Comments on: "[T]he most important decisions you make are not the things you do – but the things that you decide not to do."

"[T]he most important decisions you make are not the things you do – but the things that you decide not to do."

Blazecock Pileon — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 01:31:01 -0800

"He's a minimalist and constantly reducing things to their simplest level. It's not simplistic. It's simplified. Steve is a systems designer. He simplifies complexity." John Sculley On Steve Jobs, The Full Interview [via]

By: kafziel

kafziel — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 01:42:48 -0800

Steve Wozniak is mentioned exactly once, in passing, during a question about HP. In light of such incredibly laughable statements as "If you go back to the Apple II, Steve was the first one to put a computer into a plastic case, which was called ABS plastic in those days, and actually put the keyboard into the computer. It seems like a pretty simple idea today, looking back at it, but even at the time when he created the first Apple II, in 1977 — that was the beginning of the Jobs methodology." ... This isn't an interview. This is a fluff piece at best, and rife with revisionist glorification. This garbage should stay on Cult Of Mac, and not pollute the Blue.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 01:51:02 -0800

Jobs is a douchebag. Abusing the legal system by suing your competitors over bogus software patents* does make the world simpler: it makes innovation impossible, so you can keep shoveling out the same crap without changing it. Also, Isn't Sculley the guy who fired Jobs from Apple?

This garbage should stay on Cult Of Mac, and not pollute the Blue.

heh, I didn't notice this was actually linked on a site literally called "Cult Of Mac" _{*all software patents}

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 02:09:26 -0800

This isn't an interview. This interview is with a primary source, someone who was a major part of 1980s and 90s computing history. Can you please go troll some other thread, kafziel?

By: the cuban

the cuban — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 02:46:46 -0800

heh, the primary source... the Godhead...

By: i_cola

i_cola — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 02:48:57 -0800

Interesting interview and worth a read. Of course this thread is going to add yet more fuel to my YOU FUCKING NERDS SHOULD JUST PICK A SPORT AND A TEAM AND GET ALL ANGRY ABOUT THAT RATHER THAN TURN EVERY COMPUTER CONVERSATION INTO THE SAME theory but hey, it's Friday...

By: JaredSeth

JaredSeth — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 03:08:26 -0800

While I found this an interesting interview, I don't know that I'd call pointing out that Sculley engages in a little revisionist tech history "trolling". The Apple II was by no means the first personal computer housed in plastic. Admittedly, my favorite bit occurs in the comments: And I know there are people that STILL use their Newtons! I'm not sure if there are any Amiga users still out there.

By: JaredSeth

JaredSeth — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 03:11:45 -0800

Oh and that plastic housing thing is not the only example from the article but I know I'd rather this didn't turn into one great big derail.

By: Dr Dracator

Dr Dracator — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 03:34:57 -0800

What's so exciting about a plastic housing anyway? Isn't metal both more durable and easier to recycle? Cheaper maybe, I'll give you that. The entire piece has my Interview Subject Credibility meter swinging crazily between Mind-Controlled Drone and Flamebait.

By: joost de vries

joost de vries — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 03:51:45 -0800

Sculley looking back with so much unadulterated admiration after having had an acrimonious time with Jobs back then makes me wonder about Jobs health. It sounds like a eulogy. Awesome read btw.

By: joost de vries

joost de vries — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 04:09:01 -0800

Also it's an awesome read because a lot of what Jobs has pulled off went against a lot of accepted wisdom in strategic management. *) Succeeding in saturated markets with a high value high cost product f.i. I'm thinking of the mp3 player and mobile phone market obviously. And I gather Sculley was back then the prince of conventional wisdom on how to compete in tech. So it's interesting to see how he looks back on his own impressions there. *)Strategic management provides Jack Donnaghy in 30 Rock with his typical CEO vocabulary of vertical integration etc

By: Devils Rancher

Devils Rancher — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 04:45:11 -0800

It sounds like a eulogy. All the references being phrased in past tense through the whole thing is certainly odd, but to Sculley, I guess the whole endeavor is past tense.

