Steve Jobs died today

It's difficult to take in really.

Apple meant so much, as I grew up. The first computer I ever used had a mouse. It was a Mac Classic. It was 1990. Jobs and Apple made computers so much more than purely the functional, dull objects that they would have been otherwise. His powerhouse, take no prisoners personality, and the incredible company he built around him changed the way we viewed computers and chip driven hardware. It was Apple that drove things forward, pushing computing toward everyday people, but with the cleverness to understand that everyday people wanted beautiful computing, that really worked.

And he supported Pixar, when they were almost just an idea. Always worth remembering that, if you love really wonderful, clever, modern animation. An apparently very different side to Steve Jobs, but managed with the same, vigorous love of ideas and innovation.

Cancer is an evil, dreadful disease that wastes so many millions within it's grasp. So much potential, snuffed out. 56. Damnit, that's just not bloody fair.

I'm not sure exactly if you want to rest in peace, Steve. I hope your family can recover, in time. 

(Slight update)

I just wanted to point you to my friend Dan's post. There are alot of people writing similar things today, but yes, there is a giant sized ideas and energy cord between Steve Jobs and Douglas Adams. I nearly met Douglas and I try hard not to regret my uselessness in not just saying hello but... it was Douglas! I mean, the man wrote my middle childhood. 

I will relate a short incident which links these two men. Douglas Adams adored Apple. He took the original Stephen Fry job of being totally over the moon at just about anything Apple produced, and talked about them, for all the reasons we know. Every year, there is a Douglas Adams Memorial lecture on behalf of his favourite charity, Save the Rhino. I went one year with Yoz, who had worked with Douglas and continues to celebrate him when he can. After the lecture was an auction of various nice bits and pieces but there, in the middle of the auction, was Douglas Adams' Macintosh. Not just any Macintosh, but I think it was his first - the first Mac bought in Europe? Yoz, help me out on the detail? It was certainly a special limited edition one of which there were only five ever made or something peculiar.

Seeing that object, my mouth was agape. Did they know what they had? They said they'd gone through everything on it, but that was not the point! My God, it belonged in the British Library or something. Yoz and I desperately looked at each other - could we club together and buy it to keep it safe? But we were young, and stupid and we didn't. We watched this priceless object being sold for mere hundreds to 'someone or other' and I've remembered the incident with horror ever since.

I hope whoever bought it is taking good care of it, and wasn't just 'someone or other'. Let me know it is safe if you were the one that did.