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Steve Jobs: The Next Insanely Great Thing

 

Steve Jobs has been right twice. The first time we got Apple. The second time we got NeXT. The Macintosh ruled. NeXT tanked. Still, Jobs was right both times. Although NeXT failed to sell its elegant and infamously buggy black box, Jobs's fundamental insight---that personal computers were destined to be connected to each other and live on networks---was just as accurate as his earlier prophecy that computers were destined to become personal appliances.

Now Jobs is making a third guess about the future. His passion these days is for objects. Objects are software modules that can be combined into new applications (see "Get Ready for Web Objects"), much as pieces of Lego are built into toy houses. Jobs argues that objects are the key to keeping up with the exponential growth of the World Wide Web. And it's commerce, he says, that will fuel the next phase of the Web explosion.

On a foggy morning last year, I drove down to the headquarters of NeXT Computer Inc. in Redwood City, California, to meet with Jobs. The building was quiet and immaculate, with that atmosphere of low-slung corporate luxury typical of successful Silicon Valley companies heading into their second decade. Ironically, NeXT is not a success. After burning through hundreds of millions of dollars from investors, the company abandoned the production of computers, focusing instead on the sale and development of its Nextstep operating system and on extensions into object-oriented technology.

Here at NeXT, Jobs was not interested in talking about Pixar Animation Studios, the maker of the world's first fully computer-generated feature movie, Toy Story (see "The Toy Story Story," WIRED 3.12, page 146). Jobs founded Pixar in 1986 when he bought out a computer division of Lucasfilm Ltd. for $60 million, and with Pixar's upcoming public stock offering, he was poised to become a billionaire in a single day. To Jobs, Pixar was a done deal, Toy Story was in the can, and he was prepared to let his IPO do the talking.

A different type of executive might have talked only about Pixar. But even when given the chance to crow, Jobs kept talking about Web objects and his ambitions for NeXT. He was fixed on the next big thing. And that was fine. After all, people often become more interesting when they've failed at something, and with his fall from Apple, the struggle at NeXT, and the triumph of Pixar, Jobs is now moving into his second circuit around the wheel of fortune. What has he learned?

As we began our interview, Jobs was testy. He told me that he didn't care anymore about revolutionizing society, and that he didn't believe changes in technology could solve the most important problems we face. The future of the Web was in the hands of big corporations, he said. This was where the money was going to be made. This was where NeXT was pitching its products.

I couldn't help but wonder how this incarnation of Steve Jobs jibed with the old revolutionary of Apple and the early years of NeXT. As the conversation deepened, some of the connections slowly grew clear. Jobs's testiness faded, and he allowed himself to speculate on the democratizing effects of the Web and his hope for defending it against the threat of Microsoft. Jobs's obsession with his old rival took the form of an unusual proposal for all parties to voluntarily keep the Web simple and avoid increasingly popular client-side enhancements like HotJava.

In the old days, Jobs was an evangelist for American education and worked hard to get computers in schools. The partnership between Apple and educators was key in establishing a market for the Macintosh, while the NeXT machine was originally designed to serve primarily as a tool for students and teachers. Now, Jobs flatly concludes, technology can't help fix the problems with our education system. His new solutions are decidedly low-tech.

The new Steve Jobs scoffs at the naïve idealism of Web partisans who believe the new medium will turn every person into a publisher. The heart of the Web, he said, will be commerce, and the heart of commerce will be corporate America serving custom products to individual consumers. The implicit message of the Macintosh, as unforgettably expressed in the great "1984" commercial, was Power to the People. Jobs's vision of Web objects serves a different mandate: Give the People What They Want.

Wired: The Macintosh computer set the tone for 10 years. Do you think the Web may be setting the tone today?

Jobs: The desktop computer industry is dead. Innovation has virtually ceased. Microsoft dominates with very little innovation. That's over. Apple lost. The desktop market has entered the dark ages, and it's going to be in the dark ages for the next 10 years, or certainly for the rest of this decade.

It's like when IBM drove a lot of innovation out of the computer industry before the microprocessor came along. Eventually, Microsoft will crumble because of complacency, and maybe some new things will grow. But until that happens, until there's some fundamental technology shift, it's just over.

The most exciting things happening today are objects and the Web. The Web is exciting for two reasons. One, it's ubiquitous. There will be Web dial tone everywhere. And anything that's ubiquitous gets interesting. Two, I don't think Microsoft will figure out a way to own it. There's going to be a lot more innovation, and that will create a place where there isn't this dark cloud of dominance.

Why do you think the Web has sprouted so fast?

One of the major reasons for the Web's proliferation so far is its simplicity. A lot of people want to make the Web more complicated. They want to put processing on the clients, they want to do this and that. I hope not too much of that happens too quickly.

It's much like the old mainframe computing environment, where a Web browser is like a dumb terminal and the Web server is like the mainframe where all the processing's done. This simple model has had a profound impact by starting to become ubiquitous.

And objects?

