[HN Gopher] An industrial designer who inspired Steve Jobs
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An industrial designer who inspired Steve Jobs
Author : rbanffy
Score : 45 points
Date : 2021-05-21 18:09 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.fastcompany.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.fastcompany.com)
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| Steve Jobs was friends in college with Robert Friedland[0], a
| mining billionaire (self-made, his story is fascinating), and it
| is rumored that Jobs learned some of his persuasion skills from
| observing Friedland. There are some videos of Friendland online,
| and though he is a bit of a huckster, he is a great speaker.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Friedland
| neilv wrote:
| The aesthetic industrial design of the Connection Machines is
| brilliant and iconic, and among the great stories around Thinking
| Machines.
|
| I think the Cray-2 was its contemporary for a while, and also has
| some interesting design work (as do the earlier Crays), with a
| striking form that follows&exposes the construction.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| I have to link this video showing off the Cray-2 with it's
| built in waterfall. Also the CM-5 makes an appearance.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH8X8w8a4f4
| neilv wrote:
| Nice, I hadn't seen that video. I don't recognize that
| particular waterfall as the Cray-2's, but maybe it's a Cray
| T90?
| unsignedchar wrote:
| > So she began to talk to the team's engineers, to learn about
| the metaphors they used to describe the nature of the machine.
| That's when she remembered her hypercube logo, which became the
| model for her industrial design.
|
| What a poor piece of writing!
| sxp wrote:
| http://www.tamikothiel.com/cm/index.html has more details
| directly from the designer.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Love Thiel's work for Thinking Machines, big inspiration.
|
| Need to track down the quote but IIRC the height of the cube was
| decided to make it as tall as her to give it a human presence.
| raymondgh wrote:
| Does the fastcompany article title "The Female Supercomputer
| Designer Who Inspired Steve Jobs" make an undue spectacle of the
| designer being female? I think titles like these imply that it's
| so shocking that a female inspired Jobs and/or did supercomputer
| design work that her name & individual identity matter less than
| her gender. They should just put Tamiko Thiel in the title.
| flowwwgg wrote:
| Not at all.
|
| In the 1980s, I imagine that _female_ supercomputer designers
| were incredibly rare. For one to rise up through the ranks
| against the tides of sexism in that era and achieve something
| that ultimately impacted Steve Jobs...yeah, I want to know
| about that vis-a-vis her being a woman since her experience and
| achievement is relatively unique to the era.
| Causality1 wrote:
| It's worse than that. Not only does it make a spectacle of them
| being female, it implies their accomplishments are only notable
| because they are female, that those accomplishments would not
| be special if performed by a man. It's exploitative and
| infantilizing at the same time.
| [deleted]
| elliekelly wrote:
| Why do you consider her gender in the headline a "spectacle"
| rather than a simple statement of fact? If the headline read
| "artist" or "Stanford grad" or "Japanese-American" or "MIT
| alum" rather than "female" would you feel the same way?
| vimacs2 wrote:
| While I didn't get as triggered by the inclusion as the OP, I
| do have to say that out of the example labels you gave, the
| only one I would consider a good comparison is "Japanese-
| American" as she did not choose her gender, ethnicity, nor
| nationality.
| newsbinator wrote:
| _The Male Supercomputer Designer Who Inspired Steve Jobs_
|
| That sounds as strange as "Female" does in the title
| smoldesu wrote:
| I was thinking the same thing, and I honestly can't tell.
| Either way, she had one of the toughest jobs I can imagine and
| navigated it with badass-tier bravado: that's really what the
| article should emphasize. Instead of emphasizing the title of
| "female" over "supercomputer designer", maybe they should have
| just lead with the Steve Jobs hook (as much as I despise him)
| and let the reader draw their own conclusions on Thiel.
| finnthehuman wrote:
| >the Connection Machine has been acquired by the Museum of Modern
| Art, where it is currently on view as part of the exhibition
| Thinking Machines: Art and Design in the Computer Age, 1959-1989.
|
| This is a nicely designed machine and and all, but man that MoMA
| exhibit is a disappointment. I went to MoMA on a lark while in
| NYC without knowing the exhibit existed. But once I got there and
| was in other exhibits I couldn't stop thinking about how they
| might find ways to bring everything beautiful about the artistry
| in computing to the masses that don't know how to see it. Then I
| walked through an odd grab bag of out of context things that've
| existed in the vicinity of computing and seem to be selected for
| aesthetics that will allow visual arts people stare at them
| profoundly even though they're experiencing them in a vaccum.
|
| Then I spent the rest of my time there wondering if it and all
| the other exhibits were inaccessible _on purpose_.
| ghaff wrote:
| That's disappointing. I could imagine a display of visually
| interesting computers that also went deeply into the rationale
| of why these designs also made sense from a technical
| perspective. I haven't seen the exhibit but sounds like they're
| missing that element.
| zepto wrote:
| Industrial designer would be more accurate than 'supercomputer
| designer'.
| amelius wrote:
| Kind of weird how industrial designers have more influence in
| computing than hardware/software engineers.
| wmf wrote:
| Industrial designers may have more influence on the public,
| press, and execs because their work is immediately visible,
| but top engineers have huge influence on later engineers. I
| know more about Seymour Cray, Burton Smith, Danny Hillis,
| etc. than I do about Dieter Rams and Hartmut Esslinger.
| klyrs wrote:
| I hate it, but there's some truth to this. Good products cost
| money, and good design attracts attention, which brings in
| cash. Without Jobs' attention to aesthetics, I think it's
| fair to say we wouldn't have (for one example) the M1 chip
| today.
| dang wrote:
| Ok, we've made that edit above. Thanks!
| Grustaf wrote:
| Yes, reading the article it seems like she designed the
| appearance of the computer. That's not what I imagined when I
| read "supercomputer designer".
|
| It's a weird thing to mislead about too. Steve Jobs was
| obsessed with design, so inspiring him with your industrial
| design is not less impressive.
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