Think different about Jobs • Hacker News Board

Re: Think different about Jobs

#191

Post by ceejayoz » Mon, Nov 14, 2011, 3:16 AM UTC

spacefungus wrote: post #153

ceejayoz wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn 920,000+ employees, "almost a dozen" suicides http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_ra... , China 13.85 per 100,000. Foxconn should have 127.42 suicides per year. "Almost a dozen" means they have one tenth the per-capita suicide rate of the rest of the country.

I've said this on other comments, but comparing an uncontrolled environment like and entire society (China) to a semi-controlled environment like Foxconn is bad statistics and foolish.

And "Foxconn gets 1/10th the suicides of China as a whole, which I shall treat as if it were shockingly high" is good statistics and non-foolish?

Re: Think different about Jobs

#192

Post by Fliko » Mon, Nov 14, 2011, 4:44 AM UTC

dman wrote: post #188

ahoyhere wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have your Android phone! Why must you wish misfortune on my choice? Because people like this are hypocrites… they want to take your choice away, and scream and fight and claw madly if they don't get their choice. Mentally, these people are still children. They look at everything (e.g. alll of business) as it if it is a zero-sum game. They take everything personally. It's hard not to be offended when you think a…

Its childish to label other people as children unless they happen to be children.

In that case it's bad to call someone childish because some of the best features of humans are only apparent for most people when they are children and not adults, but that isn't the point of what was said.

The point was that it is short-sighted of someone to say it would be evil if (say) Apple won the mobile war, but would be good if Google won the mobile war. Competition is a win-win situation for consumers, and a lack of competition only encourages stagnancy, which is one of the greatest evils of the creative world.

Re: Think different about Jobs

#193

Post by Fliko » Mon, Nov 14, 2011, 4:48 AM UTC

gbog wrote: post #180

matwood wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somebody can alway polish their own android version and make it like the magical apple products that I hear so much about. I hate the 'apple makes most of the profits' line that gets talked about all the time (even though true), but if what you say is really so easy then why hasn't someone or some company done it? Things is, it's not easy. This is where techies (myself included) often miss there is something beyond a…

Art? You mean to compare iPhones and other manufactured consumer gadgets with art masterpieces like Mona Lisa or Mahler's 5th?

He didn't make that comparison, but even if he did that would be totally irrelevant because the value of what is art changes with person to person, and you've already lost if you try to debate against what someone values as art.

Re: Think different about Jobs

#194

Post by ericd » Mon, Nov 14, 2011, 5:09 AM UTC

roflharrison wrote: post #177

unalone wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forgive me if this is an unfair line of argument, but I've read a number of articles this month about how quickly Android phones become ineligible for an OS upgrade, because so many Android phones mean carriers can push the latest OS only to their most recent phones. Compare that to the closed system of iOS, where only one brand of phone uses the system, yet the 2.5-year-old 3Gs just got the upgrade to iOS 5. Android…

I will hazard a guess that anyone who cares about the freedoms we are discussing is capable of rooting and installing a custom ROM or researching a purchase to ensure they get a device that is free to do what they want. Of course, these same users would also be able to jailbreak an iPhone, but does that lock you out of the Apple loop (i.e. App store, Siri, iCloud)? I honestly don't know so that is not a rhetorical qu…

Jailbreaking doesn't disable other aspects of the iPhone, it strictly enhances, as far as I've been able to tell.

Re: Think different about Jobs

#195

Post by ScottBurson » Mon, Nov 14, 2011, 5:16 AM UTC

spacefungus wrote: post #149

ScottBurson wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvoted. I was with you (and had upvoted your earlier posts) until the last sentence.

And why is that worthy of a downvote? Suicides aren't valid negative things? I am not against Steve Jobs. But to say all he did was hurt feelings is ignorant. He hurt feelings and perpetuated a supply chain with a lot of negative elements to it. And no, Apple is not the only company doing it.

?? It wasn't your post I was replying to!

Re: Think different about Jobs

#196

Post by gbog » Mon, Nov 14, 2011, 6:46 AM UTC

Fliko wrote: post #193

gbog wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Art? You mean to compare iPhones and other manufactured consumer gadgets with art masterpieces like Mona Lisa or Mahler's 5th?

He didn't make that comparison, but even if he did that would be totally irrelevant because the value of what is art changes with person to person, and you've already lost if you try to debate against what someone values as art.

> irrelevant because the value of what is art changes with person to person

Well, this means there is no discussion possible about art.

