HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

⬐ danso

What really burns me is how the "Jobs" people treated his criticism as being motivated out of money. From Ashton Kutcher:

http://blogs.computerworld.com/mac-os-x/22659/jobs-ashton-ku...

> "Woz is being paid by another company to support a different Steve Jobs film. It's personal for him, but it's also business. We have to keep that in mind."

Seriously? Woz is the guy who gave his Apple stock shares to co-workers he felt were slighted in the IPO. Hello, he's the guy who wanted to give his groundbreaking engineering behind the Apple away for free.

Woz is an engineering legend...but if there were a Hall of Fame for generosity and integrity, he'd be in there too. Shame on the "Jobs" people and it's great to see the lukewarm/negative reviews roll in for their shit sandwich of a biopic.

⬐ thezilch

Kutcher is being paid by another company to support his Steve Jobs film. It's personal for him, but it's also business. We have to keep that in mind.

⬐ VonGuard

In the heady days of my youth in the early 90's I was foolishly of the opinion that Apple would one day rule the world, and that Steve Jobs would be seen as some sort of Christ figure. I kinda looked up to him in that fashion, at the time, even before he'd come back to Apple after Next.

Of course, when I actually became an adult, I realized the error of my ways, switched to Linux,and over time my admiration only grew for Woz.

I once appeared in a reenactment of a Jobs/Woz story on TV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEuJMPBZJ7c . It was a cheesey TV reenactment, and it really doesn't matter which one of the two Steve's I was playing, versus which one was portrayed by my child-hood friend, Travis. But during the filming, I did get to handle a Woz Blue Box, and an Apple I board. It was like touching a Rembrandt, or a Van Gogh.

At the time, I pretended to be Jobs. These days, I say I played Woz.

Woz, to put it bluntly, is the awesomest hacker/engineer, ever. He's just a freakin' god! Everything he's ever done has been 10% pure hacker ethos. The early Apple I's came with a complete explanation of how they were laid out, hardware-wise. The manual was a work of pure joy. You don't get technical writing like that, ever. Nothing was hidden. http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Apple/Appl...

If you like that, ever head of the CL 9? Woz, after leaving Apple due to surviving a freakin' plane crash, decided he wanted to fix the then common remote control. The CL9 Core remote control was a hacker's dream device. You could program it to emit whatever IR signals you wanted, and it came with a manual explaining as much. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CL_9

Jobs, on the other hand, was a seriously driven guy. An entrepreneur's entrepreneur. Take that for what you will, the good and the bad. I've always taken it to mean he was good at spotting an opportunity and exploiting it.

I, for one, will always worship the engineer, first.

⬐ bsdetector

Please. Woz's answer to the top thing wrong with the movie was that it overglorified Jobs as too much of a personality. But later he says Jobs was the best technology leader of our time.

This may not be a good movie and I believe that Woz believes what he says, but like any eyewitness I also believe his memory is colored heavily by his own POV.

Keep your mind clear and don't worship Jobs or Woz.

⬐ derefr

Rather than picking one over the other, I would say that it would have been best if Jobs had had a little more Woz in him (to appreciate the tech more), Woz had had a little more Jobs (to sell himself more), and they had continued to work together. Apple would be an even bigger player than it is today, I think.

⬐ 6ren

Nice to think, but no, they needed each other. It's not just the skillsets that differ. But the perspective, the model you build up of reality, which details you attend to. A person - even a genius - only has so much bandwidth, and if they're doing something difficult and worthwhile, it will take all of it.

FWIW, they really did appreciate each other. I'm not sure what could have made things work out better - but note that Jobs left too (i.e. kicked out). It's turbulent waters, hard to plan.

fun fact when the iPhone 4S was publicised as having "dual-core graphics", Woz complained that this technical detail was not relevant to users, only the result was. He appreciates Jobs' perspective better than present-day Apple does.

⬐ enraged_camel

I disagree. What made them an amazing pair is that they complimented each other perfectly. Character and skill are zero-sum: if Jobs had a little more Woz in him, he would have to be a little less Jobs. And vice versa. The result would be a more inferior Apple.

It's better to have one person who is Level 100 at skill A and another who is Level 100 at skill B, than 75/25 and 25/75.

"Well-rounded" is another term for "mediocre."

⬐ scorpion032

A "polymath" is a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas.

Greeks celebrated such great thinkers. Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Galileo Galilei, Nicolaus Copernicus, Francis Bacon and Michael Servetus were all amazing polymaths. - They had expertise in Math, Engineering, Philosophy, Art, Finance. (Perhaps not marketing because such a thing didn't exist back then.)

There have been such multi disciplinary experts in the world and I'm sure there continue to be. But they are rare and often found pursuing interest in one of the areas.

If you can understand tech there is no reason you cannot understand sales and vice versa. - In fact being blind to an alternative point of view isn't even a feature of a man of class. And if you can understand it, why can't you think the same way.

⬐ lutze

If Woz had a little more Jobs in him, he'd have told Jobs to go fuck himself when he sold Woz's work to Atari and paid him a fraction of the money.

There would be no Apple.

⬐ oblique63

While this stance sounds nice, it doesn't actually make much sense in reality. It appeals to our cultural want for 'justice'/'fairness'/'equality', but it doesn't quite pan out once you look at the general picture of skill acquisition.

