This is “politics news” insofar as we know that 126.9% of you Wonketteers would not even be reading this post right now without some kind of Apple device that also enables you to continue the grueling daily process of existing, so let us all take a moment to say goodbye to Apple founder Steve Jobs, who passed away today at the age of 56. Oh ha ha, does everyone remember that time that Obama tried to bribe America to love him with free iPads? None of this could have happened, without Steve Jobs.
Here’s the official thing on the Apple website:
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Yes, iclouds, idead, icasket.
Let poor taste reign.
For those Apple fanbois among us, I offer this Steve Jobs photo gallery, courtesy of the Seattle Times, out here in Microsoft-land.
I just tied a black ribbon around my iPhone.
That's a very nice iBituary.
Do you suppose he believed in an iGod?
Yes, but it costs twice the amount of any other god, and the only real selling point is that it looks cool.
Well, that's all that i would want, anyway.
Hah! I can go to Mexico City and pick up a pirated god for practically nothing. Granted, they do have limited functionality, but still.
You found God in Mexico City? Usually all I find are a bunch of Jesuses.
Wrong! The plural is Jesus-i. Or, in this case, iJesusi
you can't customize iGod, either. not without voiding the warranty.
iThink not. Consider, iF you will, the Apple iCon.
I jailbroke my iGod. I don't get the automatic updates anymore, but I can run other religions' software on it.
So unanswered prayers can ultimately be chalked up to AT&T's shitty network?
Do you have the 3God or 4God version? You might want to upgrade your plan.
And the hipsters cry. So, who's going to be the leading businessman who's openly plotting to take over the world now?
Oh, like you don't know Sorosbot.
Todd Palin? too soon?
Herman Cain?
Mark Zuckerberg?
Herman Cain?
all of'em, Katie?
Too soon?
Hitler?
Mitt Romney?
Well, two of them actually…
Trig?
Bad joss Steve, from an olde Taipan fan.
Apple has always been more about looking good than anything else. If you want to know what Jobs should be really remember for, go watch a Pixar movie with someone you love.
OK, I'll admit that UNIX boxes are better than Apple products when it comes to security and flexibility, but you can't beat Apple for graphics. Anybody who does ANY kind of work that requires graphics capability is working on an apple. Especially since the end of SGI.
I've been using PCs since '81 and Macs since '84. I know which ones I like better.
Hint: Number of Zunes I have = 0. Number of iPods I have = 4. (I know, I know, but they don't break, and you can't just throw the damn things away!)
The Zune is crap. My first MP3 player was a RIO 300 (great thing, a whole 32megs of memory, expandable to 64!!!) I have had mostly Creative players since then, although I do have a 160gig Ipod now to house everything I own…, still prefer my original Creative Zen 40gig player which, strangely enough, has a battery you can replace yourself. Nearly 10 years old, and still going strong.
160 Gb! May I move in with you? I just want to put your music on my Pod. I'll pay for my own meals and bring my own pot.
Speaking of which, I'm thinking of getting an mp3 player and have never had one before. What is, and where can I get, a good one that's not an iPod?
You are right about the graphics. Every friend I have who works with Computer Graphics would agree with you. And there are a number of advantages to Apple, but I have always liked the cheaper, do whatever world of the PC. Apple does some nice things, but it comes at the Orwellian price of doing it their way or no other.
I've been working with computers since punch-cards, and the first PC I ever worked on was a Trash-80, IIRC. What you're using your machine for pretty much dictates what you're going to buy. But everything else being equal, I would buy an Apple for the sheer esthetics of it. Also, I srsly despise Windows as an OS. It started out as a very obvious ripoff of Apple's OS, but it never got the graphics right, and the more it changes, the worse it gets, in my opinion. But then again, I'm used to UNIX boxes, which are great if you're coding or managing multiple machines or running huge databases. PCs are good if you're trying to computerize routine office tasks, I guess, but you really don't want to do anything complex with them.
I go back to that era also. Though I deviated into CPM for a while. The thing I would like to find, cheaply not for thousands of dollars, is a spreadsheet program which had the capabilities of LogiCalc. To this day on spreadsheets and databases at work and doing electioneering off the clock I keep looking for functions LogiCalc had that aren't in Excel.