When I went to Xerox PARC in 1979, I saw a very rudimentary graphical user interface. It wasn't complete. It wasn't quite right. But within 10 minutes, it was obvious that every computer in the world would work this way someday. And you could argue about the number of years it would take, and you could argue about who would be the winners and the losers, but I don't think you could argue that every computer in the world wouldn't eventually work this way.

Objects are the same way. Once you understand objects, it's clear that all software will eventually be written using objects. Again, you can argue about how many years it will take, and who the winners and losers will be during this transition, but you can't argue about the inevitability of this transition.

Objects are just going to be the way all software is going to be written in five years or---pick a time. It's so compelling. It's so obvious. It's so much better that it's just going to happen.

How will objects affect the Web?

Think of all the people now bringing goods and services directly to customers through the Web. Every company that wants to vend its goods and services on the Web is going to have a great deal of custom-application software to write. You're not just going to be able to buy something off the shelf. You're going to have to hook the Web into your order-management systems, your collection systems. It's going to be an incredible amount of work.

The number of applications that need to be written is growing exponentially. Unless we can find a way to write them in a tenth of the time, we're toast.

The end result of objects---this repackaging of software---is that we can develop applications with only about 10 to 20 percent of the software development required any other way.

We see how people won the battle of the desktop by owning the operating system. How does one win on the Web?

There are three parts to the Web. One is the client, the second is the pipes, and the third is the servers.

On the client side, there's the browser software. In the sense of making money, it doesn't look like anybody is going to win on the browser software side, because it's going to be free. And then there's the typical hardware. It's possible that some people could come out with some very interesting Web terminals and sell some hardware.

On the pipe side, the RBOCs are going to win. In the coming months, you're going to see a lot of them offering a service for under $25 a month. You get ISDN strung into your den, you get a little box to hook it into your PC, and you get an Internet account, which is going to be very popular. The RBOCs are going to be the companies that get you on the Web. They have a vested interest in doing that. They'd like to screw the cable companies; they'd like to preserve the customers. This is all happening right now. You don't see it. It's under the ground like the roots of a tree, but it's going to spring up and you're going to see this big tree within a few years.

As for the server market, companies like Sun are doing a nice business selling servers. But with Web server software, no one company has more than a single-digit market share yet. Netscape sells hardly any, because you can get free public-domain software and it's very good. Some people say that it's even better than what you can buy.

Our company decided that people are going to layer stuff above this very simple Web server to help others build Web applications, which is where the bottleneck is right now. There's some real opportunity there for making major contributions and a lot of money. That's what WebObjects is all about.

What other opportunities are out there?

Who do you think will be the main beneficiary of the Web? Who wins the most?

People who have something -

To sell!

To share.

To sell!

You mean publishing?

It's more than publishing. It's commerce. People are going to stop going to a lot of stores. And they're going to buy stuff over the Web!

What about the Web as the great democratizer?

If you look at things I've done in my life, they have an element of democratizing. The Web is an incredible democratizer. A small company can look as large as a big company and be as accessible as a big company on the Web. Big companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars building their distribution channels. And the Web is going to completely neutralize that advantage.

What will the economic landscape look like after that democratic process has gone through another cycle?

The Web is not going to change the world, certainly not in the next 10 years. It's going to augment the world. And once you're in this Web-augmented space, you're going to see that democratization takes place.

The Web's not going to capture everybody. If the Web got up to 10 percent of the goods and services in this country, it would be phenomenal. I think it'll go much higher than that. Eventually, it will become a huge part of the economy.

Rethinking Revolution

What's the biggest surprise this technology will deliver?

The problem is I'm older now, I'm 40 years old, and this stuff doesn't change the world. It really doesn't.

That's going to break people's hearts.

I'm sorry, it's true. Having children really changes your view on these things. We're born, we live for a brief instant, and we die. It's been happening for a long time. Technology is not changing it much---if at all.

These technologies can make life easier, can let us touch people we might not otherwise. You may have a child with a birth defect and be able to get in touch with other parents and support groups, get medical information, the latest experimental drugs. These things can profoundly influence life. I'm not downplaying that. But it's a disservice to constantly put things in this radical new light---that it's going to change everything. Things don't have to change the world to be important.

The Web is going to be very important. Is it going to be a life-changing event for millions of people? No. I mean, maybe. But it's not an assured Yes at this point. And it'll probably creep up on people.

It's certainly not going to be like the first time somebody saw a television. It's certainly not going to be as profound as when someone in Nebraska first heard a radio broadcast. It's not going to be that profound.

Then how will the Web impact our society?

We live in an information economy, but I don't believe we live in an information society. People are thinking less than they used to. It's primarily because of television. People are reading less and they're certainly thinking less. So, I don't see most people using the Web to get more information. We're already in information overload. No matter how much information the Web can dish out, most people get far more information than they can assimilate anyway.

The problem is television?

When you're young, you look at television and think, There's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It's the truth.

So Steve Jobs is telling us things are going to continue to get worse.