By: joost de vries

joost de vries — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 04:48:34 -0800

I didn't refer to the past tense. It's that I read a lot of admiration in the interview. And it's hardly about Sculley himself. In my experience people let go of strife 'when the race is run' because somebody has died or is about to. Hopefully I'm wrong.

By: sleepcrime

sleepcrime — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 05:07:08 -0800

Based on the first part of the interview, I agree with kafziel. To say that in the early 80s computers were divided into business machines and games machines, and Steve Jobs single-handedly invented the idea of the consumer computer, is just ridiculous.

By: nomadicink

nomadicink — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 05:27:59 -0800

So, how about Verizon selling iPads, huh?

By: nomadicink

nomadicink — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 06:15:57 -0800

Interesting quotes:

"Apple is not really a technology company. Apple is really a design company. If you look at the iPod, you will see that many of the technologies that are in the iPod are ones that Apple bought from other people and put together. Even when Apple created Macintosh, all the ideas came out of Xerox and Apple recruited some of the key people out of Xerox." .... "Looking back, it was a big mistake that I was ever hired as CEO. I was not the first choice that Steve wanted to be the CEO. He was the first choice, but the board wasn't prepared to make him CEO when he was 25, 26 years old." ..... "I made two really dumb mistakes that I really regret because I think they would have made a difference to Apple. One was when we are at the end of the life of the Motorola processor... we took two of our best technologists and put them on a team to go look and recommend what we ought to do. They came back and they said it doesn't make any difference which RISC architecture you pick, just pick the one that you think you can get the best business deal with. But don't use CISC. SISC is complex instructions set. RISC is reduced instruction set. So Intel lobbied heavily to get us to stay with them... (but) we went with IBM and Motorola with the PowerPC. And that was a terrible decision in hindsight. If we could have worked with Intel, we would have gotten onto a more commoditized component platform for Apple, which would have made a huge difference for Apple during the 1990s. In the 1990s, the processors were getting powerful enough that you could run all of your technology and software, and that's when Microsoft took off with their Windows 3.1. Prior to that you had to do it in software and hardware, the way Apple did. When the processors became powerful enough, it just became a commodity and the software can handle all those subroutines we had to do in hardware. So we totally missed the boat. Intel would spend 11 billion dollars and evolve the Intel processor to do graphics... and it was a terrible technical decision. I wasn't technically qualified, unfortunately, so I went along with the recommendation. The other even bigger failure on my part was if I had thought about it better I should have gone back to Steve. I wanted to leave Apple. At the end of 10 years, I didn't want to stay any longer. I wanted to go back to the east coast. I told the board I wanted to leave and IBM was trying to recruit me at the time. They asked me to stay. I stayed and then they later fired me. I really didn't want to be there any longer. The board decided that we ought to sell Apple. So I was given the assignment to go off and try to sell Apple in 1993. So I went off and tried to sell it to AT&T to IBM and other people. We couldn't get anyone who wanted to buy it. They thought it was just too high risk because Microsoft and Intel were doing well then. But if I had any sense, I would have said: "Why don't we go back to the guy who created the whole thing and understands it. Why don't we go back and hire Steve to come back and run the company?"" ... "I remember one of the things we talked about, Steve used to ask me: "How did Pepsi get such great advertising?" He asked if it was the agencies that you picked? And I said what it really is. First of all you have to have an exciting product and you have to be able to present it as an opportunity to do bold advertising. But great advertising comes from great clients. The best creative people want to work for the best clients. If you are a client who doesn't appreciate great work, or a client who won't take risks and try new stuff, or a client who can't get excited about the creative, then you're the wrong kind of client. Most big companies delegate it way down in the organization. The CEO rarely knows anything about the advertising except when it's presented, when it's all done. That's not how we did it at Pepsi, not how we did it at Apple, and I'm sure it's not how Steve does it now. He always adamantly involved in the advertising, the design and everything." ... "He always looked at things from the perspective of what was the user's experience going to be? But unlike a lot of people in product marketing in those days, who would go out and do consumer testing, asking people, "What did they want?" Steve didn't believe in that. He said, "How can I possibly ask somebody what a graphics-based computer ought to be when they have no idea what a graphic based computer is? No one has ever seen one before." He believed that showing someone a calculator, for example, would not give them any indication as to where the computer was going to go because it was just too big a leap." ... Q: Where did he get the idea for controlling the whole widget? The idea to be in charge of everything, the whole system? Sculley: Steve believed that if you opened the system up people would start to make little changes and those changes would be compromises in the experience and he would not be able to deliver the kind of experience that he wanted.

By: Kid Charlemagne

Kid Charlemagne — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 06:18:40 -0800

I'd like to understand how fusing the keyboard and the processor is simplifying. It's a plug you don't have to plug in, and a big damn thing you have to have sitting on your desk behind your keyboard whether that works for you or not. The line that put me in Kafziel's camp was this one: "The first thing he did with his was take it apart and he looked at every single part. How the fit and finish was done, how it was built." I'm not sure this is true, but it's almost completely contrary to the portrait of Jobs that we were painted prior to this line. It almost reads like Sculley went through The Art of Thinking going, "OK, let's see, I've got Idealist, Synthesist, Pragmatist.... Hey, do I have anything for analyst?" I mean if Jobs cares deeply about streamlined industrial processes. Uh, and the user experience. And how the motor is attached to the case of the tape player. If you care deeply about everything, you don't care deeply about anything. (Or there are more hours in your day than everyone else gets.) I'm not sure if Sculley is trying to make Jobs out to be all things to all people, or if Jobs has become all things to Sculley.

By: nomadicink

nomadicink — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 06:23:47 -0800

If you care deeply about everything, you don't care deeply about anything. Grandpa Jobs loves us so much, he wants to make sure love is baked into every delicious cookie that is made for us!

By: SyntacticSugar

SyntacticSugar — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 06:52:17 -0800

heh, the primary source... the Godhead... More the demiurge, surely? Hagiography rather than interview I thought, but the marketing stuff was interesting. The video of the old Mac production line was pretty cool; what was,presumably, the cutting edge of 80s production tech (and fashion).

By: Artw

Artw — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 06:54:03 -0800

Definatly an interesting read though, if you keep the weird slanting in mind.

By: dbiedny

dbiedny — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 07:07:34 -0800

Sculley is a man who claimed to have conceived of the invar shadow mask technology as a child (as per his puff-laden autobiography), and was last publicly seen at the helm of the sinking ship formerly known as Live Picture. I take what comes out of his mouth with a salt lick.

By: Kid Charlemagne

Kid Charlemagne — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 07:08:56 -0800

I just realized why I dislike Apple. It's this: Steve believed that if you opened the system up people would start to make little changes and those changes would be compromises in the experience and he would not be able to deliver the kind of experience that he wanted. Apple believes in this perfect crystalline user experience and has build this vast and rigidly enforced axiomatic system around it. But the idea is so fundamentally flawed that it walks a fine line between hubris and psychosis. Has Jobs ever run a mass spectrometer? Cobbled together a control system for a CNC mill? Hacked the OS of his Honda Insight in real time? Or any of a million other weird things that people do with computers? Of course not. Nobody has. So if you buy whatever apple is selling and your idea of the platonic digital consumer experience is not Steve Jobs idea of the platonic digital consumer experience, you are somewhere between "Sucks to be you" and "Die heretic" in the eyes of Apple. The Apple vs. PC debate is the conflict between the empirical and the axiomatic world view. If there isn't a D&D alignment chart for this, I'm sad.

By: Scoo

Scoo — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 07:14:32 -0800

MeFi's Knee Jerk Anti-Jobs Anti-Apple Committee is in fine fettle, I see. We can debate about what amount of credit he deserves, or precisely how big a jerk he is. But without him we wouldn't have the following: Macintosh Pixar NeXT Cube Mac OS X iPod iPhone iPad Sure, alternatives would have presented themselves, but few, if any, would have been as well designed.

By: nomadicink

nomadicink — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 07:14:51 -0800

Apple believes in this perfect crystalline user experience and has build this vast and rigidly enforced axiomatic system around it. But the idea is so fundamentally flawed that it walks a fine line between hubris and psychosis. I know, right, iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad were such failures!

By: kmz

kmz — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 07:26:46 -0800

YOU FUCKING NERDS SHOULD JUST PICK A SPORT AND A TEAM AND GET ALL ANGRY ABOUT THAT RATHER THAN TURN EVERY COMPUTER CONVERSATION INTO THE SAME How dare you limit the amount of things I can be all angry about!!!!! I can hate on Apple, the Yankees, the suckitude of my Longhorns this year, and M. Night Shyamalan all at the same time. GRARRR

By: me & my monkey

me & my monkey — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 07:26:54 -0800

Can you please go troll some other thread You know, just because someone disagrees with you, that doesn't make them a troll. I'm glad you posted it, because it's worth reading and I wouldn't have seen it otherwise, but Woz does get really short shrift in this. I know, right, iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad were such failures! I think you're misreading there a bit. They're great devices overall, and Apple definitely delivers a great user experience. But as a vision for how computing should work, it's definitely a bit too controlled from the top. It's great that we have Apple, but we wouldn't want to have only Apple.

By: AdamCSnider

AdamCSnider — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 07:28:10 -0800

MeFi's Knee Jerk Anti-Jobs Anti-Apple Committee is in fine fettle, I see I don't see all that much knee-jerking here. I'm a Mac user almost exclusively, and appreciate all the items on your list. That doesn't mean that Jobs doesn't have some serious blind spots, or isn't way, waaaay too narrow in some of his views, or prone to unpleasant business tactics (although there he's hardly alone in this field.

By: zippy

zippy — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 07:39:03 -0800

Scoo, how could you forget: Apple ///

By: nomadicink

nomadicink — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 07:42:10 -0800

I think you're misreading there a bit. They're great devices overall, and Apple definitely delivers a great user experience. But as a vision for how computing should work, it's definitely a bit too controlled from the top. It's great that we have Apple, but we wouldn't want to have only Apple. Oh, I'd agree it doesn't have to be only vision, but a lot of times you hear from the tinkerers and hackers about how awful Apple is for having this specific vision. It's not so much a right or wrong, but rather a method that works for some people and doesn't for others. These sort of people seem to feel that having anything like Apple is a major affront to..something.

By: Joe Beese

Joe Beese — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 07:44:51 -0800

You know, just because someone disagrees with you, that doesn't make them a troll. Quite true. But leaping in with a first comment to denounce a post as "pollution" makes you a threadshitter.

By: octothorpe

octothorpe — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 07:47:12 -0800

I know, right, iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad were such failures! Obviously they're great mainstream consumer successes but I will never buy any Apple product again for exactly the reasons that Kid Charlemagne listed. If you want to do anything with or to the product that Apple thinks you shouldn't (like change the battery), you're out of luck.

By: me & my monkey

me & my monkey — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 07:48:40 -0800

a lot of times you hear from the tinkerers and hackers about how awful Apple is for having this specific vision. Apple does want everyone to buy into this vision. After all, that's what they're about - selling hardware. And if Apple products became the computing mainstream, that would be problematic for the tinkerers.

By: me & my monkey

me & my monkey — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 07:51:28 -0800

But leaping in with a first comment to denounce a post as "pollution" makes you a threadshitter. How long is the appropriate waiting period? Three comments? Five? Enquiring minds want to know.

By: nomadicink

nomadicink — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 07:51:31 -0800

Steve Wozniak is mentioned exactly once, in passing, during a question about HP. That's the weirdest complaint about an interview titled "John Sculley on Steve Jobs" This isn't an interview. This is a fluff piece at best, and rife with revisionist glorification. This garbage should stay on Cult Of Mac, and not pollute the Blue. Yeah, how dare someone share links about a niche subject on Metafilter.

By: seventyfour

seventyfour — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 07:53:02 -0800

Apple introduces revolutionary new laptop.

