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Steve Jobs and Cray-1 to be featured on 2026 American Innovations $1 coin

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Re: Steve Jobs and Cray-1 to be featured on 2026 American Innovations $1 coin

#291
post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one reason I support not putting humans on money . We used to put mythological figures on our coinage (liberty, justice, etc), because the are symbols and are uncomplicated by substance. Humans are flawed. Putting humans on money -- as symbols -- is going to make us go in circles about their imperfection. From Washington as a slave owner to Steve Jobs suppressing wages. This is not an issue if we just put the…

If you can't handle that people have flaws, you're just immature. Washington and Jobs are both hugely important historical figures, and the bad parts don't invalidate their legacies. Purity testing has ruined liberal politics.

I don't want people on the money exactly because hero worship is stupid. We should care about our principles, so we should put our principles on the money, not our heroes.

I was using the examples as examples. I agree with you about people who can't handle nuance and imperfection. My point is only that putting people on the money is just dumb to begin with, because it misses the point of what people are trying to do.

Re: Steve Jobs and Cray-1 to be featured on 2026 American Innovations $1 coin

#292

Not American myself, and never been there - are there really $1 notes and coins, or am I missing something here?

There are 1 dollar coins and 50 cent coins. The issue is that they've never had consistent designs/sizes so machines don't take them and people don't recognize them. To my mind, this is the primary reason they haven't caught on

The 50-cent coin has been a consistent size since about 1836. It weighs exactly as much as two 25-cent or five ten-cent coins.

The dollar coin has been the same size since 1979, and the same colour since 2000.

Re: Steve Jobs and Cray-1 to be featured on 2026 American Innovations $1 coin

#293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He wansn't any kind of visionary. He didn't invent or design a single thing. He was a ruthless manager and marketer, abusing people and taking credit for their work.

He was obviously an asshole, but claiming that he wasn't any kind of visionary is just blatant revisionism.

If you claim he was a 'visionary' you should be able to back that up.

Re: Steve Jobs and Cray-1 to be featured on 2026 American Innovations $1 coin

#294
post #191

I'm writing this from a Mac when I ask this. Has Apple actually created anything that could arguably have changed the world? Resistant crops, the Cray, mobile refrigeration all changed the world. My iPhone's nice, but it's not exactly on the same level. Is there anything from Apple that I'm missing?

The iPhone absolutely changed the world. I agree - it is not on the level of the green revolution or refrigeration. It still led to one of the largest paradigm shifts in end user computing, taking it from the desk or table at work or home into the hand, everywhere, for everyone.

The iPhone changed the world through sheer scale. This even trickled back upstream to its components.

For example, VECSEL lasers were added to the iPhone in 2017 to power FaceID. At the time, they were a low volume, high cost component (used primarily in fiber transceivers) with generally poor yields.

Today, thanks in large part to the sheer number demanded by iPhones, they are a cheap, near commodity component with >90% yields.

https://www.electrooptics.com/article/vcsels-deliver-mega-im...

Re: Steve Jobs and Cray-1 to be featured on 2026 American Innovations $1 coin

#295
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. $1 coins aren't super common but they're not so odd that someone wouldn't believe it's real. There are also collector-oriented coins but pretty much none of those are actually intended for use. Edit: fun fact, there are also $2 bills (but those are way more rare and someone might not believe it's real).

I love Wozniak’s story about $2 bills that are particularly difficult to believe in reality of: https://web.archive.org/web/20111122202554/https://archive.w...

Lol, lost it at the "Laser Safety Officer" fake id... :'D

Re: Steve Jobs and Cray-1 to be featured on 2026 American Innovations $1 coin

#296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was obviously an asshole, but claiming that he wasn't any kind of visionary is just blatant revisionism.

If you claim he was a 'visionary' you should be able to back that up.

Easy, his company went on to make the Apple Vision Pro! It's in the name.
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