Came of age with a TRS-80, first computer ever. Then a Commodore 64. Christ, Magic vs. Bird was the fucking 1984 BOMB. Then straight up Telnet circa 1991, right into CMU via Al Gore.
actually, a mac nowadays IS a UNIX box. Just well concealed so as not to scare civilians
I know.
People need the prity pitchers.
Yup, the reason we at work all switched to Macs is that we're old Unix-heads. Finally somebody put a nice user interface on Unix! You can run Word, Photoshop, etc and do command-line magic.
True that. If you want to do anything in graphic design/publishing etc., it's still Mac all the way. I believe the same is true for video editing and sound stuff, but I have no personal knowledge of that.
Yes it is true. Don't even want to waste your money on a PC for video.
I have 5 Macs at home, but I never understood what is that you cannot do with a PC.
I am a photographer and graphic designer and web designer and I have NEVER owned a Mac. Not sure why you would suggest that! Of course, I'm writing this on my iPad.
I'm guessing you don't actually do anything that involves book printing or printed material in any way. Web-only?
Were it not for Steve, you'd still be looking at a C: prompt every time you (re)booted your PC.
Another one of the good guys is gone.
Really? Which one?
He invented the Transistor and the Monitor.
Quite off base, but Wozniak got the first patent creating a visual display for computer output. Forget the computer.
Hmmmm….. There were graphical displays for RCA Spectra 70's in the 1960's…. Way before the Woz (and way before me too)
Woz's patent is for a microcomputer generating high-resolution color graphics on a regular TV set.
Nope. The Monitor was invented by this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ericsson
What about the Interociter?
Steve Jobs RIP. I must say I do like your timing. Guess what's going to be the lead article in the NYT tomorrow? Not the grifter's grifting announcement of the obvious.
Beautiful!
Considering that she seems to have timed her announcement to trump Christie's not-running-ness, I'd like to advise Sarah's family to HIDE THE SLEEPING PILLS AND BOOZE.
I advise that they leave them on her nightstand.
As stated by a commenter to The Onion's meh joke on the topic, their headline should have been, "Republicans Blame Obama for Jobs Loss."
Steve was as visionary as Sarah is myopic.
iSad.
I need to mourn his passing. Does anyone know where I can find the app for that?
Sadly, the itunes store has never been known for its sense of humor.
Fart Piano.
Long live Steve Jobs! He could be quite an asshole on a personal level, but he changed the lives of people all around the world, forever. He was a genius. The world is a sadder place without him.
Not really ALL around the world. Just the rich bits.
Hey now, all those poor brown children get fancy jobs in a factory, like grownups, to make our iStuff.
Geniuses are often "assholes" on a personal level, I think. Of course, lotsa assholes THINK that they're geniuses…but most are just assholes.
Good point, Harry. Fine line, innit?
Actually my fizziks professor might beg to differ on the first one. He wuz a D-rat, too, also.
rip steve jobs.
thanks for genius and simple beauty.
I think one thing noting is that yes, Jobs was an aggressive businessman, but he really did become fantastically wealthy from making things that have really had a pretty enormous positive impact on peoples' lives. Sure, we mainly just think about the gadgets and toys of the past few years, when we think of Apple, but let's try to imagine (or remember, for you dinosaurs) what things would be like without personal computing.
And, he didn't get there by inheriting hundreds of millions from his parents, either; Apple was founded in his friends' borrowed garages and basements, and they paid for the parts for their first computers by selling their cars and calculators. The story of Apple, which is pretty inextricable from the story of Steve Jobs, is the picture of true entrepreneurship, as opposed to the aristocratic greed that tries to pose in its stead so often today.
[/Woz doing the golf clap in the background]
Good point m_j, how many of us would be here if we didn't have our seamless, taken for granted Macs? He, no doubt, was a huge contributor to the process of delivering this modern convenience. Further, how much of that true entrepreneurship do we see in the post Glass-Steagall money machine that is Wall St. 1%? What do they produce other than money for themselves and misery for those not on the inside?
Yes, that's all true. He truly was one of our American bootstrap greats. But just like that nice, completely rational fellow who lives down the street who one day becomes a state rep or congressman, the environment corrupts after a good (short) while.
