The Watering Hole: October 6 – R.I.P. Steve Jobs

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Paul Sakuma / AP file

Yesterday we lost a truly remarkable human being, a creative genius and a national treasure. Steven “Steve” Jobs (born February 24, 1955) died at the age of 56 after a seven year battle with Pancreatic cancer, surrounded by his family. I will share that we as a family have been Apple people since 1996 when we bought our first computer – an Apple Macintosh Performa 6300. Looking back now, it had 16 MB of RAM… Hard to believe how far they’ve come,

We’ll never be anything but Apple people. Through the years we have been continually amazed and thrilled with the leaps in technology and the constant innovations. Steve Jobs was a true visionary as well as a very highly respected human being.

From MSNBC:

The year after his cancer diagnosis, when Jobs was 50, he gave the commencement address to the 2005 graduating class of Stanford University. It’s an oft-quoted speech, because it was such a personal one. Jobs the showman was quite the opposite when it came to family matters. But in the speech, he shared his thoughts about many personal things, including his own life — and death.

From YouTube:

Drawing from some of the most pivotal points in his life, Steve Jobs, chief executive officer and co-founder of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, urged graduates to pursue their dreams and see the opportunities in life’s setbacks — including death itself — at the university’s 114th Commencement on June 12, 2005.

For a transcript of this address, go here. (H/T: Ebb)

To read more about Steve Jobs’ legacy, go here.

Lots of posts and tributes to Steve Jobs on Huffington Post.

A compilation of tributes from Talking Points Memo.

This is our Thursday open thread. What’s on your mind today? (Anything with the exception of Sarah Palin..)

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104 thoughts on “The Watering Hole: October 6 – R.I.P. Steve Jobs”

    • How about Tina Fey? Can we talk about Tina Fey?

      I’m sure gonna miss her portrayal of “She Who Shall Not Be Named”!

  2. I’ve not been an Apple person myself. This is due largely to my occupation as a Windows-based programmer. For years I’ve needed my home setup to match my work setup. That meant PC.

    Although, in talking to a friend this past weekend, I did mention that my next laptop (for personal use) may actually be a Macbook Air.

    Despite my own personal choices, I still recognize that Steve Jobs vision was revolutionary. The iPod, iPhone, and iPad were game changers. They created entire industries, and turned others completely around. Whether we personally own Apple’s products, we own products that came to into existence because of Apple’s products.

    It’s sad that we had to lose someone so remarkable at so young an age. He shared his enthusiasm and optimism with all of us.

  3. Such a contrast between CEO’s like Steven Jobs and Bill Gates.
    I wonder how Bill Gates is taking the news?

  5. Record high temperatures in the norther plains the last week or so. Not a peep from the global warming deniers. If it was a record low, they’d be all over it. I wonder why they’re so quiet now?

    • Record-setting Indian Summer in southern England and the Channel….. flowers blooming a second time…..

  6. I remember the Whole Earth Catalog. As a matter of fact, we had one and may still have it packed away somewhere.

    I have both PC’s and an iMac. The iMac was upgraded last year but there are still some things that it can’t do, like I can’t install Skype and I can’t view Netflix movies on the iMac. Several years ago, my iMac died. It was two years and 5 days old at the time. When I took it in for repair, the repairman told me to call Apple and tell them what was wrong with my computer. He gave me all the information that I needed. Even though the warranty had expired by 5 days, Apple covered the total cost of repair. Nice!

    • I have had several Apple products that have been replaced even though they broke after the warranty expiration date — that’s one way to build consumer loyalty. The scariest was the battery in this MacBook that I am using… it started bulging for no reason.

  7. Tough Immigration Law Leads to Alabama Exodus

    Alabama’s strict new immigration law may be backfiring. Intended to force illegal workers out of jobs, it is also driving away many legal immigrant workers who work in construction and on farms doing backbreaking jobs that Americans generally won’t.

    The vacancies have created a void that will surely deal a blow to the state’s economy and could slow the rebuilding of Tuscaloosa and other tornado-damaged cities.

    On Chandler Mountain in north Alabama, tomato farmer Lana Boatwright said only eight of the 48 Hispanic workers she needed for harvest showed up after the law took effect. Those who did were frightened.

    “My husband and I take them to the grocery store at night and shop for them because they are afraid they will be arrested,” she said.

    I hope these businesses learn their lesson, and stop letting the Tealiban run this state pretty soon.

    • HoR – I don’t know. It’s hard to convince farmers that the Republics really don’t care about them. In PA, the farmers have a similar attitude. My guess is that it has something to do with guns and religion. They believe the crap that is fed to them via their churches and Fox Propaganda Network (FPN).

    • Well, there you have it. The unemployment problem is solved.

      40 jobs just opened up for real Merikans.

      But if Mericans won’t take those jobs, should we start calling them “Merican’ts”?

    • Time to get out and mow your own lawn, clean your own bathroom and all those other things you think yourself to Godly to do Al Cracker….

      Sweet Home Alabama…… yeah right.

      Several years ago I found myself in Southern Company’s Birmingham head office – on the top floor late in the evening where the executive team meets.

      Yes, this Southern Company

      Portraits of executives past and present either glare down sternly or smugly with the contented sincerity of the moral southern gentleman.

      I looked out from the gilded top floor balcony, on a warm September evening to the a rundown looking red brick church and realised I knew everything I wanted to know about Alabama.

      • Steve may just be laughing as I type for his
        Religion is Buddhism!

        Rest assured in this commie; librul; gay loving; climate change is real Bay Area – the Phelps will be out numbered thousands to one, If they decide to show up that is!

  10. Palin reax:

    Joe McGinniss expects her to fade away:

    “By opting out of next year’s race, Sarah has betrayed her ever-shrinking base. The Tea Party will never drink a cuppa in her honor again. She cynically manipulated her gullible enthusiasts, knowing all the while that she never intended to run. She may drift into the Sargasso Sea of daytime television, where she can chat up B-list celebrities. But there’s no reason now even for Roger Ailes to renew her contract at Fox News. Just Tuesday, Ailes said, “I hired Sarah Palin because she was hot.” She’ll soon be as cold as the shrinking Alaska glaciers that are melting from the global warming that Sarah doesn’t believe is caused by man.”

    David Frum is on the same page:

    “In the end, she exploited, abused, or embarrassed almost everyone who had believed in her. Most embarrassing of all: she was never even a very good con artist. Everything that was false and petty and unqualified in her was visible within the first minutes of encountering her. The people she fooled were people who passionately wished to be fooled. To that extent, what was important in her story was not the faults and failings of Sarah Palin. There have always been grifters in politics. What was important in her story was the revelation of conservatism’s lack of antibodies against somebody with the faults and failings of Sarah Palin. That’s the story that should trouble us still.”

  11. If this has already been posted here, please forgive the duplication. If not, enjoy watching the balding graying white man (a neo-nutsy who’s dumber than both Palin and Bachmann put together) try to make a point by using his head (sotospeak).

    Rep. Steve King Pines for the Days When Only Male Property Owners Voted

    KING: As I roll this thing back and I think of American history, there was a time in American history when you had to be a male property owner in order to vote. The reason for that was, because they wanted the people who voted — that set the public policy, that decided on the taxes and the spending — to have some skin in the game.
    [...]

  13. Steve Jobs – the information age’s Thomas Edison. Did he change the world or what?

    • Not at all – and we in the Valley know that. After all we do have Woz Way
      All local news station speak of the two together being the tinkerers in the garage, the innovators.

    • First and foremost, because Wozniak is alive and isn’t being eulogized at present. And the fact that Wozniak left Apple more than 20 years ago has a little something to do with it also.

      He was a baby turned over for adoption by his biological parents. He dropped out of school. He was fired at the age of 30 by the very company he had co-founded.
      That he came back to lead a revival of Apple, when it was on the verge of going out of business to make it the most successful company in the world, and was the source of some of the most technologically game-changing devices made within the last decade, puts him in Edison, Ford and Alexander Graham Bell territory.

  15. I am confused. When the tea types complain about the Wall Street bailouts they are patriots but when the Ocuupy Wall Street types do they are antiAmerican and anticapitalism? Do you really expect me to buy this crap Mr. Cain?

    • Mr Cain is vying for the position of Uncle Tom for the billionaires who want to buy the presidency. Note how Cain is getting the surge now….

      ….anyone but the cultist….

    • The teabaggers are patriotic Amurkans, and the bums in OWS are Marxist-Nazi-Fascist-Muslim-Commie traitors. Like Obama.

      To them, it’s really just about exactly that simple. I know. I’m related to more than one of today’s Neo-Nutsy Republicans.

