into someone's army to go kill and maim others, or into some rapey pervert chief's harem, or tortured for a sick dictators amusement...
Steve Jobs wasn't that bad comparatively (and never touched coffee after a childhood taste - and perhaps mouth burn - put him off for life)
The real problem is that the Dragon doesn't have a unified law system, or workers rights etc)
Bose made my never-buy list when they sued Consumer Reports for not being impressed with some of their equipment.Originally Posted by billl
As far as Gates vs. Jobs goes, I think the difference is charisma. Both Gates and Jobs pretty openly treated their customers with contempt, but Gates' customers hate him for it, while Jobs' customers love him for it.
You must be the change you wish to see in the world. -- Mahatma Gandhi
Let me say that I only half meant to criticize the company's products--I do think the stuff is overpriced, and that with a little looking around and so on (so easy in this day and age) one could probably often do better, especially for the price. That being said, I mostly wanted to screw with the spam (as Juniper noticed), and if I was ever gifted some equipment from said company, I'd be pretty happy about it.
I hadn't heard about the Consumer Reports incident...
I agree completely, the hero-worship of a corporation really bothers me. It's not just because they're geeks! Geeks have other options for heroes (I go with Maddox, Penn and Teller, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, and various fictional characters from video games/television/movies/comics). I think that people react to brands the way that they do because we're still overly susceptible to the adverts that paint technologies (which in this particular case is basically an oversized cell phone without the ability to make phone calls) as the next "great revolutionary human invention." Everyone wants to witness big human advancement. The inspirational music and "smart" minimalistic commercials blind us so that we don't recognize iCrap for what it is - a hodge-podge of previous inventions. I remember when my chem teacher first asked what an iPad was, and when the students answered him he asked "so how is that any different from a blackberry?" I think that we'll all start recognizing the BS soon enough.
Last edited by JuniperWoolf; 10-26-2011 at 11:16 PM.
__________________
"Personal note: When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once when I was six, I did. At first the brightness was overwhelming, but I had seen that before. I kept looking, forcing myself not to blink, and then the brightness began to dissolve. My pupils shrunk to pinholes and everything came into focus and for a moment I understood. The doctors didn't know if my eyes would ever heal."
-Pi
Apparently Gates is a much more likeable person though, Jobs was apparently a total douche to work for, and he even tried to avoid taking responsibility for a child he fathered for several years. Gates, on the other hand, has been one of the most generous philanthropist of our era.
"If the national mental illness of the United States is megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia."
- Margaret Atwood
Perhaps only to atone for his sins?
I think Jobs behaved the way he did is due to being a disacociative owing to a screwy childhood - the sort that often produces psychopaths, in fact. And avoiding parental responsibility is usually generational learning. The dad runs away, so does the kid, on, on, on...
I'm not his apologist (nor any deadbeat's) - I'm trying to put his consistent forging ahead into perspective.
As for being the boss from Hell, he was surrounded by sycophants within the company, proud to call themselves Apple employees - qualified computer scientists and techies all, they could have emptied their desks any time they wanted to and fled to MS or anywhere else, but they didn't, and they also understood where Steve Jobs the Benevolent Tyrant was coming from - he demanded the impossible, and they obliged considerably less than begrudgingly because at the end of the day there would be an actual result from the hard work.
Something that hadn't actually existed before.
Taking a bunch of existing tech and not seeing the possibilities is why so many products only do the specific limited things they've always done. By the time of the Apple II there were already IBM compatible PCs virtually interchangeable with operation, function, and ability. When the Icon based operating system appeared on the Mac (even though it wasn't his idea - it was definitely his idea to use it, not Xerox's, and also Gates' idea to steal it* along with it's thunder)
But hey, icons instead of typing out tedious command lines, and a mouse for the sense of interactivity - these deserved a wider appreciative audience, and it is with this that personal computing really took off (world-wide personal computer sales didn't just hit the magic million mark, it smashed straight though it, to today when it is an absolute necessity!)
Gates and Jobs needed each other because in an important sense they were the same as each other. Before them useful personal computers weren't being designed and built by some mystical hip dudes in Taiwan or Japan, there was simply no such thing as a personal computer. Silicon Valley was where it was happening thanks to Jobs (and Gates' larger market share). Steve Jobs considered his machines and software as an artform - the nerdier Gates had no such comprehension, and that's essentially where they differ.
When a tight fisted Scotsman decided to mount a 'modern' steam engine in a wooden carriage (because it was cheaper than chaff) 150 years ago, he didn't know it would trigger the dawn of a new era, an era of mechanised warfare but also of economical food transportation, car accidents and ambulances, distance travel and insurance claims, registration fees and tarmac roads - but it was a life- and civilisation altering achievement. Now you likely don't remember his name (I know I can't, and Google's no help at all), nor of the number who followed in his example - but you remember Daimler (first petrol car, granting greater useful distances), Cadillac (first recognisable car with accelerator, clutch and brake as they still are) and Ford (do I have to? okay, he 'borrowed' the idea for mass assembly and allowed himself to take credit) for various contributions to our modern civilisation (and probably wish you could forget them), but it was a centuries old dream and endeavor to create a self-propelled vehicle.
The point of this is that before Jobs and the first Apple the ordinary consumer could have purchased a personal computer - but it was a box with bugger all memory, no OS, no screen, no keyboard, and most incredibly (though not unsurprisingly) NO SOFTWARE to run on it. He didn't want to give the world a knock-off Altair - he wanted to offer AN ACTUAL USEFUL COMPUTER.
