Story 5

A little late sorry, was busy mugging for Chinese Os...

A long time ago, a girl named Li-Li got married and went to live with her husband and mother-in-law. In a very short time, Li-Li found that she couldn't get along with her mother-in-law at all. Their personalities were very different, and Li-Li was angered by many of her mother-in-law's habits. In addition, she criticized Li-Li constantly. Days passed days, and weeks passed weeks. Li-Li and her other-in-law never stopped arguing and fighting. But what made the situation even worse was that, according to ancient Chinese tradition, Li-Li had to bow to her mother-in-law and obey her every wish.

All the anger and unhappiness in the house was causing the poor husband great distress. Finally, Li-Li could not stand her mother-in-law's bad temper and dictatorship any longer, and she decided to do something about it.

Li-Li went to see her father's good friend, Mr. Huang, who sold herbs. She told him the situation and asked if he would give her some poison so that she could solve the problem once and for all. Mr. Huang thought for a while, and finally said, Li-Li, I will help you solve your problem, but you must listen to me and obey what I tell you. Li-Li said, "Yes, Mr. Huang, I will do whatever you tell me to do."

Mr. Huang went into the back room, and returned in a few minutes with a package of herbs. He told Li-Li, "You can't use a quick-acting poison to get rid of your mother-in-law, because that would cause people to become suspicious. Therefore, I have given you a number of herbs that will slowly build up poison in her body. Every other day prepare some pork or chicken and put a little of these herbs in her serving. Now, in order to make sure that nobody suspects you when she dies, you must be very careful to act very friendly towards her. Don't argue with her, obey her every wish, and treat her like a queen."

Li-Li was so happy. She thanked Mr. Huang and hurried home to start her plot of murdering her mother-in-law. Weeks went by, and months went by, and every other day, Li-Li served the specially treated food to her mother-in-law. She remembered what Mr. Huang had said about avoiding suspicion, so she controlled her temper, obeyed her mother-in-law and treated her like her own mother. After six months had passed, the whole household had changed. Li-Li had practiced controlling her temper so much that she found that she almost never got mad or upset. She hadn't had an argument in six months with her mother-in-law, who now seemed much kinder and easier to get along with. The mother-in-law's attitude toward Li-Li has also changed, and she began to love Li-Li like her own daughter. She kept telling friends and relatives that Li-Li was the best daughter-in-law one could ever find. Li-Li and her mother-in-law were now treating each other like a real mother and daughter. Li-Li's husband was very happy to see what was happening.

One day, Li-Li came to see Mr. Huang and asked for his help again. She said, "Dear Mr Huang, please help me to keep the poison from killing my mother-in-law! She has changed into such a nice woman, and I love her like my own mother. I do not want her to die because of the poison I gave her."

Mr. Huang smiled and nodded his head. "Li-Li, there's nothing to worry about. I never gave you any poison. The herbs I gave you were vitamins to improve her health. The only poison was in your mind and your attitude toward her, but that has been all washed away by the love which you gave to her."

Apple's History 7

Author: Andy Hertzfeld
Date: May 1981

Bill Atkinson worked mostly at home, but whenever he made significant progress he rushed in to Apple to show it off to anyone who would appreciate it. This time, he visited the Macintosh offices at Texaco Towers to show off his brand new oval routines, which were implemented using a really clever algorithm.

Bill had added new code to QuickDraw (which was still called LisaGraf at this point) to draw circles and ovals very quickly. That was a bit hard to do on the Macintosh, since the math for circles usually involved taking square roots, and the 68000 processor in the Lisa and Macintosh didn't support floating point operations. But Bill had come up with a clever way to do the circle calculation that only used addition and subtraction, not even multiplication or division, which the 68000 could do, but was kind of slow at.

Bill's technique used the fact the sum of a sequence of odd numbers is always the next perfect square (For example, 1 + 3 = 4, 1 + 3 + 5 = 9, 1 + 3 + 5 + 7 = 16, etc). So he could figure out when to bump the dependent coordinate value by iterating in a loop until a threshold was exceeded. This allowed QuickDraw to draw ovals very quickly.

