Steve Jobs

I was cried a little bit last night when I heard Steve Jobs died. I was sad when I read that he tried a naturopathic diet instead of having his tumor removed early. I mean, I might avoid surgery because I don't have money for it, but I think he probably could write a check for that. I didn't really know what to say about him though. I'm sure he had good and bad qualities. I appreciate that he stuck up for good design even if it costs more, if that's what he did.

There is a lot of sentimental stuff going around and I don't really go for that. But Randall Munroe's gif made me laugh. Eternal flame.

There's always the hope that if you sit and watch for long enough,
the beachball will vanish and the thing it interrupted will return.

UPDATE: Stephen Fry wrote about Steve Jobs and said just what I suspected was true. This is spot on.

I cannot claim he was a friend but over thirty year or so years I bumped into him from time to time and he was always warm, charming, funny and easy to talk to, yet I know... that he was a fearsome boss, often a tempestuous mixture of martinet, tyrant, bully and sulky child. His perfectionism, the absolute conviction and certainty in the rightness of his opinions... must have maddened his colleagues. But the charisma, passion, delight in detail, excitement and belief in the creation of a new future – the sheer magnetic force of the man made his many faults a forgivable and almost loveable part of his mystique and greatness.

The quality I especially revered in him was his refusal to show contempt for his customers by fobbing them off with something that was “good enough”. Whether it was the packaging, the cabling, the use of screen space, the human interfaces, the colours, the flow, the feel, the graphical or textural features, everything had to be improved upon and improved upon.... It had to feel good in the hand, look good to the eye and it had to change things. It changed things because it made users want to use the devices as they had never been used before. 

I use devices as other people don't. It is important to me what my computers look like from the back. I got an iMac for my tiny house in Beachton because I only have a 19" wide counter to work on. The back of the computer is right over the space where I prepare food. I can't have a bunch of wires there. I spin the computer around to do my YouYube workout videos on the kitchen mat, the only place big enough to do a sit-up. Here in Austin I put the computer on a table at the end of the bed. I have a chair to work in then I spin the monitor around to watch streaming video in bed when it's time to relax. No other TV or computer manufacturer seems to give a damn about what their product looks like from the back. People try to tell me I can get a TV so big for so little blah blah blah. I don't care. Besides, the idea of this gave me good material. My toast at my sister's wedding started "Beverly, your wedding on the beach was lovely. You looked really great from behind."