DAN'S PAPERS, September 25, 2009 Page 16 www.danshamptons.com
Jobs
(continued from page 11)
although I am not at liberty to tell you where. I really wasn’t supposed to tell you that. It was just a slip.” “I understand.” “Let me take you out onto the grounds.” “Sure.” You could have knocked me over with a feather. Out back, all the old factories, with their smokestacks and coal silos, were carefully boarded up. Around them was a vast field of solar panels spreading along the ground for hundreds of yards in every direction, with some sort of computer building—another Robert A.M. Stern structure much like the one we had just come out of—in the back of it. “Thirty-one acres of panels,” Jobs said, waving an arm at it. “All computer-controlled. All taking in the sun’s rays and storing them, then releas-
ing them out of our ‘heat bin’ building beyond the computer lab there. Can’t take you there on the tour, I’m sorry to say. Would have to dress you up in a heat-retardant suit to even get close to it. And it’s not much to see — just a giant stainlesssteel box with a louvered roof.” “I understand,” I said. “But I have a question.” “What’s that?” “How did this transformation take place? The old coal-fired furnaces provided heat and chemicals to disperse the clouds and rain over the Hamptons. If you shut that down before you got these panels in place, the clouds would close in and you’d have rain and fog and certainly no sunlight for the panels—or not much.” “We shut down the old, and brought in the new slowly and in stages. It took two weeks.” “My other question is this: What worked to dis-
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perse the clouds was overheated boron carbonite dust. How do the new solar panels dispense this material?” “We don’t,” Jobs said. “Boron carbonite, as you may know, was found to be one of the dirtiest and greatest causes of global warming.” “We were never proud of that,” I said. “It was just one of those embarrassing problems we had to contend with—like the rain that backed up over Patchogue all the time.” “Now it’s all done with laser-fired static electricity. It’s carbon-neutral. That was one of the discoveries we made here before we did the transformation.” “It’s carbon-neutral?” “Actually, it slightly reduces carbon in the atmosphere. We are currently working on tweaking it so it is a massive carbon reducer. We are very close and should have it in use by 2011.” “Does that mean you will be able to reverse global warming?” “We hope to do that with weather control factories all over the world. That’s why I left Microsoft to take this job. We think we will be able to solve the global-warming problem within five years. Laser-fired static electricity also makes it easier to control the weather. Here in the Hamptons, they used to lose control to the closing in of winter in November. We now have the ability to control the sunshine right through Christmas. At least most of the time.” “Wow.” Jobs waved a hand. “Its rocket science,” he said. “What’s that little building over there?” I asked. There was a smaller Robert A.M. Stern building to the left of the new computer building. “Administration and public relations.” “It’s not very big.” “Just 11 people work there. My office is there. It’s the same size as everybody else’s office. Eleven people in administration is all it takes to run the whole place, plus 30 in border security, 10 in the lab and two in maintenance. That’s it.” “That’s about 340 people fewer than the staff that used to work here.” “We offered generous severance and in some cases, retirement with full medical benefits, new re-education career-training courses and job outreach.” “Fair enough.” “Want to go for a jog around the solar panels? It’s 10k. Exactly. And the track is cinders. Easy on your feet.” “I didn’t bring running shoes, unfortunately.” “What size do you wear? Come with me. We have every size.” We went into a weight room with a lap pool and hot tub, and he helped me find my size. Then we did two laps around the track, 20 jumping jacks and a 20-minute cool-down, had a massage and took a dip in the hot tub. After that, Jobs excused himself and said he had to get off to work, but that I could stay for lunch if I wanted. The cafeteria serves bean sprouts, lemon soup and fresh fish, he said. But I had to get back to Dan’s Papers to write this story. I was on deadline. And I was looking forward to some burgers and fries from Citarella’s lunch counter next door. So I left. What a place, and in the capable hands of Jobs. We are lucky to have him.