

Steve Jobs: The parable of the stones - nopinsight
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/11/11/steve-jobs-the-parable-of-the-stones/?iid=SF_F_LN

======
justinschuh
Biggest takeaway from this article: Steve Jobs had a grossly inaccurate
recollection of how rock tumbling works.

~~~
atarian
Can you elaborate how his portrayal of rock tumbling is "grossly inaccurate"?

~~~
justinschuh
Really? Well, I haven't used a rock tumbler since I was in elementary school,
but it wasn't a matter of picking a few rocks up off the ground and letting it
run overnight. The whole process took around a month. Each week you'd dump out
the rocks, rinse off the grit thoroughly, and then start it back up with
increasingly finer grit. At the end you do a burnishing run to get that final
polished sheen. You also had to be informed in your selection of stones. Most
random stones won't polish up at all. And you can't mix stones with
significantly different characteristics (e.g. hardness) in the same batch or
else you'll ruin it.

Of course, none of that changes the intent of the metaphor. But, I think
that's pretty weak too.

