I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.

I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

Whether this resignation has been brought about by recurring health issues, a desire to spend more time with his family, or new obligations as Batman, this will have a negative effect on Apple’s valuation.

I’d argue this is unwarranted. While Tim Cook, Jobs’s replacement, lacks his showmanship and has a mildly strange voice, he clearly knows what he’s doing. Jobs made a mistake in appointing John Sculley to Apple in the 80s: I am highly sceptical that he would make a similar mistake again.

Like his business tactics or hate them, one cannot deny that Mr Jobs, along with Steve Wozniak and Bill Gates, are true visionaries and pioneers of our time. Given the exciting transitions the industry is going through towards a “post-PC” (or “PC-plus”) dominated consumer market, Apple is in an extremely strong position. The fact Jobs will still have an advisory role for the foreseeable future only bolsters the fact that Apple, as a company, will remain a prominent part of the industry’s landscape for many years to come.

(Image: Tom Coates)

Oslo bomb blast kills 7, shooting at youth camp kills 80

Link

Oslo police are questioning an apparent lone bomber and gunman, who appears to be responsible for the single most appalling loss of life in Norway since World War II. This is unprecedented, and deeply shocking: the attacker seemingly planted a bomb of some form near the Norwegian Prime Minister’s office, killing seven and injuring dozens, before heading off to the island of Utoeya, where a youth camp for teenagers was being held by their incumbent Labour party. He then seems to have set about opening fire indiscriminately, dressed as a police officer, killing at least eighty people.

The Sun has irresponsibly placed the blame on al-Qaeda in the early editions of today’s front page, while a little-known organisation called Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami claimed responsibility as an attention-seeking exercise. The attacks, however, bear the hallmark of domestic terrorism from radical political dissidents: an al-Qaeda attack would surely have attacked a railway station with a suicide bomb, not a government building and a secluded island with a car bomb and bullets, respectively.

The present consensus is that this was probably a lone nut. Evidence is surfacing that someone who may be the arrested gunman had posted far-right anti-Semitic messages on the Internet.

The attacks are, of course, absolutely dreadful. We can, however, take heart from the Norwegians’ response to these dastardly atrocities: the most clearly incisive comment I’ve seen thus far on Twitter has been from Ragnhild Holmas.

G.W. Bush, 9/11: “We’re gonna hunt you down.” Stoltenberg, 22/7: “We will retaliate with more democracy”. I’m proud to be Norwegian. @ragholmas

(UPDATED) More bloody poverty metaphors

Posted on July 12, 2011 by Jonathan Rothwell

UPDATE (18 January 2012): The individual who was named in the article that originally appeared at this web address has contacted me, to clarify his position and ask for references to his name to be removed. I have respected his wishes, and removed the majority of the article.

The basic gist of it was as follows:

If you lose your rail ticket, it’s your problem, and, unless it’s a season ticket, it can’t be replaced, so you should treat it like cash. Season tickets are still difficult to replace, given the current technology used for railway ticketing. When I was regularly commuting from Farnborough to Woking, my season ticket cost me £58 per month using a student fare card, and I never let it out of my sight. It was, like my wallet and my phone, something that was kept on me at all times (except during exams.) If I had a season ticket costing £2500 per annum, I’d take bloody good care of it.

Also, you should always check your ticket after purchasing it, to ensure it’s the correct ticket. (The subject of the original article says he was sold the wrong ticket as his first replacement, which subsequently made the replacement process even more painful—at this point, South West Trains wanted to interview him to ensure he wasn’t a ticket tout.)

The newspaper in question has retracted the original article, which said that South West Trains’s passengers endure third-world conditions. On trains in the United Kingdom, you have lighting. You do not have to defecate into an open toilet early in the morning to try and get some privacy. Chances are, your genitals won’t have been mutilated. The journey will almost always last less than an hour. It is completely safe. In the event of a delay, there will be hundreds of members of railway staff working their nuts off to get you moving again. Therefore, describing the conditions on the trains as third-world made the article in question look like a selfish, ill-considered and naïve whinge, written carelessly by a person who fails to grasp how privileged they are in life. I’ve written about this sort of behaviour before, and I wrote about it again here because it remains something I feel extremely strongly about.

Once again, in summary, this: