Old good Marxistic method is that one should know his enemy. Being a good pupil in the Titoistic times of former Yu, I am definitely a purest of Marxists. I am certainly a promoter of Open Source and I chant with Richard Stallman in praise of free software, following the thorny path of St. IGNUcius: "There is no system but GNU, and Linux is one of its kernels."
This means I am also taking freedom to go and get myself informed on one of the arch-enemies of everything I believe in, and do in practice. The fat Biography of Steve Jobs then becomes a must-read book.
You will guess that I write this not on an Apple machine, but some Linux. I did not pay for the book, either: I got it for free from my corporate friend, in e-pub format. In fact, the book is available for free online, I do not know how is this possible, that it is not protected as an Apple product, hard-wired to read in Apple gadgets only, with buying of a small addition connector...? Weird. Someone should be fired!
The book was with me for quite a time, it is a lenghty read of some 750 pages. Even in such a hefty volume, a praise for the author: it is a very readable biography. It was rather known that nobody would believe "Jobs, a nice guy" story, given all the leaked stories through the years. To find a good measure, and to present enough of a "complete asshole" part of the Jobs personality, but to leave, still, enough space for something else, was not an easy task.
If you ever worked for a complete asshole, then you know why. Such people rob you of your peace of mind, of your motivation for work, and of your will for a balanced life between your work and private life. You just wish to get to Antarctica, Arctic, Equador or any other remote place, and farm cockroaches or bumblebees.
And the subject of this book was PROUD of himself being an asshole, thinking that he gets the best out of people that way! Oh yes, sure, but for what a price? The guys were not paid enough, even if he would pay them ten-fold. But shit he cared about that! You know, slaves also worked better when you would whip them...before they would collapse.
The simplest cut through the biography of this troubled young man who, from a long-haired creature of a dubious personal higiene and behavior, came to be a creator of one of the richest company of today would be: an orphan, a child whose parents were not in position, or will, to care about him, who was lucky enough to get adopted into a good, caring family.
Since I am writing this in the midst of the Sirian "migrants" crisis in
Europe, and Jobs father was a Sirian, let me add something what is
appreciated, among the others, by those who love Jobs: Banksy recently created a nice piece of art in Calais, with Steve Jobs in the main role. A nice work, my praise to Banksy for this point.
So, the child is clever and, as it happens all too often, not really
fit for the regular education system. I think the system is at fault here, not him... So, he drops out of college, busy about tinkering with some integrated circuits in his dad's garage. He has a pal, who is a real genius for such things-you guess, it is another Steve, Wozniak. The two go to make the most incredible piece of electronics in that garage, and the rest is history.
Sure not! We are not speaking about Bill Gates! You get his story up to now, if you take out the orphan and Sirian part! But after the garage there is not much before Gates eats (=buys) all the small companies around, and he retires from bussiness as The Richest Guy of Them All, switching to charity work with his dearest wifey.
In fact, I always thought I do not like Bill, the same as I do not like his company, Microsoft. No real reason, simply I do not like such behemots which eat all the others. But reading about Jobs, I understood that I was wrong: Gates is a proper one, a good guy. An industrial magnate, and it is all what is to say about him. That said, it still does not mean I switch to MS Windows! So, this biography made me change my opinion not on Jobs, but on Gates!
Thanks to Jobs personality, he experienced many twists and turns in his work and life story. He was kicked out of the company he himself created, he re-created himself through the other company, even made good movies, and good moves. And then, when he re-took the company with which he started, he made an icon of it. For how long it will last without him, it remains to be seen.
In difference to Gates, Jobs never retired. He was producing new gadgets one after another. Obviously he did not have better ideas what to do with his life, and he needed to spend his energy somewhere.
Even Jobs' death of pancreatic cancer is in large part the result of his own personality. He stubbornly delayed the proper medical procedure and went, instead, for "alternative methods"-he was Californian enough for that. Until he noticed that cancer is not a cold, that alternatives do not work, it was too late, even for one of the richest guys around. His "reality distorsion field" unfortunately did not include powers of healing.
Apple became synonymous with Steve Jobs, but what is it that, exactly, that makes the phenomenon? Economically, they did not sell so many computers as there were sold PC's, but they earned more than others per unit on what they sell. Marxist would say that Apple created value by something else, not only the technical aspect of their machines. Jobs would probably be satisfied with the
assesment that it is the holistic, or even artistic aspect, which adds the value to Apple's products.
