Over the past couple of weeks I’m slowly moving towards proper insomnia. Can’t get to sleep, can’t stay asleep. Sucks. 1st world problem and all, but it sucks.
I’ve promised someone, somewhere, that I’ll write a few words about what Australia is like. At some point I will, for now I’ll say it’s nice enough.
For now, my cat’s asleep next to me and my wife is asleep in our bedroom but I’m here killing time on the internet.
Not much to report then.
Steve Jobs is dead. I’m sure you’ve read it on the news, heard it on the radio, picked it up on the internet.
I realised this morning I have spent a large part of my life not liking Jobs, either directly or through his products. But I truly believe this is a great loss for the applied technology industry and I will personally miss him and the products of his thoughts greatly, though I never knew him in person.
Computers have always played a large part in my life. From watching my dad load Manic Miner from a tape recorder on our old ZX Spectrum to writing this on my MacBook Pro (you can already tell my feelings for Apple have changed) and uploading it while on a moving train, computers represent for me one of the great leaps in mankind’s ability to expand its horizons and do things biology and Nature never naturally predisposed people to do. For me computers are up there with the invention of printing. Gutenberg was an amazing visionary with the persistence to bring his dream to fruition and he changed the world forever. I truly believe Jobs was his peer and equal.
I’ve always been a PC kind of guy. DOS was the first OS I ever properly used myself and I jumped into Windows 3.1 with both feet when they came out; I’ve since put together numerous PCs, installed all versions of Windows (OK I missed Vista), I’ve dabbled into programming (Basic, Cobol, Fortran, C, HTML) and I’ve been a quiet supporter of Linux from back in the early RedHat days. It’s then somewhat natural that Jobs would not float my boat.
Apparently arrogant, elitistic, championing a closed computing system, with tight controls and (to my eyes) minimum margin for experimentation by its users, massively expensive and preferred by, well, certain types of people – OK, American writers and pseudo-intellectuals. An Apple, really? Why should I pay XXXX to get this when I can spend XXX and get a PC that does all everything? And also lets me upgrade it when I feel like it? And Jobs would go on and on in his numerous presentations and talks about “changing the future of computing” and so on, and people would look up to him and treat him like a demi-God and hang on his every word, with eyes the size of Manga characters’ and open wallets, waiting to just throw money at a computing platform hat had a small base of users and didn’t seem to do anything particularly well – except publishing and photo-processing, but then Photoshop came along and that was it. I really didn’t like Jobs and his products.
I liked the whole “started this in my garage” story but kind of felt it was a tiny bit over-bloated and on the virge of an urban legend. Much like a lot of what was being said for Apple products themselves. Not to mention the insistence on appearances, black turtlenecks, alternative lifestyle, blah blah blah.
So why am I writing my personal obituary for Jobs? More so, why am I doing it on an Apple product?
The reason is the way I want to interact with my computer. You see since my easy days dealing with computers, writing code in Hex like my dad was somehow never my cup of tea. I loved programming, I really did (and maybe still do), I greatly appreciated the logic, the structure, the algorithms but entering line upon line of Hex code? Nope. I wanted to tell the computer what to do in a way that I would understand and the computer would run along, recite its times tables and spit out a sprite that jumps around on the screen or “Hello world” or something. But I could understand the need for lower level programming because, when programming, it’s more important that the computer understands your instructions; the computer has priority.
But what about when I use a computer? What about when I want to read a document, view a photo, use an application?
I’m not sure if I’m paraphrasing Jobs or not but I genuinely believe this is my own saying:
When using a machine to do something, the machine should not get in your way; it should ideally be invisible to you, allowing you to concentrate on what you want to do.
Evolution of technology has clearly followed that trend to a large extent. You no longer need to know how a car engine starts or works to drive to work, you simply get in the car and drive it. You don’t need to wait for a book to open or know how character-setting is done to read it, you just flick it open and it works.
What about computers and their operating systems though? Why should they be different?
