Request PG: Could we please have the black bar out for Steve Jobs?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3078285

by justlearning • 15 years ago

392 78 15 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I don't know what to say. It's a heart-numbing moment.

courtewing2• 15 years ago

For the unenlightened (or perhaps just me), what do you mean by "have the black bar out"?

mixmax2• 15 years ago

the red topbar is changed to black to show condolences.

tialys• 15 years ago

When a member of the community, or a popular figure in the hacker community passes away, a black bar is put at the top of HN in memory of that person.

courtewing2• 15 years ago

Ah! Thank you very much. It looks like the black bar is now up there, too.

redthrowaway• 15 years ago

Turning the orange bar at the top black. It's been done before as a sign of respect for other important people in the computing world who have passed.

mwill• 15 years ago

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=644954 It's a black bar across the top of the page. pg puts it up in memorial.

s-phi-nl• 15 years ago

PG has twice put a black bar above the top bar in memory of someone's death. See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=644954 for the first use of it, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=859117 for the second.

rottencupcakes• 15 years ago

He also did it (most recently I think) for rtm's father: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2712469

shareme• 15 years ago

guelo• 15 years ago

Looks like pg might be busy trying to keep the site up and running.

astrodust• 15 years ago

And yet it's up. Thanks.

DiabloD3• 15 years ago

InclinedPlane• 15 years ago

There's a button for that...

cperciva10• 15 years ago

I'll say what nobody else seems willing to say: I don't think he deserves it. De mortuis nihil nisi bonum and all that, but let's face it: Steve Jobs was a skilled salesman, nothing more.

Let's keep the black bar for people who have actually made a contribution to computing.

Edit: 2 minutes and already voted down to -4. Oh well, I knew this would be an unpopular opinion...

shinratdr4• 15 years ago

If you can't even acknowledge the contribution and impact Apple has made on computing in general right now, then you are significantly more far-gone than anyone you have ever accused of being a fanboy.

That's just a ridiculous statement. Steve Jobs made no contribution to computing? Complete bullshit.

cperciva10• 15 years ago

Oh, I acknowledge the impact Apple has had on computing. But they've done that primarily by being very good at marketing, not by being technically innovative.

Mithrandir• 15 years ago

At the very least, Jobs had a tremendous impact on the tech community. As a more recent example, look at the amount of people posting on HN the week after he left Apple. He should IMHO be remembered by those who knew, worked with, and respected him.

Edit: I disagree with you that he didn't have a significant impact on computing itself, but if hypothetically he hadn't, he was still far too well known.

saulrh• 15 years ago

He introduced millions of hackers to their first computer. I'd call that a contribution, indirect as it is.

cperciva10• 15 years ago

I attribute that more to Steve Wozniak than to Steve Jobs.

bitops• 15 years ago

Agreed. My first real programming experience was on a Macintosh doing BASIC.

spydum• 15 years ago

I think no one is willing to say it, because no one else was thinking it..

prodigal_erik• 15 years ago

I was thinking it, but to my surprise I find myself disagreeing. I watch with growing dismay as crippled appliances and learned helplessness sweep the industry, but they are in fact what the market currently wants, and with long practice Jobs developed exceptional and laudable skill at not only identifying what the market wants but making a corporate behemoth deliver it in a very focused form.

jasonshen• 15 years ago

Your statement flies in the face of the hundreds of comments on HN to the contrary. If you don't think helping millions of people discover the joy, magic and power of computers and technology is less than a massive contribution to computing then I'm not sure what is.

lowglow• 15 years ago

If I had the power to down vote a comment, I would find a way to use it twice for this.

mixmax2• 15 years ago

This is one of the most narrowminded and arrogant statements I've read on HN in a while, if not ever.

I think it's hard to argue that Steve Jobs hasn't had a huge impact on the trajectory of computing over the last 20 years. A large share of the commenters here read this on computers developed by the company he started, talk to their friends using phones he dreamed up, and listen to music using software and hardware he headed.

Not all contributions to computing, or the world, are made by hackers.

tlrobinson• 15 years ago

Fortunately this site is about more than just pure computer science. Steve Jobs was one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time.

megaman821• 15 years ago

I have never owned an Apple product but it is quite obvious that Apple with Steve Jobs at the helm have had a large effect on a lot of the hardware and software I do use. Whether he was a salesman, a programmer, or a janitor he was obviously important to a lot of hackers.

lawnchair_larry• 15 years ago

I don't see why this is being downvoted. Is it because people disagree? Because that isn't a reason to downvote.

It seems accurate to say that Jobs was a salesman. He didn't design or write any software or hardware that I know of.

fredoliveira2• 15 years ago

Even if you were right, curation is an act of creation. (Clearly, too)

cperciva10• 15 years ago

Some people disagreed with me; I think most just felt I was being disrespectful.

donw3• 15 years ago

The downvotes are because his post is highly disrespectful in tone, and frankly ignorant in substance.

It would be just as accurate to call either Einstein or Feynman "just a physics teacher". The title, while technically accurate, fails to fully encompass the magnitude of the work.

GiraffeNecktie• 15 years ago

If you are unaware of Steve Jobs' contribution to both hardware and software you are sadly uninformed, not just about Steve's life and work but about what it takes to create products that can change the world. I don't even own a single Apple product, but he has made everything I use so much better.

petercooper• 15 years ago

Is it because people disagree? Because that isn't a reason to downvote.

It's a common and legitimate reason to downvote on HN, even pg has said so. I once disagreed with this practice but have changed my mind given it has been 'approved'.

And to say Jobs was a salesman because he didn't "design" any hardware is bizarre. He was the driving force behind the Macintosh and involved in almost every decision surrounding it, even if he wasn't the one with the pen at the drafting board. It's like saying Obama is merely a spokesman.

tzs• 15 years ago

That's not why it is getting down voted, I believe.