      • Why the Teabaggers can’t appreciate the irony in the supposed founding myth of their ‘movement’ and their defence of today’s East India Company’s of Wall Street……

        …. Useful Idiots….

    • I don’t mean to disrespect the dead or anything nor do I really care that much about the personal business of others which is probably why I don’t already know the answer to this but did Mr. Jobs ever take responsibility on that whole child support issue?

    • Yay, Rude! I was one of his 100 who participated in his 8th Annual Stick Up. he apparently bought a new Apple MacBook and some alcohol…..

  19. The way is now clear for a certain awful woman from Alaska, who shall remain nameless, to fulfill her destiny as a televangelist. She can spend an hour a week telling the rubes “I could have been President but God’s work is more important” and the checks will roll in.

    Well? It’s 80 degrees on the frozen tundra again. I’m going out to watch girls or leaves or birds or a pleasant combination of the three.

    • If what we’re getting here on the front range is headed your way, enjoy your Indian Summer on account of it may be on its way out of town shortly. We’re currently at 65, but it’s windy and HUGE clouds are building over the mountains. Snow on the peaks tomorrow and nippy (35) down here tomorrow night.

      I’m lovin’ it!

    • Bible Spice police! Muse – they are talking about here again!!!

      *blows whistle*

  20. G’day all. Same 80′s here but my son tells me there may be snow by the end of next week. I’m not sure where he heard it but I highly doubt it would hang around long. With the weird weather patterns we’ve been having I wouldn’t be surprised though.

  21. My first computer was a hybrid no name PC (a 386, If I remember correctly) that was built by a no name company. We had used Macintosh in the laboratory and it was so easy to use and I fell in love with it. When it came time to buy another home computer, the sales people only spoke geek and I couldn’t understand them at the time…so I bought an IBM (windows 95), a Gateway (windows ME), and finally I purchased our first iMAC about a decade ago and have never bought anything else since. We are on our second iMac with a big screen and a laptop, an iPad and everyone in my family has a iPod of some sort (I just have a shuffle). No iPhones though.

    RIP Steve Jobs and Thanks.

  22. Lawdy, lawdy, lawdy. Po’ pRicky “is the victim of an “intimidation” campaign. “You know if you’re a southern white guy, it is part of your life,” All them po’ men who want to honor and praise the time they busted the Constitution with their Confederate flags in their state houses jest to remind us, they did it onect and , by grab, they’s on a roll to do it agin.

    Ole Lyndseed sho nuff do dat victim bit mighty well.

  23. Palin Decides Not to Run: ‘I Want to Go Straight to the Quitting Part’
    Decision Leaves Moron Vote Up for Grabs

    ANCHORAGE (The Borowitz Report) � Former Alaska Governor SSarah Palin told reporters today that she would not run for President because “I want to go straight to the quitting part.”

    “If I launched a campaign, let’s face it, a couple of months from now I’d up and quit,” she said. “This is a real step-saver for all concerned.”

    She said that prior to her decision she had seriously considered running, “but only for the free clothes.”

    When asked about her future plans, she said, “Although I’m not running for President, I have no intention of spending more time with my family.”

    The former Alaska Governor, who had originally scheduled a thirty-minute press conference to announce her decision, abruptly cut it short after fifteen minutes with no explanation.

    The Tea Party favorite’s announcement leaves the remaining Republican candidates scrambling for the moron vote, a key constituency in the 2012 GOP race.

    Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney was said to be considering new strategies to dispel the nagging impression that he is mentally competent, an attribute that has alienated millions of Tea Party voters.

    Mr. Romney was rumored to be weighing a number of options, such as barking like a dog or wearing a bunch of bananas on his head at the next televised debate.

    Meanwhile, still reeling from charges of racism, Texas Governor Rick Perry was reportedly huddling with advisors at his country home, Jewtrap.

    • Hysterical. And he called her out for the “family” bullshit. Anyone who isn’t a mouth-breathing Palinoid has to be aware of all the background on what a vile dysfunctional “family” it is, and what a raging controlling harpie she is.

    • Ok the Bible Spice Self-Appointed Poh-lice (that would be me) will let this one pass as it is hilarious – Borowitz hits a homer…

  24. The Republican Party lost a tremendous amount of credibility when it through its entire weight and support behind She Who Shall Not Be Named’s run for Vice President.

    Now its doubling down with its current crop of candidates for president.

  25. This whole summer hasn’t really been about serious candidates for President. It’s been the Paid Publicity & Book Tour to Keep the Base Stirred warm up act brought to Amurka by the Ree-publican Party demonstrating the fiscal conservatism.