They are getting worse! Everybody knows that they're getting worse! Don't you think they're getting worse?

I do, but I was hoping I could come here and find out how they were going to get better. Do you really believe that the world is getting worse? Or do you have a feeling that the things you're involved with are making the world better?

No. The world's getting worse. It has gotten worse for the last 15 years or so. Definitely. For two reasons. On a global scale, the population is increasing dramatically and all our structures, from ecological to economic to political, just cannot deal with it. And in this country, we seem to have fewer smart people in government, and people don't seem to be paying as much attention to the important decisions we have to make.

But you seem very optimistic about the potential for change.

I'm an optimist in the sense that I believe humans are noble and honorable, and some of them are really smart. I have a very optimistic view of individuals. As individuals, people are inherently good. I have a somewhat more pessimistic view of people in groups. And I remain extremely concerned when I see what's happening in our country, which is in many ways the luckiest place in the world. We don't seem to be excited about making our country a better place for our kids.

The people who built Silicon Valley were engineers. They learned business, they learned a lot of different things, but they had a real belief that humans, if they worked hard with other creative, smart people, could solve most of humankind's problems. I believe that very much.

I believe that people with an engineering point of view as a basic foundation are in a pretty good position to jump in and solve some of these problems. But in society, it's not working. Those people are not attracted to the political process. And why would somebody be?

 

Could technology help by improving education?

I used to think that technology could help education. I've probably spearheaded giving away more computer equipment to schools than anybody else on the planet. But I've had to come to the inevitable conclusion that the problem is not one that technology can hope to solve. What's wrong with education cannot be fixed with technology. No amount of technology will make a dent.

It's a political problem. The problems are sociopolitical. The problems are unions. You plot the growth of the NEA [National Education Association] and the dropping of SAT scores, and they're inversely proportional. The problems are unions in the schools. The problem is bureaucracy. I'm one of these people who believes the best thing we could ever do is go to the full voucher system.

I have a 17-year-old daughter who went to a private school for a few years before high school. This private school is the best school I've seen in my life. It was judged one of the 100 best schools in America. It was phenomenal. The tuition was $5,500 a year, which is a lot of money for most parents. But the teachers were paid less than public school teachers---so it's not about money at the teacher level. I asked the state treasurer that year what California pays on average to send kids to school, and I believe it was $4,400. While there are not many parents who could come up with $5,500 a year, there are many who could come up with $1,000 a year.

If we gave vouchers to parents for $4,400 a year, schools would be starting right and left. People would get out of college and say, "Let's start a school." You could have a track at Stanford within the MBA program on how to be the businessperson of a school. And that MBA would get together with somebody else, and they'd start schools. And you'd have these young, idealistic people starting schools, working for pennies.

They'd do it because they'd be able to set the curriculum. When you have kids you think, What exactly do I want them to learn? Most of the stuff they study in school is completely useless. But some incredibly valuable things you don't learn until you're older---yet you could learn them when you're younger. And you start to think, What would I do if I set a curriculum for a school?

God, how exciting that could be! But you can't do it today. You'd be crazy to work in a school today. You don't get to do what you want. You don't get to pick your books, your curriculum. You get to teach one narrow specialization. Who would ever want to do that?

These are the solutions to our problems in education. Unfortunately, technology isn't it. You're not going to solve the problems by putting all knowledge onto CD-ROMs. We can put a Web site in every school---none of this is bad. It's bad only if it lulls us into thinking we're doing something to solve the problem with education.

Lincoln did not have a Web site at the log cabin where his parents home-schooled him, and he turned out pretty interesting. Historical precedent shows that we can turn out amazing human beings without technology. Precedent also shows that we can turn out very uninteresting human beings with technology.

It's not as simple as you think when you're in your 20s---that technology's going to change the world. In some ways it will, in some ways it won't.

What's good for business is good for the Web

If you go back five years, the Web was hardly on anybody's horizon. Maybe even three years ago, it wasn't really being taken seriously by many people. Why is the sudden rise of the Web so surprising?

Isn't it great? That's exactly what's not happening in the desktop market.

Why was everyone, including NeXT, surprised, though?

It's a little like the telephone. When you have two telephones, it's not very interesting. And three is not very interesting. And four. And, well, a hundred telephones perhaps becomes slightly interesting. A thousand, a little more. It's probably not until you get to around ten thousand telephones that it really gets interesting.

Many people didn't foresee, couldn't imagine, what it would be like to have a million, or a few tens of thousands of Web sites. And when there were only a hundred, or two hundred, or when they were all university ones, it just wasn't very interesting. Eventually, it went beyond this critical mass and got very interesting very fast. You could see it. And people said, "Wow! This is incredible."

The Web reminds me of the early days of the PC industry. No one really knows anything. There are no experts. All the experts have been wrong. There's a tremendous open possibility to the whole thing. And it hasn't been confined, or defined, in too many ways. That's wonderful.

