Steve Jobs = NINJA!

[GeneChing]

You must click this link for the CGI reenactment vid.

Sep. 20 2010 - 7:18 pm
Steve Jobs: Badass CEO (Ninja or Not) (http://blogs.forbes.com/jasonturbow/2010/09/20/steve-jobs-badass-ceo-ninja-or-not/)
By JASON TURBOW

It’s not often that you get to use the N-word in conjunction with a billionaire.

As in, “Steve Jobs, ninja.”

But that’s what made the rounds last week, as reports surfaced out of Japan (started by Japanese magazine SPA!) that the Apple Inc. CEO (No. 42 on the Forbes 400) was busted attempting to carry throwing stars aboard his private plane at Osaka’s Kansai International Airport. He was returning home from a family vacation, and was indignant at the thought that he might be trying to hijack his own plane.

Of course, Apple Inc. had to come out and refute everything, because they clearly don’t understand that a good story—a viral story—need not have anything to do with actual facts.

Then again, reported Bloomberg, an airport spokesman did confirm that a private-jet passenger was indeed apprehended by security in late July for attempting to carry “shuriken”—Japanese for throwing stars—into the gate area. Because private and commercial passengers pass through the same checkpoint, Jobs the unnamed passenger was forced to discard the weaponry.

From Apple spokesman Steve Dowling: “Steve did visit Japan this summer for a vacation in Kyoto, but the incidents described at the airport are pure fiction. Steve had a great time and hopes to visit Japan again soon.”

For what it’s worth, Jobs can still use his iPhone to play Fruit Ninja, or download the Ask a Ninja podcast. Both are airport-security friendly, and approved right up until the time his airplane is prepared for takeoff.

Just in time for NinjaStar (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=55370)...;)

[GeneChing]

OCTOBER 5, 2011, 7:55 P.M. ET
Apple's Steve Jobs Is Dead (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304447804576410753210811910.html)
By YUKARI IWATANI KANE

Steven P. Jobs, the Apple Inc. chairman and co-founder who pioneered the personal computer industry and changed the way people think about technology, died Wednesday.

"Steve's brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives," Apple said in a statement. "The world is immeasurably better because of Steve."

His family, in a separate statement, said Mr. Jobs "died peacefully today surrounded by his family...We know many of you will mourn with us, and we ask that you respect our privacy during our time of grief."

... Being from the Silicon Valley, I met Woz several times, but never Jobs. One of his kids went to the same school mine did for a bit, but we never crossed paths.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Can't stand apple but man do I admire what he did, especially Pixar.
Pancreatic Cancer is horrific.
RIP dude, you've earned it.

[GeneChing]

Issue: "Steve Jobs 1955-2011" October 22, 2011 (http://www.worldmag.com/articles/18748)
A god of our age

Who was Steve Jobs? A revered technology pioneer and a relentless innovator, the Apple founder remained in many ways a mystery | Marvin Olasky

Rosebud.

Seventy years ago Orson Welles directed Citizen Kane, which critics still praise as the most innovative film ever. Welles modeled the main character, Kane, on a famous northern California magnate who revolutionized the media of his day, William Randolph Hearst.

"Rosebud" was Kane's dying declaration, and the narrative structure of the film emphasized the work of a reporter trying to figure out the meaning of that word and the meaning of Kane's life. Everyone he interviewed saw Kane through the prism of his own preoccupations. The reporter ended up much like the blind man feeling different parts of the elephant and thinking he's in the presence of a tree trunk, a snake—or something else.

When Steve Jobs died on Oct. 5, newspapers and airwaves (along with iPhones and iPads) were flush with accounts of the Apple founder's life and legacy—but each biographer seemed to recreate Jobs in the beholder's own image:

Those wanting a classic American success story described Jobs as the college dropout who co-created the first user-friendly computer and became a multimillionaire at age 25.

Those crafting a moral tale about never giving up wrote of how Jobs, booted from Apple at age 30, gained even greater financial and artistic success by propelling Pixar (Toy Story), regaining control of Apple, and making it not only one of the most valuable U.S. companies but perhaps the most loved.

Workaholics called him a workaholic who loved his work and said so: "Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. ... Like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on."

The Harvard Business Review called Jobs the "world's greatest philanthropist" even though he wasn't much of a donor: "What a loss to humanity it would have been if Jobs had dedicated the last 25 years of his life to figuring out how to give his billions away, instead of doing what he does best. We'd still be waiting for a cell phone on which we could actually read e-mail and surf the web. ... We'd be a decade or more away from the iPad, which has ushered in an era of reading electronically that promises to save a Sherwood Forest worth of trees and all of the energy associated with trucking them around."

