General Mayhem

[Lautakwah]

http://stars.ign.com/articles/111/1110726p1.html

holy shit.  can i has some.  i could use a couple million.  maybe this will get the star wars fanbois off his back....yeah prolly not. 

[oskibear]

Lucas and Buffet respond to Bill Gates charity plan.

*checks list*....

Nope Steve J. not on the list.  

John Stewart said it best:

"Microsoft was supposed to be the evil one, but now Apple is busting down doors in Palo Alto, while Bill Gates rids the world of mosquitoes."

[Kevorkian]

It's fantastic that these guys are donating insane amounts of money. But I also think it's not fair to point at people not on the list as though they should be obligated to do the same.

[oskibear]

I'm not saying that I expect to see the CEO of Goldman Sachs here.  

What I'm saying is that I'm used to seeing Steve Jobs cast as the hero with his plucky little fruit company fighting the good fight against the evil forces of Gate's Microsoft's monopoly churning out buggy products with "no taste".   There is a  little irony when on the one hand the former CEO of the Evil Empire ends up using his billions in philantropy to make the world better by funding vaccines for poor countries that large pharma can't be bothered while on the other hand,  "Bigger than Jesus" Jobs busies himself in self aggrandizement, the creation of his own monopoly in iTunes, and the conjuring of expensive "magical" products that harvest money from glassy eyed, Prius driving, zombie masses.

*sent from my iPod*

[Kevorkian]

Let's be fair here. I don't think Jobs ever cast himself as some kind of philanthropic legend. Apple's branding has always been about creating a better product and "think different." They've done that, become wildly successful and as a result of that growth are being seen as a boorish 800lb gorilla. So they're somewhat of a victim of their own success. Also is iTunes really a monopoly? I don't know -- I haven't seen any graphs on marketshare. I don't use them for music myself -- I use Amazon b/c I want unlocked MP3s in case I decide not to stick with Apple products in the future.

This is different from a company like Google that has the company mantra of "don't be evil," and initially allowed itself to be co-opted by the Chinese government to censor dissent, and of late is being accused of abandoning net neutrality.