Bill fired up his demo and it quickly filled the Lisa screen with randomly-sized ovals, faster than you thought was possible. But something was bothering Steve Jobs. "Well, circles and ovals are good, but how about drawing rectangles with rounded corners? Can we do that now, too?"

"No, there's no way to do that. In fact it would be really hard to do, and I don't think we really need it". I think Bill was a little miffed that Steve wasn't raving over the fast ovals and still wanted more.

Steve suddenly got more intense. "Rectangles with rounded corners are everywhere! Just look around this room!". And sure enough, there were lots of them, like the whiteboard and some of the desks and tables. Then he pointed out the window. "And look outside, there's even more, practically everywhere you look!". He even persuaded Bill to take a quick walk around the block with him, pointing out every rectangle with rounded corners that he could find.

When Steve and Bill passed a no-parking sign with rounded corners, it did the trick. "OK, I give up", Bill pleaded. "I'll see if it's as hard as I thought." He went back home to work on it.

Bill returned to Texaco Towers the following afternoon, with a big smile on his face. His demo was now drawing rectangles with beautifully rounded corners blisteringly fast, almost at the speed of plain rectangles. When he added the code to LisaGraf, he named the new primitive "RoundRects". Over the next few months, roundrects worked their way into various parts of the user interface, and soon became indispensable.

What it really means on your report book...

::Note: Crude language may be involved, depending on how old you are::

<joke>
____ has shown improvement in ____ subject.
Your son/daughter is a real dumbass and has finally justified his/her being alive by doing borderline well in this subject.

____ needs to talk less.
I wish that bastard will stop interrupting me in class.

____ needs to ask questions to clarify his/her doubts.
Your son/daughter is about as smart as a blonde rhino with half a brain. Get him/her to study.

____ is a quiet boy/girl.
Phhhhffff. Never in a million years.

____ is an model student for his/her peers.
Yeah, model, if this was hell and Saddam Hussien was president of America.

Capable of better results.
Yes, and my other students are much more capable.

Needs to concentrate on his/her work.
Unless God gives me a million dollars I want that little parasite to listen.

Needs to put more effort.
As far as effort goes maybe you can accept the fact your son/daughter is a retard.

Strive harder for better results.
And I'm king of the worrrrlldd!

Is anxious to succeed.
Just like going to the bathroom. Anxious but couldn't care less if he/she pissed on the floor.

Needs to be more attentive.
Pay attention you son-of-a-b*tch. P-A-Y A-T-T-E-N-T-I-O-N!

Helpful and dependable in class.
As helpful as a second pen*s. As dependable as a hyperactive child overloaded on sugar.

Cheerful boy/girl.
After his/her daily dose of happy pills.

Yet to realise his/her potential.
And possibly never will.

Put in more effort.
Please stop scribbling.

More serious and focused.
After I beat the little bastard/b*tch with my belt a few times.

</joke>

Pro Animation... By Animusic

Found this on a forum... It sure takes a lot of BALLS to make this...

Announcement

CH Music Awards

There will be a short important briefing for all shortlisted performers of the CH Music Awards and all iMedia members. Please meet at the Recording Studio next to the bookshop TODAY (24/5/2006) at 2.30pm, immediately after the assembly.

Mr. Wang Jiunn

Story 4

When I was quite young, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood.

I remember well, the polished old case fastened to the wall and the shiny receiver on the side of the box.

I was too little to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when my mother would talk to it.

Then I discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person and her name was "Information Please" and there was nothing she did not know.

"Information Please" could supply anybody's number and the correct time.

My first personal experience with this genie-in-a-bottle came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbor. Amusing myself at the tool bench in the basement. I whacked my finger with hammer.

The pain was terrible but there didn't seem to be any reason in crying because there was no one home to give me sympathy. I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway, the telephone!

Quickly, I ran for the footstool in the parlor and held it to my ear.

"Information Please" I said into the mouthpiece just above my head.

A click or two and a small clear voice spoke into my ear.

"Information."

"I hurt my finger!" I wailed into the phone.

The tears came readily enough now that I had an audience.

"Isn't your mother home?" came the question.

"Nobody's home but me," I blubbered.

"Are you bleeding?" the voice asked.

"No," I replied. "I hit my finger with a hammer and it hurts."

"Can you open your icebox?" she asked. I said I could!

"Then chip off a piece of ice and hold it to your finger," said the voice.

After that, I called "Information Please" for everything.

I asked her for help with my geography and she told me where Philadelphia was. She helped me with my math.

She told me that my pet chipmunk, which I had caught in the park just the day before, would eat fruit and nuts. Then there was the time Petey, our pet canary died. I called "Information Please" and told her the sad story. She listened, and then said the usual thing grown-ups say to soothe a child. But, I was inconsolable. I asked her, "Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers on the bottom of a cage?"

She must have sensed my deep concern, for she said quietly, "Paul, you must remember that there are other worlds to sing in." Somehow, I felt better.

Another day I was on the telephone.

"Information Please"

"Information," said the now familiar voice.

"How do you spell 'fix'?"

I asked. All this took place in a small town in the Pacific Northwest.

When I was nine years old, we moved across the country to Boston.

I missed my friend very much. "Information Please" belonged in that old wooden box back home and somehow I never thought of trying the tall, new shiny phone that sat on the table in the hall.

As I grew into my teens, the memories of those childhood conversations never really left me.

Often, in moments of doubt and perplexity I would recall the serene sense of security I had then.

I appreciated now how patient, understanding and kind she was to have spent her time on a little boy. A few years later, on my way west to college, my plane put down in Seattle.

I had about half-an-hour or so between planes.

I spent 15 minutes or so on the phone with my sister, who lived there now. Then, without thinking about what I was doing, I dialed my hometown operator and said, "Information Please." Miraculously, I heard the small clear voice I knew so well.

"Information." I hadn't planned this, but I heard myself saying, "Could you please tell me how to spell 'fix'?"

There was a long pause. Then came the soft spoken answer, "I guess your finger must be healed by now."

I laughed, "So it's really still you," I said, "I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during that time?"

"I wonder," she said, "if you know how much your calls meant to me. I never had any children and I used to look forward to your calls."

I told her how often I had thought of her over the years and asked if I could call her again when I came back to visit my sister.

"Please do," she said. "Just ask for Sally."

Three months later I was back in Seattle.

A different voice answered, "Information." I asked for Sally. "Are you a friend?" she said.

"Yes, a very old friend," I answered.

"I'm sorry to have to tell you this," she said, "Sally had been working part time in the last few years because she was sick. She died five weeks ago." Before I could hang up she said, "Wait a minute. Are you Paul?"

"Yes". "Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down in case you called. Let me read it to you."

The note said, "Tell him I still say there are other worlds to sing in. He'll know what I mean."

I thanked her and hung up. I knew what Sally meant. Never underestimate the impression you make on others.

Whose life have you touched today?

Apple's History 6

Author: Andy Hertzfeld
Date: April 1981

Jef Raskin chose the name "Macintosh", after his favorite kind of apple, so when Jef was forced to go on an extended leave of absence in February 1981, Steve Jobs and Rod Holt decided to change the name of the project, partially to distance it from Jef. They considered "Macintosh" to be a code name anyway, and didn't want us to get too attached to it.

Apple had recently taken out a two page ad in Scientific American, featuring quotes from Steve Jobs about the wonders of personal computers. The ad explained how humans were not as fast runners as many other species, but a human on a bicycle beat them all. Personal computers were "bicycles for the mind."