Jobs influence over Apple's products went far beyond merely selling them well, and this was extensively discussed in the bazillion news stories and blog posts in response to his resignation as CEO, and those were heavily discussed here on HN and in other comparable forums.

Accordingly, I believe that many of the down voters don't merely disagree with the post, but believe that it is objectively wrong, AND feel that there is just no good excuse for a regular HN reader/poster being wrong on this.

tptacek4• 15 years ago

The black bar isn't there as a trophy for the person who died. It's there to provide a comfort to the people who are grieving as a result of what happened.

I don't know Steve Jobs. He was given an amazing life; a more than ample measure of the best things the world has for us; an eminently square deal. I am, I suppose, sad in the abstract for his family. Who Jobs carefully made sure I knew almost nothing about.

But Jobs made things happen, had an impact on my life, set a standard, for things I care about, and then personified --- animated --- that standard. He was relevant to me. And I am tired of cancer fucking things up that are relevant to me.

So, it's messing with me, a little, and I'm glad the silly black bar is there so at least I don't feel like I'm crazy to feel that way.

sgentle• 15 years ago

I'm no friend of sacred cows, and frankly I'm going to save my mourning for people I actually know, but I think you're wrong about Steve Jobs being nothing more than a skilled salesman.

More than any other company, Jobs' Apple has been relentlessly visionary. Many tech companies did (and still do) write software. Apple, on the other hand, designs and builds products - software is an implementation detail. Apple's core is software as an end, not as a means.

Fifty years from now, I believe that programmer will be one of those hilarious dated occupations like typist or milkman. Asking if someone has wifi will be like asking if they're on the grid, and computers (and computing) will be so ubiquitous that they become invisible.

I don't think Steve Jobs contributed to computing any more than Martin Luther King contributed to literature. His legacy isn't in his tools, it's in how he used those tools to shape the world as he wanted.

OpieCunningham3• 15 years ago

For myself, the ridiculousness of your comment has nothing whatsoever to do with whether someone somewhere may find it offensive. Other than direct communication with family, the concept of eliminating critical comments regarding someone who has recently died is, frankly, pathetic.

No, the ridiculousness of your comment is that you actually believe Steve Jobs has not made a contribution to computing. That's simply insane. Your mind is totally divorced from reality.

arkx• 15 years ago

First time in 3+ years of lurking on hackernews when I wish I had enough karma to downvote you.

rms• 15 years ago

This was Startup News before Hacker News... and while Steve's skill as a hacker could be disputed, his position as the greatest CEO of the modern era is basically indisputable.

plinkplonk2• 15 years ago

Why is Colin downvoted for expressing a contrary opinion? Come on folks this is HN.

Fwiw On his twitter feed Colin made the more nuanced point that we didn't mourn this way for Dijkstra or Jim Gray that we do for Jobs. An interesting thought, but it didn't come through here.

I think what seems to trigger all the downvoting is this bit "De mortuis nihil nisi bonum and all that, but let's face it: Steve Jobs was a skilled salesman, nothing more." and "Let's keep the black bar for people who have actually made a contribution to computing."

One way to counter this opinion is to just state specifically how Steve Jobs is more than a skilled salesman etc. Should be fairly easy to do. I think the skills of a superior tech company CEO (and Steve Jobs was certainly that) go well beyond being a salesman,which has connotations of just selling something other people thought up.

As to the black bar,my personal opinion is that the black bar is a courtesy, a social grace if you will. As with all social niceties it isn't perfectly rational or completely logically justifiable. If you feel irritated by it, just hang in there and it will go away soon.

Meanwhile, thank you Colin, for making me think (about the way we treat the death of a celebrity differently than people who die relatively "unknown" but may have contributed more (on a strictly logical basis).

OpieCunningham3• 15 years ago

One way to counter this opinion is to just state specifically how Steve Jobs is more than a skilled salesman etc. Should be fairly easy to do.

Absolutely. And if Colin were entirely ignorant of technology, the history of computers, human-computer interaction, etc. to the degree of, say, someone who has been in a coma for 30+ years, then it would be necessary to make those statements.

eAlchemist• 15 years ago

I don't know you, so I won't judge. But, I will say that you sound like someone who thinks that all the honor is in the academic/theoretical exercise- that there is little or no challenge or value in making something used by real people.

Well that's well and good, but it's also smug and elitest. The value a person creates is a function of the single achievement and the number of people who use or benefit from it. By that measure, I think you would have to say that even if you consider the Mac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad small achievements the multiplier means Jobs created TREMENDOUS value.

If, by salesman, you mean someone who understands the needs of people and satisfies those needs even when they don't recognize them for themselves, then yes Steve Jobs was a salesman. And, we should all aspire to be such salespeople.

It's wonderful and good to pursue knowledge and discovery in a vacuum when everything is insulated from reality. It's a whole other thing to take the theoretical and apply it for practical use in a culture of incredibly complex and changing people. Arguably, this is much harder than the academic pursuit because the target is ever-changing.

What Steve Jobs did was not some smoke and mirrors bullshit. He was not a snake oil salesman. He CREATED! And he CREATED things that people love to use.

pknerd• 15 years ago

I dont agree with you but I agree to give you freedom to express your opinion that's why voted you up

mkr-hn• 15 years ago

I'm fond of criticizing tech messiahs, but I'll still admit that Jobs was more than a salesman. He knew how to get a team going in a particular direction to produce good industrial design.

It's a rare skill.

younata• 15 years ago

Thanks PG.

harrisreynolds• 15 years ago

Request PG: Could we please have the black bar out for Steve Jobs?

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