WhoGivesAShirt

This is where I'll be residing from now on. I've also got a Categorian account (I'm whogivesashirt there, too) if anyone wants to Stumb... er, "Stagger" me nifty things.

Have you backed up your SU blog yet?

*Grabs protest sign, heads for Wall Street*

I hate that this page exists, and I'm in tears right now as I write this.

Steve was my CEO for 8 of the most turbulent and most formative years of my life. I started with Apple pre-iPod, when the company was floundering and not expected to survive. The cadre of believers I worked alongside were as rabid as I was, believing in Steve's vision for the company and for the world. We worked our asses off, and sure enough, the world started to take note.

11 years on, Apple is the biggest company in the US, and I've moved on from the company, but I still get a surge of pride everytime I spot someone using an iPhone, or beavering away on a MacBook, and I happily get these surges often.

The surges have been accompanied by a knot in my stomach since Steve announced his medical leave last year. Every longtime Apple employee could read the finality in his statement. Today's announcement - while awful - was entirely expected. I imagine the rest of my old coworkers are tonight wondering what this spells for the company. The visionary is gone, and with him the micromanager who made the whole business run so exactingly. (Pixar - the other hugely successful company he nurtured concurrently to Apple's meteoric rise - has a deeper bench and can weather the loss far easier.) The future of the company I loved so well is in doubt.

As sad as this makes me, I'm saddest when thinking about his real babies - the three young kids he leaves behind. He gave so much of himself to Apple and Pixar, I feel guilty that they've lost him so early. Knowing he's consecrated in the American Pantheon alongside Edison, Lloyd Wright and Ford can't be much of a consolation to teenagers who'll dearly miss their dad.

RiP Steve, Apple employee #002, from Apple employee #48449. It was an honour working with you.

Four reviews in and she's already a Stumbler to be reckoned with. Shame she's getting here just as her fellows (she's already following some vets) are leaving.

A new thumb for an SU old-timer. (And one last laugh at the auto-tag SU provided for me: "Classical-Studies".)

Another long-time Stumbler I've neglected. Thumbs-up both for quality content and the last line of this SU obituary.

Such a feeling of community used to exist here. Most of those people have moved to contacting me through other means like Google +, Facebook, or email. Now all I mainly get is weekly mail in my inbox from a random spammer or two telling me how much they "love" my stumbles and since they are following me, I should follow them so I can receive their "Awesome" content and be enriched from their stumbles. Well, first I check and they are not following me and second they have about 20 stumbles all of which are garbage. How dare you try to compare yourself to some of the Stumble greats that used to rule these halls? You have no idea of the depth, the humanity, and the intelligence that came before you... and you want me to follow you and your anemic self promoting 20 stumbles??? Are you freaking kidding me? So happy birthday to me. SU has become what it has, and granted it does it very, very well; (delivering content surgically tailored to my interests) it has shed it's original sense of community. It seems to work best as a plug in or tangential accessory to life's comprehensive discussion stream that happens on facebook or google +. SU has become nothing more than an internet smart remote, turning my screen into a T.V. where I can channel surf for a few minutes or a few hours. Five years ago blogging this would have been talking to people, now I am doing the equivalent of yelling at the T.V. during a football game.