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Some Thoughts on the Passing of Steve Jobs (1955-2011)
Brucelewis.com ^ | 6 October 2011 | Bruce Lewis

Posted on 10/06/2011 9:56:45 AM PDT by Shalmaneser

Steve Jobs is dead.

I'm saddened. Besides the grief his family and loved ones must feel, his death brings a loss to the world. He was a true innovator. Apple products and the technologies derived from them have reordered our way of living. While Jobs did not invent either the personal computer or the graphical interface operating system, the PCs and personal digital devices he created implement these in a way that has had an impact on society equal to that of the automobile, telephone, and antibiotic drugs. I used Apple products exclusively throughout my thirty years as a graphic designer and illustrator, and (although I am a Windows user now) it is safe to say that I would not have had a career as a professional artist without Mr. Jobs and his magic computer machines.

And yet...

I have always had mixed feeling about the Apple Revolution. While Apple PCs and devices have led the way to our current world of interconnectedness and immediacy, I wonder if this has been entirely for the good. Think about it: Apple products put the Internet, texting, entertainment downloading, social media, and many other things at our fingertips. As a result, the world has become more convenient and more connected. But has it become better? Have Apple's wares helped us to become more free, more kind-hearted? Have they helped us to be better people?

One can make a good case that they have not. The world of chatrooms, comments threads, kitty-cat pictures, and Facebook pages is a bright, fun place when looked at out of the corner of one's eye. Repeated viewing -- especially up close -- will, however, reveal the darker side of the Information Age. We are more connected to one another than ever before -- and the ugliness that lurks within the human heart is more openly displayed. We can each design and create more easily than ever before -- but few would argue that our world has become better-designed or more beautiful than it was pre-Apple. And the personalization of computing has put unlimited knowledge at the fingertips of every man -- and knowledge is, they say, power.

But while the Mac, iPhone, and iPad have given us power, they have also taken it away. With them we have access to essentially unlimited knowledge of the world around us; the world around us. And with them, the world around us now has access to essentially unlimited knowledge about each of us. From one point of view, the iPhone and iPad are powerful tools for communication, education and entertainment. From another, they are the most powerful intelligence-gathering tools ever devised. Thanks to Steve Jobs and the iWorld he has created, the Powers That Be no longer have to gather intelligence on you and me. We build our own dossiers now!

Is that a good thing?

Apple's logo is an apple with a bite -- byte, get it? -- taken out of it. While this means nothing of itself, I have always wondered why so few people associate the logo with the Biblical story it brings to mind. It was, after all, by means of an apple that man became an enemy of God.

And the Forbidden Fruit was not the company's original logo. The first design was much more interesting from an esoteric viewpoint. It depicts Isaac Newton (Freemason and astrologer) sitting under a tree with an apple dangling above his head. The apple, as we all know, is about to fall, and its impact will enlighten (illuminate) Newton and the rest of the world. The motto on the original logo reads "A Mind Forever Voyaging Through Strange Seas of Thought … Alone.”

The original price of Apple I was $666.66. No, really.

Steve Jobs got everything he wanted. He also died awfully young. That sort of life occasionally happens here on poor old planet Earth, and I suppose it's something to be celebrated. But I can't help but be reminded of another story when I read the amazing tale of the late Mr. Jobs. And as Apple products become more and more central to our lives, I can't help but wonder if there might have been something more than a shrewd mind behind the company's rise. It's a long, long way from the obscurity of a garage to the most valuable company in the world. History is full of men who were willing to deal with the Devil to gain such false success.

But there is absolutely no reason to think the late founder of Apple Computer was one such man. Rest in peace, Steve Jobs -- and thanks for the great computers.



TOPICS: Computers/Internet; Miscellaneous; Society; UFO's; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: apple; cino; computer; fino; moronic; obit; stevejobs; totalidiotsonfr; ufo
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Weird, but interesting.
1 posted on 10/06/2011 9:56:50 AM PDT by Shalmaneser
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To: Shalmaneser

I read an article which claimed Jobs loved the Beatles and their company “Apple”.

Steve Jobs was also an adopted child: his bio mother was of German ancestry and his bio dad was Abdulfattah John Jandali, a Syrian Muslim immigrant to the U.S.