We take for granted that a new computer will work straight out of the box, but we shouldn't, considering how frantic we become when for whatever reason they cease operating.
And on the customer contempt issue: Jobs answered most of the emailed complaints personally, because he actually wanted to know what the potential problems were, not solely because of his vested interest. On the highway robbery ipod battery issue, he said: 'It was a mistake - they were expensive to make, and I honestly didn't realise that they eventually wore out.'
*Which doesn't count because back then no computer software held copyright (he also claimed to have gotten the idea from Xerox separately, which is complete crap)
I love my Atari 800 computer! Pong Rules!
Do you know those factories with "sweat-shop or near-sweat-shop conditions" also make electronic products for these companies:
Acer
Amazon
Intel
Cisco
Hewlett-Packard
Dell
Nintendo
Nokia
Microsoft
Motorola
Sony Ericsson
Truth is, just about everything these days are made in China. Chances are, the computer you used to type up this comment is also made in China.
From that list of companies, Apple is the only major technology company to audit its supply chain and publish the results.
That said, Apple has returned children to their families and forced factories to pay for their education for for six months or until they reached 16. Get this, Apple is under no obligation to do that. They are just a customer, yet they went out of their way to make things right.
Being that you are so concerned about worker welfare, what have you done to help the cause? Or is Apple just a convenient target?
"But do you really, seriously, Major Scobie," Dr. Sykes asked, "believe in hell?"
"In flames and torment?""Oh, yes, I do."
"That sort of hell wouldn't worry me," Fellowes said."Perhaps not quite that. They tell us it may be a permanent sense of loss."
"Perhaps you've never lost anything of importance," Scobie said.
For those who are not familiar with Steve Jobs, he is a visionary of our time. ABC calls him an American Genius, and plenty others know him as an innovator who "connect poetry to technology":
“It's in Apple's DNA that technology alone is not enough. That it's technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our hearts sing.” – Steve Jobs, March 2, 2011
He was responsible for changing the way we interact with technology and everyone's life whether we are aware of it or not. His creations didn't just transcend technology, he revolutionized the music industry, publishing, phones, and many more areas.
His Stamford Commencement Speech is considered the Gettysburg Address in commencement speech. Give it a listen if you wish:
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/10/...eve-jobs-life/
Excerpt:
"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent...
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."
TRANSCRIPT
The iMessiah probably stems from Apple being a cult. The iPad was called the Jesus tablet before it unveiled. Apple is a cult not because of their cool factor, but for its own values, aesthetics and passion.
"But do you really, seriously, Major Scobie," Dr. Sykes asked, "believe in hell?"
"In flames and torment?""Oh, yes, I do."
"That sort of hell wouldn't worry me," Fellowes said."Perhaps not quite that. They tell us it may be a permanent sense of loss."
"Perhaps you've never lost anything of importance," Scobie said.
It is true that Apple had to force or use strong persuasion in order that factories return children to their families. I am happy they were forced to change and reprimanded publically.
I think this has been posted on LitNet before somewhere, but it's worth a second look.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL7yD-0pqZg
Being in the field of artificial intelligence and digital electronics all of my life, I got to understand the 70's and the 80's very well. I think Steve Jobs made one fatal mistake at the outset with the Apple. Anyone who knew what was going on when Bill Gates established his company with the famous Q&D operating system, also knew that Apple was the thing of the future. But what was Jobs' mistake? Well, he put all his stuff into firmware and made it prioprietary.
If you look at the original Apple computer, and know what went on at the core, it looks almost identical to the original Windows of later days. Why did Microsoft made it so big and Apple remained with a small niche in printing and education? Well, Bill Gates coppied the system, but instead of making it proprietary, he associated himself with IBM, Intel, Dell and others who had the vision of a world of programmatic growth. He conquered the world by giving the world work and more work all for the development of the IBM PC. Thus Windows became economically sustained and indispensible as IBM, while Apple remained the quality choice of the day; good stuff, but just a choice of "snobs" in the San Francisco Bay area, where Jobs decided to locate the headquarters.
But in spite of his fatal entreprenurial mistake, the composer of the original generic Windows, called Apple, was Steve Jobs. He deserves many honors. May he rest in peace.
Last edited by cafolini; 10-28-2011 at 12:37 PM.
So your argument is "other people do it and that makes it okay"? That's never a good position.
Now excuse me while I play DAII on my Xbox 360.
__________________
"Personal note: When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once when I was six, I did. At first the brightness was overwhelming, but I had seen that before. I kept looking, forcing myself not to blink, and then the brightness began to dissolve. My pupils shrunk to pinholes and everything came into focus and for a moment I understood. The doctors didn't know if my eyes would ever heal."
-Pi
You are mistaken. Those are your words, not mine. I was only stating a fact, an FYI for the poster who singled out Apple — whether out of bias, self righteousness or ignorance — when pretty much every PC is made in China using the SAME factories.
Would you look at the back of that Xbox 360 of yours and tell us where it's made. Never mind, I have the answer: http://www.joystiq.com/2005/08/17/xb...made-in-china/
Enjoy your games and please leave the discussions to the adults.
Last edited by Haunted; 10-29-2011 at 01:43 AM.
"But do you really, seriously, Major Scobie," Dr. Sykes asked, "believe in hell?"
"In flames and torment?""Oh, yes, I do."
"That sort of hell wouldn't worry me," Fellowes said."Perhaps not quite that. They tell us it may be a permanent sense of loss."
"Perhaps you've never lost anything of importance," Scobie said.
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