If a person learned to become exceptionally 'talented' in one area, then he/she's more likely to replicate that same level success in a completely new area, than someone who hasn't gained that level of skill anywhere. This is because skill acquisition itself is a skill. So once you've learned what it takes to master a certain skill (i.e. you learned how to learn effectively), you can then apply it with much more ease than someone who hasn't really learned how to learn as much. This causes a sort of 'snowball-effect' outcome, where ease of skill acquisition follows a logarithmic curve of sorts rather than a linear/exponential one like most people seem to view it.

The only limiting factor on skill acquisition is choice/taste. If a particular area doesn't interest you, then why bother expending energy learning to master it, right? Doesn't mean you're not capable of it, all it means is that you didn't have to strive for greatness in that area to make it work for you. And since Jobs met Woz pretty early on, there was really no reason for him to become a master engineer thereafter. Meanwhile, Woz probably just didn't care about business/marketing, so he chose to not master it.

There are other factors that influence skill acquisition (e.g. IQ), but they don't necessarily limit it. And in order for the 'fair' view of skill acquisition to hold, there would need to be some sort of non-trainable limiting mechanism for building skills. But as of now, I'm not familiar of anything that would cause that.

The only way the "Jack of all trades; master of none" mantra holds, is if the 'Jack' never deeply learnt/'mastered' any of the subjects he's familiar with. But of course, the label "Jack of all trades" doesn't actually specify whether-or-not that's actually the case. Same for "well-rounded"; implying it indicates anything other than breadth of knowledge is inaccurate.

⬐ stiff

Without references your comment is worthless.

⬐ None

None

⬐ stiff

Wow. So you HN guys just accept statements like those on faith?

⬐ chiph

People here at HN don't just know how use a search engine ... they write search engines.

⬐ oblique63

No, worth can be drawn simply by applying the model I outlined above. References may add more worth if you're looking for verification (which I don't blame), but it's also a daunting task to compile such lists. Your comment on the other hand, could've just asked me for sources and that would've been productive, but instead you chose to just dismiss the entire argument cynically with a single statement; that literally doesn't add any value for anybody. I wish downvotes would be justified more deeply than this.

However, since it is useful, here are some resources to begin learning about what intelligence and cognitive research have to say about the matter:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Talent-Code-Greatness-Grown/dp/055...

http://www.amazon.com/The-Genius-All-Us-Insights/dp/03073873...

http://healthland.time.com/2012/12/26/motivation-not-iq-matt...

http://www.cogmed.com/impact-working-memory-training-young-p...

http://www.cogmed.com/working-memory-but-not-iq-predicts-sub...

http://www.cogmed.com/working-memory-training-generalize-imp...

http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~antonvillado/courses/09a_psyc630...

http://reports-archive.adm.cs.cmu.edu/anon/ml2009/CMU-ML-09-...

http://jabba.edb.utexas.edu/it/enhancingCognitiveSkill.pdf

There are plenty more resources out there, and I'm sure there are much better ones too. But the implication of all this is that learning is a skill, and that you can learn how to learn better. We may not yet thoroughly understand how generalized learning takes place in the brain, but it does seem to be a function of working memory and motivation, which can be improved. Generalized learning is segmented more finely than how I described it originally, but it still functions the same way (e.g. learning to juggle may not help you learn a new language better, but learning to play a musical instrument may help you to learn the other two more easily, since it incorporates language skills through music, and motor skills through playing). Making an argument against this model would place the burden of proof on that side, because as I mentioned before, there is no known mechanism that would lead to the outcome outlined by the 'fair'/balanced model, and it would have to explain away phenomena like neuroplasticity that seem to directly oppose it.

⬐ stiff

I just don't understand how you can state bold claims like this as facts without substantiating them in any way by references or any sort of logical deduction:

If a person learned to become exceptionally 'talented' in one area, then he/she's more likely to replicate that same level success in a completely new area

The only limiting factor on skill acquisition is choice/taste.

Doesn't genetics also have some role here? The references you just included do nothing to provide any sort of evidence for those statements. To what extents cognitive skills are transferable is still much debated and science is far from having an unanimous answer. Good overview of the issue is here:

http://www4.ncsu.edu/~jlnietfe/EDP504_Notes_files/Are%20Cogn...

⬐ oblique63

Genetics do play a surprisingly significant role, and my second reference (book) even mentions it in the title. IQ is strongly believed to be linked to genetics, but again, as I listed in one of the sources, even IQ doesn't necessarily factor into skill acquisition, only ease of skill acquisition; two distinct but important points. You can learn to learn better -- that is the main point. It doesn't matter where you start off (i.e. IQ via genetics), you can still get a skill snowball-effect going relative to where you started. It seems you missed the second part of my last comment where I mentioned it was more segmented and context based (like your citation states), but that the general trajectory is still the same. Learn a skill in one context, any subsequent skills in the same context become easier. The thing is that there are things that generalize to multiple contexts, and that some contexts are larger than they seem[1].

Now, it is certainly much harder for some people to acquire certain skills, and it may be near impossible to excel at them up to a certain level (e.g. physical athleticism). But skill level is again different from the skill itself, and it is the skills themselves that matter in skill acquisition. For example, if running ability is found to be genetically limited, then getting any better at it may be harder for you, but picking up a sport like football would probably still be much easier for you if you trained your running first regardless. IQ being genetically determined can impact other things like motivation; i.e. if you have a low IQ things will be harder for you, making you less likely to pursue skill acquisition in the future, and conversely, a high IQ may predispose you to acquiring more skills since they come so easily to you, but the point is that neither absolutely determine how many skills you can/will acquire.

I made a 'bold' statement because it's just that practical of a perspective to take[2]. And science backs it up not only in terms of all the positive effects exercising brain plasticity brings[3], but also in the fact that IQ isn't an end-all be-all metric. It is significant, and highly correlated to other important things like life expectancy[4], but IQ itself is not the limit. A built-in limit to skill acquisition would have to come somewhere else down the line if there is one. I study this stuff on my free time because it interests me, I'm not an expert/scientist, so trying to discover a well-defined concrete limit to skill acquisition is beyond my domain, but stuff like epigenetics and plasticity is making it harder to believe there is one.

[1] I believe the last cite in my previous comment shows an example of this. Also, I myself have a pretty average IQ of ~114 or something, but this view has allowed me to learn a surprising number of skills before I even knew any of the science around it, so of course I'm biased and wanted to share.

[2] Well, that and the fact that most people simply don't bother to look at painfully constructed source lists anyway, making the endeavor of compiling them less worth it.

[3] One example: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2003/september24/dementia.html

[4] http://www.mrc.ac.uk/About/AnnualReview09-10/SevenAges/Elder...

⬐ stiff

The problem here is that we humans really want to believe certain things, and our emotional involvement blinds us to what we really managed to establish scientifically, e.g. people vehemently oppose any suggestions of determinism, attempts to deny free will, whatever it might mean, etc., regardless of any logical argument.

I think you are falling for this in certain places as well, for example when talking about genetic skill level limitations you jump right to physical athleticism, which is something people are somehow able to accept more easily, while there is strong evidence that intellectual abilities are open to limitations of the same kind.

IQ is an imperfect measure that is at best correlated with the "quality" of ones genetic endowment, but it doesn't mean that the genetic limitations are any less real. This is the very old and heated debate of "nature vs. nurture", and I would appreciate your comment much more if you also included views of the "opposing" side and moderated your claims to what the research really says, while I think you are making some big extrapolations. That is not to deny the possibility of "learning to learn" or to discourage learning, but you used very strong phrases.

⬐ oblique63

I actually don't think our views are opposing, but I think the point I'm trying to make is just tricky because falls in a small area that doesn't oppose determinism. I actually view the mind as a total algorithm, because there are a shocking number of personality traits that appear to be deterministic[1]. Thus, I don't actually believe in free will, but I find it to be a useful model by which to live by (kinda like how classical mechanics helped us get to the moon despite relativity ultimately being more accurate). There are many things that can still work within a deterministic system though, they may just require the right set of inputs[2] to get the desired outputs. So I just proposed a perspective (one that leverages our apparently limitless ability for plasticity and memory) as an input, and maybe it'll trigger some people to deterministically consider it for helping themselves, leading to useful outputs.

The system is much too complex to assume that just because we don't have what amounts to total 'free' will that we're hopeless to improve anything at our level of operation. If someone's determined (pun intended) to be a defeatist, then alright, but some others are just waiting for the right inputs to take them down a more useful branch of execution. Because just like a program, even though everything is neatly outlined and determined, that doesn't mean you know what every output ever will be. That's why I don't think 'hardcore' determinism to the point of discouraging choices is a useful view to take, much like how hardcore philosophical skepticism is a dead-end line of logic; neither really provide anything you can build off of, so while they may ultimately be true, they're poor models for productivity. I mean, it's possible that you're right and I'm just having a hard case of cognitive dissonance, but it seems to me like extrapolating deterministic genetic algorithms to argue against useful high-level perspectives is still making a lot of assumptions about the implications of such a system. Meanwhile, I'm just reporting observations that been found with regards to skill acquisition.

[1] The phenomenon depicted on this episode of Radiolab with regards to Transient Global Amnesia is particularly damning (http://www.radiolab.org/2011/oct/04/ ), because it shows that when given all the same inputs, you're likely to perform the exact same actions over-and-over again. The separated twin studies on IQ also show a remarkable number of personality similarities amongst twins (besides IQ), which indicates a possible genetic component to random things like sense of humor. There's no hard evidence that any of these things are genetically determined of course, but meh. Let's also not forget that epigenetics and GMOs exist, though it may be a while before that becomes useful for GATTACA-like situations, lol.

[2] Yes, genetics and other deterministic factors count as inputs. If you want to reach a branch of logic that requires AND-ing with a genetic component you don't have, then tough luck, but a simple OR with some other less deterministic input is equally possible. Of course, this is just another hypothetical model to cope with our lack of understanding.

⬐ JosephHatfield

Cheesy, yes, but I thought that video was actually very interesting. "Ma Bell is listening in" indeed.

⬐ fudged71

Is "10%" a typo? :)

⬐ phreakingout

10% is a lot of hacker ethos. Few take shits on toilets they made themselves all the time. Few make their own mattress or intentionally hack their brainwaves with external and/or internal devices when they sleep. And very few are consuming soylent regularly. You could have written your own email client, browser, and you could be writing code on a CPU you designed yourself, just to avoid the day-to-day grunge of unhackerness. I could have spent the time that I wrote this to instead take apart an old cordless phone to make it a garage door opener, just to have a spare. The car I drive could be one of a kind. It shouldn't even be called "car", because it would be different and better suited for the task of getting me from point A to B, freeing my hands to hack something together while I'm traveling.

Yes, 10% is what was meant, even if it was unintentional.

⬐ supercoder

So yes, 10% was a typo then.

⬐ phreakingout

You don't know Woz.

⬐ ateev

I have read a lot about who's better. Jobs or Woz. Who's right ?. Well according to me both are equally important. They are like inseparable. No one would have succeeded without the other. We need both, awesome passionate technology-focused engineers and user-experienced-focused people in our team. As tom pretson said in one of his talks, open source lacks designers. There are so many great engineers in the open source communities but not enough designers. This has to change. And this combination only can guarantee a success for startups.

⬐ vidarh

> The early Apple I's came with a complete explanation of how they were laid out, hardware-wise.

Publishing details at pretty much that level was the norm at the time, nothing particularly special for Apple. E.g. up until at least '87 or '88 (and quite possibly later), pretty much all Commodore hardware had proper schematics in their manuals, and they provided separate documentation with much more detail.

⬐ hayksaakian

For a better film concerning the same topic, try pirates of silicon valley.

Its a bit old, but quite good.

⬐ capkutay

I saw pirates of silicon valley a few years ago. I'd say that was the only movie to really get me excited about being in tech/silicon valley. The Social Network didn't even have close to the same effect for me.

⬐ MBCook

I'm hoping Sorkin's movie is better. We'll see.

⬐ ceejayoz

Woz is apparently consulting for Sorkin's version, so I'd take that as a fairly good sign.

⬐ Zigurd

There is a very good chance it will be better, but Sorkin had to take considerable liberties to make The Social Network work as a movie. I really liked it because it captured and conveyed the spirit of things people find hard to understand. But you can't do that and be a historically accurate document. And despite Sorkin being a genius, I know several people who thought sitting through The Social Network was torture.

⬐ louthy

Slightly OT: Pirates of Silicon Valley for the UK:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIcAyFVK0gE

⬐ pico303

You should also read "Fire in the Valley". Awesome book about the beginnings of the computer revolution in Silicon Valley.

⬐ vidarh

My problem with this, as much of the stuff written about early personal computer history, is the focus on Silicon Valley to the exclusion or downplaying all the stuff that happened outside the valley, often combined with massively exaggerating the early importance of Apple.

⬐ jfb

I GOT THE LOOT, STEVE!

⬐ narrator

I went out and saw Pirates of Silicon Valley after Bill Gates said in his Reddit IAMA that his portrayal was more or less accurate.

⬐ dirkgently

If we wait long enough, we will also find out that Steve Jobs invented practically everything around us - the bits, the bytes, the electricity, atoms and molecules. Hack, he was the first fish out of the water that gave raise to the man kind millions of years later.

All Hail the King Jobs.

⬐ saraid216

> Hack

1) I like this typo.

2) I can't imagine how you made it. Dvorak keyboard?

⬐ orblivion

A is in the same position, Dvorak or qwerty.

⬐ Draco6slayer

Tha a is raelly closa to tha e on tha dvorek kayboerd, end it mekas for e mora common misteka. ;)

⬐ KC8ZKF

Two bucks says #2 was auto-correct. Hack is a proper English word, heck is not.

⬐ Dewie

Maybe popular history will remember him as the Thomas Edison of computers.

⬐ spiritplumber

I'd be okay with this. So, who is the Nikola Tesla of computers?

⬐ alayne

J.C.R. Licklider is an interesting character in computer development history, particularly for his involvement in the development of timesharing, networks, and personal computing.

⬐ oscargrouch

Alan Turing? Von Neumann?

The minds from the beginning of the century XX were the best.. even about computing.. invent things from virtually nothing is pretty hard

⬐ paul_f

Alan Kay

⬐ 6d0debc071

Douglas Engelbart? He made a great many of the underlying ideas we use for using computers. Ironically he only seems to get remembered for the mouse.

The mother of all demos: http://youtu.be/JfIgzSoTMOs

Is well worth watching for a historical perspective if you haven't seen it already.

⬐ hkmurakami

he did invent the personal computer right? ... right?

;)

⬐ jacquesm

sorry.

http://www.murple.net/gallery/v/what/informationage/img_0030...

⬐ subdane

I love Woz's honesty. I actually think the issues he brings up would have made for a better film - because they illuminate all the ways Jobs failed early in his career... and ultimately learned from his failures to realize the success of his later iYears. Real conflict and real resolution. But that's a different film, it sounds like. (The one I wish they'd made).

⬐ juandopazo

For comparison here's what he had to say about "Pirates of Silicon Valley" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lx9JsSTklI

⬐ sethbannon

Every time I see a Woz interview I'm struck by what a genuinely good guy he seems to be.

