5 ms·

Where’s Steve?

26 points by naish 18y ago

DenisM 18y ago
If it's real AAPL will tank when news breaks out officially. Then again the article author maybe playing for just such an effect. Who knows?
- froo 18y ago
  As with most things I read on the net now, I consider it internet gossip until there is confirmation from someone who is an actual authority on the matter. For all we know (assuming the story is true), Steve has just unplugged to take some time to recover. I know first hand how quickly internet gossip can get out of hand. Last year I wrote a blatantly untrue story on a blog I ran during October - it was a message directed at MTV employees who I knew read the blog on an almost hourly basis (I worked this out from grepping the logs and cross referencing that with MTVNE ip ranges). Within less than a day, this blog post had gone from rumour http://www.bestactever.com/2008/10/28/rick-to-perform-at-emas-hell-yeah/ http://www.bestactever.com/2008/10/28/rick-to-perform-at-ema... To being reported on an MTV owned blog http://www.bestweekever.tv/2008/10/28/while-you-were-changing-your-name-to-lady-caca/ http://www.bestweekever.tv/2008/10/28/while-you-were-changin... To frontpage news on both Yahoo UK and cnet (I only have a screenshot of the Yahoo site) and it was the top story on Yahoo's site for more than 16 hours. http://files.marklancaster.org/images/yahoo-page.jpg http://files.marklancaster.org/images/yahoo-page.jpg Moral of the story - don't believe everything you read on the net.
  - DenisM 18y ago
    That was an awesome hack. What moved you to do this?
    - deleted 18y ago
      [deleted]
    - froo 18y ago
      To see if it was possible, which apparently it is.
rms 18y ago
Spending time with his family.
sqs 18y ago
I understand Apple investors wanting to know more about his condition. If they want to pursue that, I think they're justified. But there's a big difference between spreading gossip and exercising one's shareholder rights. Yes, Steve Jobs gave up his expectation of the level of privacy you or I enjoy when he became the CEO of a massively successful, publicly traded company. But that doesn't mean that it's right to violate his privacy. If you are an Apple shareholder trying to exercise your rights, that's fine. But 99% of the stuff written about Jobs' condition feels intrusive, and I would feel uncomfortable writing it myself.
bsaunder 18y ago
Maybe he was getting harassed and created a new stealth id?
- herval 18y ago
  Like Dan Lyons? That would be cool!
jballanc 18y ago
You know what? I stopped using chat a while back too...and the drop off was sudden enough that a few of my friends called to check in on me and see if everything was ok. You know why I stopped using chat? Because I was busy, and chat is a distraction. Why all the fucking conspiracy theories? Honestly...the horse is dead already...
- RK 18y ago
  I just started a related experiment: I disabled SMS on my phone. We'll see what happens.
  - unalone 18y ago
    How do you disable SMS? I've wanted to do this for a while.
    - RK 18y ago
      I'm currently using T-mobile and was able to disable SMS from my account settings on the T-mobile website (My account -> Change services). I'd bet there's a similar feature from other carriers, mostly for parents to limit their kids' phones...
froo 18y ago
Oh look, yet another article commenting on a public figure's health. Didn't people in general get sick of these when Britney Spears was going through her mental breakdown? All we need is someone like iJustine to do a Chris Crocker ripoff with "Leave Steve Alone!" Seriously, the man is sick... respect his goddamn privacy. It's becoming pathetic now.
CalmQuiet 18y ago
Something about this Cringely post leaves me rather nauseous. Oh, the drama building up over Bob's "grafs"... and thanks to all the "insider info" about Steve's personal chat status... leading into the gradual decay (as Bob paints it) of Steve's ability to use his computer. And then it's followed by Bob's boilerplate "listen to this post in Bob's sexy, sexy voice." With friends like this, anyone would do well to become a "control freak."
defunkt 18y ago
Steve came online each day and remained there for hours and hours as you’d expect a Silicon Valley mogul to do I'd expect a Silicon Valley mogul to be on iChat very rarely.
donniefitz2 18y ago
Maybe Steve is on a walkabout, traveling the country by foot, meditating.
davidw 18y ago
People don't seem to like something about this article, and I can see that - it's not fun to speculate about someone's health when there's a potentially serious illness involved. But let's turn this around: how would you cover it? There are billions of dollars riding on Jobs' health, and any news about it.
- davidw 18y ago
  It's a serious question. His health affects a lot of people, from Apple employees to stockholders, so, like Cringely argues, it is important to more than just him. On the other hand, it's no fun to talk about someone's health. How do you think journalists ought to balance those conflicts? No coverage at all means rumors are all people have to go on, and when that much money is at stake, act on them they will. Or, as froo mentions above, it's easy to start them - even more so when there is no official news. And with that much money at stake... you get the point. Also... markets are a fantastic way of organizing things - by letting thousands of people collaborate to create and distribute stuff, they are undoubtedly the best way of organizing an economy. However, that impersonal nature (everyone acting in their own self interest, and in many cases, not even knowing one another), occasionally shows itself, as in this case. As kind humans, our instincts would be to leave the guy alone and wish him well. However, many people have a rational self-interest in knowing about Jobs' health, or, in the case of journalists who are information producers/gatherers, to obtain information that their competition does not have.
- Tichy 18y ago
  It's not speculating about Steve's health that made me dislike the article, but the way it was done. I think it really was about "look here, I have a friend who chats with Steve", and not about caring for the AAPL investors. Those were just lame excuses for gossiping (my impression anyway).
  - davidw 18y ago
    I agree that it's kind of an ugly article. However, all articles about Steve's health, bar a hypothetical one saying he's completely fine and over whatever he has, are going to be a bit distasteful. So the question was - how should Apple, Steve, and various and sundry journalists approach the issue? It's not an easy question.
Tichy 18y ago
That post made me cringe. It felt like he delighted in having a tiny snippet of gossip and made up excuses to announce it big. Eeew.

26 points by naish 18y ago

If it's real AAPL will tank when news breaks out officially. Then again the article author maybe playing for just such an effect. Who knows?

froo 18y ago
As with most things I read on the net now, I consider it internet gossip until there is confirmation from someone who is an actual authority on the matter. For all we know (assuming the story is true), Steve has just unplugged to take some time to recover. I know first hand how quickly internet gossip can get out of hand. Last year I wrote a blatantly untrue story on a blog I ran during October - it was a message directed at MTV employees who I knew read the blog on an almost hourly basis (I worked this out from grepping the logs and cross referencing that with MTVNE ip ranges). Within less than a day, this blog post had gone from rumour http://www.bestactever.com/2008/10/28/rick-to-perform-at-emas-hell-yeah/ http://www.bestactever.com/2008/10/28/rick-to-perform-at-ema... To being reported on an MTV owned blog http://www.bestweekever.tv/2008/10/28/while-you-were-changing-your-name-to-lady-caca/ http://www.bestweekever.tv/2008/10/28/while-you-were-changin... To frontpage news on both Yahoo UK and cnet (I only have a screenshot of the Yahoo site) and it was the top story on Yahoo's site for more than 16 hours. http://files.marklancaster.org/images/yahoo-page.jpg http://files.marklancaster.org/images/yahoo-page.jpg Moral of the story - don't believe everything you read on the net.
- DenisM 18y ago
  That was an awesome hack. What moved you to do this?
  - deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
  - froo 18y ago
    To see if it was possible, which apparently it is.

rms 18y ago

Spending time with his family.

sqs 18y ago

I understand Apple investors wanting to know more about his condition. If they want to pursue that, I think they're justified. But there's a big difference between spreading gossip and exercising one's shareholder rights. Yes, Steve Jobs gave up his expectation of the level of privacy you or I enjoy when he became the CEO of a massively successful, publicly traded company. But that doesn't mean that it's right to violate his privacy. If you are an Apple shareholder trying to exercise your rights, that's fine. But 99% of the stuff written about Jobs' condition feels intrusive, and I would feel uncomfortable writing it myself.