Why do I have to spend my time fiddling about with autoexec files to play a game (ah, the golden days)? Why should I have to use a black-screen terminal to install an application properly when I have a graphical interface? Why does my OS need to become slower and slower over time? Why can’t computers simply work, like books do?
For me, the ideal computing system and operating system is one that you don’t have to spend any time on whatsoever. Invisible, out of your way. The hardware should be the same, it should make it easy for you to use a computer. Form, in the general sense, becomes just as important as function.
I think that’s what drew me to the Apple Side to start with. The promise of a computer built so that it’s user-friendly first, not machine-friendly or technician-friendly or programmer-friendly. 99% of my time I am not programming, I am not switching graphics cards in and out, I am simply using a computer – and so is 90% of the people out there. I shouldn’t have to know how to set file permissions on a terminal, I shouldn’t have to wait 20 minutes for an antivirus to update itself.
And I think Steve Jobs believed in this too. He believed in machines and software made for people. He believed that, if something was useful, be it a computer, a music player or a phone, it should also be usable, user-friendly, intuitive. And if it also looked good, user satisfaction would be even greater.
Example: when a team in Nokia came up with a touchscreen phone some years before the iPhone, their idea was shot down. Who would want that? What, no buttons? People like buttons. Steve Jobs did not invent the iPhone but when someone came to him with the idea he had the vision to see where this was going. The iPhone might not be the world’s first or best smartphone but it set a trend for what followed, for where phones are headed to. Same with the iPod: not the world’s first mp3 player but the one to redefine the standards of mp3 players, to take them from being Walkmans with a hard drive to what they are now. They still play music, that hasn’t changed, Apple didn’t change that. But they took it from a slightly geeky concept (people preferred portable CD players and, gasp, minidisks) to a stage where the entire music industry’s distribution model changed. Same with the graphical interface and so on, Apple and Jobs might not necessarily invent things on a white sheet of paper but they make them relevant, they make them mainstream, they make them part of our culture.
Just like what Gutenberg did for books.
Rest in peace Steve Jobs, you’ve done well.
(Thick Eastern European accent)
Ah, Americans eh? They think they own the world. Ha!
But maybe they’re right…
(Normal flat universal internet accent)
(slightly emotional actually)
I’m sitting in front of my computer on the verge of tears because of what I’m watching. It’s not a sad story, it’s not a docudrama about people born without tear ducts that have just received a transplant and are able to cry for the first time in there lives (good one this!). It’s not Schindler’s list, it’s not the Titanic, it’s not even Edward Scissorhands or WallE.
It’s Matt. Again. Dammit.
*Sigh*
Here’s Matt’s brief story, as told by him: Matt is a 34-year-old deadbeat from Connecticut who used to think that all he ever wanted to do in life was make and play videogames. There you have it. At some point he decided he wanted to go travelling around the world as every youngish American seems to do at some point in their lives.
Matt also has a silly little dance. He started doing that in front of the camera wherever he went and put a video of it on his website that went viral and then a chewing gum company sponsored him to do it again. Big bloody deal.
Now watch the video.
Boy done good. Boy done real good. My eyes fill up every single time. It’s like watching him dancing with people or on his own around the world reminds me of what it really feels like being human, what it feels like being alive in this world. It also quite sharply makes me think about what I’m doing with my life, how many people I’m going to touch through my actions, how many people I’m going to make happy just by being there with them.
A deadbeat doing a stupid dance sponsored by a chewing gum. Only in America. Reducing people (I’m sure I’m not the only one) around the world to tears. Only an American.
*sigh number two*
And now they’re doing it again.
LEARN from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.
A bunch of douchebags from America have travelled through 11 countries and made three 1-minute long videos. Not as good as Matt’s though, but still good.
EAT from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.
Inspiration. Irritation. Irrigation (of the eyes).
MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.
*sigh number three*
(Back to Eastern European accent)
It must be really something very special being an American. You are stupid; but, you are also great, ha!
Eat at Yotchi's 