parislemon: This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
A lot of people have asked for my take on The New York Times piece yesterday about the true cost of making Apple products in China. Let me first just say that it’s an important piece full of good reporting by Charles Duhigg and David Barboza. Parts of it are very sad — sickening, really.
But…
If we must have billionaires, better they should ignore Jobs’s example and instead embrace the morality and wisdom of the great industrialist/philanthropist Andrew Carnegie: “The man who dies…rich dies disgraced.
You don’t change the world by placidly finding your bliss — you do it by focusing your discontent in productive ways.
The Kindle is a fancy piece of paper.
I’m glad the Apple ][+ came with schematics for the circuit boards. I’m glad it encouraged a generation of kids to tinker and explore.
But I’m also glad that I don’t live in the fucking ’70s and have to type in programs from a magazine anymore.
And I don’t complain [that] I can’t make new dishwashers with my dishwasher.
Joel Johnson, responding to Cory Doctorow who is oh-so-wrong about the iPad.
Why am I lining up like a zombie for an expensive piece of consumer electronics, a product for which there is no shortage and which, let’s face it, nobody really needs?
I mean, it’s not like you’re in Bolivia and there’s just been an earthquake and you need to line up to get food and clean water.
The truth is, this is all about spiritual emptiness. That is why you’re standing in line.
Buy Dell — If buying Sony doesn’t make sense, why would Apple buy Dell? Remember back in 1997 when Michael Dell said what he’d do to fix Apple? “What would I do? I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.” Dell’s market cap is only about $29 billion, so Apple could buy Dell, shut it down, and still have $11 billion left to play with. Do you think Steve Jobs holds a grudge?
What Apple Could Do with $40 Billion
Pretty funny.
I hate you, AT&T. I hate you almost as much as I hate Eric Schmidt. And that’s saying something.
Thanks for singling me out as the one human being who has done more than anyone else to shape life on our planet over the past decade. I definitely deserve it. I’ve done many amazing things in the last 10 years, but I think the best single thing I’ve done is to get people to stop thinking about computers and the Internet as weird, complicated things for techies. Thanks to me, computers and the Web are omnipresent in our lives and easy to use. You no longer “go online”—you’re always online. And you’re no longer chained to a clunky box while using the Web. Instead, you have a skinny glass-and-metal slice of magic called the iPhone. (Unless you use a BlackBerry or a Palm Pre, in which case I will pray for your soul.) Of course, I’ve also dramatically changed the music industry. Music used to be sold in quaint little places called “music stores,” shipped on discs, and controlled by record labels. Now it’s sold by a software company (Apple), shipped as digital bits, and controlled by me. Movies are headed that way, too, and soon I’ll be running that business as well. Publishing: you’re next. In our brave new world, whoever controls the devices and the distribution is king. That’s why millions of fanboys see me not as a mere CEO, but as a Silicon Jesus who has come to Earth to restore a sense of childlike wonder to their lives. I can’t say I disagree.
Queer. Contrarian. 
