Jobs/Apple Speculation Frenzy

Some of the wild speculation surrounding the health of Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, has been shameful. He's a human being, and now that he's stepped aside as Apple CEO for a while, he deserves some level of privacy and respect. The speculation about Apple's future has also been rather bizarre, and I'll be discussing some of that in this rant.

The revival at Apple since Steve Jobs returned as CEO has been in large part due to his efforts, both direct and indirect. He's assembled a great team of talented people, for example: Jonathan Ive, Tim Cook and Phil Schiller. Obviously, having such an influential CEO stand aside will have an impact on Apple's day-to-day operations. But there are about 35,000 other employees who've had a hand in producing great products too.

Some may point to what happened to Apple after Jobs was ousted in 1985. There are several factors that need to be considered, however: Jobs went on to start NeXT Inc, "taking several Apple employees from the SuperMicro division with him" [Wikipedia]. Then-CEO John Sculley didn't waste time reorganising (de-Jobsing?) Apple. Other top Apple personnel also left around that time (notably chief Macintosh engineers Andy Hertzfeld and Burrell Smith). And in 1987, co-founder Steve Wozniak left Apple. Quite a brain-drain, I'd say.

The current situation is quite different. Jobs has stepped aside, but his hand-picked team remains in place. As has been noted recently, "although the co-founder has been critical to the company's resurgence, his spirit and drive have since been instilled in thousands of other Apple employees".

Perhaps a more appropriate guide is Pixar. Steve Jobs is no longer CEO of Pixar, yet WALL·E (released last year) did rather well. "It grossed $521 million worldwide, won the 2009 Best Animated Film Golden Globe Award and is nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Animated Feature" [Wikipedia]. After the acquisition of Pixar by Disney in 2006, most of Jobs' creative team has retained control.

In stark contrast, Microsoft's situation does seem to have greatly deteriorated since founder Bill Gates left the company. The past few years have been rather underwhelming for the company: Vista, Zune, Xbox 360's "red ring of death", SPOT, Windows Mobile, Origami/UMPC, PlaysForSure (to name a few problems, failures and missteps).

[Would you believe, another hot day in Adelaide. Today's maximum temperature was 41.1 degrees Celsius (106 degrees Fahrenheit)!]

Aussies = World Championship Whingers

We Aussies like to make a big deal about how well we do in the world sporting arena. Out media loves the line that we "punch above our weight".

Well, here's another world title Aussies, in particular our high-quality commercial media, can surely claim: World Championship Whingers!

As everyone is (or at least should be) aware, world oil prices have been at record highs lately. This is translating to record high prices at the petrol station. Of course, this is a bad thing for the average consumer and transport worker. But the way the media is bleating, it seems that the Australian government can actually do something about the problem. It's an easy way for them to show how much they're supporting the "Aussie battler".

But, in fact, they're just using this as a way to drum up patronage. They don't bother taking the time to explain the often complicated reasons for the price rise, as more serious media organisations attempt to do. For example:
"Who knows why oil prices are so high?" [BBC]

They also conveniently neglect to mention that Australians tend to pay less for petrol than many other industrialised nations:
Average gasoline prices around the world [Wikipedia]

For example (as at May 2008), Aussies pay on average US$1.48 per litre, while western Europeans pay between US$1.88 and US$2.74 per litre!

Given this is an Olympic year, I propose a new event: Whinging. The Australian media would surely give the Poms a run for their money in that category.

Anti-Smoking Ads and Packaging = Visual Pollution

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for programs to get smokers to kick their habit. But it's a shame that non-smokers are subjected to quite graphic anti-smoking advertisements while trying to relax in front of the TV.

If you haven't seen them, and have a morbid curiosity to view the ads, here's a link to the YouTube search results for "australian anti-smoking ads". Warning: the images of smoking-related disease are graphic.

Fortunately, a quick zap with the remote can remove the offending images.

But another form of visual pollution can be found by the side of many suburban streets: discarded cigarette packets. These not only contain written warnings such as "SMOKING CAUSES LUNG CANCER", but they also contain snaps from those disturbing TV ads. Aargh!

Perhaps we should impose a deposit scheme on cigarette packaging? It (mostly) works for soft drink bottles. The deposit should be big enough, say $1, to give smokers enough incentive to cash-in the empty packs. And if this is not enough to stop smokers from littering, then having a large enough bounty should encourage others to pick up and return the packs.

Channel Seven and One Nation, Sitting in a Tree

Are some people Channel Seven closet supporters of the One Nation Party? This morning Pauline Hanson had a sit-down interview on Channel Seven's Sunrise program to discuss her return to politics.

I'm probably making too much of this, but it was Channel Seven who bestowed upon Ms Hanson the label of "Star" when she participated in Dancing with the Stars. And another former One Nation honcho, David Oldfield, was declared a "Celebrity" when he took part in Celebrity Survivor.

How nice of Channel Seven to help raise the profile of former One Nation politicians in the quiet period leading up to next year's Federal Election.

ABC News item: Hanson to run as independent