Other writers focused on Jobs' personal life:

For adoption advocates he was an adoptee who made it big. His biological mom and dad placed him for adoption soon after his birth in 1955. "My parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: 'We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?' They said: 'Of course.'"

For parents with hyperactive children he was the child rushed to the emergency room after ingesting a bottle of ant poison, and the one who received a bad shock by sticking a bobby pin into a wall socket.

For those with children born out of wedlock he was a man who initially denied paternity and refused to pay child support for his first daughter Lisa, but eventually accepted her and helped her to become a New York writer.

Still other observers emphasized his style and beliefs:

To romantics he was the romantic who gave a lecture to a class of Stanford business students, noticed a good-looking woman in the front row, chatted her up, headed to his car, and ... "I was in the parking lot with the key in the car, and I thought to myself, 'If this is my last night on earth, would I rather spend it at a business meeting or with this woman?' I ran across the parking lot, asked her if she'd have dinner with me. She said yes, we walked into town, and we've been together ever since."

To marriage advocates he was the man who married that woman in a small ceremony at Yosemite National Park 20 years ago, and stayed married as they bore and raised three children.

To a neighbor writing in a Palo Alto paper, he was "a regular guy, a good dad having fun with his kids. The next time I met him was when our children attended school together. He sat in on back-to-school night listening to the teacher drone on about the value of education. ... I saw him at his son's high school graduation. There Steve stood, tears streaming down his cheeks, his smile wide and proud, as his son received his diploma."

To Buddhists and vegetarians he was a fellow-follower of the principles of minimalism, almost always appearing in public in a black turtleneck and worn jeans.

During the last year and a half of Jobs' life, some conservatives were not immune to the tendency to see him largely in connection with their own campaigns:

Jobs was a hero in June 2010 when he banned most pornography from his devices: One blogger called that decision antagonistic to freedom, but Jobs replied that he wanted "freedom from porn." Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council punned, "We're grateful that Jobs is trying to keep the iPad from becoming an eyesore."

He was a villain six months later, in December 2010, when Apple banned an app for the Manhattan Declaration that urged opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage. The National Organization for Marriage produced a 95-second video that depicted Jobs as the censorious "Big Brother" featured in Apple's famous 1984 ad.

So who was Steve Jobs? Reportedly, young Jobs was confirmed in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, but he spoke later of his desire to "make a dent in the universe"—and did not want God to make a dent in him. At the first Apple Halloween costume party, Jobs reportedly dressed up as Jesus. Was he attempting to be commercially omniscient—he said he knew what consumers wanted before they knew it—and omnipotent, making any product he produced a hit?

I see him also as wanting to be the outsider who would enter a town and tame it, like the classic Western hero. His Buddhist twist would have fit him well for the odd western TV series that hit the airwaves when Jobs was a teenager, Kung Fu, the story of a monk who travels through 19th-century western America and survives through spiritual training and martial arts skill.

But I may be as wrong as everyone else attempting to characterize an individual who cherished his privacy. Maybe the best approach is to get the words closest to "Rosebud" that Jobs ever uttered in public—his Stanford commencement speech in 2005, one year after his first encounter with cancer. On that day, whistling past the graveyard, he described death as "very likely the best invention of life. All pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure, these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important."

One problem, though, is that he never clarified to listeners what is truly important. He did tell the Stanford graduates, "Follow your heart. ... Don't be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people's thinking. ... Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition."

Did Jobs remain a rebel against his youthful Lutheranism and the belief that our hearts are fallen? Did he ever realize that the thinking of some wise people, and especially that of a wise God, would help? Did Jobs ever come to grips with even three of the questions God hurls at the biblical Job: "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Where is the way to the dwelling of light?"

If Jobs' devotees were waiting for a final revelation from him as he approached death, it doesn't seem that one came. Jobs was one of the gods of our age, conquering the computer world and fostering vehicles for new media in a way even grander than that of Citizen Kane/William Randolph Hearst. Through God's common grace Jobs' creations improved life. But he could not conquer death.

Left unfulfilled were not only those curious about what Jobs' Rosebud might be, but his biological father, Abdulfattah John Jandali, an 80-year-old Syrian immigrant who is now a casino vice-president in Reno, Nev.

Several weeks before Jobs' death, newspapers quoted Jandali saying he didn't know until just a few years ago that the baby he and his girlfriend placed for adoption a half-century before had become a famous billionaire. Jandali said he had not called his son for fear Jobs would think Jandali was after his fortune, but he hoped Jobs would call him someday: "I just live in hope that, before it is too late, he will reach out to me, because even to have just one coffee with him just once would make me a very happy man."

Apparently, that meeting never happened.
Is it too early to mention that Kung Fu Tai Chi is available for iPad (http://www.zinio.com/browse/publications/index.jsp?productId=500626248&categoryId=cat1970036) now? Thanks Steve. You may be our salvation into the 21st century.

[GeneChing]

I could have sworn we had one because I wanted to post this there. Maybe our search function ain't perfect. Maybe it was some other forum... :o


Foxconn China plant closed after 2,000 riot (http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/24/us-hon-hai-idUSBRE88N00L20120924)

http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120924&t=2&i=656344066&w=&fh=&fw=&ll=700&pl=300&r=CBRE88N0SQT00
Workers clean up glass shards from the broken windows of a security room near paramilitary police vehicles parked near an entrance of a Foxconn Tech-Industry Park in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, September 24, 2012. REUTERS-Stringer
Workers walk out of the entrance to a Foxconn factory in Chengdu, Sichuan province July 4, 2012. REUTERS-Stringer

By Maxim Duncan and Clare Jim
TAIYUAN, China/TAIPEI | Mon Sep 24, 2012 4:13pm EDT

(Reuters) - About 2,000 Chinese employees of an iPhone assembly company fought a pitched battle into the early hours of Monday, forcing the huge electronics plant where they work to be shut down.

Authorities in the northern city of Taiyuan sent 5,000 police to restore order after what the plant's Taiwanese owners Foxconn Technology Group said was a personal dispute in a dormitory that erupted into a mass brawl.

However, some employees and people posting messages online accused factory guards of provoking the trouble by beating up workers at the factory, which employs about 79,000 people and is owned by the world's largest contract maker of electronic goods.

"The plant is closed today for investigation," Foxconn spokesman Louis Woo told Reuters. It was not clear how long the plant would be shut while police and company officials investigate the violence, but an employee contacted by telephone said the closure could last two or three days.

Foxconn cited police as saying that 40 people were taken to hospital and a number were arrested, while the state-run Xinhua news agency reported three people were in serious condition.

The unrest is the latest in a string of incidents at plants run by Foxconn, the trading name of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co whose shares fell 1 percent on Monday in a broader market that rose 0.2 percent.

On Monday evening, paramilitary police with riot shields, helmets and batons guarded one entrance of the massive factory complex, while an announcement over loudspeakers said there had been a criminal incident the night before and urged people to respect the law.

The windows of at least three gates' guard posts had been smashed, piles of glass littering the ground around them, and the railings of some gates lie flat on the ground, having been bent over.

Foxconn, which assembles Apple's iPhones as well as making components for other global electronics firms, has faced accusations of poor conditions and mistreatment of workers at its operations in China, where it employs about 1 million people.

The company says it has been spending heavily in recent months to improve working conditions and to raise wages.

Foxconn said in a statement the incident escalated from what it called a personal dispute between several employees at around 11 p.m. on Sunday in the privately-managed dormitory, and was brought under control by police at around 3 a.m.

"The cause of this dispute is under investigation by local authorities and we are working closely with them in this process, but it appears not to have been work-related," Foxconn said. Hon Hai said about 2,000 workers were involved.

Comments posted online, however, suggested security guards may have been to blame. In a posting on the Chinese Twitter-like microblog site Sina Weibo, user "Jo-Liang" said that four or five security guards beat a worker almost to death.

"FRUSTRATION"

Another user, "Fan de Sa Hai", quoted a friend from Taiyuan as saying guards beat up two workers from Henan province and in response, other workers set bed quilts on fire and tossed them out of dormitory windows.

Xinhua quoted a senior official with the Taiyuan city government as saying investigators initially determined the fight broke out as workers from Shandong Province clashed with workers from Henan. The agency earlier quoted Taiyuan City's public security bureau as saying about 5,000 police had tackled the violence.

Calls to the Taiyuan police were not immediately answered, while an official at the plant declined to comment when reached by telephone.

"Clearly there is deep-seated frustration and anger among the employees and no outlet, apart from violence, for that frustration to be released," Geoff Crothall, communication director at China Labour Bulletin, a labour rights group in Hong Kong, said in a statement.

"There is no dialogue and no means of resolving disputes, no matter how minor. So it is not surprising when such disputes escalate into violence."

Foxconn does not confirm which of its plants supply Apple, but an employee told Reuters that the Taiyuan plant is among those that assemble and make parts for Apple's iPhone 5.

In June, about 100 workers went on a rampage at a Foxconn plant in Chengdu, in southwestern China.

[Syn7]

I would never want to work at a plant that makes me sleep there. FUKC THAT!!!

Who wants to bet they are waaay underpaid too. That's some slavery sh1t right there. Prolly can't even leave the grounds without permission. I wonder if they can even walk off for good and just quit with a huge FUKC YOU. Something tells me that would get you killed there.

Yaaay China! Can't wait till they own our resources too, shouldn't be long now.