And this is where his esthetics and his preferences in the ways of producing and selling the product, was definitely the driving force. It is what distinguishes him from just a good salesman. He sold you a piece of vision.
There IS something convincing in Jobs' approach that a customer wants a perfect product, comfortable, reliable and easy to use. It definitely worked with the legion of graphic designers at times when Mac was really The Machine for them. But when the same vision was sold to just anyone who wanted a machine to work on, trying immediately to force on such unhappy a person the machine to listen the music, the machine to use when not using the main (Mac!) computer, the phone to use...it became an unhealthy opsession. I do not know if Apple started producing vacuum cleaners, but I suspect it to be an item in the list of follow-up products, if bad times come.
Recently I often hear a complaint, from Mac users in Science, that it
became useless crap, with its sticking to obsolete formats and drivers, or not accepting some generally used ones. Such things could mean that the clicque of self-satisfied salesmen in Apple abstracted themselves away from the base, from the users. It is usually the fore-teller of the disaster for the company which started delivering beautiful, but useless boxes. People will need to switch to maybe less beautiful boxes, but with which they will be able to get the job done. And, oh yes, those other boxes are cheaper, too!
One of the beauties of the Capitalism is that it is utilitarian: if
something does not work, you go and buy something that works. Even if Apple is Made in China, you are hopefully lucky enough that your preferred salesman is not your one and only Party chairman, and you can decide to ignore him and go to the other company's shop.
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Jewish museum "Polin" in Warsaw
I visited new Jewish Museum in Warsaw. It's name is "Polin", from the old word for "forest", which is where from the word Poland comes.
Interesting building-I did this photo 5 years ago, when they were still building it:
It is located inside the former Ghetto. By some "miracle" nothing of Ghetto was rebuilt after the WWII. It seems it was too demanding a task, although Polish rebuilt with a great success, the Old Town of Warsaw (it is even an Unesco site!), just few hundred meters away.
What they did was to build ONE building in place of the center of the old Jewish part of the city-and this was the one actually "gifted" to Warsaw by Moscow:
Anyway, at that time Polish did not have much of a say in Warsaw. Russians were the masters.
Interesting building contains an equally interesting exhibition. It is NOT a Holocaust museum. In three hours of my visit I did not even reach that part of the museum. Then it was the closing time, so I will have to come some other time to se that part, and also post-WWII period.
I am especially interested to see what they prepared about 1968, when there was a massive expelling of Jewish people from the universities and schools, and many had to leave the country.
The exhibition is mostly multi-medial:
I suggest taking the audio-guide at the entrance, as otherwise you might miss most of the points, it is really a wast topic.
There are also some beautiful, and interesting exponates. Like this remake of the old wooden synagogue:
An interesting passport:
Advertisements of the companies which were enabling emigration to Americas...only 6 days travel! In the ad is even specified that they provide kosher food.
On this boat, people from Poland would meet with people from Croatia.
In the log of one of such ships, from the beginning of 20.ct. which I found online, I found about 30 people from my village on the Croatian island, mixed with Poles, Ukrainians, Jews.
Poland at that time was, in difference to today's purely Polish country of Wodka and Church (order of those two intended), a multi-national, multi-language, multi-cultural and multi-religious state.
Idea of the exhibition could be stated, in short, by the words: "See,you idiots, what you lost!".
It is made around Jewish story in Europe and Poland, with an accent to the interaction of Jewish and Polish cultures during the last Millenium.
Shown is the richness of the Jewish culture and its ability to survive, in spite of irrational hate, which was sometimes motivated by hate of "others" or just a pure...stupidity.
It was interesting to see the crowds in the museum. Obviously it is earning a good name. I would rather expect it to stay an isolated enclave in Warsaw, as I always had the feeling about the synagogue Nozyki, hidden amidst the soc-realistic buildings in a former Jewish part of the city.
Here is one of famous boxes where in synagogues was collected money for buying of tha land in Palestine:
I am curious when will this part of the history come to evaluation in modern Croatia, that we would recognize the role of Others in our history. It still has quite some time to go. I hope we will learn from those who did it wise way, as here in "Polin".
It is located inside the former Ghetto. By some "miracle" nothing of Ghetto was rebuilt after the WWII. It seems it was too demanding a task, although Polish rebuilt with a great success, the Old Town of Warsaw (it is even an Unesco site!), just few hundred meters away.
What they did was to build ONE building in place of the center of the old Jewish part of the city-and this was the one actually "gifted" to Warsaw by Moscow:
Anyway, at that time Polish did not have much of a say in Warsaw. Russians were the masters.
Interesting building contains an equally interesting exhibition. It is NOT a Holocaust museum. In three hours of my visit I did not even reach that part of the museum. Then it was the closing time, so I will have to come some other time to se that part, and also post-WWII period.
I am especially interested to see what they prepared about 1968, when there was a massive expelling of Jewish people from the universities and schools, and many had to leave the country.
The exhibition is mostly multi-medial:
I suggest taking the audio-guide at the entrance, as otherwise you might miss most of the points, it is really a wast topic.
There are also some beautiful, and interesting exponates. Like this remake of the old wooden synagogue:
An interesting passport:
Advertisements of the companies which were enabling emigration to Americas...only 6 days travel! In the ad is even specified that they provide kosher food.
On this boat, people from Poland would meet with people from Croatia.
In the log of one of such ships, from the beginning of 20.ct. which I found online, I found about 30 people from my village on the Croatian island, mixed with Poles, Ukrainians, Jews.
Poland at that time was, in difference to today's purely Polish country of Wodka and Church (order of those two intended), a multi-national, multi-language, multi-cultural and multi-religious state.
Idea of the exhibition could be stated, in short, by the words: "See,you idiots, what you lost!".
It is made around Jewish story in Europe and Poland, with an accent to the interaction of Jewish and Polish cultures during the last Millenium.
Shown is the richness of the Jewish culture and its ability to survive, in spite of irrational hate, which was sometimes motivated by hate of "others" or just a pure...stupidity.
It was interesting to see the crowds in the museum. Obviously it is earning a good name. I would rather expect it to stay an isolated enclave in Warsaw, as I always had the feeling about the synagogue Nozyki, hidden amidst the soc-realistic buildings in a former Jewish part of the city.
Here is one of famous boxes where in synagogues was collected money for buying of tha land in Palestine:
I am curious when will this part of the history come to evaluation in modern Croatia, that we would recognize the role of Others in our history. It still has quite some time to go. I hope we will learn from those who did it wise way, as here in "Polin".
Sunday, December 13, 2015
H. Miller: "Sexus"
I read through the next of the works of Mr. Miller. "Sexus", the first book
of "The Rosy Crucifixion" trilogy was following me accross the half of the world.
Let me sketch a few interesting material circumstances, showing the changes in our civilisation. The book befell on me in not at all old-fashioned paper edition when I was still in Taipei, in a green-bound behemoth containing all three of "Rosy crucifixion" novels... Yes, it was cheap to buy, but my, it was heavy even to hold in hand, not to think about reading it! And eyes had to work hard to go from one to another side of the too-extended page of that Olympia Press mega-edition. Still, I endured it when reading it stretched on bed, in my portion of the air-climatized nightmare of Taipei.
Next it acted as a brick in my luggage to Croatia, and found its resting place on my island. I will not move it from there any more. Before my leaving Croatia for France, I read about half of it.
For the further read, with my stomach following the stars, and limited luggage possibilities, I had to switch to ethereal eInk device. My 9inch screen Kindle is now my portable library for such heavy-weights. So, this is the edition which came with me to Warsaw. I am curious what would Mr. Miller think of it. I think he would be fond of eInk, as I am.
What the great Buddha of the Big (Cock)Sur shoveled to us here? Lots of sex with all its juices, bites and scratches, then lots of human rot, as usual... even more raw than in his more famous "Tropic" novels. But then, he is just frank, painfully frank. And I only occasionally was disturbed by his over-frankness. And oh my, that guy knew his talk! I am not surprised girls were melting, I can imagine their uteruses convulsing orgasmically when such a Master talked.
If only he would not be such an utter... prick. But prick-ishness is not a measure of the writer, as amount of booze or dope is not a measure of a singer.
I extend here an appraisal of his mastery in writing and in conveying the message: a man is to go and live, be utterly fucked-up, screwed and screw, do what he pleases to do... But, I would add, please, do not screw up your dreams, because you will finish as a dog. What Mr. Miller duly achieved at the end of this first volume of the trilogy... a beaten dog which even does not bark any more.
It is a miracle and a feat of human race that he managed to stand up from that and survive to become a Buddha in that American Tibet of California, Big Sur.
I will continue to follow him, although I feel this trilogy starting to taste a bit like wartching the "Star Wars" movies, with its broken time-line.
For Mr. Miller is such a superb talker! Even when the written rendering by him is not much of an art.