⬐ welly

Agreed. He doesn't have any pretensions and he does seem absolutely genuine.

⬐ JacobSkyler

I love that he can talk so comfortably about the strengths and weaknesses of himself and others.

A lot of people are uncomfortable talking plainly about their own importance or about other people's failings. And then you get the odd megalomaniac who's the opposite. It's refreshing to see someone who's comfortable talking about people honestly.

⬐ jared314

People had similar things to say about The Social Network. It was wrong about history, but it was also a good movie on its own. We will see if "Jobs", as a movie, can stand on its own.

⬐ shubb

But a movie isn't just a movie. Every movie has a narrative that makes a point, and that makes it valuable.

If what we are hoping to learn from 'Jobs' or The Social Network is "How did this guy do it? What personal qualities can I emulate, what situations can I apply the same approach in", then it is only valuable if it is accurate.

After all, if the narrative is something the writer more or less made up (i.e. he's missed out the bit where Jobs goes into the wilderness and comes back another person), then what the movie teaches us is coming from the writers head. The writer didn't build a leading company, so I am not really interested in what he thinks about how to do it.

⬐ omaranto

What makes a movie valuable is the "point" it's trying to make? You sound like my brother, who used to see me reading novels and say "What's the point of reading that? You do know the stuff in that book didn't actually happen, right?". :)

⬐ n09n

Not everyone wants that out of movies. Some of us are happy to leave the theater thinking "well, that was an entertaining way to spend two hours".

⬐ bennyg

That's not the writer's intention though - that's what you want the intention to be. And that's not really fair. The point is probably an entertaining biopic aimed at mass-market success, not a how-to on building a successful company.

⬐ FaceKicker

For what it's worth, The Social Network as a movie was very well-received by critics [1]. Jobs, not so much [2].

[1] http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the-social-network/

[2] http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/jobs/

⬐ kazagistar

Holy shit, "not so much" is putting it really lightly.

⬐ baby

The trailer for the social network was amazing and people were anticipating the movie.

I don't think anyone wanted to watch Jobs after seeing the trailer.

⬐ dsuth

Often, anticipation is what ruins a movie. All of the best movies I've seen (The Matrix, Fifth Element spring to mind) had such obtuse trailers that I had no idea what was going on before I got in there.

⬐ baby

yup. But I'm more talking about judging a movie from its Trailer. I can often have a good intuition about the movie just from the Trailer.

⬐ rch

Link needs a [video] warning or something.

⬐ ams6110

Yeah this is a good idea. Just like the [pdf] indicator. I generally don't watch video pieces and get mildly annoyed when there's no other clue.

⬐ timkeller

A wasted opportunity to properly interview a great man. There are a few people that you interview with reverence: Woz is one of them.

⬐ MikeCapone

Personally, I think 'reverence' makes interviews worse, not better.

⬐ esusatyo

What is wrong with the interviewer? Towards the end she kept pushing Woz to say that Apple is in decline. Even after Woz repeatedly said that he didn't believe so.

Is this the view of the general public? That Apple is doomed if they don't release iWatch or whatever that's bigger than the iPhone/iPad?

⬐ julespitt

Not the general public, but I listen to Bloomberg financial radio a lot, and know-nothing finance types definitely believe that Apple needs another product - any product - immediately.

On the other side, different analysts say both the watch market and the TV market are too small to matter, so Apple is also doomed if they do. That the MP3 player, smartphone and tablet markets were also "too small" before Apple released their products hasn't entered their mind.

⬐ baby

how is the watch market "too small"? Everybody owns a watch. Also if you go out, you'll always see plenty of watch stores, and watch advertisements.

⬐ vidarh

Firstly, I see fewer people with watches these days, as a watch is basically a fashion statement these days.

Secondly, the portion of that market that buy "techie" phones as opposed to what's effectively a variation of a bracelet is vanishingly small, so the size of the overall watch market is irrelevant.

⬐ k-mcgrady

Was this movie meant to be a documentary? I was under the impression it was supposed to be more like The Social Network. Some facts but mainly just entertainment.

The Social Network may not be factually accurate but I enjoyed it and watched it again. I'm guessing this will be similar.

⬐ dirkgently

If it was mainly for entertainment, they should have called it Blow Jobs, you know. It would have been true to their intent (entertainment), and more accurate to the content of the movie.

⬐ k-mcgrady

If you want the facts read Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs.

>> "It would have been true to their intent (entertainment)"

OF COURSE their intent is entertainment! It's a movie!

⬐ hrktb

Or not as it seems. Walter Isaacson was heavily criticized as being way too light and inaccurate (disclaimer: didn't read). 'Infinite loop' seems a better entry point.

⬐ dsuth

Yeah, the Isaacson book is almost unreadable. Obviously rushed to coincide as closely as possible with his death, and just not a good book by any standard. The lack of even cursory editing is telling.

⬐ dirkgently

True. It's a good excuse, but still doesn't fly in my books. I do understand that fact based movies need to introduce some drama that requires some nips here and some tucks there, but not to the extent that Wozniak has claimed.

And he being there in person has some weight to what he says.

