Sunday, April 25, 2010

A pathetic petty ego addict called Woz (pronounced as in 'I was')...

There used to be a genius in the seventies called Steve Wozniak, who was the legendary co-founder of Apple Computer Inc together with His Jobness. Wozniak was 'the other Steve' so to say... Thus, both Steves founded Apple together. The 'Apple' we all know, which has become the third most capitalized company on the planet as of recently, soon to become number one without the shadow of a doubt (heard that Monkey Boy? Go on, dare laughing at them like that other moron Michael Dell did in 1999). A company that even your dead grandma has known about their products.

Wozniak (a.k.a. Woz) was the technical brain behind Apple II. I am not sure whether he was practically ever involved in the development of Lisa or Mac, but he was the architect for sure of all things Apple II, the legendary personal computer that changed the way we thought about personal computers. That was in a time where computers were normally associated with astronomic operating expenses even for cash-rich companies, and occupied rooms long of facilities space. They used to call them Electronic Brains in some languages too (Greek as an example).

As it turns out, Woz's period of technical genius only lasted a few years. Ever since mid eighties, when Woz left Apple to become a teacher (how noble), his genius vanished. All the poor sod has been trying to do all the time ever since is show-off and do anything that could generate press attention to his persona. He's become addicted to anything that smelled like a tabloid trigger for cheap fame. Especially in the last ten years, and Apple's phenomenal climb to the stratosphere under Jobs' leadership, Woz found the ideal platform to keep on showing-off 24x7. Not that he has anything interesting to say, no way! He's dead addict for the attention of the geek community. He fights tooth and nail for every gram of such an ego dope.

What's even worse, he's also been extremely pretentious and utmost unfair in his criticism of Apple, despite their keeping him on the payroll 'for life'. He's actually been playing along with the waves of demagogy and populism used by tech tabloids and has been feeding them with what he thinks is additional 'in-house' view of every situation under scrutiny. Every time I've read articles quoting the Woz I found myself inches away from throwing up in the nearest restroom. There are so many pathetic stories related to the BS he's been spreading around, but I'll spare you that... I reckon it'll be bad to even refer to a single incident; that would waste too much blogging space and increase the environmental footprint of this post for no significant reason.

Anyways, it's fun reading this Wired Online article about the dude who 'left' a new iPhone prototype in a bar last week, where he spent the evening celebrating his 27th birthday. This bonehead Apple employee goes under the name of Gray Powell, and a 'gray' character he is indeed. Don't they use IQ tests when they hire engineers at Infinite Loop One?

What I enjoyed most in the article wasn't what Woz had to say (as I said, his 'opinion' usually suckz) but it was more fun to go thru the reader comments. As usually, the early comments were by frustrated losers, Apple haters, who can't even afford the cheapest iPod, and are condemned to the eternal Windows treat, wasting their miserable lives by doing security updates every single boot of their box. These dudes went on and on, spreading cheap moralizing stories about the 'fear' regime that rules Apple, the company's obsession about product pre-launch secrecy, yadda yaddy yadda... Again, these folks sound like people who never worked in a real company... probably they are either unemployed or some sort of civil servants with plenty of time to comment on each and every tabloid blog.

Thankfully, comments are quickly dominated by the righteous, who understand both business and have probably worked in similar technology company positions, or they still do. In any case, the report and its reader comments are highly recommended, especially if you love Apple as much as I do.

No comments: