thanks, Steve

Mac II. Two (three?) different generations of iMac. PowerMac. Two PowerBooks. Original iPod 64Gb (still working, in fact). At least three generations of iPod nano. iPod Shuffle. Two iPod Touches. iPhone. iPad.

Oh, and one PC laptop that became unusable after about two years.

Those are the computers and media players that have inhabited my house since 1990. The number of them doesn’t betray any lack of robustness (except for the PC); many times they coexisted, or an old machine that still worked just fine was replaced because the new ones were so much better / faster / smaller. Of the computers, I think only one Mac got too slow to use, the way PCs routinely do. Some of the iPods did die, but since we use them mostly during exercise, ours live a dangerous life.

That’s not meant as a categorical list of electronics for bragging purposes, though. There’s Ted’s first Mac, which made one of the bonds between us when we realized we were both Mac people. There’s the series of computers that have been the open window through which I talked to friends around the world, first because I didn’t have anyone local to talk to about the books and music I liked, later as one of my most important social channels through all these expat years. And there are all the iPods that have kept me company and kept me sane through many hundreds of hours and millions of meters (literally) on the rowing machine.(At least, as sane as anyone can be who spends many hundreds of hours on a rowing machine.) There’s the iPhone, which means I am never more than a few minutes away from any information I want, which is the greatest intellectual luxury I can imagine and one of many reasona I am glad to live when I do.

Thank you, Steve Jobs. (Thanks also to Stve Wozniak, without whom it would all never have started.) I hope your company gives you the best memorial of all – to keep making stuff that keeps making life better for so many of us.

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.