Jobs worship was already out of control during his second stint, with success of iproducts, but to revise the history to such an extent that it takes credit away from pretty much everybody who worked towards making Apple a successful company is not entertainment.

⬐ CamperBob2

Please don't link directly to auto-playing video pages. At least not until browser vendors get their acts together and indicate which tabs are generating sound. (No, I'm not interested in a long list of excuses as to why that's hard to do.)

⬐ dubcanada

Upgrade to chrome canary. It has that feature.

And what does that have to do with linking to a auto playing video? Do you automatically switch tabs after loading it and then get confused which tab has your video?

⬐ CamperBob2

Upgrade to chrome canary. It has that feature.

Yeah, I've been meaning to try that Chrome feature out. I'm still on FF22 at the moment.

Do you automatically switch tabs after loading it and then get confused which tab has your video?

Typically I'll middle-click links to open them in separate tabs without switching to them, then read the tabs later when I have time, sometimes even the next day. So I end up faced with a row of dozens of tabs, one of which is making unsolicited racket.

⬐ wepple

Middle-click.

A poignant reminder that sometimes effort put into learning that new language/framework/methodology should be redirect into "what really basic web-browsing techniques have I managed to miss all these years"

⬐ baby

You can also ctrl+click if you're on a laptop, or use the "DblClicker" plugin on Firefox ;)

(also some laptop allows you to define middle click as triple finger clicking on the trackpad)

⬐ christianmann

The solution I employ is Click2Plugin, native to Chrome and an extension to Firefox (and Safari?). I have it enabled on everything but Youtube.

⬐ tyilo

If it worked in Chrome, that is.

⬐ Renaud

There is an option for click-to-play in Chrome privacy settings, no need for a separate plugin, it's already baked in.

⬐ npguy

The movie kind of confirms the fact that steve jobs actually lived for 150 years.

http://fakevalley.com/steve-jobs-actually-lived-for-150-year...

⬐ purephase

Anyone else think that all this negative press is on purpose? I mean, really. They've taken one of the most iconic men of this nascent century and apparently slapped together a movie about him.

It's not like there is not considerable source material to work with (even without Isaacson's book if you're concerned about the "other" movie).

It just feels like someone has asked the press to deliberately drum up negative opinions specifically in regards to the true validity of the movie (not, you know, overall quality) and it will likely drive people out in droves.

⬐ gsands

She lets him talk more than most interviewers I've seen. Which is great because I could listen to a guy like Woz talk all day.

⬐ zw123456

I know this is going to sound petty, but I just think Ashton Kutcher was a bad choice. He is too dumb to play Jobs. I would go for someone with more intellect, perhaps Daniel Day-Lewis, somebody edgey, Peter Fonda, Duston Hoffman, I dunno, it is not that I do not like Kutcher, it just seems like he is too dumb to play Jobs. Is it just me?

⬐ saalweachter

It's called "acting". If you can only pretend to be who you actually are, you are not really an "actor".

⬐ dchuk

Kutcher is actually a smart guy he just got typecasted as an idiot character for most of his career

⬐ evli

I feel sorry for woz. The interviewer seems she had no clue what she was talking about.

⬐ jamesjguthrie

I still really want to see it. I've just watched all the Steve Jobs documentaries on Netflix and I love Pirates of Silicon Valley.

Can't find details of when or if it's coming to the UK...

⬐ waylonrobert

Not really surprised by the inaccuracies. Memories fade over time and are often replaced my an amalgamation of memory fragments and what makes sense.

⬐ taigeair

Damn. Wozniak should be a movie critic. I'd watch.

⬐ msh

is anyone surprised?

⬐ npsimons

Some would argue that one of the biggest things wrong is that this movie exists at all, and there's not one for people who had a much bigger influence on the world:

On the one hand, I can imagine where the computing world would be without the work that Jobs did and the people he inspired: probably a bit less shiny, a bit more beige, a bit more square. Deep inside, though, our devices would still work the same way and do the same things. On the other hand, I literally can't imagine where the computing world would be without the work that Ritchie did and the people he inspired. By the mid 80s, Ritchie's influence had taken over, and even back then very little remained of the pre-Ritchie world.

Taken from https://plus.google.com/112218872649456413744/posts/dfydM2Cn...

⬐ mwfunk

That's just geek one-upsmanship, it's not commentary. Geek A says that he really admires Geek Icon A. Geek B denigrates Geek A by telling him that Geek Icon A didn't really do anything, that he was just standing on the shoulders of the slightly more obscure but infinitely more talented Geek Icon B. This makes Geek B sound smart and informed, or at least it it makes Geek B feel smart and informed and better the Geek A.

Geek C comes along and tells Geek B that he's clueless, because Geek Icon B was just a poseur who spent his career harvesting the intellectual fields that had been plowed and sown by the even more obscure Geek Icon C. And so on, ad infinitum.

I halfway expect someone else to stumble on that thread and inform the author that he's an idiot because he doesn't realize that Dennis Ritchie is no more than a pimple on John McCarthy's back (not my opinion, just the sort of binary thinking and argumentation that I've observed in these types of threads).