By: nomadicink

nomadicink — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 07:55:06 -0800

Apple does want everyone to buy into this vision. What a terrible desire for a company. And if Apple products became the computing mainstream, that would be problematic for the tinkerers. Don't know why, no one is preventing them from tinkering with other things. They can tinker over there, those who don't want to tinker can go over here. I see no reason for the tinkerers to inject themselves on what the non-tinkerers want or do.

By: zippy

zippy — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 08:02:41 -0800

Not to address any current unhappiness about Apple's closed system policies, but the Apple ][ was one of the most open personal computers I can think of. They published the circuit diagrams and, I think, even the source code for the ROM. They started as an open, hacker friendly company.

By: me & my monkey

me & my monkey — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 08:03:11 -0800

I see no reason for the tinkerers to inject themselves on what the non-tinkerers want or do. Funny, I haven't seen them blockading Apple Stores.

By: JaredSeth

JaredSeth — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 08:08:11 -0800

Is this Jennifer Anniston thirty years from now telling us what a wonderful boyfriend Brad Pitt was (and that no, contrary to everything you've heard she broke his heart)?

By: zarq

zarq — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 08:21:20 -0800

Steve Wozniak is mentioned exactly once, in passing, during a question about HP. That's the weirdest complaint about an interview titled "John Sculley on Steve Jobs" Not really, no. They seem to be re-writing history a bit, with Jobs taking credit for (among other things,) accomplishments he made with Wozniak. The whole 'Jobs transformed the computer into a consumer commodity' thing is not entirely accurate. Several companies were marketing computers to the consumer market at the same time as Apple in the 1970's, including Radio Shack with TRS-80's, Commodore with PET, Texas Instruments with their TI-99, and Atari with the 400 and 800. The early 80's saw the Commodore Vic-20 and then the IBM-PC -- the latter was a response to the Apple ][. Jobs took the personal computer and make it more accessible to consumers through a GUI interface -- the LISA and the Macintosh. But people were using TRS-80's and PET computers at home for a lot more than games before he did so.

By: KirkJobSluder

KirkJobSluder — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 08:31:36 -0800

So if you buy whatever apple is selling and your idea of the platonic digital consumer experience is not Steve Jobs idea of the platonic digital consumer experience, you are somewhere between "Sucks to be you" and "Die heretic" in the eyes of Apple. And yet, OS X ships with a half-dozen scripting languages, X-Windows, GCC, and an IDE that gives you full support for their libraries. People have been tinkering with Apple computers since they've started building computers, and often using Apple-created tools to do it.

By: nomadicink

nomadicink — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 08:34:37 -0800

They seem to be re-writing history a bit, with Jobs taking credit for (among other things,) accomplishments he made with Wozniak. Ahem: "Jobs took the personal computer and make it more accessible to consumers through a GUI interface -- the LISA and the Macintosh. " You're doing it too! :P It's important to remember that this John Scullye remembering things and as he admits, he didn't know much about computers, so I'm not sure why his statements about computing history are being taking as attacks of some sort, particularly since they're a minor part of the interview. Funny, I haven't seen them blockading Apple Stores. Oh they're planning it, you know how they are. Not that I ever claimed they were blockading Apple Stores (mmm, straw person!), but rather injecting themselves and their world view and portraying it as the one, true way where it wasn't a concern. It's an interesting thing to see repeated over and over.

By: Kid Charlemagne

Kid Charlemagne — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 08:39:51 -0800

I see no reason for the tinkerers to inject themselves on what the non-tinkerers want or do. You mean like quitting their job at HP, selling off their VW van for some capital and then trying to lock us into their idea of what a user experience should be like? Amen Brother!

By: callmejay

callmejay — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 09:06:38 -0800

I know, right, iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad were such failures! What people are complaining about is not essential to their success. I had an iTouch and loved it, but when it came time to buy a smart phone, I eventually decided to get an Evo because of Jobs's megalomania regarding what is and isn't allowed on the platform. It was a great decision. For example, I just found out that Full Tilt Poker is apparently releasing a client for the Android and not for Apple products. Why? Because Apple doesn't allow gambling apps. And I love me some online poker.

By: callmejay

callmejay — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 09:09:11 -0800

Because Apple doesn't allow gambling apps. (Or flash.)