A month or so after Jef's departure, Rod Holt announced to the small design team that the new code name for the project was "Bicycle", and that we should change all references to "Macintosh" to "Bicycle". When we objected, thinking "Bicycle" was a silly name, Rod thought that it shouldn't matter, "since it was only a code name".

Rod's edict was never obeyed. Somehow, Macintosh just seemed right. It was already ingrained with the team, and the "Bicycle" name seemed forced and inappropriate, so no one but Rod ever called it "Bicycle". For a few weeks, Rod would reprimand anyone who called it "Macintosh" in his presence, but the new name never acquired any momentum. Finally, around a month after his original order, after someone called it "Macintosh" again, he threw up his hands in exasperation and told us, "I give up! You can call it Macintosh if you want. It's only a code name, anyway."

But it was a code name that proved to be sturdy and resilient. In the Fall of 1982, Apple paid tens of thousands of dollars to a marketing consulting firm to come up with a themed set of names for Lisa and Macintosh. They came up with lots of ideas, including calling the Mac the "Apple 40" or the "Apple Allegro". After hearing all the suggestions, Steve and the marketing team decided to go with Lisa and Macintosh as the official names. They did manage to reverse engineer an acronym for Lisa, "Local Integrated Systems Architecture", but internally we preferred the recursive "Lisa: Invented Stupid Acronym", or something like that. Macintosh seemed to be acroynm proof.

But there was still a final hurdle to clear - the name was too close to a trademark from the McIntosh stereo company. I'm not sure how the situation was resolved (I suspect that Apple paid them a modest amount), but toward the end of the retreat in January 1983, Steve announced to the team that we had gotten rights to use the name. He dashed a champagne bottle against one of the prototypes, and declared, "I christen thee Macintosh!"

Story 3

In the open field in a war, an air strike begins. The planes shoot a rain of bullets over the field and the soldiers are ordered to return back to their front. Two friends, who always stood aside in life are fighting back to back, as they always did.

They run back to their front without looking back and one of them throws himself in the front. He turns around to face his friend, but he can't see him. With a puzzled face, he looks back at the field and sees his friend laying 50 feet away. He got hit.

He immediately looks for his commander and with a trembling voice, "Sir, I want permission to go back and get my friend."

The commander already frustrated with the sudden attack, "Are you crazy? Don't you see the attack? There is no way you can make it."

Soldier, unwilling to give up, "Sir, I insist."

Commander answers with anger, "Your friend is probably dead anyways, soldier. I can't risk anyone else. Stay where you are."

Soldier, trying to prove his determination, "Sir, I take all the responsibility. Let me go." Commander, too busy to deal with a stupid soldier trying to be a hero waves a firm hand, "Do what ever the hell you want. I'm not responsible for your corpse."

Soldier, with a smile of gratitude jumps on the field with no hesitation and by a miracle, runs through the rain of bullets, picks his friend up and returns to the front. He puts him down and the medic checks his pulse. With a startled look he speaks the words he always hated, "He's dead."

The commander, following from a distance, yells to the soldier, "I told you. Now, was it worth it?"

The soldier, with tears in his eyes speaks to himself: "Yes sir. It was worth it."

The soldier is nothing but sure it was worth it, because when he ran back to his friend, he was still alive, and his last words were, "I knew you would come back."

Apple's History 5

Author: Andy Hertzfeld
Date: March 1981

In March 1981, I had been working on the Mac team for only a month. I was used to coming back to the office after dinner and working for a few hours in the evening. Even though many of the early Mac team members usually worked late, and we often went out to dinner together, I was by myself one evening when I returned to Texaco Towers after dinner around 8pm. As soon as I entered the building, I heard loud voices emanating from Bud's office, which was adjacent to mine, apparently engaged in a spirited discussion.

"It's got to be different, different from everything else." I recognized Steve Jobs' voice before I saw him as I passed by the door of Bud's office. He was standing near the doorway, near our only working prototype, conversing with someone who I didn't recognize, that Steve introduced to me as James Ferris, Apple's director of Creative Services. "James is helping me figure out what the Mac should look like," he told me.