It's also an example of geek self-importance: the idea that the only thing that matters is writing code. It reduces the value of anyone involved in the creation of a piece of hardware or software who wasn't writing code or soldering stuff to nil. People say this stuff to feel better about themselves at the expense of other people that they feel get too much credit. There's some truth to it, of course, but it's rarely expressed as a gray area. It usually comes in the form of, "hey, you know that guy who everyone thinks did everything? Really, he did NOTHING! Nothing at all. This other guy that most people never heard of did EVERYTHING." Which is just as intellectually dishonest as the idea that the first guy did everything.

⬐ None

None

⬐ None

None

⬐ cruise02

There should be an update in a few weeks that fixes all the problems with the film.

⬐ racl101

The only good thing about 'Jobs' is to highlight what a wonderful movie Pirates of Silicon Valley was.

⬐ Uchikoma

Can we stop this Wozniak worshiping every time there is a link to something this guy said?

⬐ Uchikoma

-2? Wozniak worshippers, you can do better in punishing an heretic!

⬐ rickdale

I have the understanding that this movie was made in Hollywood, and therefore, Steve Wozniak complaining about the accuracy of the movie is irrelevant. Steve's main point is that the movie doesn't accurately portray Jobs in the early days and that he evolved into the character Ashton Kutcher plays. It's Hollywood, and its different perspectives. I think usually movies are 'based on a true story' not exactly a true story.

Woz has his own fame, so I don't see this as a jealous rant, but I do see it as a guy waving his arms screaming to the public "HEY HEY, I AM STILL HERE! PAY ATTENTION TO ME!"

EDIT ---- Yeah down vote me, my bet is you didn't watch the whole video.

⬐ mung

I don't really fits in with everything we seem to know about Woz.

Personally I'm not impressed with the way Hollywood changes history, especially recent history. For many, Hollywood's version becomes the official version.

PS, I can't downvote and seriously dislike drive-by downvoters. Or people that downvote because they disagree. Or most downvoting in general really...

⬐ talmir

"but I do see it as a guy waving his arms screaming to the public "HEY HEY, I AM STILL HERE! PAY ATTENTION TO ME!""

I bet ya dollars to doughnuts that Woz did not contact the media first. His phone probably didnt stop for days with media ringing him up trying to goad something out of him.

⬐ MBCook

The woman doing the interview really seems to do a poor job.

She seems to let Wozniak get about 80-90% into statements and then speedily talk over him to move onto the next point. It doesn't sound like she's actually listening to his answers, just going down her checklist. At one point he explains why he liked Sorkin's approach better than Kutcher's, then she asked a later question as if he had never said that.

It's kind of sad. Woz mentioned numerous times that the problem was showing the pre-firing Jobs behaving and being treated more like he was after having matured, but the interviewer just didn't get it.

She also asked quite a few questions designed in a "X vs. Y, choose now!" style, trying to get a soundbite or setup a narrative (Woz wisely wouldn't fall for it). Between that and the interrupting, it was actually kind of hard to listen to.

Missed opportunities, I guess.

⬐ coherentpony

>The woman doing the interview really seems to do a poor job. She seems to let Wozniak get about 80-90% into statements and then speedily talk over him to move onto the next point.

This is a property of American media. When people start talking over each other, I stop watching. I can't take it.

Conversations and interviews are like a game. Each person makes their turn; the next person only gets to go when the current player finishes their turn.

The British media is a little better at this, and I'm talking mainly about BBC News, but it's still not perfect. In fact, you can see the mockery of this in The Colbert Report. Stephen Colbert frequently talks over his interviewees; it's part of his character and it hits the nail right on the head.

⬐ gizzlon

Agree, but sometimes it necessary to cut people off. For example when people just keep talking or when politicians refuse to answer the actual question.

⬐ dizzystar

I was expecting an utter disaster, but I don't really agree she did this. Woz is always a great interview subject, but he tends to ramble and go into odd-ball directions. I'm not an interviewing expert, but I can't imagine it is easy to steer an interview with someone like Woz.

She did better than I would have. I'd probably be interviewing for 30 minutes, end up with almost no good TV points, and have something that would need to be edited down to 3 minutes.

⬐ MBCook

I think you're right about interviewing Woz. I've seen interviews with him before and I'm sure he's a challenge.

> She did better than I would have. I'd probably be interviewing for 30 minutes, end up with almost no good TV points, and have something that would need to be edited down to 3 minutes.

Maybe that's the problem. Maybe Woz just isn't someone who can really be interviewed well in a short segment on live TV. If they had taped it they could have edited down his answers or organized it better. Maybe she just had a really difficult job to do on this one.

⬐ bredren

If you think this was rough, watch her attempt to interview PG: http://www.bloomberg.com/video/71010068-y-combinator-founder...

⬐ nashequilibrium

Thanks, i have never seen this interview and i watch bwest clips often.

⬐ MBCook

First, I never realized I had no idea what PG looked like.

Bub wow are you right. She is really pushing a possible story with each question. It's interesting she seem to be getting facts wrong. She isn't stepping over PG though, so that's obvious just trying to keep Woz on topic.

The guy who joins in (wasn't watching at the moment, so I missed his name), he sounds like he's genuinely interested in what PG is saying. He's not as polished, but he's doing a better job.