But it often IS pure art: " "The world would only begin to get something of value from me the moment I stopped being a serious member of society and become-myself. The State, the nation, the united nations of the world, were nothing but one gret aggregation of individuals who repeated the mistakes of their forefathers. They were caught in the wheel from birth and they kept at it till death-and this treadmill they tried to dignify by calling it "life". If you asked any one to explain or define life, what was the be all and the end all, you got
a blank look for answer. Life was something which philosophers dealt with in books that no one read. Those in the thick of life, "the plugs in harness", had no time for such idle questions. "You'we got to eath, haven't you?" This query, which was supposed to be a stop-gap, and which had already been answered, if not in the absolute negative at least in a disturbingly relative negative by those who knew, was a clue to all the other questions which followed in a veritable Euclidian suite. From the little reading I had done I had observed that the men who were most IN life, who were moulding life, who were life itself, ate little, slept little, owned little or nothing. They had no illusion about duty, or the perpetuation of their kith and kin, or the preservation of the State. They were interested in truth and in truth alone. They recognized only one kind of activity-creation. Nobody could command their services because they had of their own pledged themselves to give all. They gave gratuitously, because that is the only way to give."
Let me sketch a few interesting material circumstances, showing the changes in our civilisation. The book befell on me in not at all old-fashioned paper edition when I was still in Taipei, in a green-bound behemoth containing all three of "Rosy crucifixion" novels... Yes, it was cheap to buy, but my, it was heavy even to hold in hand, not to think about reading it! And eyes had to work hard to go from one to another side of the too-extended page of that Olympia Press mega-edition. Still, I endured it when reading it stretched on bed, in my portion of the air-climatized nightmare of Taipei.
Next it acted as a brick in my luggage to Croatia, and found its resting place on my island. I will not move it from there any more. Before my leaving Croatia for France, I read about half of it.
For the further read, with my stomach following the stars, and limited luggage possibilities, I had to switch to ethereal eInk device. My 9inch screen Kindle is now my portable library for such heavy-weights. So, this is the edition which came with me to Warsaw. I am curious what would Mr. Miller think of it. I think he would be fond of eInk, as I am.
What the great Buddha of the Big (Cock)Sur shoveled to us here? Lots of sex with all its juices, bites and scratches, then lots of human rot, as usual... even more raw than in his more famous "Tropic" novels. But then, he is just frank, painfully frank. And I only occasionally was disturbed by his over-frankness. And oh my, that guy knew his talk! I am not surprised girls were melting, I can imagine their uteruses convulsing orgasmically when such a Master talked.
If only he would not be such an utter... prick. But prick-ishness is not a measure of the writer, as amount of booze or dope is not a measure of a singer.
I extend here an appraisal of his mastery in writing and in conveying the message: a man is to go and live, be utterly fucked-up, screwed and screw, do what he pleases to do... But, I would add, please, do not screw up your dreams, because you will finish as a dog. What Mr. Miller duly achieved at the end of this first volume of the trilogy... a beaten dog which even does not bark any more.
It is a miracle and a feat of human race that he managed to stand up from that and survive to become a Buddha in that American Tibet of California, Big Sur.
I will continue to follow him, although I feel this trilogy starting to taste a bit like wartching the "Star Wars" movies, with its broken time-line.
For Mr. Miller is such a superb talker! Even when the written rendering by him is not much of an art.
But it often IS pure art: " "The world would only begin to get something of value from me the moment I stopped being a serious member of society and become-myself. The State, the nation, the united nations of the world, were nothing but one gret aggregation of individuals who repeated the mistakes of their forefathers. They were caught in the wheel from birth and they kept at it till death-and this treadmill they tried to dignify by calling it "life". If you asked any one to explain or define life, what was the be all and the end all, you got
a blank look for answer. Life was something which philosophers dealt with in books that no one read. Those in the thick of life, "the plugs in harness", had no time for such idle questions. "You'we got to eath, haven't you?" This query, which was supposed to be a stop-gap, and which had already been answered, if not in the absolute negative at least in a disturbingly relative negative by those who knew, was a clue to all the other questions which followed in a veritable Euclidian suite. From the little reading I had done I had observed that the men who were most IN life, who were moulding life, who were life itself, ate little, slept little, owned little or nothing. They had no illusion about duty, or the perpetuation of their kith and kin, or the preservation of the State. They were interested in truth and in truth alone. They recognized only one kind of activity-creation. Nobody could command their services because they had of their own pledged themselves to give all. They gave gratuitously, because that is the only way to give."
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