JObs himself was a Buddhist.


2 posted on 10/06/2011 10:01:29 AM PDT by sodpoodle (God is ignoring me - because He is watching you.)
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To: Shalmaneser

My first 2 computers were MacIntosh’s which I purchased with a student discount for around $3000-$4000 each. Apple never had the most GBS or MB, but they had a visonary in Steve Jobs who could forsee how people would use technology and anticipate how they would use it.


3 posted on 10/06/2011 10:03:23 AM PDT by jimmygrace
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To: Shalmaneser

Jobs’ mom was a single mother.

How many such talents have been destroyed by the policies Obama seeks to expand, by forcing no cost access to abortion and birth control?


4 posted on 10/06/2011 10:05:52 AM PDT by G Larry (I dream of a day when a man is judged by the content of his character)
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To: sodpoodle

Why do the leftist freaks thank SJ and mourn his passing when they spend the rest of their time warring against the rich?

Would they do the same for Gates? I just don’t think so.

I read up on Jobs for the first serious time. He denied his daughter who briefly was on welfare until the mother took action.

He ripped off his partner, lied to him about the money they were paid.

I don’t have a dog in this, just wondered why I saw so many freaks mourning yesterday who usually post all the anti-capitalist anti-American stuff.


5 posted on 10/06/2011 10:11:27 AM PDT by treetopsandroofs (Had FDR been GOP, there would have been no World Wars, just "The Great War" and "Roosevelt's Wars".)
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To: Shalmaneser; Envisioning; waterhill

Yes, Steve Jobs will be missed. Not only for his innovations in electronics, but the 1984 Super Bowl ad for Apple made Super Bowl advertising into the cultural phenomenom it has become.

I, however, am disturbed by Mr. Lewis’s implied conclusion - that man is incapable for greatness without divine intervention or selling one’s soul to the devil. I choose to believe that man IS capable of greatness, both great good and great evil. Anything less and we are no longer human but mere puppets.


6 posted on 10/06/2011 10:12:18 AM PDT by ixtl (You live and learn. Or you don't live long.)
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To: Shalmaneser

If those pampered princes and princesses whinning and griping on Wall Street, clutching their iPods and iPhones would do half as much as Jobs did on his own our economy would be bursting at the seams, instead of being the sorry bunch of leaches.


7 posted on 10/06/2011 10:13:57 AM PDT by Godzilla (3-7-77)
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To: treetopsandroofs

Jobs was the Michael Jackson of technology;) Same reaction to premature death.

When icons become truly elderly - their living admirers are old and senile too and death is not so shocking.


8 posted on 10/06/2011 10:21:34 AM PDT by sodpoodle (God is ignoring me - because He is watching you.)
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To: treetopsandroofs

Those protesting freaks mourn because he was one of them. Have you ever read about his politics? As lefty as they come.


9 posted on 10/06/2011 10:40:35 AM PDT by Codeflier (Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama - 4 democrat presidents in a row and counting...)
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To: treetopsandroofs
Why do the leftist freaks thank SJ and mourn his passing when they spend the rest of their time warring against the rich?

I've wondered that myself. I can state with relative certainty that if Steve Jobs was a registered Republican and supported Reagan for president in 1980 instead of being the long-haired counterculture icon he was at the time, the Left would have a totally different take on his passing this week.

10 posted on 10/06/2011 10:49:25 AM PDT by SamAdams76
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To: treetopsandroofs
Why do the leftist freaks thank SJ and mourn his passing when they spend the rest of their time warring against the rich?

Because they're blithering idiots.

11 posted on 10/06/2011 10:50:53 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: Shalmaneser

Just my opinion, but no matter what the man’s earthly accomplishments are, he died without Jesus Christ.

A tragic end.


12 posted on 10/06/2011 10:54:54 AM PDT by Amerikan_Samurai
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To: Amerikan_Samurai

RIP.

However, I do not own, or use any Apple products. The same functionality can be had in the PC world at a fraction of the cost.


