My friend Bill Fleming and I hardly agree on anything these days. But I'm relatively sure that he will agree that Jobs' passing is a loss to all the world.
Much will be written about Jobs in the coming days. Tonight, the most disturbing account – so far – comes from none other than Fox News. Unfortunately, the Fox News report, while complimentary of Jobs, includes several paragraphs of gratuitous political baloney that has nothing to do with Jobs' legacy. It is unfortunate that Fox News took the passing of a true American innovator and lamely tied it to President Obama's administration, using the opportunity to point out what the writer sees as the administration's faults.
Tying Jobs' passing to anything political is nothing short of insulting to the man and his legacy. I've never been a fan of Fox News, and I reside politically pretty far to the right. For Fox News to use Jobs' death as a means to advance their skewed world view is nothing short of disgusting.
6 comments:
I bought my first computer in 1983, at Computerland, in the Safeway plaza off Mountain View in Rapid City. That Apple IIe cost $3500, with a printer and two disk drives. It had 128k RAM. It was worth seven times as much as the car in which I hauled it home.
I recently bought an iMac G5 with a 20' monitor for $450. It has a gig of RAM and a 100 gig hard drive.
Reently I saw "Pirates of Silicon Valley," a story that purports to trace the beginnings of both Microsoft and Apple. It is not very complimentary to either Gates or Jobs as people and bosses, yet does not diminish their vision and obvious influence on everyday life for a great many of us.
I have owned about eight Apple computers, and I have always felt (perhaps somewhat delusionally) a connection between me and Steve.
To continue with this mini-memoir, I used the Apple IIe for a word-processer, mailing list database/label printer, and with a spreadsheet program.
There was no internet. Neither was there a home computer that could do photographic manipulation.
Now, the principle use for my computer--the moneymaker--is preparing and printing images, something that requires an almost unimaginable electronic algorithm.
The tremendous communication capabilities of a computer linked with phone lines are almost taken as a given.
Jobs was not responsible for all of this, but he did see how to make it available to people who work at McDonald's. That's both elitist and egalitarian. I won't live long enough to see another person develop from garage millionaire to cult phenomenon.
A marketing genius of which remains little comparison.
Mike, thanks for the heads up on Fox. I'll be sure not to look it up. "The goal is not to live forever, the goal is to CREATE something that does." — Steve Jobs.
Jobs. The champion of creativity. On this, I'm sure Mike, Bob and I all agree.
Creativity isn't just a fun game for kids, it is fundamental to every human endeavor.
We are alive with it, and dead without it.
The mind behind a company. That was Steve Jobs. The big brain. He change our world 'cause he was one of the founders of the Smartphones.
Genius man
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