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A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs

nytimes.com

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Re: A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs

#61

Post by mechanical_fish »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #45
javek wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a side note, in a way it's misleading to speak of Beethoven "overcoming" deafness. All of the master composers were so well-trained at their craft that they could hear the music in their head without "trying it out" on a piano or other instrument. By the time Beethoven was deaf being able to hear was superfluous as far as composing was concerned...

We know that Beethoven himself was tremendously depressed by the onset of deafness and thought of it as a terrible misfortune to be heroically struggled with: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heiligenstadt_Testament But we also know that he gave himself excellent pep talks and then kept going for another thirty years, writing great stuff long after his deafness was far worse than it was in 1802. So, yes, it seems that Be…

Oops, too late to edit, but I forgot that when Beethoven wrote his Testament his fame up to that point had been largely as a pianist, with a healthy side order of composition. And I believe he might have expressed some worry that his piano playing might suffer... which in fact it did; history contains quite a few tragi-comic written descriptions of Beethoven's latter-day attempts to play and conduct.

But his composition just got better, so in fact his declining fame as a performer was balanced by his increasing fame as a composer.

Re: A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs

#63

Post by sandee »

"He designed new fluid monitors and x-ray equipment. He redrew that not-quite-special-enough hospital unit. "

Instead of charity, if the billionaires or super smarts like gates, larry/sergey, bezos,pg etc can live in ordinary people situations for 2-3 days a year, their imagination will fuel creations that benefit all. Is this not tried already ?

Re: A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs

#66

Post by notagain2 »

Beautifully written. I feel I have a lot to learn from Steve. He was so greatly misunderstood by so many. Steve was an incredibly smart man who knew exactly what he wanted, and wouldn't stop at anything to get that. I'm glad he spent his life doing what he loved. He will always be an inspiration to me.

Re: A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs

#67

Post by angelbob »

javek wrote: post #44
technoslut wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 2nd point you made reminds of Beethoven and how he overcame deafness to write some of his most brilliant pieces. He was incredibly passionate about his work and it was reflected in his music. It's amazing to see read this story and to realize that maybe Jobs' most important inventions, the iPhone and iPad, came at a point of extreme illness where most others would've quit. Passion drove everything he did and defi…

As a side note, in a way it's misleading to speak of Beethoven "overcoming" deafness. All of the master composers were so well-trained at their craft that they could hear the music in their head without "trying it out" on a piano or other instrument. By the time Beethoven was deaf being able to hear was superfluous as far as composing was concerned...

If I couldn't run a compiler on a computer for some reason and had to do it all in my head, I could still write fabulous programs.

And yet, it would certainly put a dent in some of my abilities.

Re: A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs

#68

Post by philwelch »

sandee wrote: post #63

"He designed new fluid monitors and x-ray equipment. He redrew that not-quite-special-enough hospital unit. " Instead of charity, if the billionaires or super smarts like gates, larry/sergey, bezos,pg etc can live in ordinary people situations for 2-3 days a year, their imagination will fuel creations that benefit all. Is this not tried already ?

A lot of billionaires live in "ordinary people situations" more than you think. There's always the Bill Gates or Larry Ellisons of the world building supermansions and owning all the yachts, but Steve wasn't exactly one of those. And mere millionaires largely can't afford anything more than living like ordinary people.

And there are a lot of ways that rich people can't actually get anything more special than anyone else, at least not easily. It's not feasible to build hospitals just for rich people, so a billionaire goes to the same hospitals as ordinary people. Consumer electronics don't generally cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, so a billionaire has the same kind of stuff ordinary people have.

Re: A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs

#70

Post by tristan_louis »

dicroce wrote: post #46
nagrom wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YT was in Snow Crash and I think that HT should be HP: Hiro Protagonist. Although I don't remember that quote in the book.

YT was also briefly in "The Diamond Age". :)

True. That one always blew my mind as it really created a link between the two books. I was half expecting some of the characters to reappear when Cryptonomicon came out (didn't happen but Cryptonomicon has some linkage to the Baroque chronicles)
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