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Post by Musogato on Oct 5, 2011 23:12:45 GMT -5
It's all over the news now, but Apple CEO Steve Jobs has died from pancreatic cancer. He was 56 years old. Co-founding Apple Computer at age 21 after dropping out of college and traveling to India, he changed the face of computers, music, and became a part of pop culture with the Mac computer, the iPod, iTunes, iPod Touch, the iPhone, iPad.... the list goes on. Even when things took a downturn, like being kicked out of his own company, he kept on doing what he loved and it eventually turned around. After he was fired, he started another computer company, NeXT, and bought Pixar Studios years before they made Toy Story. NeXT was eventually bought by Apple, bringing Steve Jobs back, and of course you guys know Pixar. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2004, but doctors found it was a rare, curable-with-surgery type. He had the surgery and continued work at Apple, but it became apparent as the years went on that something was still wrong. According to a family statement, he died "peacefully today surrounded by his family." In addition to retelling his life story, something the news channels have been showing is a clip from his commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005. The entire speech can be found here at Stanford.edu -- it's really quite inspiring and worth reading it all. He was an amazing, creative person, and it's sad to see him go.
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Post by goten0040 on Oct 6, 2011 23:13:40 GMT -5
Not many people pass away knowing they changed the world. I hope he did.
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Post by Gran Gran on Oct 8, 2011 13:35:35 GMT -5
Not many people get the chance to be that infuential. Then again, I think this is indirectly his doing as well: www.damnyouautocorrect.com/
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Dr. Joe
Meng
Minster of Health
Posts: 255
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Post by Dr. Joe on Oct 8, 2011 19:24:37 GMT -5
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Post by Paraiba Ocean on Oct 8, 2011 20:43:28 GMT -5
It's pretty interesting to see opinions come out of the woodwork after someone passes away. Personally, I think both sides have been a little ridiculous in their attitudes towards Jobs - both glorifying and condemning him. I like to think I'm somewhere in the middle. I myself am a business major, so I look at Jobs as a great example of how to be a successful entrepreneur and build something from scratch, so I admire him in respects to that. To be honest, I think I could safely say Steve Jobs won't be as big of a household name as a lot of people think he will in say, 70 years. He'll be more of someone mentioned in anything pertaining to business and/or technology. I've noticed a lot of people treating him as a "god" of some sort. The fact is, Jobs career has been mostly on reinventing what already exists. For example, back in the 1980's, Jobs (and Gates for that matter) didn't "invent" computers. Apple reinvented computers to make it easier for the common person to use. Tablets already existed, but Apple reinvented it with the iPad to give the Apple flair and several other things. Of course - for the most part, Jobs did not personally invent these items - he had team(s) of developers working on these projects. Naturally, Jobs played a crucial role in the concepts (in terms of telling them what direction he wanted them to go, ie, touchscreens for a phone leading to the first generation of iPhone) and obviously the marketing of the products when they were announced and launched, but I feel it's in a way disrespectful to the people who did invent them to say that Jobs did. However, I understand that being the face of Apple probably is why people make that association. Reading this article, there are some things that seem a bit sensational, and I don't really know enough about the man to give a strong opinion, however, Apple isn't the only business with its fingers in China, and a lot of that has to do with the undervalue of the currency and the cheap labor. An iPhone (with an upgrade) costs around $200, excluding the data plan and cell service. Who wants to pay $450-500 for the same phone (with that upgrade)? I can't really say with confidence anyone does, including myself. I mean, no thanks, I'll just go without a phone if that's the scenario. I do have to say though, I find it in poor taste not to "give back" when you're sitting on more money than the US government has. Whatever he did in this life and however true any of the statements or articles both in favor and against him are, I hope he is able to rest peacefully and his family is given their due respect.
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Taryn
penguin
life.. finds a way
Posts: 15
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Post by Taryn on Oct 9, 2011 15:00:06 GMT -5
Steve Jobs was quite an innovative person, & I appreciate everything he has done for the world at large. The only 'positive' outcome of all this is that he no longer had to suffer.
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