One of the first projects they collaborated on was this huge sign of a hand with the middle finger raised. It was a huge cloth poster and they put it up on the roof of our school and weighted the ends with rocks, I think. This was the end of the building that all of the parents faced during graduation. And the idea was that during graduation they would cut some strings which would release this thing to roll down over the side of the building and it said, “Best Wishes, Class of ‘72!” and it was giving them the finger. [...] So that was like, their first prank together.
Sometimes, like when a student was entering the telephone booth, Woz would call the telephone booth and it would ring and student would answer it. Then Woz would say, “This is Ramar the Mystic. I see wetness in your future,” and as the guy is saying, “What?” Woz would throw a water balloon at him from the second floor. The guy would be all angry and Woz would say, “Well, Ramar was only trying to help.”
These kind of remind me of those YouTube pranks where guys randomly kiss girls on the street or pick fights with people for "social experiments". Not really "pranks", just idiotic fun at other people's expense.
Jobs got a printed circuit board made and he figured out where to get all the parts.
Jobs often gets put down as just "the marketer" from Apple's early days, with Woz doing all the execution, but when you get deeper it sounds like Jobs enabled a lot of the logistics, supply chain, etc. Without him, Woz's prototype would have remained just that - a one off. In this light, Woz almost appears as the "idea guy" (where idea includes initial concept + first execution), whereas Jobs is the one who made it a viable product and company.
> In this light, Woz almost appears as the "idea guy" (where idea includes initial concept + first execution), whereas Jobs is the one who made it a viable product and company.
I'm not sure of the exact ratio, but as far as I can tell, if they hadn't teamed up, Woz would have ended up an engineer at HP (or Google if it happened today) and Jobs would have ended up starting a cult or joining Scientology or something.
Maybe there would have been someone else to market Woz's genius, but I doubt they'd have done it better. Maybe Jobs would have found another Woz, but I doubt they'd have built as good of a product; Jobs would have been selling just as relentlessly, but a less compelling product.
They both had an important role to play. What came after? Who could have known.
I assume you're taking a shot at Apple the company. Not sure what the basis for making the comparison to a cult is and having escaped from an actual cult myself I find the comparison disingenuous and insulting. Apple sells products many people are happy to pay for. Cults sell a lifestyle usually built on lies and manipulation, generally taking much more from their buyers than just the sticker price.
Nowadays Apple does take more than the sticker price: they take control of your machine. It has become nearly impossible to refuse a software upgrade, and actually impossible to downgrade. They sell this as a "feature", but actual cults also sell taking control of your life as a feature. And people actually find this attractive because it relieves them of the burden of having to think or take responsibility for their actions. There's a reason that both Apple and "real" cults thrive in the marketplace. True, Apple is not as bad as a "real" cult but the analogy is apt, and becoming more so over time.
Ironically, as a non-default choice for most of the computing world, Linux developers have far more motivation to actually care about their users' preferences. It's a stark contrast these days to the big players where they essentially hold their own product to ransom until you accept their control of it.
So you say Apple users had no choice? How about making the choice to buy, say, a Mac, so you can focus on what you do ON you computer, not on what you do TO your computer?
It is a feature for the majority of non-HN users out in the real world. Anecdata being everyone's parents and grandparents, non-techie teens, etc. And even we would consider this a feature in other aspects of our lives - roads, power grids, telecom and infrastructure in general all auto-update in a manner of speaking. Personal property might not, but if first generation device owners grow up with auto-update they might not care. How many people on HN still complain about Chrome auto updating, btw?
The difference is: when Chrome updates, it doesn't force me to update everything else on my system. Apple uses a "version ratchet" to force you to update everything whether you want to or not.
> some people perceive similarities in Apple's approach to what you just described re: "Cults sell [a lifestyle usually based on lies and manipulation]"
Marketing involves manipulation. Despite being good at marketing, I don't see evidence that Apple resorts to lying more than other companies. More often, the "cult of Apple" label is directed at avid customers who are particularly enthusiastic about Apple's products, and its used pejoratively by people who don't share or understand their enthusiasm.
But it's metaphor, and it doesn't mean Apple or its fans are an actual cult.
> Not really "pranks", just idiotic fun at other people's expense.
The middle finger thing is really not at someone else's expense. It's a dumb prank. The water balloon thing is a bit more mean spirited, but it's still far more innocuous than assault or sexual assault "pranks".
It's still mean spirited to dump water on a stranger even if it doesn't actually hurt them. It's subjecting someone to something they don't want for your own amusement.
The claim that humans have nothing to fear about getting wet is also less true than ever now that people are carrying electronics with them constantly, but that's not really relevant for people Woz targeted in his 20s.
But a prank is always at the target's expense. You are hurting, at the very least, their ego and/or pride. Or you are startling them, or surprising them (unpleasantly).
That's the difference between a joke and a prank. A joke is told. A prank is done to someone.
This is technically correct, but traditionally you're only supposed to execute pranks against friends that you already know would appreciate this kind of humor. If that's what you're doing, it's not usually a negative thing for anyone involved.
Put pocketing occurs to me as a simple prank that doesn't hurt anyone. It's all about making someone part of the joke, rather than the butt of the joke.
Sometimes, like when a student was entering the telephone booth, Woz would call the telephone booth and it would ring and student would answer it. Then Woz would say, “This is Ramar the Mystic. I see wetness in your future,” and as the guy is saying, “What?” Woz would throw a water balloon at him from the second floor. The guy would be all angry and Woz would say, “Well, Ramar was only trying to help.”
These kind of remind me of those YouTube pranks where guys randomly kiss girls on the street or pick fights with people for "social experiments". Not really "pranks", just idiotic fun at other people's expense.
Jobs got a printed circuit board made and he figured out where to get all the parts.
Jobs often gets put down as just "the marketer" from Apple's early days, with Woz doing all the execution, but when you get deeper it sounds like Jobs enabled a lot of the logistics, supply chain, etc. Without him, Woz's prototype would have remained just that - a one off. In this light, Woz almost appears as the "idea guy" (where idea includes initial concept + first execution), whereas Jobs is the one who made it a viable product and company.