The plan of record for the Macintosh industrial design was still the one conceived by Jef Raskin, which chose a horizontally oriented, lunch-box type shape, with the keyboard folding up into the lid of the computer for easy transportability, kind of like the Osborne I, which we weren't aware of at the time. But Steve had a real passion for industrial design, and he never seriously considered following Jef's recommendations.

I went into my office and started to program, working on improving the code that drove the serial link between the Mac and Lisa, at Bud's request. But I couldn't help but overhear the passionate discussion taking place next door between Steve and James Ferris. For some reason, they were talking about cars.

"We need it to have a classic look, that won't go out of style, like the Volkswagen Beetle", I heard Steve tell James.

"No, that's not right.", James replied. "The lines should be voluptuous, like a Ferrari."

"Not a Ferrari, that's not right either", Steve responded, apparently excited by the car comparison. "It should be more like a Porsche!" Not so coincidentally, in those days Steve was driving a Porsche 928.

I thought it was kind of pompous to compare computers with sports cars, even metaphorically. But I was impressed with Steve's passion for elegance in the industrial design and his powers of discrimination continually amazed me as the design took shape.

Steve recruited Jerry Manock to lead the industrial design effort. Jerry was the early Apple employee who had designed the breakthrough plastic case for the Apple II, initially as a contractor before signing up as an employee. For the Macintosh, Jerry recruited a talented designer named Terry Oyama, to do most of the detailed drafting of the actual design. The hard tooling for the plastic case was the component with the longest lead time, so we had to get started right away.

A week or so after the car conversation, Steve and Jerry decided that the Macintosh should defy convention and have a vertical orientation, with the display above the disk drive instead of next to it, in order to minimize desktop footprint, which also dictated a detachable keyboard. That was enough of a direction for Terry to draft a preliminary design and fabricate a painted, plaster model.

We all gathered around for the unveiling of the first model. Steve asked each one of us, in turn, to say what we thought about it. I though it was cute and attractive, looking a lot like an Apple II, but with a distinctive personality all its own. But, after everyone else had their say, Steve cut loose with a torrent of merciless criticism.

"It's way too boxy, it's got to be more curvaceous. The radius of the first chamfer needs to be bigger, and I don't like the size of the bezel. But it's a start."

I didn't even know what a chamfer was, but Steve was evidently fluent in the language of industrial design, and extremely demanding about it. Over the next few months, Jerry and Terry iterated on the design. Every month or so, there was a new plaster model. Before a new one was unveiled to the team, Jerry lined up all of the previous ones, so we could compare the new one with past efforts. One notable improvement was the addition of a handle at the top of the case, to make it easier to carry. By the fourth model, I could barely distinguish it from the third one, but Steve was always critical and decisive, saying he loved or hated a detail that I could barely perceive.

At one point, when we were almost finished, Steve called up Jerry over the weekend and told him that we had to change everything. He had seen an elegant new Cuisinart at Macys' on Saturday, and he decided that the Mac should look more like that. So Terry did a whole new design, based around the Cuisinart concept, but it didn't pan out, and soon we were back on the old track, after a one-week diversion.

After five or six models, Steve signed off on the design, and the industrial design team shifted gears to do the laborious engineering work necessary to convert the conceptual model into a real, manufacturable plastic case. In February 1982, it was finally time to release the design for tooling. We held a little party, complete with champagne to celebrate sending off the design into the world, the first major component of the Macintosh to be completed.

I owe you guys...

Stories for last weekend was not put up cos I was busy mugging... Anyway, here they are...

Apple History 4

Author: Andy Hertzfeld
Date: February 1981

I could tell there was something wrong from the moment I stepped into the building, on the morning of Wednesday, February 25th, 1981. Instead of the normal office buzz, there was a muted sadness hanging in the air. People were standing around, huddled in small groups. I ran into Donn Denman, who had a cubicle near mine, and asked him what was going on.