bsaunder 18y ago

Maybe he was getting harassed and created a new stealth id?

herval 18y ago
Like Dan Lyons? That would be cool!

jballanc 18y ago

You know what? I stopped using chat a while back too...and the drop off was sudden enough that a few of my friends called to check in on me and see if everything was ok. You know why I stopped using chat? Because I was busy, and chat is a distraction. Why all the fucking conspiracy theories? Honestly...the horse is dead already...

RK 18y ago
I just started a related experiment: I disabled SMS on my phone. We'll see what happens.
- unalone 18y ago
  How do you disable SMS? I've wanted to do this for a while.
  - RK 18y ago
    I'm currently using T-mobile and was able to disable SMS from my account settings on the T-mobile website (My account -> Change services). I'd bet there's a similar feature from other carriers, mostly for parents to limit their kids' phones...

froo 18y ago

Oh look, yet another article commenting on a public figure's health. Didn't people in general get sick of these when Britney Spears was going through her mental breakdown? All we need is someone like iJustine to do a Chris Crocker ripoff with "Leave Steve Alone!" Seriously, the man is sick... respect his goddamn privacy. It's becoming pathetic now.

CalmQuiet 18y ago

Something about this Cringely post leaves me rather nauseous. Oh, the drama building up over Bob's "grafs"... and thanks to all the "insider info" about Steve's personal chat status... leading into the gradual decay (as Bob paints it) of Steve's ability to use his computer. And then it's followed by Bob's boilerplate "listen to this post in Bob's sexy, sexy voice." With friends like this, anyone would do well to become a "control freak."

defunkt 18y ago

Steve came online each day and remained there for hours and hours as you’d expect a Silicon Valley mogul to do I'd expect a Silicon Valley mogul to be on iChat very rarely.

donniefitz2 18y ago

Maybe Steve is on a walkabout, traveling the country by foot, meditating.

davidw 18y ago

People don't seem to like something about this article, and I can see that - it's not fun to speculate about someone's health when there's a potentially serious illness involved. But let's turn this around: how would you cover it? There are billions of dollars riding on Jobs' health, and any news about it.

davidw 18y ago
It's a serious question. His health affects a lot of people, from Apple employees to stockholders, so, like Cringely argues, it is important to more than just him. On the other hand, it's no fun to talk about someone's health. How do you think journalists ought to balance those conflicts? No coverage at all means rumors are all people have to go on, and when that much money is at stake, act on them they will. Or, as froo mentions above, it's easy to start them - even more so when there is no official news. And with that much money at stake... you get the point. Also... markets are a fantastic way of organizing things - by letting thousands of people collaborate to create and distribute stuff, they are undoubtedly the best way of organizing an economy. However, that impersonal nature (everyone acting in their own self interest, and in many cases, not even knowing one another), occasionally shows itself, as in this case. As kind humans, our instincts would be to leave the guy alone and wish him well. However, many people have a rational self-interest in knowing about Jobs' health, or, in the case of journalists who are information producers/gatherers, to obtain information that their competition does not have.
Tichy 18y ago
It's not speculating about Steve's health that made me dislike the article, but the way it was done. I think it really was about "look here, I have a friend who chats with Steve", and not about caring for the AAPL investors. Those were just lame excuses for gossiping (my impression anyway).
- davidw 18y ago
  I agree that it's kind of an ugly article. However, all articles about Steve's health, bar a hypothetical one saying he's completely fine and over whatever he has, are going to be a bit distasteful. So the question was - how should Apple, Steve, and various and sundry journalists approach the issue? It's not an easy question.

Tichy 18y ago

That post made me cringe. It felt like he delighted in having a tiny snippet of gossip and made up excuses to announce it big. Eeew.