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[nightdog_barks]

The completely ridiculous "winter" weather continues -- it is 81 degrees here right now (27.2 Celsius), and it feels as though it's 83 because the wind is out of the south. We have the back door and windows open, and I've put Layla's bed cover in the wash and the interior bedding outside to air out. If it continues like this (and it's supposed to through at least next week) I'll have to start looking for tomato plants. Which is nuts but whatever.

Finished Rivers of London and ordered the next book in the series, Moon Over Soho. In the meantime I am reading Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs, which so far is a terrific story and very interesting. I have also picked up (but not yet started) The Letters of the Younger Pliny, because I was reading an excerpt somewhere where he wrote to a friend asking if he believed in ghosts and it was just fascinating. :D

Comments

[blackmare]

My brother has speculated (seriously) that Steve Jobs sold his soul to the devil in return for his company's success.

In fairness, Bro was ... not particularly stable at time. But, as he brought it up after reading a biography of Jobs, I wonder if it was the same one and whether it said anything about such a rumor.

[nightdog_barks]

I haven't run across anything like that in this book, but I do know there's at least two other Jobs bios -- Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different, and Becoming Steve Jobs. I used the "search inside this book" feature on Amazon for those books but didn't see any mention of the Devil. (And I just now searched this book and didn't get a hit.) It wouldn't surprise me that people thought that, though. Jobs had an almost preternatural gift for putting things together in a product that people would want. He could also be a really garbage disagreeable pig person, for real. He screwed his friends out of bonus money and stock options, was an arrogant asshole, and how he didn't manage to alienate every single person he ever met I'll never know.

And yet. It's a fascinating story, and Isaacson tells it very well. :D

[blackmare]

Yes, I had gathered that old Steve was often a massive asshole. I find that kind of thing sad, because it's so unnecessary. He'd have been just as successful had he been a better person. It's possible to be visionary and uncompromising and forceful without actively screwing people over, you know?