The Higgs Boson Explained from PHD Comics on Vimeo.
Steve Jobs: Rare Speech 1983
The Personal Computers Explained (according to Jobs):
The electric motor was invented in the 1800s, but it was not cost effective to build in a factory. Then someone took the electric motor and connected it to 15 smaller machines in a factory, thereby allowing a large motor to be cost justified in a medium level task. Then there was the invention of the fractional electric motor which has a 1/55 horsepower motor. Today that is in everyhousehold in 1983.
The Eniac was the first computer in 1947 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC) to track ballistic missiles. Then in the 1960s there was this idea of time-sharing of a super computer between people through a terminal so that 5 people could use the one computer at one time because the computer was so fast they all thought it was only working for themselves. This justifies super computers in universities. Fractional horse power computing was the innovation of Steve Jobs and Wozniak. The only reason Apple was successful is that they innovated 5 years before anyone else had by creating fractional horse power computing. They had closed off the terminal concept of computing where you would have to go to a university terminal that was connected to a large computer (called time sharing because each person would have 30 minutes with this powerful machine).
A computer is just doing a series of simple instructions but doing so very quickly. So then we build a higher levels of abstraction are translated down to simple instructions.
Lee Iacocca: Let The Employees Manage Themselves
Iacocca supported management by Quarter Reviews at Ford Motor Company. Accountability to themselves as employees is more important than accountability to the boss. The employee will know whether they are doing well or not, and can effectively marshal, fire or promote themselves. You don’t want to intervene too early as a boss and a quarterly review system is ideal for self-assessment and goal setting. Iacocca would ask three questions of his line managers: 1) What is your goal for the next 90 days?; 2) What are your aspirations, dreams?; 3) How are you going to get there?
This allows workers to set their own agenda; making them more productive and motivated and this helps the best ideas bubble to the top. Once there was an agreement in goals, goals would be written down and signed off on. For Lee, putting objectives down on paper forces you to get down to specifics. Understanding what you have achieved, what is to be accomplished next and how to go about it is crucial to self-accountability. The quarterly reviews also create a dialogue between the manager and his boss so that good workers do not get passed over and their working relationship usually improves through interaction. If someone is not appropriate for a given role then red flagging it sooner than later is always better for everyone. Iacocca is skeptical of moving people around from role to role however because specialization has to set in at some point.