I wonder what Michelangelo, Newton, Dostoyevsky, Beethoven or Einstein would have accomplished with Apple products?
Lotta porn vid, in HD.
Well Michelangelo probably can't do much, being fairly dumb and just is a party dude; but Leonardo is fairly smart, as he leads, and can probably do quite a bit; and Donatello is a genius, he does machines, so he should be able to do a hell of a lot.
Probably would have been jacking off to porn all day. Maybe playing WoW a lot, too.
What, was the gray market fresh out of livers?
Classy.
I'm not apologizing for it. Someone with less money lost out on a liver transplant, because Steve Jobs had more money and is therefore more important.
I hope the two years he got were worth it.
Well I'm sure you are so magnanimous that if you were in position, likely to die from liver failure, you would say, “no, not I, for I am unworthy of a new liver!” and not do the normal human thing of doing whatever the hell you can to survive.
Sorry, I don't make enough money to make those kinds of life-and-death decisions.
The average Foxconn employee certainly couldn't afford that transplant.
Well Gup, I am a person who is actually on an active list waiting for human lungs, a non smoker and avid hiker who simply drew an unfortunate genetic card. From what I have found, there are so many variables involved in getting a donor that even if I had a giant pile of money it would not change my status much as a candidate. Livers are a bit easier to get than lungs, but blood match/tissue type/size/timing are things that just don't come off of the shelf.
If we had a sane organ procurement and health policy in this damn country it would help everyone out alot.
The problem with the iLiver is that when it fails, you have to ship the whole body back to China to get it replaced.
He was, quite simply, insanely great.
So it's blue jeans and a black t-shirt tomorrow!
Can't you get your BLACK jeans out, for once?
No! You have to wear a black turtleneck!
And to think Dick Cheney is still roaming around without a heartbeat.
The good truly die young.
Jobs wasn't into the whole semi-monthly organ harvesting trips to Honduras.
Why does he have to go to Hondouras when there are perfectly good hunting buddies to shoot in the face here at home?
'Cause some of them don't know enough to shut their yaps about it, and end up having to apologize later.
Cheney hasn't had a heartbeat since 1964, part of the pre-nup with Lynne
Silly you, thinking Dick Cheney is human.
I said the same thing, although I'm not sure I'd call Steve Jobs "good," as such. Great, maybe, but that's not the same thing at all, is it?
Better to be honorably expired than to be the most hated living entity on earth.
Only the young die good.
I guess the warranty expired on that pancreas he bought in Moldova a few years back.
Ouch.
I'm going to forgo the snark & just say Rest in Peace, Steve.
May his "monopoly" last forever
I willingly admit that I love my MacBook Pro, my iPhone and all the other Apple products that I have owned. I also willingly admit that I am thrilled that Steve Jobs managed to push Alskunt off the front pages of tomorrow's papers.
She's working on a suicide gesture to get it all back.
Sarah's been out-quitted.
You win! Very subtle, biting, and funny as fuck
in a world where no new jobs will ever be created again, Steve Jobs' creations live on.
Thanks Steve. You made my life a little easier, and a lot more interesting.
He made it possible for me to masturbate much more efficiently. Those paper magazine pages used to get awfully sticky.
Now just your keys do.
My iStash is a lot easier to hide from the Mrs. than it was to hide from my Mom!
The bankers never use a Mac / in the pouring rain.
Very strange.
Pancreatic cancer is a horrible thing, but Jobs was just another capitalist robber baron, sorry. Much of his fortune was made by sending manufacturing overseas while only offering American workers without an advanced degree a minimum-wage, non-union job at the Apple store.
Was he somehow better or different just because claimed to be a Buddhist and supported the Democratic Party?
Of course not. But hippies need some excuse to feel better about caving to vapid consumerism like the rest of us.
And Bill Gates has done more good with his money and used somewhat more ethical business practices, but Microsoft is always painted as the bad guy and Apple as the good guy, because hipsters like the Macs more.
Apples and Oranges. Gates makes mostly software. But do you think his one hardware product, Xbox, is made in America? Kudos to him for giving away money, but look at MS's antitrust record as well.
