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[Jimmy]

No offense intended to anyone. Here, have a speech by Jobs on his life.

Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 2005

[Leafsnail]

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?

Isn't it more like "it's sad that a prominent civil rights activist has been completely forgotten because he died on the same day as someone famous"?

[Jackrabbit]

I didn't know who he was when Steve Jobs was alive*, and it's disrespectful to complain that somebody dying on a specific date is distracting from someone else who died on that date. It's whiny, more than anything else, and implies that he's not going to be remembered just because he's not the only important person who died on a specific date, which doesn't exactly show much confidence in people's ability to remember two things at once.

Not, Jimmy, that I think you're all those qualities, I get that it was just a joke and I did overreact rather badly, sorry about that.
*which I'm assuming is not the case for most Americans

[squeakyReaper]

I've heard of Jobs, never heard of Shuttlesworth. People die on the same day all the time, no one's death will be less remembered for it.

I know woefully little about Apple and their practices, but I've heard they influenced the creation of the machine I'm typing this from. Tip of the hat for doing that, at least.

[Neonivek]

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?

Isn't it more like "it's sad that a prominent civil rights activist has been completely forgotten because he died on the same day as someone famous"?

To be truthful though. It was doubtful that a prominent civil rights activist would have been remembered anyway.

There are plenty of people who have saved thousands or even millions of lives who died and weren't remembered.

[forsaken1111]

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?

Isn't it more like "it's sad that a prominent civil rights activist has been completely forgotten because he died on the same day as someone famous"?

To be truthful though. It was doubtful that a prominent civil rights activist would have been remembered anyway.

There are plenty of people who have saved thousands or even millions of lives who died and weren't remembered.

Yeah but thank god we have ipads.

[darkrider2]

Nothing to do with the actual thread but forsaken1111 your avatar is amazing.

[forsaken1111]

Nothing to do with the actual thread but forsaken1111 your avatar is amazing.

Hah thanks. I didn't make it, found it on the web. I may resize it a bit so its more obvious what is happening.

[SalmonGod]

That is an elegant execution device.

[Jackrabbit]

I have significant trouble wrapping my mind around what two portals like that'd actually do.

[SalmonGod]

There was a similar moment in the first Portal that made my head explode.  There were these two piston platforms that raised up and down from floor to ceiling.  I put a portal above each of them and stood on one.... and got crushed.  I did this a few times, noting that I could look up into the portal and see the platform next to me coming down on my head, or I could look to the side and see my upper half poking out of the portal upside-down before getting crushed.

My head really exploded when I stepped off the platform and just stood there looking at them... trying to wrap my head around the idea that these things are next to each other going up and down... but at the same time they are colliding with each other...

like raise your fists parallel to each other and pump them up and down... now place your arms horizontal and bump your fists together... those pistons in the game were doing both of those things at the same time... aaaaahhhhh!!!!!

[Starver]

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

Insofar as we're comparing anybody to Steve Jobs, yes.  To be honest, I had other names I could have put on the list instead of Randall (at the point where I had started to jump even further away from the "heads of multinational computer companies" than Tim BL and Cory D), but (and has been proven) I thought his was a name that would be recognised.  (Also has a not particularly tenuous link with Cory).

And, moreover, "sometimes-funny" is some people's opinion, "rarely off target" is others, "I don't get it" is often an accusation levelled at him and "he's just playing at being smart" is perhaps the more damning criticism that I've heard of him.  That being the point of my post, I believe.  As and when he pops his clogs, there'll be mourning (especially at certain random locations all over the planet) and there'll be "meh"ing.

(And, yes, if he dies on the same day as Archbishop Tutu or Putin or (without any direct causation, in either direction) on the day that a massive landslide on the western edge of some eastern-Atlantic islands triggers a tsunami that inundates the eastern seaboard of the US, there may well be some people more concerned with the death of their particular hero/villain/entire-community (<=not necessarily respectively) and he won't be a footnote.  Or he may eclipse someone else who deserves more.  It should not be the case that one person/event is forgotten because another took prominence.  Personally, I expect myself to slide into obscurity, after my expiry-date, but then I'd find it surprising if there was a way you lot could tell from my sudden absence from this forum that I just happened to be the guy reported in some obscure obituary article (or Darwin Award-style story, if I put some effort into my demise), and not one of the tens of thousands of other likely (and equally non-famous) deaths upon that day...  Or indeed whether I'd just decided to chuck the forums in.  Anyway, should it be otherwise and I become (im)famous in some way, I don't think I'd want to treat myself like a Top Trumps Card ("Who has the most Nobel Prizes?  Darn, they're both the same.  Ok, what about Ignoble prizes? yay, we have a winner!  Today, we're going to mourn <insert name here>...").  But each surviving individual will have an opinion, and there's pretty much nothing we can do to stop it being "unfair".)


Anyway, compare with the guy who did the D20/LOTR spoof pastiche (I admit, I'd have had to look his real name up) and the various guys behind Order Of The Stick, Arthur King Of Time And Space, the Unspeakable Vault, or any other webcomic you might name, if you wish, in his stead.  Similarly, the remainder are ones (including the one I deliberately didn't mention, but obviously I didn't mention him) that I thought might provoke the most apt degree of recognition, and I had meant to stick Kevan Davis on there, but thinking about it after I neglected to add him, I'm not sure how much recognition he might get on this forum, even with that distinct first name.

[Neonivek]

I have significant trouble wrapping my mind around what two portals like that'd actually do.

It would crush you into a singularity in a similar method as a blackhole.

Scary really.

[forsaken1111]

I have significant trouble wrapping my mind around what two portals like that'd actually do.

It would crush you into a singularity in a similar method as a blackhole.

Scary really.

I think the end result would be a disk of energetic plasma the exact shape of the portals and several nanometers thick. You don't have enough mass to become a 'black hole' really.

[Neonivek]

I didn't think you would create a black hole... though I guess if that is what Singularity means...

Id be more concerned about derailing this if someone even spoke about Steve Jobs.