There's a phrase in Buddhism,"Beginner's mind." It's wonderful to have a beginner's mind.

Earlier, you seemed to say there's a natural affinity between the Web and objects. That these two things are going to come together and make something very new, right?

Let's try this another way. What might you want to do on a Web server? We can think of four things:

One is simple publishing. That's what 99 percent of the people do today. If that's all you want to do, you can get one of a hundred free Web-server software packages off the Net and just use it. No problem. It works fine. Security's not a giant issue because you're not doing credit card transactions over the Web.

The next thing you can do is complex publishing. People are starting to do complex publishing on the Web---very simple forms of it. This will absolutely explode in the next 12 to 18 months. It's the next big phase of the Web. Have you seen the Federal Express Web site where you can track a package? It took Federal Express about four months to write that program---and it's extremely simple. Four months. It would be nice to do that in four days, or two days, or one day.

The third thing is commerce, which is even harder than complex publishing because you have to tie the Web into your order-management system, your collection system, things like that. I think we're still two years away. But that's also going to be huge.

Last is internal Web sites. Rather than the Internet, it's intranet. Rather than write several different versions of an application for internal consumption---one for Mac, one for PC, one for Unix---people can write a single version and have a cross-platform product. Everybody uses the Web. We're going to see companies have dozens---if not hundreds---of Web servers internally as a means to communicate with themselves.

Three of those four functions of the Web require custom applications. And that's what we do really well with objects. Our new product, WebObjects, allows you to write Web applications 10 times faster.

How does the Web affect the economy?

We live in an information economy. The problem is that information's usually impossible to get, at least in the right place, at the right time.

The reason Federal Express won over its competitors was its package-tracking system. For the company to bring that package-tracking system onto the Web is phenomenal. I use it all the time to track my packages. It's incredibly great. Incredibly reassuring. And getting that information out of most companies is usually impossible.

But it's also incredibly difficult to give information. Take auto dealerships. So much money is spent on inventory---billions and billions of dollars. Inventory is not a good thing. Inventory ties up a ton of cash, it's open to vandalism, it becomes obsolete. It takes a tremendous amount of time to manage. And, usually, the car you want, in the color you want, isn't there anyway, so they've got to horse-trade around. Wouldn't it be nice to get rid of all that inventory? Just have one white car to drive and maybe a laserdisc so you can look at the other colors. Then you order your car and you get it in a week.

Today a dealer says, "We can't get your car in a week. It takes three months." And you say, "Now wait a minute, I want to order a pink Cadillac with purple leather seats. Why can't I get that in a week?" And he says, "We gotta make it." And you say, "Are you making Cadillacs today? Why can't you paint a pink one today?" And he says, "We didn't know you wanted a pink one." And you say, "OK. I'm going to tell you I want a pink one now." And he says, "We don't have any pink paint. Our paint supplier needs some lead time on that paint.' And you say, "Is your paint supplier making paint today?" And he says, "Yeah, but by the time we tell him, it takes two weeks." And you say, "What about leather seats?" And he says, "God, purple leather. It'll take three months to get that."

You follow this back, and you find that it's not how long it takes to make stuff; it's how long it takes the information to flow through the system. And yet electronics move at the speed of light---or very close to it.

So pushing information into the system is sometimes immensely frustrating, and the Web is going to be just as much of a breakthrough in terms of pushing information in as getting information out.

Your view about the Web is an alternative to the commonly held one that it's going to be the renaissance of personal publishing. The person who can't get published through the broadcast media will get a chance to say something.

There's nothing wrong with that. The Web is great because that person can't foist anything on you---you have to go get it. They can make themselves available, but if nobody wants to look at their site, that's fine. To be honest, most people who have something to say get published now.

But when we ask how a person's life is changed by these technologies, pushing information to customize products makes marginal differences. You go to the store and there's a lot of different kinds of toilet paper---some have tulips embossed on them and some don't. You're standing there making a choice, and you want the one with the embossed.

I like the ones without the tulips.

I do, too---and unscented. But that customization is relevant to you for that second but in no other way. For the average person, the possibility to participate as a publisher or a producer has a higher value for them.

I don't necessarily agree. The best way to think of the Web is as a direct-to-customer distribution channel, whether it's for information or commerce. It bypasses all middlemen. And, it turns out, there are a lot of middlepersons in this society. And they generally tend to slow things down, muck things up, and make things more expensive. The elimination of them is going to be profound.

Do you think large institutions are going to be the center of the economy, basically driving it as they are now? Some people say the big company is going to fragment.

I don't see that. There's nothing wrong with big companies. A lot of people think big business in America is a bad thing. I think it's a really good thing. Most people in business are ethical, hard-working, good people. And it's a meritocracy. There are very visible examples in business of where it breaks down but it's probably a lot less than in most other areas of society.

You don't think that structural economic changes will tend to shrink the size of these large companies?

Large companies not paying attention to change will get hurt. The Web will be one more area of significant change and those who don't pay attention will get hurt, while those who see it early enough will get rewarded.

