Thursday, October 06, 2011

Men who really, truly, changed our world

Steve Jobs is dead today.

And contrary to what some would have us believe in Venezuela about a certain president,  Steve Jobs changed our world for good, in both sense of the expression.  And he dies younger than that certain president who changed stuff for the worse, in all senses.

41 comments:

  1. Rest in peace, Steve Jobs. You'll be missed.

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  2. 1979 Boat People5:51 AM

    Some may have wished the news was about Fidel/Chavez NOT Steve Jobs.

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  3. Anonymous6:18 AM

    Why, oh why does a man who made the world a better place, has to leave us at such an early age?

    Good buy and RIP Steven Paul Jobs. While you were a very special visionary human being, you have shown the world that the sky is the limit and that if you, an adoptee who faced a lot of seemingly unsurmountable obstacles in the early years can reach it, anybody can.

    Mike

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  4. Charly6:22 AM

    Truly sad, one of my heroes.

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  5. Anonymous10:55 AM

    My favorite Steve Jobs quote is: “We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone [and iPad apps]. Folks who want porn can buy an Android phone.”

    This was no marketing anti-gimmick. He was a good guy.

    Antonio

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  6. For those of you that only think Ipad and Ipods and Iphones, Jobs started Apple MacIntosh in 1976 which lead the way to beginning use of personal computers well ahead of Gates and Windows. Steve Jobs truly was a modern day hero.

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  7. Island Canuck1:22 PM

    His death also shows us that no amount of money or social (political) standing can protect you from something like cancer.

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  8. Anonymous1:41 PM

    Why is it that good guys seem to die more frequently than bad ones? In the end we all must face our creator, but why don't THEY go first? I need an answer before it is too late!

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  9. People need heroes. We seem to have the necessity to idolize certain guys we never even ever met.

    This guy Steve was probably an extraordinary dude. Slightly smarter than you and me. Full of flaws too, by his own admission, as in cheating and banging women left and right. Can we blame him? He was a "minimalist", as you can read, few selected things in his abode, so that's cool. We should all get rid of about 90% of the material crap that we own, anyway.

    But how much did Jobs, the new technology Jesus Christ, martyr and modern hero, give away to Charity? I bet Bill Gates has pinched in tons of billions more, so there you have another Guru to worship. Relatively good people, not the best.

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  10. Anonymus: be sure to share the knowledge when you find the answer!

    Geez! how come so many geniuses die and we're left with the morons?

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  11. Milonga4:05 PM

    A true revolutionary. Three apples that changed de world: Eve's, Newton's and Jobs'.

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  12. Anonymous4:19 PM

    Que descance en paz, gracias a Steve Jobs se nos facilita todo ahora. Siempre son los buenos que se van ¿Porque será?
    La Maga Lee

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  13. Reminds me of the Floyd tune:\\

    "and riding on the biggest wave, you race towards an early grave"

    Jobs was just another product of our plastic technology, who happened to step up, be extra-disciplined, with some personal charisma, impressive public speech skills, at the right time to lead a massive herd to our macs and i-phones. BIG DEAL. I'd rather worship some Bodhisattva monk in the Himalayas.

    Wrong hero. If you really need one, the world has many more quiet, amazing people, who do a lot more with much less on a daily basis.

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  14. Nice images and quotes from him:
    http://www.buzzfeed.com/awesomer/12-most-inspirational-quotes-from-steve-jobs

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  15. Anonymous4:50 PM

    "Microsoft is a monopoly, Apple is a dictatorship."

    It's nice to see another dictator bite the dust.

    Jobs was not an innovator, he was a salesman with delusions of grandeur. A charismatic low-life who pretended he was sterile to deny his own daughter, who never gave a single cent to charity, and whose only real accomplishment was to create "Computers for dummies", greatly contributing to the intellectual degradation of society.

    Like others charismatic dictators, his greatest accomplishment was to treat people like crap whose only purpose in life was to serve him, and still have them worship him like a demi-god.

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  16. Well, I am certainly not happy to hear of Steven Jobs death however it seems to me that those who are dying over this have never suffered a real loss.

    I am also of the mind that it is not how many people admire you that makes your loss greater, but rather how willing you are or not to accept death, that indicates its real tragedy.

    Who are we to be the ultimate judges of the worth of a man, woman or child?

    Some of us bitch and complain about equality, then judge a man in the most unequal way.

    Firepigette

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  17. 1979 Boat People5:28 PM

    Very strange, i have never own Apple's products like Mac computer, iPod, iPhone, iPad then yesterday i got iSad.

