The Mythbusters on Steve Jobs: “iGenius” Documentary to Air October 16th | Hacker News Reader

The Mythbusters on Steve Jobs: “iGenius” Documentary to Air October 16th

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33 pointsGBond20 comments

I hope they are able to get past the lovefest of the recent media coverage, and dig into some of the more interesting issues. Did he really think that taking LSD was one of the most important events in his life? What did he do with all his money? Will there be anything equivalent to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation? How did he reconcile the idea of creativity and "think different" and the iconic 1984 commerical for the mac with his insistence on locking down the platform, reducing options, and telling the consumer what was good for them?

Why is what he did with his money “interesting?” I’d call that a personal and private matter, very similar to what position he preferred in bed. The word “interesting” to me suggests more than just whether members of the public would like to pry into something. I have no doubt that millions of Justin Bieber's fans are very interested in what he ate for breakfast, but that doesn’t make it interesting.

Likewise if someone digs up dirt that Mr. Jobs parked his car in a handicapped spot, that would again fuel a frenzy of “Oh my, such a terrible thing to do” chin-wagging, but how is this interesting?

You can’t even make an argument that how he spent his money has anything to do with integrity. He never asked me to buy Apple stock so that his personal fortune could be used for Good Works. He never ran for elected office on the basis of giving back to society. What he did with his money is his affair, and a fascination with it says so much more about the human desire to pry than it does about anything of true intellectual interest.

I'm curious where the wealth that is nearly equivalent to the combined average salary of a quarter million people will be going. I guess that means I'm a bad person.

He was fantastically wealthy, and it all came from products sold to a huge percentage of the American people. We are interested in where that money went. That's hardly similar to wondering what Bieber had for breakfast, or how someone prefers sex.

Does not donating a penny make him a bad person? I'd say not, especially when you consider everything else he's done for this country, even just economically. People like Buffet and Gates have set the bar pretty damn high, though, and I'm happy their public altruism has put pressure on other wealthy people to do the same.

No reconciliation is necessary. Before the iPhone, phones were a closed platform. You couldn't get your software onto cellphones without going thru the carrier. There was no "app Store", there was no such thing as an app. You needed millions of dollars, to be a big business, to have special contracts or all of the above in order for carriers to even take your meeting to see if they'd think about putting your software on "their" phones.

The iPhone opened all that up. Anyone could write software, and provided it was minimally useful and didn't contain malware, sell it in the store. Any consumer could, for the first time, install software on their phones that they chose, rather than having it chosen for them.

I know this is a pedantic point, but consumers may choose only from what Apple has chosen for them. The "minimally useful and didn't contain malware" expression is missing the "may replace or complete with Apple products" and "may upset some deep-pocketed special interest group or the CEO" qualifiers.

You couldn't get your software onto cellphones without going thru the carrier.

That's not really true. Before the iPhone was released it was possible to develop for a great many phones using J2ME. Some carriers did restrict what APIs were accessible on their phones without a signing certificate (cough Sprint), but others allowed everything necessary to develop games and basic apps that could connect to the site where the app was obtained. All you had to do was throw up .jar and .jad files for your app onto your web site.

> Before the iPhone, phones were a closed platform.

That's not even remotely true and I wish people would stop repeating this like it's a fact. Smartphones existed for years before the iPhone and all had user-installable software. My first touch screen smartphone was the Sony Ericsson P800 released in 2002 (5 years before the iPhone) and I had plenty of third party applications for it. I went through a number of different smartphones by different manufacturers and different operating systems before the iPhone ever got apps. And, unlike the iPhone, there were no restrictions.

> You needed millions of dollars, to be a big business, to have special contracts or all of the above in order for carriers to even take your meeting to see if they'd think about putting your software on "their" phones.

This isn't true at all. Sam Altman had none of these things, yet he was still able to get a meeting to discuss Loopt.

Yes, you still needed "a meeting". But the process was not nearly as byzantine as you've made it seem.

Hopefully the choice in host will result in a focus the documentary on "garage" days with Woz.

On the subjects of cable specials, I REALLY hope TNT will make a sequel to "Pirates of Silicon Valley" soon!

> On the subjects of cable specials, I REALLY hope TNT will make a sequel to "Pirates of Silicon Valley" soon

It's not a sequel or a cable special, but I believe you're looking for a film called the "Social Network"

Why the downvotes? That seems a reasonable sequel to me

I think people either took it too literally, or are upset at the (unintended) comparison of Zuck and Jobs.

A sequel would be terrific because, if you recall, the main story arch was the Gate's philosophy of profit by any means wins over Jobs' (misguided) ideals centered around creating a tasteful product. In the end Gates wins (last scene of the movie was Jobs announcing MS bailing out/investing in Apple).

That movie came out pre-Apple device dominance. As we all know things have change and the principle of tasteful & desired products actually works out pretty well.

However, the next movie will probably not be on TV. With the obvious interest by the mass public of Jobs' life & death, a big-screen movie is probably coming. Maybe using the soon to be published biography as the source.

I love the Mythbusters, but what an odd choice for this project.

They're the definitive Discovery Channel hosts right now and are probably on retainer or contractually obligated for things like this.

Plus, their show is currently airing a new season and they're wildly popular. This just screams to me that it's about advertising to as many eyeballs as possible while it's a hot topic (otherwise, why so quick? the man was literally just buried).

Definitely a revenue generating opportunity. However, there is just also a great deal of interest, and as long as they have quality content I'm excited to see it.

And yes, I imagine they are contractually obligated, like Mike Rowe, who they've over used so much - plus they probably wanted someone more geek for the special.

It sounds to me like they moved the airing up as a result of recent events, not that they just threw it together in the last week.

The program that was previous scheduled to air in that timeslot was called "Can you live forever?"

#toosoon ?

Nope, that joke will never be funny.

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