"Didn't you hear? Scotty fired almost half of the Apple II engineering team this morning. He started calling people into his office since around 9am, one at a time, and telling them that they were being fired. I think over thirty people have been fired so far. No one knows why, or who's going to be next. There's going to be a meeting out back around noon when he's supposed to tell us what's going on."

Apple had just gone public a couple of months ago, and it was still growing at a frenzied pace. Sales were booming and there was no financial reason to pare back. I wondered what was going on.

"Do you know who they fired?", I asked Donn.

"Yeah, it's amazing. Scotty fired three out of the four managers, so almost everyone's boss is gone. And believe it or not, they fired Rick Aurrichio."

I thought that the managers were more or less incompetent, so that didn't bother me, but the Rick Aurrichio part was shocking, since Rick was clearly one of the most talented programmers in the Apple II division. He would usually do a week's worth of work in a day or two, and then spend the rest of the week messing around with whatever caught his fancy, usually one of the latest games. I understood how he could be a management challenge, but it made no sense to fire him. He was my partner on the new DOS 4.0 project, which was just getting underway, and the only other programmer besides me that was working on it, so it was especially distressing that they would fire him so abruptly.

So I joined the ranks of the shell-shocked, and listened numbly to the outdoor meeting where Scotty explained his rationale. He said that the company had grown much too fast over the last year or so, and had made a few key bad hires, who themselves had hired even worse people. He thought the Apple II division had become too complacent, and that we had lost the start-up hustle that was the basis of our success. He wanted to shake us out of our complacency and prune out the bad hires, so we could start growing again in the right direction.

Scotty himself seemed a little shaken and unsure. Some of the other senior executives were standing off to the side, but they didn't participate in the meeting. Woz was there, but didn't look too happy about things. There was a Q&A session at the end of the meeting where a couple employees told Scotty how horribly he handled the situation, but in general everyone seemed listless, as if we didn't know how we should react. Within a few days, everyone was referring to the incident as "Black Wednesday".

Later in the day, I talked to Dick Huston about what had happened. Dick was an early Apple programmer who had written the boot ROM for the disk controller card, who was an astute observer of Apple politics and was friendly with Scotty. He told me that he knew that the purge was going to happen and had even met with Scotty a couple of times in the last week to help him draw up the list of dead weight. He also told me that Scotty had asked for the approval of Mike Markkula and the board of directors, and hadn't received it yet, but decided to go and do it anyway.

I told Dick that I agreed that Apple had made some poor hires over the last year, especially some of the managers, but a Stalin-like purge was not a valid way to run a company. I complained about Rick's firing and told him that the situation made me feel alienated from the company. I was the type of programmer who had to believe in what I was doing, and I wasn't so sure about Apple's values anymore.

When I came in to work the next morning, there was a message on my desk from Mike Scott's secretary, saying that he wanted to talk to me; obviously Dick must have talked to him. I called her back and arranged to show up at his office in an hour. Scotty looked harried, and our conversation was interrupted a few times by various phone calls. Scotty told me that he had heard that I was upset, and thinking about leaving, and wanted me to know that he wanted me to stay. He asked me what he could do to get me excited about Apple again. I told him that I might like to work on the Macintosh, with Burrell and Bud.

Later that afternoon, Scotty's secretary called to tell me that she arranged for me to talk with Steve Jobs. Steve had been involved with the Mac project for more than a month now, and, although I didn't know it at the time, had dismissed the founder of the project, Jef Raskin, the day before, making him take a mandatory leave of absence after Jef had complained about Steve's leadership.

Lots of people at Apple were afraid of Steve Jobs, because of his spontaneous temper tantrums and his proclivity to tell everyone exactly what he thought, which often wasn't very favorable. But he was always nice to me, although sometimes a bit dismissive, in the few interactions that I had with him. I was excited to be talking with him about working on the Mac.

