Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

usmint.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 296 posts

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

#201

Post by alephnerd »

b00ty4breakfast wrote: post #183

if the intent is to bring attention to technological innovations, Jobs was not a technological innovator, despite what the decades of PR would lead you to believe. If we want to argue that he was a promoter of tech innovations, in his capacity as a businessman, I would find that less objectionable but I still don't think Jobs is the guy we should be highlighting, given his track record of screwing over the people doi…

Why should driving a "design-first" and "user experience"/UX first model not be viewed as innovative?

Just implementing something isn't enough. You need to also be able to ensure that it is usable by non-specialists.

And this is something that Jobs really drove in the tech industry in it's early days, when non-technical users were basically an afterthought.

That is the reasoning behind their choice for Jobs, and honestly it's a valid one.

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

#202

Post by skeeter2020 »

bluGill wrote: post #138
Thorrez wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. But why does one coin have a person and the other have an invention? Why not inventions for both or people for both?

Jobs did a lot of useful things, but he was not an inventor and so has nothing to show. He was really good at forcing people to perfect the inventions of others which is a useful thing. Cray-1 is an invention, and better known than the inventor. So it is the right decision for both. You can of course debate which is better and there are hundreds of other choices that could be put on either coin - both humans and inve…

The intent here is to get people's attention, and an arguement over "which is best" is exactly the outcome desired. I won't step into it except to say regardless of the subject and reasoning, the design of the Jobs one is pretty dumb. It looks like the gave a prompt focused on hippy-spirtual-big-thinker to AI and said "design a coin".

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

#203

Post by skeeter2020 »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #134
amelius wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not the inventors of the transistor? Anyway, at least I'm happy the Nobel prize committee isn't based in the US. Otherwise we'd soon see the Nobel prize for advertising.

Or venture capital. I'm thinking Elizabeth Holmes should either be on a coin or get some kind of Nobel. (he said in jest) But seriously, Lee de Forest (Iowa or New York), Chester Carlson (Washington, New York), Charles Martin Hall (Ohio), Philo Farnsworth (Utah)…

Who? that's why they're not on a coin.

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

#204

Post by hbn »

b00ty4breakfast wrote: post #183

if the intent is to bring attention to technological innovations, Jobs was not a technological innovator, despite what the decades of PR would lead you to believe. If we want to argue that he was a promoter of tech innovations, in his capacity as a businessman, I would find that less objectionable but I still don't think Jobs is the guy we should be highlighting, given his track record of screwing over the people doi…

He created Apple, and then came back to save them from bankruptcy and made them profitable within months which none of their other CEOs leading up to his return could.

The way he got the notoriously staunch record labels on board with their $1/song plan to make iTunes possible and make music infinitely more convenient and accessible overnight was unforeseen.

Not many people have repeatedly proven themselves many times over like he did. I do believe he was one of the greatest business men of all time, and for all the things you can complain about with Apple, I'm glad they exist to inject some sense of taste into computing, and a standard for every other computing device to be compared to (cue examples of bad design decisions that came from Apple. Don't bother, doesn't disprove my point)

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

#205

Post by skeeter2020 »

hirvi74 wrote: post #180
elif wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each state voted on its innovation.

Dolly Parton is the only person of value to ever come out my state (TN).

I mean you did essentially give us the atomic bomb?

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

#207

Post by fluoridation »

aftbit wrote: post #191
kemiller2002 wrote: post #187

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.

I'm honestly still trying to wrap my head around in what way exactly the iPhone was innovative. It wasn't the first phone that could run programs, nor the first phone that could use the Internet (the "i" in "iPhone"). Perhaps it was the first phone that did both of those and also had a touchscreen, however that seems like an odd thing that would "take end-user computing from the desk to the hand, everywhere". I would argue the iPhone itself is not the innovation, but rather the ecosystem around it: the app store. I could be wrong, but I don't think anyone else was doing that in 2006.

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

#208

Post by shortrounddev2 »

Ylpertnodi wrote: post #196
shortrounddev2 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

During the pandemic there was controversy about who received Moderna/Phizer vs who received J&J's vaccine. They were giving black neighborhoods J&J because it didn't have as strict refrigeration requirements, and a lot of black neighborhoods don't have a nearby pharmacy which can store the vaccines. J&J was thought to be less effective and had a higher rate of vaccine injury though.

> J&J was though to be less effective and had a higher rate of vaccine injury though. What's a 'vaccine injury', though?

Side effects of the vaccine basically. I guess technically headaches or fatigue would be a vaccine injury

But I use the phrase "thought to" intentionally: I don't know what the science says now, but at the time there were reported cases of myocarditis in people who took the JnJ vaccine. This was like May of 2021, so I don't know if the science ever panned out on that, but it definitely drove discussions around health equity with the vaccine

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

#210

Post by rtkwe »

shevy-java wrote: post #159

Shall we forget that Steve Jobs conspired with other companies to pay developers less? This is well-documented in courts (and also on many other websites, by the way): https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-goo... See: "[...] Steve Jobs orchestrated an elaborate scheme to prevent poaching and drive down wages."

On the other hand what's more American than eroding workers rights through coordination between rich business owners? Granted there's fewer machine guns on trains involved than in some periods. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre and several other incidents.

Post reply on HN