Stephen on Steve: The most important man on Earth Legendary tech opinion-former Stephen Pie is currently in Mongolia filming for the dramatised bio-documentary of the life of J R R Tolkien, Not Another Fucking Elf – expected to be one of the mega-hits of 2012 – in which he plays the great writer's imaginary pygmy butler confidante, Boggy. However he found time to send us his …
"passion, and taste and belief are more important than a hard business head."
Think this quote from the "National Treasure" sums it up. The idea that Jobs is not a hard-headed businessman first and foremost shows a complete lack of understanding of him despite Fry's supposed good fortune in knowing the man for so long.
I appreciate Pie as much as the next man for his bredth of knowledge & comedic skill but ffs this is just sycophantic bum licky drivel.
I dont 'do' apple and thank the deity of choice, if ony to prevent me from spouting shozbot like this once indoctrinated in to the cult.
Mac users in years to come will start to grow back webbed fingers to help with the vagaries of mega multitouch, also willing to bet a few quid apple will be the first company to (rfid) chip their customers, you mark my words its coming and will be lapped up by the followers.
Yes its Friday & Ive been to the pub, sorry you weren't there.
Yes...and send ANOTHER my way as well please. Mines already full.
What a load of crap.
Next thing you know he'll be saying Stevie "Boy Wonder" Jobs invented the Internet! And we ALL know that it was Al Gore who invented that.
Seems like he's just as much a megalomaniac as Boy Wonder.
I have a lot of respect for Mr Fry. Entertaining, observant, intelligent and witty.
However, I stand by what I posted earlier regarding such sycophantic mumblings. It appears I have now been down voted by four people (jobbie lovers perhaps), whom so it seems, also have their heads firmly placed where the sun doesn't shine.
<shrug>
I am pleased for you that you realise this now. Education is not a bad thing and It's good to feel that I have contributed to your learning.
You perhaps now also realise that I am the most important man on Earth, which is why I took umbrage at such sycophantic twaddle in the first place.
Apology accepted ;-)
/removes tongue from cheek, awaits further down voting from those without a sense of humour. Perhaps I should just quit while I'm ahead.
The problem with Fry is that he comes across as a total Apple Fanboi. It's as bad as when film or pop stars come out and support a particular political party. Their view is given far more weight than it deserves.
Stephen is not a tech expert - he can afford and likes shiny tech products. I'd love to be in his shoes - but the mainstream press seem to think that if Fry likes it (as he has 'a brain the size of the planet'...) then what he utters is gospel.
He's great on QI, I own an iPod - however - I can (and have) dropped my Blackberry without the screen breaking - can't say the same for iPhones. Apple stuff is nice, but over-rated IMHO.
Regards,
NoOnions
Stephen Fry is way more interesting to listen to, and makes a lot more sense than this pathetic parody article claims.
Im not a Fry fanbois, but this article is cheap in the extreme. Why not just put a link to his radio interview, instead of attempt to write it up as a half-assed article?
Possibly you could have spent your time better by doing some actual journalism?
Where is the well needed icon for "This article must contain content and or news"?
So you are new to The Register, get over it and move on. Nothing to see here.
"This article must contain content and or news"
What? Since when? I think I speak for all of us when I say that the only thing we expect from any article here is that there has be to be a Paris Hilton angle.
ps: There seems to be a link to the radio interview at the bottom.
Steve Jobs was one of the pioneers, on the front line during the early period when people were first pushing the radical idea that computers should be usable by anyone and sold to everyone. Whether you think he was unique or not, he was a suitably prominent member of a sufficiently small number of people that his position in history — like those of Gates, Sir Clive, Jack Tramiel and several others — is secure.
Oh come on! You should know by now that there's already a unix command for absofuckinglutely everything. You just need to look it up:
jobs [-lnp] [job]...
List information about each given job, or all active jobs if job is not specified. With -l, list process IDs in addition to the normal information. With -n, display only jobs that have stopped or exited since last notified. With -p, list only the process group. See the "Jobs" subsection for a description of the format of job.
This post has been deleted by its author
Weeell, now you mention it, there I was all excited at the prospect of seeing "Not another fucking elf" and now I feel all let down.
