Excellent post, Shrink, and well, yes, not for the first or second time, I find myself in compete agreement with you.
I have read the Walter Isaacson biography of Steve Jobs (written apparently, at the request of the latter).
As a student and teacher of history, I have long been fascinated by the influence of transformative technology on countries, economies, regimes, societies, and on their political development [or not, as the case may be].
Indeed, once upon a distant time, I used to teach Renaissance & Reformation history, and certainly, without the revolutionary impact & influence of the printing press, and the concomitant invention of paper (which eventually supplanted parchment), I doubt the Reformation (let alone the Renaissance) would have had quite the utterly transformative effect it had (by which I mean stuff such as increased literacy and access to printed materials, which meant access to sources, ideas, information, theology, in one's native language, - which meant the development of written vernaculars across Europe - all unmediated by (but still contested by) a powerful and literate clergy.
Likewise, the Industrial Revolution (and American & French [political] revolutions), transformed - utterly transformed - the politics, economics and society of a later era.
In recent decades, within my life, I have seen borders changed - even within Europe - cast iron realities crumble, and yet another technological revolution, that of networked computing, personal computers, and more recently still, the world of social networking; and, of course, it goes without saying that these changes are certainly on a par, historically, with the invention of the printing press, or steam aided coal-fired mass production employing thousands.
Mr Jobs was one of those who spotted this, identified it before it happened, and enabled the invention of not just technologically adept forms of equipment which could harness this change, but aesthetically pleasing ones, as well. So, salutations are indeed in order.
However, the adulation accorded to the late Mr Jobs is something that I find somewhat unsettling. On some of these threads, he seems to be the recipient (something he actively encouraged throughout his life, not a trait I view with approval) of much uncritical adulation, accompanied sometimes by the sort of willing suspension of critical faculties that one stumbles over in cults, or religions, where it metamorphoses into a sort of fervency and intensity of wild belief in The Founder, along with an unwillingness to admit that a genius may not just be somewhat flawed as a person, but may be actually profoundly and insufferably obnoxious in the human condition.
To sum up: I respect and admire Mr Jobs, as a man who played a transformational role in our world, deplore the uncritical - almost religious fervour in which he seems to be held - dislike the man as a human being, and utterly detest that awful yacht which represents an astonishing lapse in taste.
still, after looking through more photograph of her she certainly is one beautiful boat.