But when Gates dies, all the hipsters who are crying about how Jobs was the greatest human being who ever lived will be pissing on his grave and calling him the most evil man ever, because Apples are cooler than PCs.
I'm ambivalent about Gates. I appreciate his charitable works, certainly. But every time I engage in the extraordinarily frustrating process of using a windows machine, I feel that windows OS is one of the greatest scams ever perpetrated against the computer using public. There is no reason a computer should be so difficult to use.
? Windows is very easy to use.
On the other hand, the first 10 minutes of Up.
In shipping jobs overseas, he was no different than EVERY other PC/tech manfacturer, so I'm not going to give his products extra hate for being popular.
As for exploiting poor Chinese workers, you know what? Fuck the Chinese. They have their big boy pants on as a nation and control their own destiny. If the semi-Commies want to treat their people as interchangeable cogs in a machine, as so beautifully represented by the Olympic opening ceremony, there is certainly not a goddammed thing we can do to change it, except frown upon them and shame them into relenting a little bit the next time there's a few bad pixels (i.e. uprisings) in their master plan.
I thank Steve Jobs for my MacBook Pro and the cutie pie geniuses who fixed it for free when the spilled water fried it. We have an apple II in the attic from like, 1983? Maybe? The screen is a tiny thing on top of the keyboard. My "cool" uncle bought it, so I automatically thought they were cool, and they are the only computers I've ever had.
iRIP.
And he danced with the Acid Queen and made that part of his spirit.
Look I said over on the other thread something about amazing and I stand by it. The whole comeback story, etc… I've been in this industry for quite a number of years at two of the companies considered to be the absolute leaders in their time (DEC and HP) and we had most of the same ideas Apple had – but they made profitable products out of them – we just went around talking to people and running up expense accounts. (Happy times, for sure) [side note - at HP in 1998 we made a video that showed a "device" exactly like an iPhone, behaving the same way - I recently tried to get their PR people to release it from the archives, but they refused - the next day they killed Palm]
So Amen – he took a lot of ideas and made practical products out of them. I stop short of the DiVinci comparisons though – everything from the graphical UI to the iPhone was invented years and years ago. And I don't understand the stinginess, although hey, maybe his plan is to give everything away in death.
However, it's still sad to see any other human who at the very least contributed in some positive (though debatable) way to humanity die at such a young age.
This makes me want to kick Bill Gates in the nuts EVEN MORE.
Heh, much as I hate most of what I've bought from MSFT over the years, Bill Gates is at least (loudly and publicly) trying to put his billions to work to save humanity.
I blame that nice Catholic girl he married.
Yeah, he definitely seemed to mellow out after getting hitched. I think it goes with the whole situation that some folks need someone around to remind them they are being a jerk.
RIP Steve Jobs…I use a macbook to write snark on Wonkette and for that, I'm grateful.
"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.
Stay hungry. Stay foolish."
-Steve Jobs 1955-2011
Figures like Steve Jobs will always be controversial (e.g. Edison, Einstein, Don Knotts), but one thing is certain: the man had excellent æsthetic taste. Banal, boring, insipid he was not. That alone is worth saluting.
– Sent from my iPad
(Really)
Too soon.
Apple workers in China react to Steve Jobs's news (of his retirement).
Is the suicide net at half mast?
I feel a great disturbance in the force.
oh. nice.
RIP Steve Jobs
Can we now get porn apps? iTouchMyself
Ah, that would indeed be a perfect opportunity for someone to license the DiVinyls' masterpiece for use in commercials!
In other Obituary news, Civil Rights movement giant Fred Shuttlesworth passed away today. All Things Considered ran a nice long remembrance of Rev. Shuttlesworth tonight. Made me want to go re-watch Eyes On the Prize yet again.
For this story, I'm not going to succumb to the temptation to see what fecal nuggets of wisdom the Freepers come up with. It'd be too painful.
So did DC's "Fox 5 news at 10". The local news program that constantly surprises (in all ways good and bad) spent quite a while talking about him.
I would still be 'puterless were it not for the user-friendly nature of Apple products. Times like this make me wonder: Jobs was a genuine genius and creator of jobs, wealth and enjoyment for millions….dead at 56. I have not done shit, yet I live on at 70 and counting. There is truly no justice on this side of the curtain.