The Web is just going to be one more of those major change factors that businesses face every decade. This decade, in the next 10 years, it's going to be the Web. It's going to be one of them.

But doesn't the Web foster more freedom for individuals?

It is a leveling of hierarchy. An individual can put up a Web site that, if they put enough work into it, looks just as impressive as the largest company in the world.

I love things that level hierarchy, that bring the individual up to the same level as an organization, or a small group up to the same level as a large group with much greater resources. And the Web and the Internet do that. It's a very profound thing, and a very good thing.

Yet the majority of your customers for WebObjects seem to be corporations.

That's correct. And big ones.

Does that cause you any kind of conflict?

Sure. And that's why we're going to be giving our WebObjects software away to individuals and educational institutions for noncommercial use. We've made the decision to give it away.

Shooting the Web in the foot

What do you think about HotJava and the like?

It's going to take a long time for that stuff to become a standard on the Web. And that may shoot the Web in the foot. If the Web becomes too complicated, too fraught with security concerns, then its proliferation may stop---or slow down. The most important thing for the Web is to stay ahead of Microsoft. Not to become more complicated.

That's very interesting. Java pushes the technology toward the client side. Do you find that wrong?

In my opinion? In the next two years? It's dead wrong. Because it may slow down getting to ubiquity. And anything that slows down the Web reaching ubiquity allows Microsoft to catch up. If Microsoft catches up, it's far worse than the fact the Web can't do word processing. Those things can be fixed later.

There's a window now that will close. If you don't cross the finish line in the next two years, Microsoft will own the Web. And that will be the end of it.

Let's assume for a second that many people share an interest in a standard Web that provides a strong alternative to Microsoft. However, when it comes to every individual Web company or Web publisher, they have an interest in making sure that their Web site stays on the edge. I know we do at HotWired. And so we have to get people into HotJava---we have to stay out there---which doesn't bode well for retaining simplicity. We're going to be part of that force pushing people toward a more complicated Web, because we have no choice.

The way you make it more complex is not by throwing stuff on the client side but by providing value, like Federal Express does, by becoming more complex on the server side.

I'm just very concerned that if the clients become smart, the first thing this will do is fracture the Web. There won't be just one standard. There'll be several; they're all going to fight; each one has its problems. So it's going to be very easy to say why just one shouldn't be the standard. And a fractured Web community will play right into Microsoft's hands.

The client-server relationship should be frozen for the next two years, and we shouldn't take it much further. We should just let it be.

 

By collective agreement?

Yeah. By collective agreement. Sure. Go for ubiquity. If Windows can become ubiquitous, so can the existing Web.

How did Windows become ubiquitous?

A force of self-interest throughout the industry made Windows ubiquitous. Compaq and all these different vendors made Windows ubiquitous. They didn't know how to spell software, but they wanted to put something on their machines. That made Windows ubiquitous.

So it just kind of happened.

No, it was sort of an algorithm that got set in motion when everyone's self-interest aligned toward making this happen. And I claim that the same sort of self-interest algorithm is present on the Web. Everyone has a self-interest in making this Web ubiquitous and not having anyone own it---especially not Microsoft.

Is the desktop metaphor going to continue to dominate how we relate to computers, or is there some other metaphor you like better?

To have a new metaphor, you really need new issues. The desktop metaphor was invented because one, you were a stand-alone device, and two, you had to manage your own storage. That's a very big thing in a desktop world. And that may go away. You may not have to manage your own storage. You may not store much before too long.

I don't store anything anymore, really. I use a lot of e-mail and the Web, and with both of those I don't have to ever manage storage. As a matter of fact, my favorite way of reminding myself to do something is to send myself e-mail. That's my storage.

The minute that I don't have to manage my own storage, and the minute I live primarily in a connected versus a stand-alone world, there are new options for metaphors.

GrokKing design

You have a reputation for making well-designed products. Why aren't more products made with the aesthetics of great design?

Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it's really how it works. The design of the Mac wasn't what it looked like, although that was part of it. Primarily, it was how it worked. To design something really well, you have to get it. You have to really grok what it's all about. It takes a passionate commitment to really thoroughly understand something, chew it up, not just quickly swallow it. Most people don't take the time to do that.

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they've had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.

Unfortunately, that's too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven't had very diverse experiences. So they don't have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one's understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.

Is there anything well designed today that inspires you?

Design is not limited to fancy new gadgets. Our family just bought a new washing machine and dryer. We didn't have a very good one so we spent a little time looking at them. It turns out that the Americans make washers and dryers all wrong. The Europeans make them much better---but they take twice as long to do clothes! It turns out that they wash them with about a quarter as much water and your clothes end up with a lot less detergent on them. Most important, they don't trash your clothes. They use a lot less soap, a lot less water, but they come out much cleaner, much softer, and they last a lot longer.