13 posted on 10/06/2011 10:58:34 AM PDT by bicyclerepair ( REPLACE D-W-S ! http://www.karenforcongress.com)
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To: Shalmaneser
All of the Jobs worshipers should spend time talking to Apple employees. I spent seven years in Silicon Valley and everyone I spoke with at Apple talked about the hellish work environment. Meetings almost always turned into screaming matches. You were expected to work long hours and would get derided if you left before 7 PM.

After 5 years you were forced to take a sabbatical and never asked to return. I had a friend that was interviewing at Apple. When he asked about retirement benefits the interview was abruptly ended and he was told "we aren't interested in people worried about retirement". I worked for Hewlett-Packard at the time Apple sued Microsoft and HP over the "windows" interface even though Jobs stole the idea from someone else. I had Apple lawyers rifling through my filing cabinet. From everything I heard and experienced, Steven Jobs was an arrogant prick that nobody liked.

14 posted on 10/06/2011 11:23:19 AM PDT by BubbaBasher ("Liberty will not long survive the total extinction of morals" - Sam Adams)
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To: Amerikan_Samurai
no matter what the man’s earthly accomplishments are, he died without Jesus Christ.

No disrespect meant, but there is no way you can know this to be true.

Oscar Wilde converted while on his deathbed. The late Mr. Jobs may have done the same, or he may have converted at some other time. Certainly neither you nor I have any idea what his spiritual status was at the hour of his death, and I see no profit in speculating about same.

Each of us will soon stand before the Just Judge and render an account of our lives. If I may venture an opinion, I think that my time is better spent trying to be ready for my own judgment day rather than trying to guess how someone else will fare at theirs.

15 posted on 10/06/2011 3:15:34 PM PDT by Shalmaneser
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To: Shalmaneser

There is some wisdom to what you said, but as I think about it, we can find out that people such as Oscar Wilde converted to Christianity based on some evidence, otherwise how do we know that the conversion actually happened?

By the same token we can certainly deduce (although not 100%) whether Steve Jobs accepted the Saviour.


16 posted on 10/07/2011 10:06:36 AM PDT by Amerikan_Samurai
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To: Amerikan_Samurai

We certainly know Oscar Wilde was reconciled to the Catholic Church just before his death. Many people, including his closest friends, were gathered around his bedside as the priest heard his confession and administered the other sacraments at his request. (Technically, Wilde was not a convert, as he was baptized into the Church as an infant.)

As for the late Mr. Jobs, how could any of us know what he saw and heard in those last few seconds of life? I personally hold that the Holy Spirit reveals the truth about our merciful Lord to each man at the last moment of his life, giving each of us one last chance to see the truth and accept it. (Please note that this is my own personal belief, not a teaching of the Church, and it may be wrong.) For all we know, Mr. Jobs looked upon the face of the Lord and said “I believe”. I hope he did.

In any case, it is not for you or I to declare who is in Heaven and who isn’t. Instead of spending time thinking about whether this person or that is walking the streets of gold, I prefer to do my best to be worthy of Heaven when I die.


17 posted on 10/07/2011 1:00:44 PM PDT by Shalmaneser
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To: Shalmaneser

I disagree with you. I think it is our responsibility as believers to tell the world that without Jesus Christ, a person has nothing. No matter if he became a Billionaire and created many inventions.

I do not determine who gets into Heaven, that doesn’t mean I don’t have any place to mention that without the Lord, all is truly lost. Of course I could be wrong and that person could have had a deathbed conversion,but that still doesn’t mean that its somehow wrong for me to express my feelings on the matter just because someone may view that as politically incorrect.


18 posted on 10/08/2011 9:55:47 AM PDT by Amerikan_Samurai
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To: Shalmaneser

Came across this on another forum:

‘Steve Jobs never invented the Ipod - this chap did:

Quote:
http://www.kanekramer.com/default.htm

Quote:
Kane Kramer is a serial inventor. His inventions include the technology behind the MP3 player and Monicall. He was the first to conceive the idea of downloading music, data and video down telephone lines in 1979 when he was 23 and patented it with James Campbell who was 21. Together they went on to pioneer digital recording and built the world’s first solid state digital recorder/players.

Apple didn’t invent the first digital music player:

Quote:
The SaeHan Information Systems MPMan, which debuted in Asia in March 1998, was the first mass-produced portable solid state digital audio player.