Wisdom.
"
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
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.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.
This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
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. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away.
Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960’s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
Steve Jobs.
"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."
Well, goddamn. That's about the best thing I've read in weeks. The whole damn post. Fuck, thanks for misting me, jerk.
Wow. I teared up over that. I wish I could somehow adopt his attitude.
Might as well watch the man himself say it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc
With grandkids who are fans of Steve's creations at Pixar, I can only say he has gone: "to infinity and beyond".
I guess if you take human exploitation as merely an integral part of the global economy and our radically new and improved lifestyle, then I guess Steve Jobs has never drifted.
What's really crazy about this is that Jobs was once just a penniless genius, like so many. But instead of pulling a Cobain once he realized the nature of the beast, he endeavored to tame it. I admire his vision and tenacity.
And despite all that crap above, I have to admit that I'd absolutely react the same fucking way. That fence-straddling bunch of nothing brought to you by the letter "beer."
Really sad to hear.
Top 10 Thanks to Steve
1. Apple Stock up 10,435%
2. Mac
3. Apple II
4. iPod
5. iPad
6. iPhone
7. OS X
8. No Dress Code at Work
9. Pixar
10. Destroying the Record Industry
I used to keep my stash inside the compartment of my Apple ][e. Just pop the lid off and it went right under the keyboard. Thanks Jobs & Woz!
The rainbow wheel just keeps going around and around and… Force quit. Damn.
I haz a huge iSad. he was visionary in hiring and employment pracrices as well as technology.
I just woke up, did Santa die?
No, just a billionaire plutocrat, but you'd think so considering the hagiography coming from a lot of people who should know better.
Would that 10 percent of the billionaire plutocrats in the world did 50 percent as much as he did to change the world.
And He will rise in three days to save us all from death, and usher in a worldwide paradise!
No. But he did a lot of cool shit, and he made my life better, and I have no illusions that at the end of the day his life will have been far more impactful than mine. I have a pretty hard time begrudging him just because a lot of people wanted to give him money for the cool shit that he made.
As someone else suggested upthread, Jobs and people like him are the poster boys of what capitalism should be. Compared to the legions of people who get rich by suckering the system or acting as transaction costs, they measurably and notably improve the world. I'm not saying he's a saint, or that he didn't have flaws–hell, I never met the guy. Maybe he kicked puppies and bit the heads of bunnies as a way to relax. All I'm saying is that lumping people like Jobs together with all the other "billionaire plutocrats" in the world just doesn't make sense.
Aside from a second-hand iPod, I never got into the whole Apple thing. I think it's because I was gun shy after going all-in on the Betamax.
If Don McLean writes a song about the events of yesterday, I'm closing my iTunes account.
RIP, Steve.
So bye, bye, Mr. iPod guy….
Do the Teatards know that Jobs was the son of an American mother and a Syrian father? Another half-Mooslin lookin' to destroy 'Murica like that Kenyan fellah.
I always thought the Amiga was the better computer. But, when you're dealing with consumers, better doesn't always win.
RIP Mr. Jobs. Your innovation will be missed. Who will China corporations copy now?
They sure were advanced in graphics. I remember playing "Need for Speed" back in 1990 and I swear the graphics were as good as what the first gen PlayStation achieved 5+ years later.
I paid $3,500 for my first computer, an Apple II, in about 1983. No hard disk. 48K of memory. Two 5.25" floppies. A green screen. I think I got a dot matrix printer thrown in on the deal. In today's dollars, all that computing power (?) would cost $7,875 today. Not only have Apple products become aesthetically more pleasing, portable, and infinitely more powerful, they're way cheaper than they used to be.
Genius.
When I first few across he Atlantic fifty years ago it cost a lot more than today and took a lot longer (including a stopover at Shannon and perhaps Gander). Do we owe progress in aviation economics and technology to a genius?
The man was no saint. His 8 billion dollar fortune couldn't save him, and he apparently had no interest in finding a use for it before he died.
Fred Shuttlesworth died the same day, and his death has been overshadowed a bit. He did a lot, and he didn't have no damn 8 billion dollars, either.
I have nothing against Apple. Learned to use a computer in 1985 on a Macintosh after failed half-hearted attempts on other, less user-friendly machines. I also learned how to drive on a Ford but it never made me fall in love Henry.