We spent some time in our family talking about what's the trade-off we want to make. We ended up talking a lot about design, but also about the values of our family. Did we care most about getting our wash done in an hour versus an hour and a half? Or did we care most about our clothes feeling really soft and lasting longer? Did we care about using a quarter of the water? We spent about two weeks talking about this every night at the dinner table. We'd get around to that old washer-dryer discussion. And the talk was about design.

We ended up opting for these Miele appliances, made in Germany. They're too expensive, but that's just because nobody buys them in this country. They are really wonderfully made and one of the few products we've bought over the last few years that we're all really happy about. These guys really thought the process through. They did such a great job designing these washers and dryers. I got more thrill out of them than I have out of any piece of high tech in years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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自行车棚效应:我们为什么在小事上纠结,却对大事视而不见?   https://limboy.me/posts/bike-shedding Benz-Patent   https://www.mercedes-benz.com/en/innovation/milestones/benz-patent-motor-car/ 豐田博物館   https://toyota-automobile-museum.jp/tw/ 值得一去的汽车博物馆 一人公司   https://github.com/cyfyifanchen/one-person-company one-person-company, 一人公司 AI 工具系列 wujiaxian   https://wujiaxian.com/ 可能吧创始人的个人Blog,介绍自己的方式,很值得学习 日本京都10大設計熱點!「建築大師貝聿銘操刀美術館,皆川明設計旅館、選物店,還有全球最美的藍瓶咖啡店舖!」   https://www.elle.com/tw/life/style/g33846398/2020-kyoto-10-hotspots/ 京都真是非常美 Henry L. Stimson   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_L._Stimson?useskin=vector While Kyoto may have satisfied the military criteria for a useful target, Stimson objected, declaring in a meeting if the Interim Committee on June 1, 1945, "...there was one city that they must not bomb without my permission and that was Kyoto." 人性的努力保护了京都 Brooke Astor, 105, Aristocrat of the People, Dies   https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/obituaries/14astor.html 值得尊敬...

产品随想 | 周刊 第127期:晨光只开一刻钟,但比千年松,并无甚不同

Cherry Studio   https://github.com/CherryHQ/cherry-studio Cherry Studio is a desktop client that supports for multiple LLM providers. Support deepseek-r1 Aalto Repository beta   https://repo.aalto.fi/ Images, sounds and videos from Aalto University 这个系列,价值极高 Nokia Design Archive   https://nokiadesignarchive.aalto.fi/ 芬兰这个国家很了不起 对话影石刘靖康:两代未出现划时代的产品,就会沦为平庸的品牌   https://www.geekpark.net/news/308996 还挺喜欢这个创始人的,有一种海盗的内涵 从哈佛、明星创业者到酷家乐副总裁,苏奇的传奇   https://app.modaiyun.com/mdy/article/3FO4K4W0M259 WHO关于猫狗咬伤、抓伤的处理建议 动物咬伤: https://www.who.int/zh/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/animal-bites 狂犬病: https://www.who.int/zh/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/rabies 关于狂犬病的10个事实: https://www.who.int/zh/news-room/facts-in-pictures/detail/rabies INDIGO 新年直播(2025)   https://www.youtube.com/live/ZIgPvSDGAfY 对2024年AI发展的回顾部分特别好 Artab   https://github.com/get-artab/artab Get Inspired by the World's Greatest Artworks Every Time You Open a New Tab. Extension Available for Chrome, Edge, and...

MongoDB学习笔记

这是我阅读《MongoDB权威指南》的学习笔记,前七章侧重在开发者角度谈MongoDB,后面才是运维管理者角度 一. 理论部分 入门 文档:多个键及其关联的值有序地放置在一起便是文档 集合:一组文档 虽然子集合没有特别的地方,但还是很有用,很多MongoDB工具中都包含子集合 GridFS是一种存储大文件的协议,使用子集合来存储文件的元数据,这样就与内容块分开了 MongoDB的Web控制台通过子集合的方式将数据组织在DBTOP部分 绝大多数驱动程序都提供语法糖,为访问指定集合的子集合提供方便。例如:在数据库shell里面,db.blog代表blog集合,db.blog.posts代表blog.posts集合 在MongoDB中使用子集合来组织数据是很好的方法,在此强烈推荐 数据类型 JSON表现力也有限制,因为只有null,布尔,数字,字符串,数组和对象几种类型, MongoDB保留JSON键值对基础上,增添了其他一些数据类型 使用GridFS存储文件有如下原因: 会直接利用业已建立的复制或分片机制,所以对于文件存储来说故障恢复和扩展都很容易 可以避免用户上传内容的文件系统出现的某些问题 不产生磁盘碎片,因为MongoDB分配数据文件空间以2GB为一块 开发者角度到此为止,下一篇是运维角度的学习