This is a kind of relativism. Other kind of relativism include moral relativism ("What is good or bad changes with person to person"), and cognitive relativism ("Truth changes with person to person").

Sorry to tell you this, but relativism is sometime dangerous (eg. one could say that, for some people, it is considered "good" to rape old ladies), and often just wrong (you'd have hard time to find someone who would honestly declare that Bach's music or Chinese landscape paintings is really not art).

Apple's products have many impressing qualities, they are beautifully designed, engage their owners a lot, etc. Art do not need to come into the picture.

Re: Think different about Jobs

#197

Post by ahoyhere » Mon, Nov 14, 2011, 9:44 PM UTC

gbog wrote: post #182

billpatrianakos wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've only been here for about a year but I agree. The iPhone openness arguments and "Jobs was a doodoo head" comments don't belong here. I thought we were all better than that. (I totally just fueled the flames of one of those bad comments though, which I'm embarrassed for).

Sorry but the openess of a widely used tool as the iPhone is of paramount importance to hackers, by definition.

The opinion of openness of an Apple product has nothing to do with whether Steve Jobs' biographer lied intentionally.

Re: Think different about Jobs

#198

Post by c3d » Tue, Nov 15, 2011, 7:54 AM UTC

There's one thing about Jobs I didn't see mentioned here or in the target web site. Jobs did things out of love: love for his customer, love for his products.

As a result, Apple was one of the few companies that self-improved with each flaw in its products. Self-improvement is hard, and it takes a lot of discipline. Jobs' screaming and shouting may have not been the best way to achieve the goal, but it worked. And until we have proof by counter-example, it may be the most efficient way to achieve the greater good.

Think about your own teachers or coaches. For me, the ones I remember most are not the one who always told me "good job". It's the teachers who fought my flaws, pushed my limits. In many cases, that involved tedious exercises, boring discipline, "coldness" or shouting. I have yet to see a good sports coach who is always smiling on the field and drives the team with "good job" during the match.

To me, Jobs is the best illustration of "There's a difference between knowing the way and walking the way." Jobs knew the way, and made others walk it.

Re: Think different about Jobs

#199

Post by ighost » Tue, Nov 15, 2011, 8:39 PM UTC

shinratdr wrote: post #113

ighost wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think Steve Jobs, a man obsessed with his legacy, would authorize a hatchet job?

If you actually read the book, you would have caught the part where Steve Jobs never got to see or approve the final copy, on purpose. Steve Jobs was obsessed with his mainstream legacy, not the poorly informed opinions of a bunch of narrow-minded tech news enthusiasts. His mainstream legacy hasn't changed because of this book.

i'm only on chapter 34, but i'm not enough of an old timer to comment on historical accuracy.

Re: Think different about Jobs

#200

Post by Fliko » Thu, Nov 17, 2011, 7:39 PM UTC

gbog wrote: post #196

Fliko wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He didn't make that comparison, but even if he did that would be totally irrelevant because the value of what is art changes with person to person, and you've already lost if you try to debate against what someone values as art.

> irrelevant because the value of what is art changes with person to person Well, this means there is no discussion possible about art. This is a kind of relativism. Other kind of relativism include moral relativism ("What is good or bad changes with person to person"), and cognitive relativism ("Truth changes with person to person"). Sorry to tell you this, but relativism is sometime dangerous (eg. one could say tha…

Actually, absolute truth is just as dangerous (and perhaps even more dangerous) as (non-extreme) relativism. Someone with a relativistic view isn't necessarily passive either, they just try to be more observant, understanding, and compassionate. I never liked how some philosophers force upon people a specific way of thinking if they claim to be have a general belief system.

Someone might consider it good to rape old ladies, and that is their honest belief, doesn't mean I can't call them out on it and try to make them 'believe' otherwise.

I never said that Bach's music isn't art, I just said that Apple's products can be viewed to be art just as much as a painting can be. You can argue if it is as pure, and what value it has in the artistic world but you can't argue if it is or isn't art. Art's way too vague for that kind of stuff.

In my mind, technology is a very powerful side-effect of art, and therefore it can be viewed as art just as much as a painting it.

My other point I was making is that if someone doesn't wish to discuss their values of art, than you've already lost the discussion because anything you say will be taken with a grain of salt. 99% of the discussions that go on in the world aren't of this case, but sometimes they are and I was just saying that we have to be mindful of those cases.