On a more serious note it is quite clear that Stephen Fry really *does* believe that Steve Jobs has "changed all our lives". Er, no he hasn't, he has made some shinies that can only be afforded (in common with other high-end shinies from other companies) by a small minority of our fellow earthlings. If he had done something like invent a permanent cure for malaria and/or AIDS then we would be talking about something that *really* had planet-wide impact upon the lives of a huge number of our fellow earth-dwellers. It is not only that Mr Fry's opinions on matters outside his own field often are so gushingly twee, they are also so fucking western-world middle class head-up-own-bum parochial.
I started fuming about that, but then I read the first few lines of the "article" and suspected someone was pulling me leg. The other one's got bells on! By the way, signing "Team Register" was a bit cowardly, Mr... ;-)
But then I got to the end and there is a hint that it's actually not so fictitious! I'm afraid to listen. Don't have the time now, anyway, since I should be, er, working...
He detests Windows to the point that he won't even bother reviewing them, he'll just say "I can't use this OS, it's not OSX" and be done with it. He rated a Viao as "crap" purely because he couldn't work his way around the OS to do really simple stuff.
I like Fry, he's funny, but he really shouldn't be discussing tech if he can't be objective. We all know Ive is the real genius at Apple, Jobs is just the dude that made billions outta it.
What people love to do is embellish the impact this "Salesman" had on the computing world. Jobs DID NOT invent the computer...He didn't even design or build the AppleI/II computers. It was Steve Wozniak who did. WOZ is the real genius behind the early Apple development. An example of Jobs true business ethics......He enlisted WOZ (a friend) to help with a project JOBS was responsible for when JOBS worked at Atari. Jobs proposed a 50% share to WOZ for helping with the project. Part of the deal Atari made with Jobs was a $100 bonus for each chip reduced from the final product. WOZ did the work after hours from his Full-time Job at HP and in the end, the bonus was $5,000. In 1979 this is a tremendous amount. Jobs failed (STOLE) to give WOZ 50% of the bonus. Jobs basically stole money from a 'friend' and passed the final product onto Atari as his own work. More recently, Jobs bypassed hundreds of patients awaiting liver donors. He is an unethical Salesman and is not worthy of respect...at least not mine. I understand companies are in business to make money, but lets not make the man appear as a god. He's a man with little ethics and more than willing to steal and take credit for work HE DID NOT DO. He didn't invent many of the products Apples sells, but He WILL take credit for it. Karma baby, Karma.
Just don't drink the Cool-aid when Jobs passes on.
What people love to do is embellish the impact this "Salesman" had on the computing world. Jobs DID NOT invent the computer...He didn't even design or build the AppleI/II computers. It was Steve Wozniak who did. WOZ is the real genius behind the early Apple development. An example of Jobs true business ethics......He enlisted WOZ (a friend) to help with a project JOBS was responsible for when JOBS worked at Atari. Jobs proposed a 50% share to WOZ for helping with the project. Part of the deal Atari made with Jobs was a $100 bonus for each chip reduced from the final product. WOZ did the work after hours from his Full-time Job at HP and in the end, the bonus was $5,000. In 1979 this is a tremendous amount. Jobs failed (STOLE) to give WOZ 50% of the bonus. Jobs basically stole money from a 'friend' and passed the final product onto Atari as his own work. More recently, Jobs bypassed hundreds of patients awaiting liver donors. He is an unethical Salesman and is not worthy of respect...at least not mine. I understand companies are in business to make money, but lets not make the man appear as a god. He's a man with little ethics and more than willing to steal and take credit for work HE DID NOT DO. He didn't invent many of the products Apples sells, but He WILL take credit for it. Karma baby, Karma.
Just don't drink the Cool-aid when He Passes.
About 12-13 years ago when he was working at Liberate (an Oracle spin off). He's a really nice and approachable guy. I didn't ask him about your assertion in particular, but i did talk to him about his past work and of one thing i'm certain. He doesn't hold the view or level criticism you do. I know who's judgement I would rather believe. And BTW In the US queue length for transplants varies from state to state. Traveling to a state where you can get one quicker is not queue jumping. If you were in the same position as Jobs, I have no doubt you would do it without any qualms.
WOZ doesn't seem to regard Steve that way. And when WOZ found out about Steve resigning, he said: "He always wanted to get technology out of the way for people to get answers in their lives.I could never do it as well, but I always wanted to. He wasn't one day ahead of everyone else, he was 10 years ahead of everyone else."
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