“ Time sure does fly though, it’s crazy, do you realize a baby born on the day we did our first Tonight Show is now a slightly larger baby?
— Conan O’Brien
Steve Jobs Does Laundry
From The Steve Jobs On Magazine Covers Page that John Gruber linked to the other day I came across this February 1996 Wired interview with Steve Jobs. For some reason I love reading really old articles about technology to see how right or wrong they were about what actually happened. The interview is completely fascinating. Jobs was still at NeXT and the web was brand new. I started quoting the article but found I was quoting everything, so you should just go read it. But here’s a few interesting ones:
I’m an optimist in the sense that I believe humans are noble and honorable, and some of them are really smart. I have a very optimistic view of individuals. As individuals, people are inherently good. I have a somewhat more pessimistic view of people in groups.
On technology improving (or not improving) education:
Lincoln did not have a Web site at the log cabin where his parents home-schooled him, and he turned out pretty interesting.
This surprising bit about school vouchers:
It’s a political problem. The problems are sociopolitical. The problems are unions. You plot the growth of the NEA [National Education Association] and the dropping of SAT scores, and they’re inversely proportional. The problems are unions in the schools. The problem is bureaucracy. I’m one of these people who believes the best thing we could ever do is go to the full voucher system.
On toilet paper:
I like the ones without the tulips.
And then on the last page of the interview, a whole section about Jobs buying a washing machine and how amazing his European washing machine is. Such a very Jobs conversation, yet I can’t quite picture Steve Jobs doing laundry.
» Burn it down
As the writer, you need to burn down houses. You need to push characters out of their safe places into the big scary world — and make sure they can never get back. Sure, their stated quest might be to get home, but your job is to make sure that wherever they end up is a new and different place.
» SUCCEED Blog
“A collection of the world’s most epic, awesome, mind blowing Succeeds.” This is awesome. Succeed!
Dammit or Damnit?
OK, I’m not really asking. I think “dammit” is far superior to “damnit.” “Dammit” is phonetic and looks like it sounds. When I see “damnit” I always pronounce the “n” even though I know better. Yes, “dammit” is slang for “damn it” but when you glue them together into one word I strongly suggest “dammit.” I got to thinking about it when I saw John August use “damnit” in a recent post and thought it was a strange choice for a professional screenwriter. Maybe there’s something I don’t know?
(For what it’s worth, Merriam-Webster and American Heritage both have entries for “dammit” but I can’t find any dictionary with an entry for “damnit” so maybe it’s not a matter of style after all.)
