Oh man. Both love and hate this video. It’s so slick, which seems the opposite of the late 70s homebrew backer culture.
The video is designed to appeal to nerd nostalgia. However it has problems right from the start when it emphasizes Jobs not Woz (the true nerd hero), including a stylized ascii art.
According to the video, this item is exceptional because it’s fully operational. However paradoxically that’s because it’s never been used. The video praises the owner who bought it and stuck it in a closet, never turning it on. It implicitly puts down the actual users who actually used the machine (burning the paint) and especially those who tinkered with and modifying the machine.
As someone who grew up in the 80s hacking my Apple II+ doing everything from playing Lemonade Stand to building custom coprocessor boards, I salute those who actually used their Apple machines to the max, destroying the collector value.
Woz appears first, then Jobs shortly, then the Apple logo. Arguably Woz's face even appears slightly longer because there's a short pause whereas Jobs just flies by to the Apple logo.
Later there's both "Woz and Jobs holding Apple I".
The video description explicitly calls out "The Steve Wozniak-designed computer".
The by-name callouts in the video are:
- "hand-built by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak"
- "in Steve Job's mom's garage."
- Jobs acting as a salesman
I'm not really sure how Jobs is emphasised at all.
Fair enough! Guilty of that attitude, no doubt. I note the corrections in the message above re emphasis on Woz/Jobs.
I think mostly I was annoyed at the emphasis on how the computer is untouched and unused, which seemed the antithesis of the spirit of those early days.
Having said all that, I really felt an urge to bid, though no doubt it's 10x what I can afford.
I note that in some ways the pictures really contribute to the story. For example, see the story on Eeyore's tail missing. The clue is that the picture shows the tail hanging as a cord to ring the doorbell. The alt text conveys this nicely by saying:
In this drawing, Pooh is back outside Owl's front door, with Owl standing in the doorway. Pooh is looking at the bell-rope, which ends in a tuft of hair.
I'm not sure if this could truly be automated, as the description of the picture needs to fit the context of the story.
Holy moly. I don’t think I’ve ever read an article so angry. Every paragraph has a sensational opinion or put down posing as fact.
There’s some fascinating industry trends here but the analysis in the article is overwhelmed by the cacophony of anecdotes about b movies and bland tv shows all encouraged by the corrupt and evil parent company. Not helpful.
My take on the quality of shows— there’s a huge volume of mediocre stuff but that’s always been the case with TV. (There’s literally hundreds of forgotten sitcoms on broadcast tv from the 70s to 90s). But there have been many gems in the past decade.
A random list of fantastic or innovative shows I saw first on NetFlix.
- House of Cards, season 1 and 2
- Russian Doll
- Squid Game
- Queens Gambit
- Ballad of Buster Scruggs
- Arcane
- Kaos
Only the first was mentioned in the article, and with negative comment.
Overall, a poorly written article and a waste of time to read it.
Nice moment of nostalgia seeing that. The Chaos book was mind blowing to all of us young math / cs nerds at the end of the 80s.
Spent my Christmas break in college working with an artist coding Mandelbrot drawing routines on a IBM 286 machine. We’d print them out on a dot matrix printer and he’d incorporate them into elaborate collages.
Love too that the author is Rudy Rucker, science fiction writer.
Wow. that brings back memories. My favorite website from the early 90s. I used to rush to check it out after each new episode to see the commentary. Love that it still exists 30 years later. There's a lot to say for a simple style.
The video is designed to appeal to nerd nostalgia. However it has problems right from the start when it emphasizes Jobs not Woz (the true nerd hero), including a stylized ascii art.
According to the video, this item is exceptional because it’s fully operational. However paradoxically that’s because it’s never been used. The video praises the owner who bought it and stuck it in a closet, never turning it on. It implicitly puts down the actual users who actually used the machine (burning the paint) and especially those who tinkered with and modifying the machine.
As someone who grew up in the 80s hacking my Apple II+ doing everything from playing Lemonade Stand to building custom coprocessor boards, I salute those who actually used their Apple machines to the max, destroying the collector value.