  26. For those who missed it, TP ran a great mash up of the media’s contempt for the Occupy Wall Street movement. The claims that the protests are being orchestrated, by people who call the teabagging anarchists “grass roots”, are patently ridiculous but I think it’s funnier that they are claiming “big government socialists” are really “anarchists”. I really can’t imagine being such an idiot that I wouldn’t realize that “socialists” and “anarchists” are mutually exclusive.

    http://thinkprogress.org/special/2011/10/05/336880/video-corporate-media-protests/

  27. Occupy Wall Street’s “We Are The 99%” slogan is insufferable. The 99th percentile of Americans, by income, starts with households earning incomes of $593,000. The “We Are the 99 percent” branding puts somebody making $500,000 per year on the oppressed-and-downtrodden side of wages. “99 percent” is so expansive that it includes most of the bankers working on Wall Street.

    http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/displayatab.cfm?DocID=3211&topic2ID=40&topic3ID=41&DocTypeID=2

  28. Bill O’ apparently “crushed” Richard Dawkins, at least according to Faux. One of the better comments:

    Atheists are just idiot libs that hate the truth when it is staring them in the face and they sit there and lies about the facts staring them square in the face…there is a GOD so get over it…

    Facts?

      • Heck! I would be satisfied if He had simply checked His voicemail in the last 2,000 years. I realize that running an entire universe makes high demands on His time but one would hope that the Being charged with running the universe would be able to multitask.

        • I’m not sure that I appreciate His multi-tasking. I mean, He overflows rivers and floods levies. He causes hurricanes and earthquakes where people live (presumably for some perceived ill doing or because liberals, feminists and gays exist, or something like that. He bestows “miracles” in such random ways that there seems like no rhyme or reason.

          Maybe he uses a series of post it notes and some of them get lost?

          • Assuming, for the moment that He exists; it’s possible that He’s just a vicious bastard. And? It’s a pretty good trick when he can send record floods to places that are suffering record droughts. Not that the floods are any kind of relief but, by virtue of upstream precipitation, places that haven’t had any rain have been inundated by swollen rivers.

            • He would have to be a vicious bastard if he “planted” evolutionary evidence just to make mankind (or Christians anyway) question the fact based evidence and try to test the faith of the faithful What kind of God does that?

            • Since he started out as a tribal deity, I think it’s safe to assume that he really is a vicious bastard — except when he’s feeling mellow. Onan pulled out rather than impregnate a woman and God punished him and all his descendants. How is that not vicious?

          • He CREATED liberals, feminists, and gays. Why’s he get so ornery with the rest of us? I’ve long believed that those who think they’re created in God’s image are probably right, dumb as they are otherwise.

          • Or he can’t read his writing. Traveling around from creation to creation faster than the speed of light (which we now know to be possible), everything gets a little blurry.

    • Believe in the invisible God.
      Distrust scientific evidence of climate change.

      I’m on board/

  29. The climate change deniers have hit the local comments and call-in shows to say that “a few warm days don’t mean anything” and “we’ve always had warm days in October”. Actually, as far as they go, that’s true. However…

    They fail to mention that the average temperature for the last 21 months has been above normal. They also fail to mention that this is the first time ever recorded that we have hit 80 degrees for three consecutive days in October (we’ve only had three times where we hit 80 on two consecutive days) and we will probably have two more. They fail to mention that the leaves that turn based on temp are still a vibrant green. They fail to mention that some bird migrations are, already, a full two weeks behind schedule. Etc….

    SaudiFAUX “News” trains their little zombies well.

  30. You can’t make this shit up. At least I can’t and I haven’t seen any sane person make this shit up unless they happen to be a novelist or standup comedian.

    Coming to the defense of pRick Prayerry; Lindsay Graham claims that Southern white men are being victimized! At this moment I would really, really, enjoy whipping the hide off of Mr. Graham and selling him to a Somali warlord.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/06/lindsey-graham-rick-perry-niggerhead-racism_n_998925.html

  31. HI everyone. Back home from our Berlin holiday. Had a fabulous time.
    Highlights include (in no particular order):

    Having a beer and watching people.
    The Reichstag – very impressive building done by Norman Foster – a guided tour is a must.
    Food – sausages, schnitzel, pork hock, sauerkraut, sausages, buns, Berlin’s specialty is a currywurst which is a weiswurst (white) sausage served with far too much ketchup and sprinkled with curry powder (not my fav but you have to try one or three)
    Tiergarten – the Central Park of Berlin.
    Variety of architecture.
    Friendly people – only a couple of people scoffed at our lack of German.
    Shitload of Museums – from ancient to contemporary and everything in between – even a currywurst museum (we didn’t go).

