I wasn't going to write or post anything about Steve Jobs for a few reasons. One is that info regarding him, his life, and his recent transition, is currently proliferating not only the Internet but all forms of media. The other reason is that I didn't know him personally. But the more I thought about it the more I realized I owed him...because of the extent that personal computers have infiltrated my--like many people's--life. Not just with this and previous blogs, but with writing in general. Though I work full-time as a cook, I work part-time as a freelance writer...and this is something I could never have done without a computer. I really cannot imagine how writers did it before the advent of the PC. To be quite honest, I really don't believe I would have been published as many times or as often as I have if not for a computer; mostly because of my personal laziness...how much more work it would take to type, re-type, and edit without a computer. Anyhow, that's all I plan on saying, other than an open and official thank you to Mr. Jobs for pioneering the thing on which I now type these very words.
What really prompted me to post on Steve Jobs was an article I read today at the Washington Post bearing the same title as this posting. What's below is a portion of the story which was cut-and-paste; to read the entire article,
click here.
“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 others’ 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.”
--Steve Jobs
Here's one last quote I read, and this is from President Barack Obama:
"The world has lost a visionary. And there may be no greater tribute to
Steve's success than the fact that much of the world learned of his
passing on a device he invented
Comments
Jobs was not an inventor. He was a marketer.
What he did is to push the development of computer products in the direction of things he wished to market. In that sense he was a visionary and his vision was somewhat different from that of others in the field.
The device that much of the world learned about his death on is called The Internet. That was written by Bill Joy in his "spare time" as a grad student. His famous motto is "The network is the computer," and so it is coming to pass. His company, Sun, built the computers to run The Internet.
What Jobs's vision gave us was an "end user delivery" device for The Internet that could be put in your pocket, not rest on a table.
In other words, what Jobs has done for your life is to fill it full of chippies driving around in Cadillac Escalades with their heads down busy texting instead of, ya know, looking where the hell they are going.
As for how we wrote back in the day, I once wrote a children's novel in a blue school notebook, with a ball point pen . . . while sitting on a reasonably isolated beach on the Pacific coast of Mexico.
While I wouldn't necessarily want to do that every day, I'm willing to at least give it another go. It weren't torture.
As far as the comparatively trivial topic of computer history, KFG I think you are inaccurate in dismissing him to being a "marketer". At the very least he was an innovative designer who bridged the world of computer engineering with the day-to-day world of everyone else. Of course he was not the only one doing that, but he did it really well. Enough so that it motivated/ inspired/ forced other manufacturers to think in new ways.
I also don't think Jobs deserves to be blamed for all the "chippies" driving "Escalades" (or Prius', etc). I think the problem isn't the device, but the driver/user, and the rolling living room they are sitting in. Text messaging was around before the iPhone. So was the Walkman, the 8 track tape, the newspaper, lipstick. Come to think of it, foolish people predate all of those things. He didn't design/create a weapon, he designed communication devices.
And KFG, something tells me that Joe, the guy who grows his own food, bakes his own bread, cooks food for a living, uses a wood burning stove, also happens to know about the properties and use of paper and pen. Hell, I can even remember PENCILS! I know for me, as a photographer for 30 years, that digital does not necessarily equate to better, but I also know that I have a far more interesting world out there in terms of publishing, if I choose to do so. Jobs did not invent the internet, but he and his team changed how we use it.
Finally, I think Obama was referring not to the "internets", but to the iPads and iPhones, and all their inspired equivalents.
Sent via carrier pidgeon
Certainly. If I didn't understand that I wouldn't have written what I did.
"Jobs did not invent the internet, but he and his team changed how we use it."
Yes, that's what I gave credit for.
"Sent via carrier pidgeon"
Cher Ami, we are here!