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  18. Fair enough, firepiguette, but here's what's rather perplexing, and to me, quite interesting, shows you how mentally weak and flawed we are:

    We just love to idolize certain cultural "icons", or models, or movie heroes, sports "athletes", even freaking politicians. This bullshyt plastic capitalistic or "revolucionario" crap culture has to have "heroes" and "role models", to worship, and admire... even when they are as flawed as any of us, Tiger Woods, shall we say. Or any president of any nation, ever since that ugly whore, Cleopatra, whom we still think was beautiful and righteous.. and before that.

    This Steve Jobs guy, to me, was nothing to write home about. Heck, you always feel sad when anyone dies ( not so sure about Castro, Hitler, Saddam, Osama or Chavez, but anyway). But C'mon! This dude from the Mackintosh huge company? Cry me a freaking River. A can think of thousands of people who really should be remembered for ages, instead of some baby-boom eccentric multi-billionaire executive in Babylone.

    But we do need our daily dose of hip society heroes, don't we? The day George Harrison died,from the Beatles, I did feel truly sad. When Hemmingway or Joyce, or Dali died, hell, that must have been terrible. When De Niro, Hoffman, Nicholson, or Pacino dies, "Scent of a woman" will still be there, and we shall honor that.

    But this dude Steve Jobs? Making trillions in a plastic world, firing people left and right, and keeping way too many millions for fimself instead of giving all away to charity as another nerd, called Bill gates does, CRY ME A FREAKING RIVER. And don't be so sure he was such a"genius" anyway. He simply was at the right place at the right time, if you want to make tons of money in a plastic world.

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  19. And btw, one could easily call this popular idolatry for technology public billionaire figures (facebook, google, etc) as just another form of bogus religion:

    We need Gods as many as possible, always have. People better than us who have all the answers, even when related in some laughable little fake books, like the bible or the koran, and stuff. Even when, if those Gods really exist, we have absolutely no capability to understand what they are up to. If anything at all.

    We are so afraid to stand on our own 2 feet, that we need reassurance from anywhere, even when it makes absolutely ZERO sense. It's ok, i suppose to have "role models" in real life. Let's say, "wow, that dude just completed an iron-man race, and he was missing one foot" That i do admire.

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  20. I have to say I am with Firepigette on this one.
    Sorry for Steve's untimely departure, but I really, really feel sorrier for the children who are dying in Venezuela or Norway, Congo or Indonesia.

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  21. 1979 Boat People8:43 PM

    Check this out.

    http://ca.news.yahoo.com/hong-kong-teens-somber-design-114544842.html

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  22. RabbiBulla9:34 PM

    We seem to have the necessity to idolize certain guys we never even ever met.

    This guy Steve was probably an extraordinary dude. Slightly smarter than you and me. -
    Why are you so down, dude?
    Can you cheer up?-And -I agree
    we should not even consider
    worship of anyone..a hero that affected millions forever yes.
    (He surely would have done more good things-if he had lived,a treasure.)How much do you value
    him, Sledge-in your world- more or less than Chavez?-I am sure you can guess my answer..

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  23. RabbiBulla9:46 PM

    Sorry, by the time I posted- I see you spilled a bunch of yuck here, Sledge. My oh my, and MR. Kepler, my goodness, -all I can say it -I don't see your far out statements as very nice and valuable- awfully weird, guys.
    Firepigette, help! I don't understand all of the frustrations here about Steve Jobs death and the general disgust for "plastic society" -all of this coming out now.Seems strange to me?

    Can't we just be normal and nice here? Is the time and place for this trashing?Not trying to be miss manners-but, whew? We need some fresh air...

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  24. Really, some of you guys are thick in the mind.

    This post is a post about history, about those who made history. Not about whose death is sadder than the other!!!!

    Read my post again and look carefully for the tear stains...

    Geeeez....

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  25. I tell you what: I admire people that work their butt off in an honest and creative way all the way to the top.
    Whatever they do with the money they earned is not my problem.
    He certainly made it to the top, and he made history with his products (hey sledge, do you use a mouse with your computer?).
    Another thing I admire: he never talked publicly about his illness. He kept working and creating amazing products until just few months ago, until he just couldn't anymore. Never made a big deal of it to the public eye. That was not important. That is also remarkable for me.
    I'm typing all these from my iPad which connects me to my loved ones far away.
    So, I stand by my first words: RIP Steve Jobs, you'll be missed.