By: forforf

forforf — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 09:09:28 -0800

I can't stop myself from going on a slight derail commenting on this quote (having lived through this type of thing too many times).

*They came back and they said it doesn't make any difference which RISC architecture you pick, just pick the one that you think you can get the best business deal with. But don't use CISC. SISC is complex instructions set. RISC is reduced instruction set. So Intel lobbied heavily to get us to stay with them... (but) we went with IBM and Motorola with the PowerPC. And that was a terrible decision in hindsight. If we could have worked with Intel, we would have gotten onto a more commoditized component platform for Apple, which would have made a huge difference for Apple during the 1990s. In the 1990s, the processors were getting powerful enough that you could run all of your technology and software, and that's when Microsoft took off with their Windows 3.1. .... So we totally missed the boat. Intel would spend 11 billion dollars and evolve the Intel processor to do graphics... and it was a terrible technical decision. I wasn't technically qualified, unfortunately, so I went along with the recommendation.

Ummm, hello ... failure to predict commoditization is a BUSINESS failure, not a technical one. How in the hell does that decision get bounced back to being a technical decision is beyond me.

By: KirkJobSluder

KirkJobSluder — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 09:16:13 -0800

If you want to do anything with or to the product that Apple thinks you shouldn't (like change the battery), you're out of luck. One of the joys of Boy Scouting was the yearly junk day held by a university staff member who collected broken electronics from across the department, and we spent a gleeful allnighter ripping apart everything from minicomputers to xerox machines (messy) to make breadboard contraptions. Just about everything we rendered down to parts came with a sticker that warned us where we were trespassing on the domain of the manufacturer's warranty and we should contact a licensed service representative. As far as I know, and I've not found information otherwise, Apple's policy here is something that's fairly standard across the industry: open the case, break the warranty. If you want to tinker, you take responsibility for supporting and/or breaking it.

By: KirkJobSluder

KirkJobSluder — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 09:31:02 -0800

And just as a point of reference Google's Warranty information for the Nexus One has anti-tampering clauses.

By: Pogo_Fuzzybutt

Pogo_Fuzzybutt — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 09:35:02 -0800

They came back and they said it doesn't make any difference which RISC architecture you pick, just pick the one that you think you can get the best business deal with. But don't use CISC. SISC is complex instructions set. RISC is reduced instruction set. What's really funny about this is how short sighted it is. As a rule of thumb, RISC is faster, but CISC can do more. CPUs these days take CISC instructions, and break them down into a RISC set, do the work, and then recompile the output. It's similar to the way high level programming languages work; complex instructions are broken down by a compiler into a simpler set of instructions. So, it's not wholly untrue to say all processors are RISC processors now. The great thing about this is how extensible it is - AMD's 64 bit extensions were the result of just this sort of processor design and led to them beating Intel to the punch on 64 bit computing. It's sort of amusing that Apple missed the boat on this so thoroughly.

By: Devils Rancher

Devils Rancher — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 09:42:21 -0800

the suckitude of my Longhorns this year, Oh, my. In my house, the nuclear-level ennui has reduced us to charred husks of our former sports-selves. Please, sports g*d let Popovich know what the hell he's doing -- our sanity rests with the Spurs, I'm afraid. typed on my iPad Ultra-Mega G5

By: nomadicink

nomadicink — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 09:44:17 -0800

What people are complaining about is not essential to their success. Then what people are complaining about doesn't really matter.

By: zarq

zarq — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 09:48:28 -0800

Ahem: "Jobs took the personal computer and make it more accessible to consumers through a GUI interface -- the LISA and the Macintosh. " You're doing it too! :P We have always been at war with Eastasia. You're right, of course. :D It's important to remember that this John Scullye remembering things and as he admits, he didn't know much about computers, so I'm not sure why his statements about computing history are being taking as attacks of some sort, particularly since they're a minor part of the interview. I'm not attacking him or the article. I'm making an observation.

By: entropicamericana

entropicamericana — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 09:49:23 -0800

the suckitude of my Longhorns this year Is this a Vista joke?

