Finished the Steve Jobs biography

Thursday March 22

Not too much to report today, other than I finished the Steve Jobs biography, by Walter Isaacson. The sons of bitches (both Jobs and Isaacson) had me tearing up at the end. It really is an amazing story, both Jobs’s own life, and the evolution of Apple and its products. I’m by no means ready to convert from the PC world, but I surely have an appreciation for what Jobs and Apple were/are trying to do. I certainly have a better understanding of some basic computer concepts. And I think it settled once and for all whether I “need” an I-Pad (or tablet in the PC world) and the answer is no, at least not at this time. The issue for the me is that a tablet seems mostly to be a "passive" device. You browse content, or watch TV, or read books. And that's all fine. But there is no keyboard (or at best a very rudimentary that you can use to type in passwords and so forth) and thus no (or very limited) outlet for creating things. Which, as Isaacson points out, is ironic in that the Apple computer was originally invented so that people could create. There was no access to the Internet at the time, so the thrust of the applications was toward creating information... writing, making spreadsheets, drawing, and so forth. And now these latest tablets are more or less of an entertaining device. Which is fine. But I can get that on a notebook or "netbook" computer, and still have the ability to create.

So anyway, I list the book on eBay and wish to sell it while it is still somewhat of a "hot" item, and I will use the proceeds to buy another book, probably a Kindle download. So thank you, (sister) Dawn for the Xmas gift. You will end up giving me two books to read. I am thinking of downloading "The Hunger Games," because the movie opens tomorrow in "sneak preview," and while post-apocalyptic scifi (and juvenile literature at that) is not my usual genre, I'm curious to read what all the hub-bub is about.

I also fire off an email query to the Long Island Music Hall of Fame to see if I can find out any more info about this book, "Beaches, Bars, and B3s" that I heard about from this musician that I met at the weekly farmers' market. When I googled that title, the Hall of Fame came up as the source. It's supposed to be a book about distinctive type of rock-n-roll music that came out of Long Island in the 1960s and '70s by bands which tended to rely on the Hammond B3 organ for extra "punch." I want to find out what that's all about. If nothing else, it's a great title for a book! (Nothing comes up on Amazon.com, by the way.

No expenses today.

Bruce