无处不在的监控: Hacking Team:WP8 监控代码分析

原文来自乌云,备份 地址 0x00 背景 最近Hacking Team被黑客入侵,近400GB的资料泄漏,在安全界炒的沸沸扬扬.其中泄漏的资料包括:源代码,0day,资料入侵项目相关信息,相关的账户密码,数据及音像资料,办公文档,邮件及图片。 Hacking Team在意大利米兰注册了一家软件公司,主要销售入侵及监视功能的软件。其远程控制系统可以监测互联网用户的通讯,解密用户的加密,文件及电子邮件,记录各种通信信息,也可以远程激活用户的麦克风及摄像头。其产品在几十个国家使用 在源代码中有各个操作系统平台的远程控制软件源码, RCS(Remote Control System) 。经过我们的分析,发现其监控内容不可谓不详尽。 Android,blackberry,ios,windows,window phone,symbian 均有与之对应的监控代码。 在源码中,rcs为前缀的源码文件是其远控功能,包括代理 控制 监控数据库 隐藏ip 等,而针对特定平台架构的是以core前缀命名。其中和相关window phone监控代码在 core-winphone-master.zip 文件中。其主要用于实时手机系统的系统状态信息如(电池状态,设备信息,GPS地址位置),联系人,短信记录,日历日程安排,照片;同时还能录音,截取手机屏幕,开启摄像头,话筒等功能,由此可见监控信息的详细程度令人害怕。 0x01 WP8监控源码分析 core-winphone-master\MornellaWp8\MornellaWp8 下是其主要核心代码,主要文件如下: 通过观察源码流程图可以看出,整个监控项目源码的逻辑还是比较复杂的,但是深入之后,发现其还是设计的比较巧妙 0x01-1 程序框架分析 1.项目主要分为3大块 Modules,Events,Actions ,主要的功能Modules核心监控代码在此处,Event等待监控事件的到来并调用对应的监控模块,Action主要负责一些行为的启动和停止 程序启动流程如下: main->mornellaStart->BTC_Init->CoreProc->Core->Task setLoadLibraryExW 分支主要负责加载一些API函数的地址,...

产品爱好者周刊 第26期:PRISM, XKeyscore, Trust No One

  Products Gitea - Git with a cup of tea   https://gitea.io/en-us/ A painless self-hosted Git service. 自建Git服务,避免GitHub隐私侵犯 https://github.com/objective-see/LuLu LuLu is the free macOS firewall 监视Mac的出站流量,且阻断 OverSight   https://github.com/objective-see/OverSight OverSight monitors a mac's mic and webcam, alerting the user when the internal mic is activated, or whenever a process accesses the webcam. 监视是否有应用调用Mac的麦克风、摄像头 Mozilla Hubs   https://github.com/mozilla/hubs The client-side code for Mozilla Hubs, an online 3D collaboration platform that works for desktop, mobile, and VR platforms. 开源的多人虚拟空间,Mozilla打造,企业级VR诉求 数字移民   https://shuziyimin.org 关于内容源、工具的推荐,适合刚接入国际的新人 SimpleLogin   https://simplelogin.io/ 匿名邮箱工具,转发用,Michael Bazzell推荐 Telegram 群组、频道、机器人 - 汇总分享   https://congcong0806.github.io/2018/04/24/Telegram/#机器人-bot https://archive.ph/iJMBj 献给那些将来到Telegram的朋友 Design Patrick Wardle   https://www.instagram.com/patrickwardle/?hl=en 他的IG,摄影也精彩,审美...

ifconfig参数备忘

       主要指标说明: eth0/lo:网络接口名 Link encap:网络类型

产品随想 | 读《中国是部金融史》:第三章至第五章

  第三章 犯我货币者,虽强必诛(汉高祖一汉武帝) 刘邦大概没有想到,他的土地政策奠定了此后两千年的社会结构:皇帝是社会最高层,具有至高无上的权力;皇帝之下是三公九即等封建官僚,拿皇帝的钱,逐级管理小农;最底层是万千小农,他们对帝国纳税,用自己的血汗钱养活帝王与封建官僚。此后,中国封建社会结构始终没有摆脱“皇权一封建官僚一小农”这个三位一体的窠臼。 既然消灭了异姓王,正常思维应该是仿效秦始皇强化郡县制,但是这位平民皇帝选择了…条谁也想不到的道路,他分封自己的兄弟子侄为王,并与诸王约定,此后非我子孙称王,天下人都可以杀了他(非刘氏而王者,天下共击之)。刘邦亲眼目睹了秦帝困的分崩离析,危急时刻无人愿意支撑起破败的帝国。华竟,官僚靠薪水吃饭, 就算贪污的本事很大,也没有理由维护别人的一姓天下。 如果没有血浓于水的同姓诸侯王,汉帝国将来同样无法应对真正的危机。事实证明,分封刘氏诸王是对的,如果没有刘邦留下来的同姓诸侯,恐怕汉朝早就得跟着皇后吕雉姓“吕”了。 人们习惯于将刘邦的皇后吕雉称呼为“吕后〞,这是中国古代历史上第一位临朝称制的太后,另外两位要等到盛唐和晚清才能在本书中出镜,三位女强人都是中国货币史上浓墨重彩的人物。 然而,从吕雉开始,仅仅不到一个世纪, 破败的汉帝国就一跃变为当时世界上最强盛的国家,直接把打遍天下无敌手的匈奴骑兵赶到了西欧,让罗马帝国受尽了欺凌。吕后末年,西汉单个农业劳动力的原粮产量已经突破了三干四百斤,这不但是西欧一干五百年后的劳动生产率,也远高于1973年中四的劳动生产率(二千二百四十斤)。应该说,中西文明争霸就是从汉帝国驱赶匈奴开始的,在第一轮交锋中,西欧完败。 ──原来西汉能超过1978年,厉害 吕雉坚决执行了一项前无古人(后有来者)的税收政策—“十五而税一”,换算一下,吕雉时代庶人个人收入所得税税率为 6.6%,而且,没有累进税率。 《二年律令》彻底改变了中国历史的发展轨迹,秦人以军功授田,刘邦以服兵役为代价授田,只有到了吕雉才真正实现了全困范用的“均田“。这是中国历史上第一次以法律形式明确了土地私有制度,每一个最普通的庶人都获得了土地,整个社会实现了孟子的“百亩之田、五亩之宅”理想。这是无数先贤追求的大同世界梦想一“耕者有其田”,请注意,我没有说这是“耕者有其田"的雏形,而是实实在在的“耕者有其田"。 ──对汉朝,充满敬...