Goes to show everyone….no matter how iSuccessful you are and no matter how iRich you are…you still end up iToast. I just wish my dad had bought Apple stock when I told him to at $25. I'd be iRetired.
Two words: XeroxPARC
Meh. I played with the Altos computer at PARC… it had a five figure price, was the size of a minivan, and was not nearly as polished as the original Mac OS. And Xerox had no clue what to do with it — it was Steve who saw immediately that all computers would someday work that way.
the Ipod sucks ass, always has, always will. Won't play with any other machines, you buy music at Itunes, you are forced to only own apple shit for life or your library becomes useless. All apple shit, its about controlling you, hooking you, controlling you, but making you like it because its hipsterrific.
You're sounding like the Wintards who rag on Macs, never having owned one. Fact is, you can buy MP3 files anywhere, or rip tunes from your CDs, and put them on an iPod … and do it all on a Windows PC.
People like Apple stuff because it works. (Or maybe you can convince my 84-year old mom that she's a hipster… good luck with that.)
About 60% of my iTunes library originated from CDs I borrowed from the, um, public library. (To be fair, most of this stuff I bought on vinyl at some point, so I'm not really *stealing* from the artists…)
Trust me, the artists got fleeced by the record companies years earlier, so I would venture that you're not stealing (although the companies would for sure). The Apple vision re: digitized music distribution (something record companies couldn't figure out–I suppose they were all too busy doing blow bought with their recoupable earnings) is one of the best things to happen for the average working musician, leveling the playing field and fucking up the industry's greed driven model. I cannot wait for every last 'traditional' record company to go belly up.
Jobs was a great salesman, not an inventor.
Jobs did not invent the mouse nor the Apple GUI interface–Xerox at Palo Alto Reseach Center (PARC) did.
But they didn't know how to exploit it (they were a bunch on inventors, not salesjerks).
Apple did:
Jobs and several Apple employees including Jef Raskin visited Xerox PARC in December 1979 to see the Xerox Alto. Xerox granted Apple engineers three days of access to the PARC facilities in return for the option to buy 100,000 shares of Apple at the pre-IPO price of $10 a share.”
Which is my point. If you did make enough money, you absolutely would and so would anyone else. There are a lot of things you can criticize him over, but I am not going to criticize him for refusing to die sooner.
Didn't Mickey Mantle leapfrog over a bunch of 'poors' to get a new liver? And we all know that bastard totally drank his original liver out. I remember thinking Mickey's way of life probably didn't merit him getting a liver over other people who needed one, but at least Steve didn't totally abuse his body that way. Sad all around…maybe the moral of the story is there should be more organ donors.
TY for stepping up to the plate here
That's exactly it. It's silly to be angry at a guy who games an inherently unfair system. You should be angry at the system.
You want a good one, or one that's not an iPod? You sorta have to decide, here.
I've been happy with Creative's products. Decent interface, and a nice look to them. I have one in my car that I've hooked up and has basically replaced my 10 disc changer for most songs. I also use one for working around the garden or the house. Just little 4gb players, but then you can swap stuff in and out easy enough. And, if you ware willing to go with refurbished or clearance items, you can get pretty cheap (plus Creative now sells through Amazon check out, making it easy to get without having to set up a new account).
Jeez, we're old!
Tandy, Radio Shack. Dedicated word processors from Raytheon. Haha, Wangs. DECs.
Good times, good times.
Commodore 64! When men were men, and video games required a complex code to input and a 10-minute load time. But, oh, "Mail Order Monsters," how I loved you.
My first computer was a Sperry-Rand UNIVAC 1005 mainframe that my dad got for real cheap as surplus when he was working at NSA and they did an upgrade to the 9000 series. Portability was for shit, and we had to install a 40-ton York air conditioning unit at the house to keep it cool. But it played Oregon Trail superfast.
I've proudly never owned an Apple product, and don't want to start just because I've never heard of other MP3 players. Also, don't they only come with touch screens, and no buttons? I hate touch screens, and find them a real pain in the ass to try to use.