The South Korean device was first imported for sale in North America by Michael Robertson’s Z Company[1] in mid-1998. Around the same time, Eiger Labs, Inc. imported and rebranded the player in two models, the Eiger MPMan F10, and Eiger MPMan F20.

The Eiger MPMan F10 was a very basic unit and wasn’t user expandable, though owners could upgrade the memory from 32MB to 64MB by sending the player back to Eiger Labs with a check for $69 + $7.95 shipping. Measuring at 91 mm tall by 70 mm wide by 16.5 mm thick and weighing a little over 2 oz, it was very compact.

The Eiger MPMan F20 was a similar model that used 3.3v SmartMedia cards for expansion, and ran on a single AA battery, instead of rechargeable NiMH batteries.

The Iphone wasn’t invented by Apple neither. Been around in the 1990s.

Quote:
The first smartphone was the IBM Simon; it was designed in 1992 and shown as a concept product that year at COMDEX, the computer industry trade show held in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was released to the public in 1993 and sold by BellSouth. Besides being a mobile phone, it also contained a calendar, address book, world clock, calculator, note pad, e-mail client, the ability to send and receive faxes, and games. It had no physical buttons, instead customers used a touchscreen to select telephone numbers with a finger or create facsimiles and memos with an optional stylus. Text was entered with a unique on-screen “predictive” keyboard. By today’s standards, the Simon would be a fairly low-end product, lacking a camera and the ability to download third-party applications. However, its feature set at the time was highly advanced.

The Nokia Communicator line was the first of Nokia’s smartphones starting with the Nokia 9000, released in 1996. This distinctive palmtop computer style smartphone was the result of a collaborative effort of an early successful and costly personal digital assistant (PDA) by Hewlett-Packard combined with Nokia’s bestselling phone around that time, and early prototype models had the two devices fixed via a hinge. The communicators are characterized by clamshell design, with a feature phone display, keyboard and user interface on top of the phone, and a physical QWERTY keyboard, high-resolution display of at least 640x200 pixels and PDA user interface under the door. The software was based on the GEOS V3.0 operating system, featuring email communication and text-based web browsing. In 1998, it was followed by Nokia 9110, and in 2000 by Nokia 9110i, with improved web browsing capability.

In 1997 the term ‘smartphone’ was used for the first time when Ericsson unveiled the concept phone GS88, the first device labelled as ‘smartphone’.

Jobs and Apple didn’t invent the PC mouse:

Quote:
The trackball was invented by Tom Cranston, Fred Longstaff and Kenyon Taylor working on the Royal Canadian Navy’s DATAR project in 1952. It used a standard Canadian five-pin bowling ball. It was not patented, as it was a secret military project.

Independently, Douglas Engelbart at the Stanford Research Institute invented the first mouse prototype in 1963,[4] with the assistance of his colleague Bill English. They christened the device the mouse as early models had a cord attached to the rear part of the device looking like a tail and generally resembling the common mouse. Engelbart never received any royalties for it, as his patent ran out before it became widely used in personal computers.

The invention of the mouse was just a small part of Engelbart’s much larger project, aimed at augmenting human intellect.

Apple and Jobs didn’t invent touch screen technology used by smartphones and Ipads:

Quote:
The first touch screen was a capacitive touch screen developed by E.A. Johnson at the Royal Radar Establishment, Malvern, UK. The inventor briefly described his work in a short article published in 1965 and then more fully - along with photographs and diagrams - in an article published in 1967.

So he wasn’t that much of a visionary after all.’


19 posted on 10/10/2011 5:09:28 AM PDT by the scotsman (I)
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To: the scotsman

Jobs ripped off his best friend Wozniak in a deal in 1975.
Jobs was a tyrant at Apple first time round, compared by ex-employees to the 16/17th French kings for his arrogance and unpleasantness.
Worst of all, Steve Jobs was a man who refused to acknowledge his own child, and stood up in court and lied that he was sterile.

Add to the fact that imo he was not the genius and visionary they are claiming he was, and frankly I lost and lose no sleep over the death of Steve Jobs. He was a man whose fortune came from making money from gullable people desperate to be cool.


20 posted on 10/10/2011 5:41:59 AM PDT by the scotsman (I)
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