The first thing he said to me when I walked into his office was "Are you any good? We only want really good people working on the Mac, and I'm not sure you're good enough." I told him that yes, I thought that I was pretty good. I was friends with Burrell, and had already helped him out with software a few times.

"I hear that you're creative", Steve continued. "Are you really creative?"

I told him that I wasn't the best judge of that, but that I'd love to work on the Mac, and thought that I'd do a great job. He said he'd get back to me soon about it.

A couple of hours later, around 4:30pm, I was back to work on DOS 4.0 for the Apple II. I was working on low-level code for the system, interrupt handlers and dispatchers, when all of a sudden I notice Steve Jobs peering over the wall of my cubicle.

"I've got good news for you", he told me. "You're working on the Mac team now. Come with me and I'll take you over to your new desk."

"Hey, that's great", I responded. "I just need a day or two to finish up what I'm doing here, and I can start on the Mac on Monday."

"What are you working on? What's more important than working on the Macintosh?"

"Well, I've just started a new OS for the Apple II, DOS 4.0, and I want to get things in good enough shape so someone else could take it over."

"No, you're just wasting your time with that! Who cares about the Apple II? The Apple II will be dead in a few years. Your OS will be obsolete before it's finished. The Macintosh is the future of Apple, and you're going to start on it now!".

With that, he walked over to my desk, found the power cord to my Apple II, and gave it a sharp tug, pulling it out of the socket, causing my machine to lose power and the code I was working on to vanish. He unplugged my monitor and put it on top of the computer, and then picked both of them up and started walking away. "Come with me. I'm going to take you to your new desk."

We walked outside to Steve's silver Mercedes and he dropped my computer into the trunk. We drove a few blocks to the corner of Stevens Creek and Saratoga-Sunnyvale, to a non-descript, brown-shingled, two story office building next to a Texaco station, while Steve waxed eloquent about how great the Macintosh was going to be. We walked up to the second floor, and into an unlocked door. Steve plopped my system down on a desk in an office near the back of the building and said, "Here's your new desk. Welcome to the Mac team!", before darting off.

I started looking around the office, and saw Burrell Smith and Brian Howard in the next room, huddled over a logic analyzer connected to a prototype board. I told them what happened and they said Steve had been over earlier, asking them if they thought I was any good. They were happy that I joined the team.

After helping them a bit with the disk diagnostic routines they were trying to debug, I returned to my new desk and looked inside the drawers. I was surprised to see that it was still full of someone else's stuff. In fact, the bottom drawer had all kinds of unusual stuff, including various kinds of model airplanes, and some photography equipment. I later found out that Steve had assigned me to Jef Raskin's old desk, which he hadn't had time to move out of yet.

Story 2

One day, a poor boy who was selling goods from door to door to pay his way through school, found he had only one thin dime left, and he was hungry. He decided he would ask for a meal at the next house. However, he lost his nerve when a lovely young woman opened the door. Instead of a meal he asked for a drink of water. She thought he looked hungry so brought him a large glass of milk. He drank it slowly, and then asked, "How much do I owe you?"

"You don't owe me anything," she replied. "Mother has taught us never to accept payment for a kindness."

He said, "Then I thank you from my heart." As Howard Kelly left that house, he not only felt stronger physically, but his faith in God and man was strong also. He had been ready to give up and quit.

Years later that young woman became critically ill. The local doctors were baffled. They finally sent her to the big city, where they called in specialists to study her rare disease. Dr. Howard Kelly was called in for the consultation. When he heard the name of the town she came from, a strange light filled his eyes.

Immediately he rose and went down the hall of the hospital to her room. Dressed in his doctor's gown he went in to see her. He recognized her at once. He went back to the consultation room determined to do his best to save her life. From that day he gave special attention to the case.

After a long struggle, the battle was won. Dr. Kelly requested the business office to pass the final bill to him for approval. He looked at it, and then wrote something on the edge and the bill was sent to her room. She feared to open it, for she was sure it would take the rest of her life to pay for it all. Finally, she looked, and something caught her attention on the side as she read these words...

