TL;DR version
So what we're saying here is that Woz is the pretty artwork at the museum at the Fusion-IO gallery?
Fusion-IO rolled into Sydney this week, with CEO David Flynn and other execs duchessing media and customers with tales of super-fast flash speeding things up inside the data centre. All of which is useful knowledge for IT folks, even if it is far from a revelation to anyone who has paid even passing attention to solid state …
I'm not the biggest Apple or Woz fan - but I think we can all agree on this: What the f**k.
I mean really. Obviously the last thing you want to do is have your storage on a network. Oh wait, then your storage ceases to be useful.
Don't understand why F-IO needs the hard sell anyways - if you need it you'll have heard about it so why are they wasting money?
Woz is dare I say it EYE Candy for those easily convinced by the Apple BS history of the PC and Graphics PC. He is a good guy who spread around the wealth and sought to teach kids instead of feeding his ego until it finally exploded him like his self-centered fellow founder Jobs.
I hope this forgettable company FU-IO, which is unlikely to be long alive if they continue to waste marketing dollars on things like Woz shows is paying the great one wads of moolah so he live out his boyhood dream of life in the outback.
As near as I can tell both by review of his issued patents and other communications Woz has followed others lead into the disruptive general classes but has never actually been a leader of disruption himself. But, hey he isn't dead yet!
FFS Grow up, Woz is a legend, and now just someone to be a keynote speaker at the latest whatever it is gathering. Get over it. Your really believe that keynotes are at the SOA with a screw driver/rod and line or even a guide rope. They are keynotes..(the entertainment!)....move on nothing to see here
Fucking retire, already.
The entire flash & glam modern world isn't your cuppa. You are not a publicist. You never have been, you never will be.You have a pile of loot ... Retire to Bodega Bay, Tomales, or Marshal, just like you always wanted ... Works for me :-)
Why would you have people ignore him? He occasionally says things that aren't just the party line of a corporation (and is not overly convincing when he is repeating PR copy). Whether his ideas or reservations are right or wrong is irrelevant, since they can cause discussion. No one is jump off a metaphorical cliff at his say so, or buy kit without first doing their homework.
He also stands as an example as someone who is in the industry because he genuinely enjoys making and messing around with technology, rather than just for the money. Some people might think a happy man is a better role model than a rich man.
And what, pray tell has he actually done beyond running his mouth at opportune times in order to get the trade media's attention? Has he come up with any workable hardware or software? What has he done for us lately other than run off at the mouth? I can do that, for crying out loud, but who will pay attention to me? Are my pearls of wisdom any less valuable than his? Ignore me at your risk!
Apart from the success of the Apple II what actually has Woz done since?
P.S. I bought an Apple II
But I had to add a real display card, a real keyboard, and proper disk 8" drives to do any real work other than a spreadsheet.
We made a lot of money repairing the Aztec SMPSUs in ones under warranty for Dealers. I've sorted out HW & SW problems on other people's Macs, but never bought another Apple product.
All the best engineers hate complexity. Kelly Johnson of Lockheed famously postulated the KISS principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid!) to highlight that simplicity is something you should strive for in a design.
The simpler a system is, the better your chances of understanding how it works, the fewer things there are to go wrong with it and the less work you have to do to keep it running and functioning well. Complex systems tend to fall apart under their own weight.
Any remotely competent coder can solve a programming problem, but the really outstanding ones can solve it in far fewer lines of code.
It's true that these days he tends to serve more as a figurehead for the companies he works for, but attacking Woz for not liking complexity is simply ludicrous.
It is a measure of worth. Like double decker busses only for people. Like a blair is not worth a wank a very short one and a royal is worth two tits on a front page.
A duchess is like five double decker buses mounting each other. They don't get anywhere they haven't been born but they are big and red and impressive.
Actually, it's a term used in Australia to describe what the poms used to do to visiting Australian politicians.
You get them to do what YOU want, by wining, dining and generally impressing them with the the pomp and wealth of the mighty British Empire - then you knight them. Works like a charm with political hayseeds, and the poms are past masters of it.
Verb
duchess (third-person singular simple present duchesses, present participle duchessing, simple past and past participle duchessed)
(UK, informal) to court or curry favour for political or business advantage; to flatter obsequiously. [quotations ▲]
1956, John Thomas Lang, I Remember, page 64,
On arrival in England he was “duchessed” in a manner that no Australian Prime Minister has ever been “duchessed” before or since. Northcliffe was looking for someone around whom he could build a campaign against Asquith. Hughes filled the bill nicely.
cite. en.wiktionary.org.
He is loud, well known and slightly rotund.
So for distracting the public and hiding behind if a disgruntled employee starts shooting he is the obvious choice.
Although making him fly on the corporate jet everytime they go to the Andes, and giving him his own barbecue sauce hot tub, is a bit tasteless.