Edit: Just finished watching it. The other gentleman is Cory Johnson, and he's a very good interviewer. He continued to outside Emily Chang throughout the video, asking insightful questions in response to what PG said.

⬐ phaus

I haven't seen the movie, but wasn't Jobs' personality pretty much the same throughout his life?

I've read a few different articles where they claimed that when he worked at Atari, they created a shift just for him because no one could stand to work around him. Supposedly it was because he was an unwashed hippie, but I'm inclined to think that Atari's entire staff was made up of unwashed hippies during this time period, so it must have been his personality.

⬐ snowwrestler

No one's personality is the same throughout their life. As we each experience new things, we change to take them into account.

In this case, Woz is saying that the movie portrays Jobs as being a lot more focused, capable, and charismatic than he actually was as a young man. Letting the present color our view of the past is an easy story-telling trap to fall into.

⬐ SurfScore

He matured as he got older, as Woz said. Getting forced out of Apple was a pretty humbling experience. His time at NeXT and Pixar helped as well. And just plain getting older...

⬐ wusher

I completely agree. I felt she wanted a certain answer to some of the questions. When it became clear that he wasn't going to give her that answer, she would cut him off and ask another question. I felt she was rude, but also indicative of the current mainstream media.

⬐ guidopallemans

I didn't have that feeling at all. At times (one of the first questions - How did Ashton do it as an actor?), he just keeps telling about how Steve Jobs was different before he got away, and the interviewer did a good job trying to steer the interview in the direction of the questions.

If she was indeed like you said she was, she'd push on through the "no comment" on the question about the movie Woz's making, or the question "Should we see the movie?", or...

⬐ jmomo

This is just the way Bloomberg does it's interviews: breathless high-anxiety no-thinking-allowed Q&A SECTOR SPIDER TIME FOR AN ALTERNATIVE GET YOUR BLOOMBERG RADIO APP FREE FOR ANDROID AND IPHONE COMMERCIALS in between paid-shills for various financial products.

⬐ asgard1024

True, but the interview was still very interesting, I enjoyed it.

⬐ jkuria

I completely agree and I had to come back here to express my disgust. She is really irritating me the way she cuts him off with comments that show she isn't listening (or she is too stupid to understand what he is saying). Example: He says Steve Jobs initially was visionary but not good at executing. But when he came back he had improved at execution and had the maturity to run things. She retorts "was he visionary?"

She also talks down at him and acts like she is more important than him.

⬐ patcon

Specifically came into the comments to say the same thing. She dripped insincerity.

⬐ nooron

It made me uncomfortable to watch.

⬐ RockyMcNuts

well, if you think this is bad, don't turn on CNBC, or Fox.

⬐ onli

Absolutely disagree. In my opinion, she does a good job in guiding Wozniak through the interview while still being respectful. Yes, it is obvious that she wanted to have some specific questions answered, but that is nothing bad, it prevents people from rambling and makes the interview interesting. And it wasn't my impression that she interrupted mid-sentence or even just often.

How do you come to the conclusion that she doesn't get his point? Didn't she even react to that with the "is he too visionary in the movie" question line?

⬐ 6d0debc071

She talked too long to try to narrow him down certain pathways, there are points where she asks something and then goes on while he's trying to answer. Wanted to have a very different discussion to the one he wanted to have I think.

There are certainly points where he was running on a bit, but it wasn't a good conversation. Very clash of personalities rather than giving someone a topic to talk about and moving on when they've said what they have to say.

Part of that's probably that she just seemed to have a list of fairly specific questions she wanted to run through - which is a terrible way to talk to anyone, especially if you've not done your research into how they like to talk and what they're going to want to talk about properly.

⬐ MBCook

Woz definitely need to be guided, there were some times it was appropriate. He's clearly the kind of person who could talk about any question for 15 minutes. I've seen interviewers do a good job without sounding rushed and forced, that was what grabbed me. I hear interviews on The Daily Show, NPR, local talk shows, even entertainment shows where the host was part of the interview. Where they worked with the subject. I have heard some very hostile interviews with people in politics where the host is clearly pissed at the question dodging and double talk. But they have some sort of respect for the person they're talking to, they at least sound like they are trying to talk to the person. This sounded hollow, like she was just trying to get through it so she could get on to the next segment... just routine 'interview X for 5 minutes'. She knew who he was, and it's not like she was hostile.

> How do you come to the conclusion that she doesn't get his point?

Maybe she did. But it didn't seem to influence the questions she asked. I felt like they could have taped both sides of the interview separately and then just spliced it together. There were almost no follow-up questions, it sounded like she could have ended every part with "Thank you, next question." She asked him some base question and he explained the difference between Sorkin's and Kutcher's approaches. Ten minutes later she asked that very question, without even acknowledging that she already had the answer. Instead of "You touched on the difference in Sorkin's style, could you tell us more..." it was "I hear your working with Sorkin. How did that compare." It gave the impression she wasn't really paying attention to her own interview.

My impression was the whole thing was set out before it started. She had her angle, and she just kept trying to get there. To get him to trash someone, to say the movie was a travesty, to bait him with "is Apple doomed?" again, or to just finish it up and get onto the next segment. No engagement, no feeling, no heart... just hollowness and a missed opportunity.