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  26. Steve Jobs: way overrated. How's that for simplicity? Died too young,sure, but still lived a lot more than Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin or John Lennon and many other people far less contaminated by the system. When all is said and done, the guy was just a Tool of the system, did not invent the telephone, no graham bell, or the electricity bulb, he was no Newton or Darwin. So spare me the crocodile tears. If we are to sincerely mourn some cultural dead "heroes" let's get better at picking the right ones. Mandela? Gandhi? Even the other nerd, Bill Gates, for the reasons I outlined previously.

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  27. Carolina, what makes you think Steve jobs invented the mouse? Please google that up. Again, we just Love to create bullshyt folk heroes, and need to worship them, even if they are not to special at all. that's the fabric of this culture. Fake semi-gods. There were thousands of people doing the heavy lifting and computer programming for Apple and Steve. He was just a tool in that monstrous mix.And he did not invent shyt. Guys we'll never know the names of did it for the mackintosh management.

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  28. Al Cesar lo que es del Cesar, Sledge.
    How about Thomas A. Edison? He was an asshole and yet, and yet he made history (maybe stealing half of the patents to Tesla but that's aside).
    Anyway, go mourn whoever you want and just let Steve Jobs RIP. His legacy is there, whether you like it or not.
    (By the way, Mandela is not dead yet).

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  29. http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHHJ_enUS397US397&gcx=c&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=who+invented+the+computer+mouse%3F

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  30. And I'm sure Steve Jobs would be the first to acknowledge that he was just another hard-working dude who loved his job, not much smarter or brighter than you and i, just driven by a passion and for a job he truly enjoyed (read his own quotes). Visionary? Genius? Impeccable human being? Our new hero for the week? Of course not. Millions of human beings accomplished a lot more significant things in their lifetimes that Steve Jobs and guys like him in business ever will. No disrespect to that dude.

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  31. Thanks for the mouse info.
    Here's more:

    http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/08/24/technology/steve-jobs-patents.html

    Tone it down Sledge.

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  32. And you do believe Steve Jobs invented all of that all by himself, working in the dark at night. Ok. He must have been Einstein, to say the least.

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  33. "Thanks for everything", this guy writes. I'd say the same thing.

    http://technology.canoe.ca/2011/10/06/18790941.html

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  34. Rabbi Bulla,

    No frustration about his death at all.I am sorry he died.


    My point was subtle, and perhaps admittedly unnecessary just that there are times when I tire of the way 'the world sees' things in general.This my curse really.

    We live in a culture where we consider some people more important than others, and yet we clamor for equality.It just seems strange to me.

    On the other hand my daughter in law just lost her father and it brings home to me what it means to really lose a significant other.

    But pay my comment no heed...in the end it does not matter a single bit.

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  35. RabbiBulla1:40 AM

    Firepigette, I lost 2 sisters in last nine months-and no, you have never heard of either of them.
    We must accept that-at the same time-we do injustice not to recognize the achievements of Steve Jobs. Let us agree on different levels-I suppose? Sorry for not taking in you subtlety about the meaning of death-it is really not about that-here.

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  36. Anonymous1:50 AM

    Sledge - seriously? You think that Jobs was just another Bullshyt capitalist and overrated? Geez man, no one said he was perfect, but the man CHANGED THE FACE of the way we use technology in ways that were way before his time.

    You must be either jealous or one of those "arm chair socialist" that thinks "everything and everyone is equal" and there should be no rewards for superlative effort or achievement.

    While I do not "idolize" Mr. Jobs, I can certainly appreciate the contributions he has made in technology - oh, I forgot, "Our plastic society."

    Good luck Mr. Sledge. I wonder who people will remember more in one thousand years - Jobs or Sledge.

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  37. RabbiBulla2:14 AM

    Anonymous-I was about to mention some of those very words.
    Why does Sledge seem to hate Steve Jobs? I forget-I really don't want to know. Just end the rant, Sledge.
    Janis Joplin-?What?
    I am shocked at the reactions to this post-I think everyone missed one thing here- Chavez -going down with cancer- and what is Chavez doing--same nonsense.

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  38. sledge

    enough, please, you are way outside the point of this post.

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  39. "Already then", as Ace Ventura pet detective would say!

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  40. 1979 Boat People6:55 AM

    Don't remember who wrote this comment yesterday:

    "
    there is fewer JOBS in US today.
    "

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  41. capitankane7:10 AM

    "Alrighty" then.

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