Yep. My first computer was an Apple I. It was a kit you put together. Storage was on a panasonic cassette tape recorder. Someone's Dad donated it to our high school computer club. When we weren't messing around with that, we were playing Star Trek on the AZ State U. mainframe using an actual TeleType terminal connected to the mainframe by a telephone plugged into a 300 baud acoustically coupled modem. Them was the days….
You said wang.
So when George W. Bush uses his family connections to get into the National Guard so that someone else's son can get their ass shot off in Vietnam, he's just "gaming the system" and George himself shouldn't be held personally accountable?
I'm not up on latest tech trends, but I'm in love with my iPod Touch. I've never owned/used an Apple product except when I have to for work, but then my wife got me this for my birthday, as she could sense my growing frustration with an enormous CD collection. As someone who also hates touch screens and has ham-fingers, I got over it pretty fast, actually. If you're mainly using it for music, it's not like you're doing a lot of typing.
It's a sad day and Steve Jobs wore, more than anyone in our time, the aura of true greatness. But I hated the one Ipod I ever owned. An mp3 player should be a storage device with an earphone jack, and not have this XML B&D interface (aka ITunes) interpose between me and my hardware.
Even if I could somehow get used to using a stupid touch-screen interface, buying an iPod would mean giving money to the evil Apple corporation. This is a serious question; I think I might like an mp3 player, and will not buy any Apple products, so what are my options?
My first computer was a Commodore VIC 20 inherited from my technophilic grandparents; that was fun. I just had a couple of games, rip-offs of Pac-Man and Space Invaders and several old-school text adventures,
That is a ridiculous false analogy and you know it.
the Sansa line of players are decent, have good sound quality, real buttons, very reasonably priced, but sometimes have a cheap feel to the manufacturing. Cowon also makes great mp3 players, stylish, great sound quality, are responsive to their customers, but touch-screen. Sony makes some as well, but I don't know anything about them, and I don't know that as a company they're any better than apple.
I like my Sansa Clip. Had it for three years now – and it cost $40. The clip plus also lets you expand storage with a micros SD.
Both used their personal wealth and connections to escape a life-threatening situation, and both did so by jeopardizing the lives of others who simply weren't as rich. Maybe the other people on the transplant wait list managed to survive to wait for another liver, and maybe the guys with a higher draft number managed to survive the war. But both bought more time to live by paying with the lives and well-being of others.
No. One was a life-threatening situation, the other was a life-ENDING situation. Big difference there.
So you get to decide an acceptable level of risk to expose others to?
Another silly thing to say. Of course I don't get to decide. I wasn't the one who got Jobs a new liver.
Of course, it's never been established that Jobs broke any rules to get his liver transplant. He did get his liver in a different state than the one he lives in, but that isn't super-uncommon, and isn't limited to the super-rich. Meanwhile, I've signed my organ donor card.
But you already have. You made the decision that Jobs' life was at greater risk than Bush's, and that therefore made the Faustian bargain OK for one but not the other.
I never said it, either (I didn't say "black market"). But simply because something is lawful doesn't make it ethical.
Yes, because plenty of people survived Vietnam. No one survives liver failure.Also, as others have pointed out, there's no evidence he did anything illegal.
If you got the pot, it is a done deal.
By that logic, what Bush did was even more ethical, as the hazard he put someone else into was not as great.
And then there's the fact that Bush has lived a hell of a lot longer after his bargain than did Jobs. The extra time on this planet that Bush may or may not have bought was not paid for as dearly.
I still have my Original IBM PC from 1981 that I got from my Mom when I went to college and she upgraded to one of the first Dell 286s. Don't know if it still works, I don't think it has been powered on since the 90s. I've built myself four computers since then. I should plug in the old IBM some day, if for no reason just to look at my old stuff from college.
Let me ask you again since you didn't answer the first time. Hypothetically, you have his money and you find out you need a new liver. Ignoring the fact that we have no idea whether or not he bought one illicitly, if you had his money and knew you could purchase such a thing and the alternative was dying, can you honestly say you would choose death?
What a mensch!
That's two recommendations; I'll have to check that one out, thanks.
I'm not sure if I win here, but I remember playing Hamurabi on a thing that used these huge 15" magnetic tape reels and was the size of your average office credenza. This was 1977 or 1978.
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