By: nomadicink

nomadicink — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 09:55:24 -0800

I'm not attacking him or the article. I'm making an observation. Well, how are we supposed to fight then?!

By: Artw

Artw — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 10:05:48 -0800

Do we still care about sweatshops?

By: seventyfour

seventyfour — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 10:07:10 -0800

the suckitude of my Longhorns this year After watching A&M also keep up with Arkansas, and after realizing how bad Texas Tech is this year, I can see the Longhorns losing to A&M + Nebraska. And, in my nightmares, Baylor, too. Baylor.

By: kmz

kmz — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 10:11:23 -0800

As far as I know, and I've not found information otherwise, Apple's policy here is something that's fairly standard across the industry: open the case, break the warranty. If you want to tinker, you take responsibility for supporting and/or breaking it. Changing batteries had never been a warranty-voiding exercise before though. (And sadly, I already see lots of other manufacturers jumping on that bandwagon. *sigh*) Oh, my. In my house, the nuclear-level ennui has reduced us to charred husks of our former sports-selves. It's total depression for me. My whole family bleeds burnt orange. (Except for my brother the Aggie. Traitor!) At least my wife's Horned Frogs are kicking ass and taking names.

By: kmz

kmz — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 10:15:40 -0800

After watching A&M also keep up with Arkansas, and after realizing how bad Texas Tech is this year, I can see the Longhorns losing to A&M + Nebraska. And, in my nightmares, Baylor, too. Baylor. Oh god don't even say that. I'm already counting Nebraska as a loss. A&M will be tough. Oklahoma State is formidable. Baylor won't be a gimme but I gotta believe we can beat them. It's already looking like a 7-5 kind of season. But losing to Baylor would just be... eyuch.

By: entropicamericana

entropicamericana — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 10:17:18 -0800

On the subject of sports.

By: Devils Rancher

Devils Rancher — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 10:25:00 -0800

I can see the Longhorns losing to A&M + Nebraska. And, in my nightmares, Baylor, too. Baylor. After the Rice game, I pegged 'em to lose three this year. I'm revising that upwards to four, and I'm leaving town to go camping all weekend tonight. I just can't bear to watch Nebraska. On the subject of sports Oh, excellent. I've gotta send that to the wife -- thanks.

By: sidereal

sidereal — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 10:41:33 -0800

I was hoping Blazecock Pileon wouldn't see this thread.

By: entropicamericana

entropicamericana — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 10:56:41 -0800

That would be difficult since it is his FPP.

By: nomadicink

nomadicink — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 10:57:31 -0800

Well for God sakes, don't tell him it's his post!

By: kmz

kmz — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:03:29 -0800

It's his post, we just comment in it.

By: sidereal

sidereal — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:05:26 -0800

My humor is too subtle :/

By: seventyfour

seventyfour — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:11:41 -0800

My humor is too subtle :/ I prefer to think of your humor as simplified. Not simplistic. Simplified.

By: nomadicink

nomadicink — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:11:47 -0800

HAHAHAHA

By: Kid Charlemagne

Kid Charlemagne — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:14:22 -0800

but rather injecting themselves and their world view and portraying it as the one, true way where it wasn't a concern. So you just lumpld everything that might involve digital electronis and isn't Apple into a single world view and sumarrily dismissed it. Which side was Apple supposed to be in that iconic 1984 Macintosh commercial, because I think I'm confused.

By: nomadicink

nomadicink — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:24:13 -0800

So you just lumpld everything that might involve digital electronis and isn't Apple into a single world view and sumarrily dismissed it. I kick unicorns too!

By: KirkJobSluder

KirkJobSluder — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:32:17 -0800

Which side was Apple supposed to be in that iconic 1984 Macintosh commercial,... Oh no! Advertising exaggerates the merits of a product! However will we survive!

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:32:26 -0800

How long is the appropriate waiting period? Three comments? Five? Enquiring minds want to know. How about, if you don't like post's subject matter, move on or go to Metatalk, or just find something else to do other than drop a steaming loaf in the thread, ffs.

