Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Angel Of Death]

To put how I feel into words.

I feel like I am watching a popular restaurant that sold bad food burn down. Where all the critics who outcried their dislike of their food suddenly are talking about how great their bread was and how their tap water tasted like water from a fresh spring lake while I still remember how bad both of those were.

I call it the Nirvana effect.

Before death: Meh, it's ok. Or: My god. That is terrible

After death: ZOMGZ BEST PERSON EVAR! THEY NEVER DID ANYTHING WRONG AT ALL11!1

[Epithemius]

To put how I feel into words.

I feel like I am watching a popular restaurant that sold bad food burn down. Where all the critics who outcried their dislike of their food suddenly are talking about how great their bread was and how their tap water tasted like water from a fresh spring lake while I still remember how bad both of those were.

This is why the thread makes me so sad. Suddenly Steve Jobs is a saint and Apple is an amazing company which has never done anything wrong. Have we really forgotten some of the things that have happened?

We remember it, but what exactly is it that he ran so badly? Closed garden for mobility? Charging a fair bit more, but providing a pretty damn nice product and backing it up with much better cust. support than any other manufacturer? I think we remember Jobs as one of the more influential people in the world of modern technology. He helped provide and bring many ideas to the table, some were copied by Windows, some he copied off of others. All in all, he changed things. To what degree though, is up for argument.

[Starver]

This is why the thread makes me so sad. Suddenly Steve Jobs is a saint and Apple is an amazing company which has never done anything wrong. Have we really forgotten some of the things that have happened?

From an (I think) neutral POV, I think that the comments are pretty evenly balanced, if not more skewed towards the "meh" approach, given that a lot of the more positive ones are of the "well, I didn't use Apple products, but it's a shame he died" variety, which are hardly glowing obituaries worth chiselling on his memorial, either.

That's apart from the Newton/Leibniz diversion.

So... anyone want to consider Bill Gates's community epitaph?  Sam Palmisano?  Paul Otellini?  Tim Berners-Lee?  Cory Doctorow?  Randall Monroe?  Zack Johnson?  Markus Persson?  (Obvious next example left unwritten, for equally obvious reasons.)  If it starts off detractive in nature, you'll get the "but they were better than that!" responses immediately after, whereas if it starts off with great sorrow you'll get the opposite "but...".  And it'll oscillate (possibly out of control, if opinion is polarised enough) from then on.

Not wanting to quash discussion, but I'm definitely onto the meta-discussion phase where (if it hadn't diverted already) I shall probably be considered Off-Topic for any new-bods who are only just about to join in on the original premise.

[G-Flex]

Randall Monroe?

Are we seriously comparing the author of a sometimes-funny webcomic to Steve Jobs now?

[Urist Imiknorris]

Markus Persson?

Obviously he would have a creeper-shaped headstone.

[forsaken1111]

Randall Monroe?

Are we seriously comparing the author of a sometimes-funny webcomic to Steve Jobs now?

Why not? At least webcomics make me smile. A person is a person. Steve Jobs isn't better just because he built a company.

[KaelGotDwarves]

Oddly enough, PCs are where they are today because of Steve Jobs' innovations. See earlier in the thread.

Basically, just because you don't like the guy or don't know what he did to personally impact your life does not mean that he didn't cause well... OS and such to be designed how they are today.

Even as a guy that detests how Apple works as a company I have to say that Windows copying Apple, digital media distribution because of itunes store, and the iphone revolutionised entire industries.

[SalmonGod]

digital media distribution because of itunes store

My only major objection is this one.

[KaelGotDwarves]

Itunes did for music what Valve did for gaming, and the initial rest-of-industry response was that digital distribution would only work for computer nerds. Boy were they wrong.

[SalmonGod]

I can sorta see what you're saying, and really thinking about it now, I can see how there are pros and cons to what iTunes has done.  As a proponent of free culture and someone who collected mp3s years before the existence of Napster, it rubs me very much the wrong way, but to argue it strictly from that perspective would be pretty egocentric of me.

Digital distribution of music had been flourishing before iTunes came along, it just hadn't been commercialized.  That's where iTunes stepped in.  It stifled what was a real organic internet movement (and still is) by cramming it into a consumer product, subject to very strict (abusive, even) control mechanisms.  I won't even get into how terribly unreasonable and anti-consumer iTunes was when it first came out, and how that has been a factor in the conflict over internet/free culture issues.

On the other hand, I can see how being the first professional commercial distribution service probably opened up a lot of opportunity for indie musicians, and that is a good thing.  At least, I'm not aware of any other services that did it first.

[DJ]

Making DRM popular isn't exactly a good thing.

[Epithemius]

Making DRM popular isn't exactly a good thing.

They fix'd it... after a while, but nonetheless, it's now non-DRM'ed.

[Jimmy]

On Jobs' Illness:

http://www.skepticblog.org/2011/10/06/steve-jobs-succumbs-to-alternative-medicine/

On Jobs' Death:

[KaelGotDwarves]

I wasn't aware that we all needed to turn one man's death into a pissing contest.

[Jackrabbit]

Wait, Jimmy, are you claiming that the fact an important person died the same day as Steve Jobs means Steve Job's death is less because of it?

For future reference, if you ever meet someone from this forum in real life and they slap you, this is why.