    Now it’s back to work to get more $$$ to go on the next holiday.

      • We saw no remnants of the Wall, but we didn’t go searching for any. There is some around and you can get a map and cycle the route. I think they have done a great job of putting in memorials and documenting it, including a museum dedicated to the wall. Lots of the memorials are dedicated to the Jews and those that truly suffered. You could buy bits of the wall, but they would be as authentic as She Who Shall Not Be Named!

        East Berlin is indistinguishable from West Berlin. At least in the center of the city. There are neighbourhoods that are not as well kept and they are areas where the tour guides say you should basically avoid. We stayed in what was East Berlin and the whole area has basically been rebuilt with modern buildings among old refurbished buildings.

  32. I saw this list, of things that FOX is saying about the Occupy movement, over at Media Matters.

    They’re Nazis
    They’re hippies
    They’re dirty
    They’re lazy
    They’re paid professionals
    They’re spoiled
    They have no purpose in life
    They’re sludge
    They’re very well dressed
    They’re smelly white people
    They’re Woostock wannabe’s
    They’re deluded
    They’re the “Little Rascals”

      • Well, they did call them “Nazis” and I’m sure that the average FAUXbot doesn’t realize that there’s a distinction. Of course, they don’t realize that “fascist” and “communist” are opposite ends of the spectrum so we really can’t expect much.

        • I’m not sure anyone at News Corp knows the difference between fascists and communists, much less could explain that “Nazi” is approximately the same in today’s lingo as what … teabagger?

      • Another deluded, smelly white woman, well dressed, paid professional, Woodstock wannabe, spoiled, lazy Nazi Hippie joins the fray:

        Pelosi Gets Behind Occupy Wall Street

        House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) threw her weight behind the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations Thursday, showering praise on a movement that has so far spread to dozens of cities, including Washington, D.C.

        “The message of the protesters is a message for the establishment in every place,” she told reporters in a Capitol press conference. “The message of the American people is that no longer will the recklessness of some on Wall Street cause massive joblessness on Main Street.

        “God bless them for their spontaneity,” Pelosi added. “It’s independent people coming (together), it’s young, it’s spontaneous, it’s focused and it’s going to be effective.”

  33. If I understand what he said, Herman Cain’s Nein-Nein-Nein plan intends for workers to pay their 9 percent to the IRS in lieu of their payroll taxes. So what funds Medicare and Social Security?

    This is what Cain said earlier in response to Lawrence O’Donnell’s assertion that the poor would pay more.
    “First of all, your calculations are incorrect. Remember, if they’re working and they’re drawing a paycheck, they’re paying 15.3 percent off the top, of their income. So, relative to their income, they’re going to go from 15 percent down to 9 percent. They’re going to pick up a six percentage point gain. Now, if they are in fact, in the lowest income bracket, that six percent will be more than enough to compensate for them spending the rest of their money and paying the sales tax on the remainder of their income. Run the numbers is what I ask people to do, go through the arithmetic and you will find that it is not 18 percent, that is an erroneous calculation because they are not taking into account the elimination of the 15.3 percent payroll tax.”

    So first of all, we have to pry the employer half of payroll taxes out of their cold dead fingers. That puts them at 107.65 percent of their current income, as shown on their pay stub. We’ll use a round figure of $20,000 to start. That makes $21,530, total. Their 9% federal tax off the top will be $1,937.70, leaving 19,592.30. 9 percent of that will be $1,763.30. The remainder of that will be $17,829.00, which divided by the $21,530 gives us 82.81 percent, so the tax rate is 17.19 percent. So they pay more in taxes, and get no Social Security or Medicare when they are old?

    Am I missing something here? I did not try to calculate in state and local taxes, including local sales taxes, which are already 8 percent where I live.

  34. Nein-Nein-Nein plan

    No truer phrase.
    999 is, also, the emergency number to dial in the UK. It is appropriate that the insane Cain spouts and advocates idiocy under 999.

  35. In spite of Cain; congrats Detroit Tigers. Michigan, and that particular city needed some kind of win.

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