By: lodurr

lodurr — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:52:51 -0800

Pogo_Fuzzybutt: What's really funny about this is how short sighted it is. As a rule of thumb, RISC is faster, but CISC can do more. CPUs these days take CISC instructions, and break them down into a RISC set, do the work, and then recompile the output. What's really funny about that is that I remember John Dvorak saying something similar in the late '90s, and me being all skeptical because I was starting to think that everything John Dvorak said was exactly wrong.

By: me & my monkey

me & my monkey — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:53:37 -0800

How about, if you don't like post's subject matter, move on or go to Metatalk, or just find something else to do other than drop a steaming loaf in the thread, ffs. The standards for identifying a "steaming loaf" seem to have diminished here to "words I don't want to read." I do like the post's subject matter, as I mentioned already. I just took issue with the characterization of kafziel's response that you and JB were making. ffs.

By: lodurr

lodurr — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:54:54 -0800

you know, as Jobs-related threads go, this one was actually remarkably civil for about 6 or 7 hours.

By: bardic

bardic — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 20:42:30 -0800

My iPod thinks the cover of The Jam's greatest hits should have Eddie Veder on it.

By: DNye

DNye — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 08:27:02 -0800

How about, if you don't like post's subject matter, move on or go to Metatalk, or just find something else to do other than drop a steaming loaf in the thread, ffs. Much like the posts deleted from the thread about the Nexus One for being (I quote) needlessly fighty shit, I guess. Then there was the argument on the Blackberry Playbook thread about the irksome heft of microSD cards, which felt somewhat like performance art. It may be that Apple products, or any product against which Apple produces a competing product, or indeed anything related to Apple or to any company which competes with Apple, are simply not things that MetaFilter can ever discuss. If this isn't going to be the case we're probably all going to have to look at what counts as acceptable rhetorical technique when defending our platform choice.

By: nomadicink

nomadicink — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 09:03:44 -0800

By: theclaw

theclaw — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 10:16:36 -0800

What's really funny about that is that I remember John Dvorak saying something similar in the late '90s, and me being all skeptical because I was starting to think that everything John Dvorak said was exactly wrong. Throw the volume of shit that he and his ilk do at the wall and eventually something will be vague and generic enough to be interpreted as sticking to the wall.

By: zarq

zarq — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 05:47:00 -0800

Well, how are we supposed to fight then? By comparing equipment, naturally.

By: zarq

zarq — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 06:03:43 -0800

Like most religions, people should learn to accept that there are other ways of worshipping and those that differ aren't wrong, just different.Nerdrets syndrome, that certain tic which compels a certain segment of nerdom to dive in and excessively and negatively comment on OS platforms that don't fit their world view, is tiring and childish. I agree. Is that what's happened here, though? Interestingly enough, I encountered a maddening error in Mac OS last week. I had just begun renaming / adding extensions to several hundred previously-unattributed files, thereby associating them with a program in the Finder, when my keyboard stopped working. Mouse still worked. Keyboard worked in other programs, but not in Finder. I deleted preference files, swapped keyboards and restarted. Voila, working again. Then went back to renaming and it happened again. This went on for a good 30+ minutes until I did a net search to see if I could figure out what was going on. Turns out it's a known-to-Apple, replicatable error that's been around for years, and.a number of versions of Mac OS. I guess fixing it's not high on the ol' priority list. (After all, how often are you going to need to manually add extensions to multiple files by hand? I had to restart the finder every time it happened. Added hours of unnecessary work to the project. Every OS has its advantages and disadvantages. Our personal experiences with them shape our impressions.

By: nomadicink

nomadicink — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 06:17:33 -0800

Yes, but your problem was due to not using false OSes, repeatedly. Come, come back to the one true OS and your problems will disappear!

By: zarq

zarq — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 08:23:17 -0800

Yes, but your problem was due to not using false OSes, repeatedly. Come, come back to the one true OS and your problems will disappear! Yes, but whenever I hold it a particu-

SIGNAL LOST.

By: Artw

Artw — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 10:42:43 -0800

The Legendary Chuck Peddle, Inventor of The Personal Computer