So long Steve ..

[Jay Vaughan]

> "If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that
> calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful
> typography that they do."
> There's the word "might", sure. We all know what he meant.
> 

I see nothing wrong with what he's saying.  Nobody else gave a shit about proper typography on PC's: he did.


> There wasn't even a graphical user interface for MS-DOS at the time, so this
> issue is a moot point.

Steve Jobs has an idea: "Hey wouldn't it be nice if we could use these computers we're building to render font properly.." -> Macintosh.  Bill Gates has an idea: "we gotta catch up with Steve."

> I've heard people credit him with inventing the graphical user interface,
> and the portable MP3 player. What he was very good at was (after 19997 at
> least) was to take an existing idea and make it wildly popular, in a way
> that I don't think anybody else has managed.

"Invent" != "Make commonly available to all, wide and sundry".  Steve did both of these things, though.

> Jobs didn't strike me as the sort of person to let this go unnoticed. Ayrton
> Senna let it go unnoticed, but he was quite a different person.

Steve was a Buddhist, one precept is charitability without recognition.


>>> 
>>> Their track record for care about the environment is nothing to write
>>> home about either.
>> 
>> [citation required]
>> 
> 
> http://www.greenmyapple.org/
> 


There is always going to be room for improvement here.  I think Apple have a slightly better chance to do something positive about the greening of computing than any other hardware developer out there .. or is there some other hardware developer doing superlative things in this field?

> 
> Because in my mind, you just cannot argue that usability of (entertainment)
> technology is more important than trying to save people's lives.

Mac OSX isn't just for entertainment.  It can be used to build bombs and super-effective biological weapons.  


;
--
Jay Vaughan