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I, Woz
theodp writes "In a Q&A session, Steve Wozniak discusses his forthcoming autobiography, how HP not only passed on his Apple design but also nixed his pleas to work on an HP computer, and the perks of being an Apple co-founder - free 65W AC adapters!"
Perks like... being stinking rich?
The combination of Woz and Jobs is exactly like Microsoft. You've got technical prowess underlying a massive bullshit machine. And beards and geeky glasses all around.
I was in Boston once. I needed two AC adapters. I ran into this new Apple store. I went up to the counter, "I'd like two 65-watt AC adapters." I didn't say anything about who I was. And they bring them out. I say, "How much?" They say, "We are expensing it." I said, "Yeah, but how do I pay for it?" They said, "No, no, no -- we are allowed to give gifts to special people."
Man oh man, I'd love to know the criterion to get on that list.
-Grey
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
Yeah, the summary totally had me fooled as well. How could they screw up spelling copmputer?
Couldn't we argue over something relevant - such as "WOHZ-nee-ak" vs. "WAHZ-nee-ak" - instead?
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I'm not surprised free AC Adapters are a perk of founding Apple. Certainly my experience with my PowerBook has been that they need replacing every 12 months if not sooner.
Online & Feelin' Fine
Step 2: Be Woz.
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"He wasn't exactly treated fairly by Jobs and the company in its fledgling days"
Oh, I dunno. I think he Woz.
"My goal wasn't to make a ton of money. It was to build good computers. I only started the company when I realized I could be an engineer forever."
I woz truly blown away by this statement.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Actually Woz has the god-like status, Jobs is more like the delusional emporer ...
It's a well known fact that Apple, since its inception, has been a haven for "free thinkers" and "progressive thought," heralded by none other than famous acid-tripping Steve Jobs and his hippy buddies from California. It was on one of the famous beach parties, notorious for getting out of hand, that Clarus was born.
It was a balmy night in August 1983 that Jobs held yet another beach party, this one with a special theme: who could come up with a mascot for the Mac development team? Of course, the Apple II team was there and tensions, as always, were high. That didn't deter the Mac team from bringing their "pet," Clara, a cow they'd been raising on the Apple campus since birth.
Clara was birthed by the Mac team when they'd held a party on the Apple campus and had hired a bull-breeder as entertainment. All night long, the bull-breeder studded Hercules, his prize bull, with an assortment of cows. As the festivities continued throughout the night, a strange moaning was coming from one of the trailers. One of the cows he'd brought with him was, unbeknownst to the bull-breeder, pregnant! The Mac development team, being the resourceful hackers they were, helped give birth to the calf, the mother losing its life in the process. The bull-breeder was so taken by the Mac dev team's efforts he let them keep the cow, which they named Clara.
Now, at the August 1983 beach party, the Mac team lobbied for Jobs to adopt Clara as the development mascot of the Macintosh. The Apple II team, spurned and bitter because of dwindling sales and neglect at the hand of Jobs, had brought their own mascot-- Cletus, a vicious Rotweiler they'd bought from a ruddy-faced street man in the ghetto of Cupertino for $25. Cletus was a frothing, flea-and-mange ridden terror that barked at the least provocation. The Apple II team fed it raw goat meat and corrupted 5.25 floppies to make it mean. They also kicked it and made sure its chain was too tight at all time. Here at the party was their chance for revenge at Jobs and his favorite Mac development team.
As the night wore on, both the Apple II and Mac teams got drunker and drunker before Jobs called for a company vote on the mascot. What met the company's faces was something none of them could have imagined, however.
In their drunken, stoned stupor, the embittered Apple II team had snuck into Clara's trailer and cut the rear end of off Clara! Drugging her with ether to staunch her cries, they had used an electric chainsaw, cut her back legs and rectum cleanly off, and taken them to the bonfire to cook and eat. They'd even fed some to the drunk Mac dev team! After they'd done this, they forced Cletus into the gaping hole in Clara's rear end. Gnawing away at his first real meal in months, Cletus lodged himself in Clara's colon and couldn't break free. So when the Mac dev team opened Clara's trailer and led their pet down the ramp, they were met with a bloody, gut-strewn mess and a weird, unnatural animal call of "moof!"
The entire company was sickened by this and soon the sand was dotted with puddles of vomit. Cries of "moof, moof!" filled the air as the joined dog-cow trundled terribly along the beach, seizuring with each step, vomiting an icky mass of hair and blood, with a glazed look in its cow eyes. With a final shudder, the dog-cow fell and died, and the partygoers surrounded the putrid mess of bovine/canine flesh. Of course, it didn't take long for the Mac dev team to discover the Apple II team's treachery and a bloody brawl ensued over the death of Clara. By the end of the night, the cow, the dog, and the Apple II team were simple piles of broken, bloody bones.
In light of the events that night, Jobs had no other choice to commemorate the tragic events that had unfurled and therefore made Apple's development mascot the dog-cow, "Clarus," a merging of the two animals names-- Cletus and Clara.
And that, for those who didn't know, is the origin of Clarus the dog-cow. Every time you click on a Mac OS Easter-egg that utters "moof," you can look back to the terrible events that August, 1983 night at the Apple beach party that brought you the Clarus, the Apple dog-cow.
We can probably be sure Woz will be unfairly treated by Steve after releasing this book. Woz will give out some unfavorable info on Jobs like the color of his underwear. Steve will regard this as a "trade secret" and sue the pants of Woz.
I do wonder how many people see RMS like a train-wreck: sure, they can't help but to look, but it doesn't change their lives/opinions/etc.
If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
And then we'll see the colour of Woz' underwear :D
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
What can anybody say? He's like the Mother Teresa of Geekdom. The man does not seem to have an evil bone in his body. Although woz would probably not like it, there should be some sort of Nerd/Geek cannonization....
St. Woz!
Poor old Woz, though. How long now has he been trundling out the same old anecdotes and "When I was at Apple..." stories? He really needs to get himself involved in something REALLY serious and demanding.
Of course, he has an autobiography to promote but the sad fact is that the story of his life has been circulating for years now via oral tradition. Here is a sneak preview!
Chapter One - Me and my friend Steve
Chapter Two - My friend Steve sucks
Chapter Three - My friend Steve is cool
Chapter Four - Did you hear about the really cool disk drive controller I invented?
Chapter Five - More on that drive controller...
Chapter Six - Chapter Five in diagram form
Chapter Seven - THE WOZ and THE FUTURE - my plans for disk drive controllers and free computers for children
Chapter Eight - Resume and references. Available for work on anything! Please! Just give me a chance!
If Jobs had co-written it, it would have been "iWoz".
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.