常用建筑素材站点

高大上的建筑竞赛效果图中的素材是如何收集的回答,感谢知乎 Vincent Ku 以下是之前搜寻过的素材网站,应该这些够用了 http:// skalgubbar.se/ http:// skalgubbrasil.tumblr.com / http://www. immediateentourage.com/ http://www. gobotree.com/ http://www. mrcutout.com/ http://www. cutoutlife.com/ http://www. nonscandinavia.com/ http://www. escalalatina.com/ http://www. mayang.com/textures/ind ex.htm http://www. textures.com/ ===== 感谢知友 @SJTUboy 补充 http:// maps.stamen.com/# watercolor/12/37.7706/-122.3782 http:// maps.stamen.com/m2i/# toner-background/2000:2000/10/31.1674/121.6063 作者:Vincent Ku 链接:https://www.zhihu.com/question/31584353/answer/73642305 来源:知乎 著作权归作者所有。商业转载请联系作者获得授权,非商业转载请注明出处。

The Little MongoDB Book

The Little MongoDB Book 基础 在一个MongoDB实例中可以有若干数据库或一个都没有,不过这里的数据库都是高层次容器,用来储存其他的所有数据 一个数据库可以有若干集合或者一个都没有, 集合由若干文档组成,也可以为空 文档由一个或更多的域组成 索引的意义 游标和以上概念不同,很重要但是常常被忽略,有一点很重要,每当向MongoDB索要数据时,总是返回一个游标 小结一下,MongoDB由数据库组成,数据库由集合组成,集合由文档组成。域组成了文档,集合可以被索引,从而提高了查找和排序的性能。最后,从MongoDB读取数据的时候是通过游标进行的,除非需要,游标不会真正去作读的操作 读到后面觉得实战意义不是很大,就跳过了

产品随想 | 周刊 第126期:Think of your life as a rainbow arcing across the horizon of this world

FolderPaint   https://github.com/MichaelTr7/FolderPaint Folder colour changing application for macOS. 乔布斯说:“对于我和苹果公司的许多人来说,索尼的盛田昭夫是最大的灵感来源之一。我希望我们今天的所想所为能让他会心一笑。” 乔布斯甚至从索尼挖走了一位顶级设计师。哈特穆特·艾斯林格被苹果挖走前,已在 100 多种索尼产品的创造中发挥了重要作用。 供职于索尼时,艾斯林格所在的设计工作室与管理办公室和工厂车间享有同等地位。他说,这样有助于促进公司生产和设计团队之间在一定程度上达成团结,这正是乔布斯试图重建的团结。 艾斯林格指出:“乔布斯有能力洞察事物的好坏,却不知道如何实现以及如何通过组织去构建。因此,我们向苹果提出的第一个建议是,赋予设计师一定的话语权。” 斯卡利表示,乔布斯和盛田之间的深厚友谊和相互敬重可以归结为对于设计的共同热忱。 “他们以非常积极的方式产生了共鸣”,斯卡利说,“两位来自不同文化背景的创始人共聚一堂,这是非常难能可贵的。他们讨论设计原则,却从不谈及商业模式。” “Think of your life as a rainbow arcing across the horizon of this world. You appear, have a chance to blaze in the sky, then you disappear.” City Lights Bookstore   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Lights_Bookstore?useskin=vector 旧金山的城市之光独立书店 Vesuvio Cafe   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesuvio_Cafe?useskin=vector 好奇怪,这家Cafe居然没有太多的介绍 “One of the things that I was fortunate of was to see and understand the context of San Francisco through the eyes of Steve Jobs,” Mr. Ive said. “He kn...