"Paid in full with one glass of milk. (Signed) Dr. Howard Kelly." Tears of joy flooded her eyes as her happy heart prayed: "Thank You, GOD, that your love has spread abroad through human hearts and hands."

Reminder

S$20

Even those who cannot make it for SYMC (except sec 3s), you still have to pay up. The seats are booked, so you still have to pay up and try to find a replacement who is genuinely interested in this activity. Tomorrow. TOMORROW

SYMC - Payment

Hey guys. $20, to Benjamin Wong, by 11 May 2006 Thursday. I believe most if not all of you have the contact list. Those who don't have Ben's number SMS/call/email/IM me.

Just to refresh your memory. SYMC = Singapore Youth and Media Conference. 27 May 2006. Pay up before I hang pig heads at your door

-.-

Story 1

I suppose one story per week isn't enough right, and not everyone is interesting in Apple stories. So heres another series of stories I'll be starting. Saturdays: Apple History. Sundays: Motivating/Inspiring/Touching stories. This comes a little too late for Sunday but nvm haha.

Of course, I claim zero credit for all these stories. Besides the Apple History stories, I have no idea where this series of stories originate from. So, yea. Just read and enjoy...

He was driving home one evening on a two-lane country road. Ever since the Levi's factory closed, he'd been unemployed, but he'd never quit looking. Now with winter raging, the chill had finally hit home.

It was a lonely road. He could go down this road blind and tell you what was on either side, and with his headlights not working, that came in handy. It was getting dark and the snow flurries had started.

He almost didn't see the old lady stranded on the side of the road. He could see she needed help. So he pulled his sputtering old car up in front of her Mercedes and got out. Even with the smile on his face, she was worried. No one had stopped to help for the last hours. Was he going to hurt her? He didn't look safe--he looked poor and hungry. He could see that she was frightened and cold. He knew how she felt. He said,"I'm here to help you, ma'am. Why don't you wait in my car where it's warm? By the way, my name is Joe."

Well, all she had was a flat tire, but for an older lady, that was bad enough. Joe skinned his knuckles a time or two setting up the jack. His bare hands were so cold he didn't feel it. Soon the tire was changed. as he put the jack away in the trunk, she came back to her car, warmed and calmed. She told Joe that she was from St. Louis and was on her way home. She thanked him and asked how much she owed him, Joe just smiled as he closed the trunk.

Any amount would have been all right with her. She had already imagined all the awful things that could have happened had he not stopped. Joe never thought twice about the money. This was not a job to him. This was helping someone in need and God knows there were plenty who had given him a hand in the past. He had lived his whole life that way and it never occured to him to act any other way. He told her that if she really wanted to pay him back, the next time she saw someone who needed help, she could give that person the assistance that they needed, and Joe added, "and think of me."

A few miles down the road the lady saw a small cafe. She went in to grab a bite to eat and take the chill off before making the last part of her trip. It was a dingy looking place. Outside were two old gas pumps. Neither the cash register or the telephone rang very often.

The waitress brought her a clean towel to wipe the snow from her head and face. She had a sweet smile even after being on her feet all day. And she was eight months pregnant, but she never let the strain change her attitude. The old lady wondered how someone who had so little could be so giving to a stranger. Then she remembered Joe.

After the lady finished her meal, and the waitress went to get her change from the hundred dollar bill, she slipped right out the door. When the waitress returned to the table she noticed something written on the napkin. It said,"You don't owe me a thing. I've been there too. Someone once helped me out the way I'm helping you. If you want to pay me back, here's what you do. Don't let the chain of love end with you."

Well, that night when the waitress got home from work and climbed into bed, she thought about the money and what the lady had written. How could she have know how much she and her husband needed it? With the baby due next month, it was going to be hard. She knew how worried her husband was, and as he lay sleeping next to her, she gave him a soft kiss and whispered soft and low, "Everything's gonna be all right. I love you, Joe."