

On Steve Jobs’s passing - soparlaaurie
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3790#more-3790

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jgrahamc
It's a pity that the following paragraph was included:

    
    
      The velvet glove over Jobs’s iron fist was thinner that 
      second time around; like most people who attract a cult 
      following, he became increasingly convinced of his own 
      infallibility. It was an error that eventually killed him; 
      the kind of pancreatic cancer he had was essentially 
      curable with early surgical intervention, but Jobs 
      insisted on treating it with “alternative medicine” that  
      didn’t work.
    

No need to bring up the manner of Jobs' death, or speculate on what he did and
did not do and its influence on the outcome. Better to stick to the core
argument about the closed Apple world and the open source alternative.

A man died, but the core Apple idea (of a closely tied and controlled
software/hardware combination) did not. Focus on that.

~~~
bad_user
From his own declarations, he did have surgical intervention.

He probably chose alternative medicine over chemotherapy, a procedure which is
known to have awful side-effects. It's also a dangerous procedure that can
cause problems to other parts of your body. It is also less effective for
pancreatic cancer - and the pancreas is a highly sensitive organ anyway, as
in, with too much chemotherapy you'll probably die faster of pancreatitis
caused by chemo, rather than cancer.

That's why I don't like ad-hominems (even though I'm also guilty of it from
time to time); it's much better to attack ideas and their implementations,
rather than the person.

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pmorici
This article isn't very insightful it's just rehashing the old tale that often
the first group to invent something isn't always the first group to refine it
in a way that makes it ultimately successful on a wide scale.

The author's argument is that the tendency to assign historical credit for the
invention to whom ever made the invention a success is some how an injustice.
The magic of Apple has never been their claims of pure invention but the
ability to take very raw technology and make it into something that people
actually want to use and can afford.

~~~
drieddust
He is not arguing against it. He is arguing that Steve has caused harm to the
computing culture by creating a walled garden. Eric is arguing against Steve's
doublespeak which was evident from the start of his carrier. On one hand he
was projecting himself as a liberator. On the other hand he was fighting nails
and teeth against putting extra ports in the original Apple created by Woz.
Eventually he succeeded during his second stint.

He was a wonderful designer and marketer but portraying him as if he was
Christ is not right too. Eric is not denying his marketing skill or design
sense. He is trying to break the aura of cult created around Apple so that
future of computing can be opened a little bit.

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TwistedWeasel
I don't know why people keep bringing up this "alternative medicine" thing,
claiming he could just have had surgery and been cured.

The details of his illness and his treatment were, quite rightly, private.

Unless somebody links to a video of the man himself stating that he
deliberately chose to not have surgery and partake in alternative medicine
instead, then anyone claiming so has no credibility.

